Poetry in the Key of Life

Halo

Walls that fall
from the windows
face like
stone glass
making a gathering sound
somewhere around
the knees.
I fall down
chipped away
by the sky
that erodes my chin.
Hollowed air
breathes
like a lifeless
remorse, atonal
and searching for that
one answer.
The light shines
below the sea,
urchin and escaping
the sand
slipping through my
fingers of bone
like rust.
I cannot forego
the waves flow
nor can I correlate
the distance
but I am getting
closer.

Kevin Harling


Love

The questions
never preclude the dawn
wings like hope
and eyelids that
are all a flutter
cannot ease my chin.

All that is desire
and the way lust
permeates my flesh,

with hands and smiles
all a glow, to touch
bliss and heavenly limbs,
that satisfy divinity
with napes and necks
that deny being defined.

O how can this be
embraces, traces and rust
cannot molt or decipher
such lofty ideals.

I adore and look for
you with eyes that
refuse to not see
the union and unity,

To behold and be held
of such delights
even the stars and moon
bequeath their breath.

To love I toast
the wine of its tender song.

Kevin Harling


Neruda Resurrected

Dress your tresses in white ash
resurrect the idylls with resplendent velocity
resurrect every leaf with crimson charity
resurrect the bees with a sobbing sword of blood
let the earth ripple like a river of lightning

touch the moon with a nocturnal melancholy
filling the void of space with voices
drown my hands with ciphers and poppies
wrap my memory in marrow, in veins of cellophane
in sighs replete with oxygen

look at me horizontally in a baptism of knees
open your heart to retreat
with pale words that escape crime
dowse me with soft caresses, with legs and ears
kiss me with needles and black mirrors

roll me in a symmetry of marmalade
in alabaster eyelashes and fingers
mold me in waves and raindrops
stimulate my rooms with blankets and ruffled black stockings
blister my heart in an ocean of sweat

with a thicket of sickles
with a smack of muffled bones
let my memories merge like a jellyfish.

Kevin Harling


I Never Knew You and Still

With deciphered bitterness I long
I never knew you and still
the doors of solitude will not close
your voluptuous geography opaque
my ardent eyes like coal
my steeled hands softened by wind.

This topography shrinks in heartbeats
the textures of resolve falling away
the voracious touch of sweat eroding
in salt like topaz kneeling in worship.

How I remember when and how
in silent abandon the night lingered
the hyacinth whispers echoed and chimed
in soft caresses of silver rain.

I never knew you and yet
the taste of loss loiters in bedrooms, and
hallways, and traces of familiar kisses,
and the scent of lavender flesh, upon
the brow of this remembrance fading
it fades in eyelashes, in flowing hair,
in long soft legs spooning.

Kevin Harling


Let Me Try to Explain

I keep the world at a distance
navigating it's underbelly of silk with
copious steps like a starfish
trying not to tread to hard on anything.

I see the sky glimmering with blue faces
looking at the way it's transparent landscape
is blemished by clouds.

I trace the land terra-cotta, like a snake
traversing its length, shedding my flesh with words,
slithering verbs that coerce its nature and meaning.

Trying to explain the salt and sand, delving into
the interior of water and grass to sense it's
fears.

I look at the surface of things, the way the hands
are worn smooth by hours that grate the exterior,
the way opinions of how to use time differ.

The dusty minutes that transfer fingerprints
upon the hours with an opaque smirk.

Nothing resolves or revolves that way it
appears it should, everything is running
around chasing itself, the wind, the rain,
the sea.

The air is askew jarred by panting breath,
the water trembles with waving handshakes,
informal and hesitant to make contact.

No wonder the day separates from night
and black obscures the white, why wrong
most times wins over right.

I try to see myself in glass pictures,
to feel myself in the music of the trees
chattering in the breeze, to hear myself
in a conch shell sunbathing on a beach
alone, to listen to it's conversation
with God.

I cannot fathom the depths, the angles,
the miles nor for that matter what drifts
in-between.

I am a nomad lost in a street, in an unfamiliar
world, on a planet in the middle of a galaxy
spinning.

So many things are undetected, so much is nonsense,
so many things I abhor and still innately a small
voice asks me to laugh, to comment, to observe.

Life is opaque, it is ambiguous, it is joyous
and jaded by shades and shadows of light.

I am an observer.

Kevin Harling