USA

"Lesser Child of God"

Damaged.
Self-muted.
Speaking only in incoherent tones of Anger.

Binding Frustration.
Motionless captive of chaotic torrents.

Unreliable eye-witness to the great floods of the mind.
Brain levees built on foundations of Prayers and
Medicines and
Idiotic notions of
Wellness.
Integrity breached by Reality.
Madness seeping
saturating all that is within.

The Madness of fitful being.
Torments of images seen only through the haze of Despair.
Images dissolving in the harsh glare of Stability.

Returning again and again and again.
Bearing no real familiarity.
Trailing loss and failure.

Unrecognized patterns of violent circles of life.
Unanticipated homecomings of Happiness.
Memories reinforce the Fear of what is to be.

"Celluloid Caretakers of Imagination"

Darkness
Eyes never learn to see in it
Experience tells him to wait
Wait for it
He feels the presence of non-waiters
Pressing him on into the darkness
Flailing his arm
Groping for another arm
Attached to a seat
Attached to another seat
Attached to the sticky, littered floor
Attached to the best of memories


He looks around
Always
A ritual of kinship
Of features and figures and faces never seen
The Followers
The Faithful
The unspoken, unwavering, unbroken reward of loyalty:
“Suspension of disbelief”

He likes the red velvet covering the walls in creases and folds and scallops
A hidden steel supporting the ancientness of it
The seats; small, hard, and too close together.
He likes the historical accuracy of his discomfort.
When he sees the organ rising from its hidden depths below the stage
He is unashamed of his gushing cliché
The nightly rising of the Phoenix
Past and Present
One.

He watches with no small degree of disdain
The filing out and pushing and cramming of premature ignorance
Dodging and weaving to see past people who don’t know
All the names
The practitioners
The caretakers of imagination
The owners of creations of celluloid existing solely to share.
I watch him.
He stays.
He reads.
Now he knows my name.

“With Apologies to…”

Why lines of verse?
What would I say?
Who’d care anyway?
Now I just sound terse.

Grasshoppers labour.
Loving lines of tearful verse.
To Ants who can't read.

There once was a man from Jersey of New
Who longed to voice his feelings so true
To the girl who had stolen his heart
Of her husband he desired the part.
If not to star in her marital play, Wednesday and Sunday would do.

If you feel I have wasted your time
On images not so sublime
Unnaturally forced into rhyme
Believe it was not my intention
Or purpose set out to offend
This ridiculous invention
Created solely to send
A tribute to those
Who labour in prose
I think I will leave it to them.

“The Cruel Edge”

Locks of hair entwined, entombed in glass.
Peaceful, resigned, terrified, violent, faithful passings encircled.
Bending a family tree into a gnarled, anachronous history.
A macabre shadowbox.

Remembering what was never known.
Studying grainy photographs framed in velvet and tarnished brass.
Learning that absence is irrelevant to presence.
The sinfulness of disrespect and neglect.

Unfathomable dichotomies.
Motionless body cold to the touch.
Unfamiliar, unwelcome voices whispering “He is not here anymore”.
Unbearable heartache screaming inside.
Pretty images of lambs and children and kingdoms of God.

Sickness and meanness.
A cold, old woman’s touch gone.
Birds and airplanes flying her to Heaven.
A great and terrible lie told by judgmental eyes bearing no tears.
Goodness and strength.
Love and warmth and light gone.
An old man taking the future with him to Heaven.
 

© All Copyright, Alex P. Harvey.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.