From the Waterfront, Toronto Summer 2009

Two Bamboo Sandals

Two
bamboo sandals
abandoned
and left
homeless,
it seems an odd
place to start,
I will freely
admit at the outset
I have no degrees
or certifications,
no diplomas
adorm my walls.
Their are no ribbons
or medals
for valour,
no accolades.
I am a hush a whisper
mostly silent
and unbecoming,
unpronounced
and unfamiliar,
Yet that clanging
still resounds
and is reflected
back upon its face,
the mirrored
ceiling
that looks at the floor
meditating about
ochre and cappucino.
Ice fills the gaps
of cubes of porcupine
blue and lime
soothes the air
like carbon.
I see you walking
in like an apron
terra-cotta vase,
complacent
and oozing water
that
gushes like dew
somehow.
The wind says its
name, chiming
bells and knoll
like the window
lake of fingers
that cannot help
but probe.
Did you see me?
wandering like a lost
sandbar,
lamenting the horizon
and the empty chairs
on the deck like a lost
humpback whale.
The patio for two
reservations of red
roses and bordeaux satin
kisses slightly chilled
and a tall glass and,
stir me but don't shake me
ajar, the table
you
tapped your nails and pins
upon like a chorus, demanding
water.
The rainbow wrinkles with
regrets and solitude.
I will take the latter.

Kevin Harling


Sherbourne

I have heard
every obscenity
spit out, uttered and spoken,
pronounced with accents
from I am not sure where,
heard it drawl and troll as if
shipwrecked in mid sentence.

It calls from the street
that seems to move
with its chatter
gossiping as if
it rollingly walked,
collecting things,
memories.

I have indeed breathed
its whisper, often
contemplating not the sky
that ebbs only,
but why the red
flows like a river of slander?
bleeding like autumn.

Indian summer sighs its
heavy burden
weighed down by leaves and the
rustng of open wounds and libel.

I have indeed heard every obscenity
the days are embossed with such wasteful
words,
It makes you wonder why all the
grumbling?

Kevin Harling


Looking for Depth

I have tried with repeated attempts
to comprehend the distance,

tried to circumnavigate its jasmine boom,
to correlate its brow and horizons,

but to no return, somehow,

its breadth eluded me like an
inexplicable shoulder,

feigning any touch and resisting all
embraces.

I tried to make a consort
of the sky,

its hue of inconsolable blue
that perfumes the air with lavendar,

tried to ponder the winds mouth,
how it kisses the earth with
immaculate lips,

but such things defy and are far
to lofty.

I have tried to domesticate water,
swallowed oceans of salt,
lamenting its loss, but

the anenome deter such collusion
like tides,
they abhor their breath
being rewritten.

I have raised the anchor
of sorrow
setting sail to places
painted by peacocks,

endured the vortex of understanding
in the form of a whirlpool,

searching for archipelagos
of lemon and bamboo.

And yet, still
I dare not forego the journey,

these trepid steps
into the dew, the loam,

advancing forward,
foregoing the stubborness
of diamonds,

and instead seeing the beauty
in porcelain.

In the end it is the words
that are preserved
like gelatin,

a few lines that translate
the dimensions and
shades of these thoughts,

and nothing else.

Kevin Harling