All posts by LR Harvey

L.R. Harvey writes and teaches in Chattanooga, T.N. A graduate of Covenant College, he holds his BA in English and his MA in teaching, and currently teaches high school English. His most recent work has appeared in Red Eft Review, Better Than Starbucks, The Write Launch, Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry, The Road Not Taken, and more than a dozen others. He writes to provide a window into the Transcendent and a glimpse into the Mystery. 

Prayer on a Friday Morning – Poem by L.R. Harvey

 

A wispy one gets tangled up
beneath the lampshade, sets off
the smoke alarm when it flares up
in purple flame.

Another grows a pair of arms
and legs. It sprouts a healthy beard,
goes off to art school, starts living on
its own. I hear it’s opened up a studio
out on the coast of California.

A sticky one is spinning
on the ceiling fan. I try to peel him off,
to take him back, with spit,
with WD40, with lemon wipes,
but somehow still he orbits above
my head on quiet afternoons,
just watching, listening.

But how I love it when
one slips between my pores,
the kind that just evaporates,
floats past the fan
and out into the February sky,
where pigeons pluck it up like breadcrumbs.

Image credit: Dimples & Tangles Abstract Art, Abstract 2 by Jennifer Griffin

I do not ask for much – Poem by L.R. Harvey

 

To live like bicycle bells,
and grease the build-up of
a life-thick heart as I pass
on the left. The chance
to tell a porch-front cardinal
about his art, to watch him
splash a print of red on sky-
-blue canvas. To learn to see.

To spread wild the love
of clay mugs, of clocks
that tick a minute off,
of granddad’s leather shoes
toe-scuffed and sole-worn,
of children’s books.
To lose myself. To be aware.
I do not ask for Much at all,
but All.

Image Credit: vintage tea cups, photography by Martin Vorel (Libreshot.com)