Looking Around With Eyes Wide Shut

In Coloured Words

Are these words that fall from a sky filled
with umber silhouettes
these pebbles I cast on a sea of crimson
and orange and yellow
these whispers I release in clouds of grey
still somehow fondly recalled

in joyous wisps and cloud
these blue breaths of days not long ago

the black hours when you don't want to let go
the faces of ghosts all white and full of light
the smiles you never fully show
the red ways we hide, and we glow
the stones we turn over
in forests of green fields
and valleys and moats,
words of umber and a vast sky full of blue breaths.

Kevin Harling


Obsidian Falls

Upon a mantle of tresses
upon a lattice grooved by hands
upon the sound of black silence
obsidian the texture of salt
ingrained and worn smooth by hands of rain
coiled and patient like a church
with granite pews and a nave filled by shadows
with stone hands resurrected
in the sound obsidian makes
in the absolution of erosion and prayer
like water spilled upon the altar
obsidian
obsidian and the sound it makes
kneeling in opposition
in the coveted distance
condemned by dreams spilled in vain
or night of vanity
condemed in the foliage
of nameless sins
condemned in the midst of
ashes mourning
in the the shape of the igneous
obsidian gathering
in stones
obsidian
in a steady stream of circumstances
under the breast of heaven congealing
obsidian falls in columns
metaphorical and withering
between the pallid absence galloping
tears of obsidian
white
obsidian falling in stone waterfalls
like an apse filled by ghosts
obsidian.

Kevin Harling


A Thought

Blue plumbed lines sift
through the window
lit up by the notion
that everything is
just white.
Tomorrow blinks
like the ashtray by the window
asking for forgiveness
and one more
breath.

Kevin Harling


Canvas

Watercolour words
drip
like paper
foraging
for ash and birch
wading like a
train of bees,

pollen
butterfly
sentences forgive
the dawn
its subtle grace,

white
veiled
truth peers
out from
the minutes
exposing the ghosts.

In blurry
blue dots
the syllables
bleed,
haunted not so much
by night
but by the nocturnal
passing of time.

The owl
sifts the light
in flight
fleeing
the dew
tasting eternity
in the lulls
that vault
between
here and now,
between
yesterday
and today.

Everything has been painted.

Kevin Harling


Opulent Wishes

Aegean eyes of emerald blue
satiate the wind
caressing its spanning breath
with whispers.
From the shores
across waves that wonder
the questions pervade my senses
like the heart that knows
no rest.
I cannot correlate
or let alone fathom
how far the miles that separate
the stars from the moon.
I feel you kiss the beach
your fingers tracing
my mouth with salt.

The conch cringe,
the urchin lust,
this crawling flesh of timbers
shivering to be touched
by the distance of oceans.

How vast the duplicity
of reality
nothing can coerce such things.

Salmon flesh aches
the soul is fired by dreams
the night is young
and one day all will
be revealed.

Kevin Harling


Spherical

Elastic hues of orange
and
precipitous vegetation
surround the nape
of this shoal.

Everywhere stars
are teeming with
luminescent virtue,
twinkling
lights of yellow
that blister the night.

Guile becomes
a cloak,
indigo,
and becoming
more white.

The truth exists
in the soil
permeating
the feet.

Vague is not an option,
nor does
water reveal its depths
quickly.

In circles
we navigate
the breaches
of skin,
searching for the flesh
pink and swelling.

The apple has been bitten
its core exposed by
teeth,
Eden pangs the
heart,
drawning me deeper
swallowing the air
and soul
in a rush of wind.

Kevin Harling


Beyond Above

From the veranda
above the sea
blue
piers and wharfs
neglect the tide,

suggestions
that creep
like rain
into the horizon,

coral
and abated by
the cool lavendar winds.

This vantage point
slips its knots
slowly
meandering in an ebb
of flowing sky,
crimson and untouched
by fingers that
reach upward
iridescent.

Dreams surface
like a mirage
mirrored by flaws
and circumstances
like ankles
hidden from the sun.

Unity exists
beyond the above
between the
earth and heaven.

It is a direction
a destination
and a home.

Kevin Harling


As For Excuses

As for excuses and excesses, and
after certain philisophical reflections
meditating with a choking sensation
of melancholy, parting in the middle
with eternal complaints, banished and
distracted, speaking without inter-
uptions and silent immolation thinning
out,
the sentiments indossolubly bound by an
exquisite candor stooped over and bordered
by pavement and cafes, framed by balconies
and jasmine, narcissi and roses,
this homage of wheedling benignity,
reverberating under the lofty vaults,
Andalusian and committing sacrilege,
descending with sudden resolution,
in the stillness of a church, in a perfect
representation of annihilation, in the
gossip of indifference, in kneeling prayers,
into a chapel full of balustrades, like
painted breath punctuated, like an irresist-
ible argument, demoralised and weeping with
fatigue, cowardly and docile, climbing up to
the window, decanted in infusions, and elab-
orated by hands of irreverence and caustic
purpose.

With an azure infinity, adulterous and compromising
swaying overhead, in scales of resin and turpentine
filling funnels slowly undressed by patience,
palpitating like immense black waves embarassed,
turning to rancor, subjugated and tempered,
tempered by heartache.

Kevin Harling


Now or Never

Trill of light
Smell of stars
Black eyes of the sea
Ancient wind.

Inaugurate the motionless,
show destiny its time,
distinguish its heart,
with perpetual beats.
Pacify fear and its hands.
Comfort like night,
with a sky full of nocturnal birds.

Chirp of life
Languid earth
Salt of dawn
Whispering willow.

Expand the cistern of the air,
teach its roots,
with memories alive.
Wipe away the stain of transparency.
Swaddle the day with soft touches,
with unabridged breath and lives.

Hammer of reason
Shoulder of sky
Sliver of ashes
Haunting moon.

Dress the disenfranchised,
show distance its limits,
measure its span and circumference
with multiplying spring waters.
Open paths downstream.
Inhabit the minutes
with an ebb and flow of stones.

Unyielding thorn of love.
Comprehend the foliage,
mill together hazelnut and complaining.
Combine ankles and sawdust,
recognize bread and lament,
drown these grumbling footsteps.

Begin to show yourself,
like an estuary of eyelashes
transfixed by threads passing.
Like a tower of receding doors
silent as a rainfall of scissors.
Open up your entangled vines
your precipitous black metaphors.

Begin to show yourself.

Kevin Harling


Sound

Orange
orchid moon
sings at the
level
of baritone,
reciting
psalms and
recollections
of dust
with mossy
interiors.

Mitigation
seats itself
firmly at the
table
guarded by
padded chairs
and silhouettes
of bats.

I think
Catwoman
walks
on tightropes
made of nylon
tied together
like white
promises
and lust.

I get lost
in the dimensions
falling out
of the margins
and spilling
my ink
with hands
trembling
from the touch
of cold water.

Everything is wind and chatter
it echoes in corridors
and sentences
that have forgotten
how to speak.

Kevin Harling