I remember the way your juniper fingers crawled
across my floors flesh, seeking to answer
my dawn.
I recall with eyes fondly the dusk of your scent
like lily brush strokes, questioning the hours
need to go far away.
I dream of the minutes satin veneer, how translucent
were the mollusks we collected on the
cedar patio deck.
I divulge this to you with no clear pearl motives,
merely giving voice to nostalgia with a blue sky.
I feather this ink and let it fan my heart,
gathering solitude like a perfect rose petal,
refined not by memory but by the passing
and still I want it to linger.
If when this ends, the ocean becomes the night sky,
may the stars twinkle blueberry and the wind
whisper only your name.
Kevin Harling.
Ode
O peach destiny like a chorus of longing
cover me with petals of leather shoes
where you once walked,
let me unburden the hours with sweet sounds
of your clumsy footsteps,
hold me in the panels of your scented grains,
let me discover the roots of me in you.
Kevin Harling.
Written
In bold letters of perfection,
scalloped and surging like ink tides
upon your vestige,
lines drawn from a green-eyed kiss,
formatted with a fleshy precision
upon your evening brow.
You the paper that drenches my hands
with the need to examine
the sentences sheen, to uncover
the satin peach of meaning
in the hours beading sound.
I write you, on your geography,
the subtle details of valleys lush
and places where I ache to moor.
You are strawberry canvas in the midst
of my solitude, beckoning me like a siren,
O to touch the threads of your ankles
pinned against my sky.
Like an advent of scarlet,
the successions I give into, like brine
that washes over me,
autumn resurrected in your smiling attitude,
the gardens of your flesh
where I nestle cocooned by your eyes,
little by little your gushing lips
that swell with nectar,
your loving windows where I sit,
overflowing with comforting drops of crimson.
The plumb of your measure that is unequaled,
the sound of your breath when it nears me,
your silhouette of safety like truth,
untarnished and steady,
your rocks and crevices like islands
of paradise, blue and sprawling like Heaven.
From here, now
eternally vowed and promised
all my tomorrows with love
that not the sky nor the sea
can ever diminish.
Kevin Harling.
Flesh
Like a taut javelin thrust upward lunging,
words that feel as if they fell off a trampoline,
misjudging the distances between you,
red-toothed and phosphorous hunger
crawling like my skin towards you.
The air is crisp and replete with your scent
drenching my continent, your alcoholic fingers,
stumbling to coerce like an anaconda.
I feel my breath narrowing like erosion,
moving underground, uttering musky syllables,
half disclosed and surrendered ,willingly at first,
enchantress who breaks stone with roses,
I must succumb to your moist petals.
Pink soft and tender crevices fill my silhouette,
I cannot dismiss your dawn, nor scale your skies,
for to do so , is to surely end up lost forever.
Kevin Harling.
Sounds like Music
Thoughts that feel more like
clay spilling into blue air,
when day follows the day into night,
and the sound of starfish surrounds
me,
thoughts of pearl sunshine and rain
fall from my window
like an umbrella opening
and
conch
swimming in my kitchen
sing about love as if it was a wave,
crashing against humped chairs
in a perfect chorus.
Thoughts of gingerly placed silverware
tapping fingers
on a beach of white sand
where emptiness is all you can see,
thoughts of misplaced picnics
and carousels without horses
and fuzzy glass pebbles
that whisper ocean songs.
Thoughts that spin like whiplash,
distant drums gathering like
daylight does to a ventriloquist
without a puppet.
Thoughts of music...
Kevin Harling.
Here
Meet me where the willow speaks softly to the sky,
where the day steps lightly upon my dreams.
Meet me where white is not a muted colour but
the light that sprinkles the air with love.
Meet me when night blankets the hours with stars
twinkling like precious diamonds and smiling.
Meet me where the roads converge upon us
when two hands embracing means everything that matters.
Meet me today and tomorrow in the rain and
lets share umbrella lips and sigh like a gentle wind.
Meet me in the hours when dust settles the minutes
when our silences are the best sound in the world.
Meet me my friend, my lover, my life, meet me
here, there or wherever it is we can be one.
Kevin Harling.
Erosion
Everything is eroding like glass windows
my eyes evolving into pebbles watching
time spill sand across the sea.
Everything is coming undone in minutes
of skin, fluttering winged butterfly
speaking to the sky with colour.
Everything is balancing on a thread of gold
thimbles, asking nondescript questions,
looking for answers in rainbows.
It all sounds so familiar, blue sky and
madrigal, voices humming eternal chants,
deciphering the clouds with smiling eyes.
When do the moon and sun meet?
When does the salt become sugar?
Why do day and night never rendezvous?
It gnaws at the marrow of being, light knees
bowing to the air in prayers, seeking redemption
and reassurance that everything will be okay.
Kevin Harling.
Distant
On tiptoes with words I can barely
get my lips to say,
the way
falling leaves
spill out and over
the sides of today.
From there you smile
awkwardly,
blue laughter gathering
around my knees,
the way you always looked
down when speaking.
On tiptoes gathering like
a timid blush of pink,
the fleshy things you forgot
like yesterday.
Miles becoming minutes
stalling like the sentences
you could barely whisper,
it feels very distant.
Kevin Harling.
Because the Poet Should Never Remain Silent
I thought about the tissue that makes
up the clouds yawn,
how the air cradles the sky with fleshy
peach fingers.
I thought about why thunder always waltzes
around shouting,
throwing its weight around with a
disregard for quiet.
I thought about how pillows never have anything
to say about dreams,
just silently watching the stars, oblivious.
I thought about what makes the sea so blue,
why it swells and struts like a manatee,
stretching its arms and clapping.
I thought about me and you, us and them,
about colours and tones of truth.
I thought about hours as if they didn't sleep
like a lost soul wondering the night.
I thought about poetry and where it gets it will,
why it never forgets how to speak.
