Etchings of the Real

Show Me

Show me forbidden and allow me to enter its gates
holly and while the vines of ivy cling like wrought
iron
show me the secret doorways key and let me
traverse its parameter with peripheries,
with language and stones,
let me spill ink as if it could speak an entirely new
language,
without adjectives trying to be objective.
Let me caress the panorama embroidering mercury
with syntax covering the geography undulating,
let me undo the coves and island peninsula with
rectangular angles and spheres of unimaginable colours.
Let the ink course like a river of blue
bleeding the page like the growth of something new
molten phoenix fire,
etching a landscape of mango groves and tall grass.
Let the stars survive the seas urchin gaze and
when night falls like a fleece blanket,
then let me suggest how black feels and
the chills upon my brittle skin.

Kevin Harling


Grieve

Black and white bone chin I grieve for them
and in the interim second daylight sun now
you have to move along and on, but don't look
back shadow spilling rain and clouds of gray
on your knees this pain horizontal, I shudder
for you and remember yesterdays smiling halo
life is scurrying through night and blood red
opinions and how do we let go of ourselves?
Black and white flesh and inbetween doors
we just cannot get past, what is it you believe
dream and eyes that blink to see layers milk
white and saturated by truth window soul I see
its not all black and white when we grieve.

Kevin Harling


Tomorrow

Ivory towers scrape the sky looking for excuses
trying to peer into the future,
the clouds are arrested by the premise that
today will be any different than yesterday.
Seashells sound the tides muted roar begging
for forgiveness, bowing down on watery knees.
The earth prays in solitude whispering to God.

Everything is about questions that have no
clear answers, no easy endings.
I cannot see the air nor can I touch its flesh
such things seem to elude me, but
one day perhaps, tomorrow's matters may become
more lucid,
perhaps what once seemed impossible will be
possible.

Kevin Harling


Tracing the Truth

By the holiest of decrees
like the wind of heaven's breath,
this finds its way to birth,
crimson October mornings only suggest
tracing days life with solemn honesty,
disregarding not just the possibility
but also the vanity of such thoughts.
I will not profess to hold the key
to any secrets but I will pursue
truth with white as my saber,
angels to the left and right
and glory filling the sky.
Harmony just like a child
spreads its charm like sunshine
and the rays to which
this owes its promise
adorn not only these words
but also the future to where
they will spend eternity.

Kevin Harling


Walking Away

I see you wading water walking towards the horizon
apparition on your eyes sparkling blue
and in the residual mists,

I stand watching from a distance
silhouette of a thought
ghost fingered and reaching for your brow,

sky and the sunsets in my mind
tuesday and
washing away like the linen and,

the effects still linger
river bending around the window
shutter point of view drifting,

like ash and the embers still burn
spinning around fire and warm breeze
wednesday afternoon and you say I,

haunt the days like a vagrant attitude
only an hour ago tomorrow green and envied
without regrets and so on it goes

like a shadow highlighted by the light
we seem to shine upon it and when its all said
and done another week has gone by goodbye.

Kevin Harling


Embrace Me

Watercress hues
of green
colour the
sky of
these feelings
orange,

revealing like satin
sheer and sensible
the insensitivity
and
forgotten like
the picnic
lunch
due to the
afalfa and cranberry
cocktail
made of mostly
vodka,

and the maid polished
the silver
to make it look
uniform,

and when the sun shone
through the window
pastel and
uneven all
the cracks appeared
on your chin,

mantle of pink
and all the flesh
became tangerine yellow,

and the song was
playing over and over again
skipping like a rope
I tripped over only two hours ago,

so embrace me
not because I am here
but cause you want to
hold me cause it feels just so
and when my eyes speak
don't try to find the stars
I am right her
so embrace me.

Kevin Harling


Dream

I want to sound
every syllable
taste its flesh
in my mouth,

grant it its due nature not secondhand
but firstly grasping fleshy peach
and imagine its distance blossom
search the shadowy silhouette song
and within the melody stand like
a redwood cypress hands held high
and reaching towards the blue
establish the ground firmly
fresh and whisper nothing and everything
at the same time and hold the silence
within my voice and colour the waters
green and weaving threads gold sigh
the sky clouds and wind and besides
when it all comes to rest be the night.

Kevin Harling


Permafrost


Lichen fog
like yesterdays moss
foliage green
and unresponding to your dream
of what the kitchen would
or really should
look like in granite
or polished titanium.

Everything has been grazed over
like a receipt from dinner
and you said or so you say
that the text would have confirmed
the reservation
at the trendiest nightclub
on saturday,

sends chills down my spiny column
just to think about it
hugo boss suit and the credit card
maxed out to the limit and then
the cocaine door
your nose walks through
in the 2 storey bathroom
and what do you remember anyway
hungover sunday champagne breakfast
you could not get up for.

Cold steel blue is what I feel
and you change the sun to rain
sill ledges and veneered shutters
vertical my perspective
is way out of whack.

Kevin Harling


Tracing the Interiors

Infinite flower born to dawn,
I sit beneath your crevice
of scarlet,
trying to decipher the heights.

Orange childhood and petals
like mouths bequeath the dew,
and settling like soft manners,
voices and bells
angels
and,
wind that dare not speak,
this dawn is ascending.

Unquencahble eucalyptus
and rosy red paraffin cheeks
ask so many questions,
trying not to disclose a
blush.

Ivy that smells like a winery
of vines that cannot find the sky
through all the blue:
talking about pomegranates
and the procession of time.

It has to be about distance
the way it excludes the colour yellow
and starfish stranded on beaches,
its about sandbars.

The way the hours spill like
grains of sand.

Because I have the desire to cast ink
like pollen volatile.

Two oblong smoke stacks
sing in the distance
smeared by the sun's haze,
like a triangle
waiting to be completed.

I could draw upon the alphabet
with stars and fluttering leaves
trying to have a conversation, and

somehow the clouds become an ocean
all fluffy and blue, and like a chorus,

as if you were an angel, lofty
and walking above the ceiling, white words
and,
and sheer, I remember

Guiness falling from the taps
like waterfalls waiting
to glisten upon the rim of
some stained tall glass, and
I see the whispers, and
Is anyone listening?

It feels like a blanket
of Kryptonite descending
upon my brow, your navel
like the light
switch
being turned on.

Faraway and yet becoming nearer
the eyes turning into mirrors,
suggestions, becoming clearer.

Kryptonite like clarity
finally had some cheeks,
pink and swollen, full of agendas

and, propositions, imposing,

Were they just passing comments?,
and,
pretending not to impose upon
the lashes mascara
and smiles

as if the pendulum actually
had a dial,
and it was spinning out
of contorl like the other, and

Wasn't it always about the distance?
Trying to enclose the hours, days,
weeks and, when somebody else
tried to emulate,
brought the bag full of bones
and, china the way it crinkles
the closet shelves.

It was about your focus
the way it perforates the bottle
about the crocus and the crocodiles.

I feel it echo like an, like a
inquistion on the radio,
at the bar at 3am.

It all tastes like granite
smooth, not touched by feet,
and,
cold,
very cold,
peopled and,
sterile like a
syringe.

The breeze alters the horizon
and planters wither away,
everything is being whittled
like the sound of erosion
and a bike.

Kevin Harling