Inspired By Elytis

Ode To "The Monogram"

Are you listening?
when epiphany molts like blood
upon the sleeves of fate
like the face of fury and handles,

Are you listening?
to sound that wades like night
these ivy lips call out to Zeus
like a lion reborn in the stars,

Are you listening?
you who made my mouth salt
acrid and barren, tempest
you who laughs with my heart,

Are you listening?
can you fathom my words of silk
my loss that scoffs emerging
soured by leaving, by departures
by eulogies that mock this parting
can you taste this like all our yesterdays
that haunt the moonlit seas,

Are you listening?
the one who soothed and impaled my sorrow
with your timid and tepid goodbyes
can you feel my limbs gasp
in breathless strokes and sheets
can you?

Are you listening?
my bitterness,
sweet love who holds my wishes
in days sailing like a windy gale
who sank my ocean with depths of kisses
and embraces that taint my walls with satin,

Are you listening my beloved?
you sold the stars like ashes
broke my knees with cold black stares
like ice to my eyes I wince laughing
can you hear me?
can you tear what is left of tomorrow
from inside my heart and ears,

Are you listening?
i am torn by your interiors
chained by the sweat of your galloping fingers
plagued by your nails on my skin
at a loss for memory and the sound of the sea
for the lashing of entwined legs
that gather around waists

my ancient love, my somber goodbye
Hello

Kevin Harling

Searching the Skin for Answers

Thus Far

Everything that is
is and the same time
is not.

Like the wind that fills
my breath
with the sound of conch,
I feel the axle of earth
grind like a millstone.

I cannot fathom Heaven,
neither can I touch Eros
for the dawn and dusk
bleong to doves.

I hera the sound of topsoil,
the nondescript summer winds,
the undulating jib of water,
my hopes take refuge there.

I cannot grieve liberty
nor shall I confess to the moon
for my memory is full of excuses
to not speak, immobile and mute.

Who wrote the script of air,
where sleep deprived swans enchant?

I see mauve relaxing its colourless green
removing its apron and consecrating the
ground with her nocturnal mouth.

I am a descendant of futile prayers
whispering immutable lamentations
that fall upon the deaf ears of the escarpment.

I cannot taste the earth's flesh
for the bllod of self separates us.

Everything that is
is and at the same time
is not.

I am merely a man, searching for himself.

Kevin Harling


Vertigo

Words full of vertigo
crawl from the
bridge of my
mouth,
and as
thoughts wind
and spill
like the
sensation
of falling,
vertigo green panic
unglues the sky
clouds scrammble
for cover
the colour is sheer
blue murder and,
I remember being
afraid to whisper
in the dark,
I hid under my bed
shaking the wait.
Vertigo tears fell
on the panelled floor
of pine in pools.
It was vertigo words
that lashed out my way,
words full of vertigo
and I lost my balance.

Kevin Harling


Meandering

Uncommon steel lilies
floated in the sky
diaphonous
and
revealing nothing
but stale wind,

worshipping
that sounded
peculiar like
breaths made
up of aluminum.
I could touch

touch
the marble interiors
of my thoughts
being whisked
away
to some faraway
place
vagrant and responding
to atoms as if they
spoke.

Here among the venom
all vanity is displaced
like water
shedding its transparent
blue face,
here ruin is a fabric
that transforms the
landscape
making it fit
for human habitation.

Tissue comes to mind
delicate and interwoven
like arteries
of white blood cells
and skin.

Sauntering,
time dwindles
like a pin,
hours turn
into leaves
of crimson and gold
and
footsteps of ink
fade with the tides
ebb and flow.

Kevin Harling