Drawer of Possibilities
In the drawer of possibilities
you find stasis, the lure of the unknown.
To what should this hinged orb
be subservient? Or that wrinkled blade?
An egg, the bald potato. The sacrificial
carrot? To everything its purpose.
Like that light in the crook of the
altered frame, attracting the winged
beings. You, of course, serve nothing.
“Drawer of Possibilities” appeared in The New Reader in March 2018.
Dictionary of Dreams
You do not know their secret names.
Mine is the music of metal and wood.
Human voices behind walls.
Trapped in reds, in chiseled words.
And silence. Always silence.
Or the filtered woodwinds at dawn.
How to describe her body?
The quickness of night. Year’s demise.
A family of ghosts hidden in these halls.
“Dictionary of Dreams” was published in Kingdoms in the Wild in April 2018.
Here’s a link to the YouTube video of my reading at Malvern Books on October 20.
And here’s Clare Martin:
And Bessie Senette:
Stephanie L. Harper has another chapbook coming out – in March! It’s available at a substantial discount for a limited time only. I read the manuscript and was stunned. You deserve this book. Get it now!
Hello My Poetry-Loving WordPress Friends!
Here’s the scoop: Main Street Rag has opened advanced sales at $6.50 per copy for my newest poetry chapbook, The Death’s-Head’s Testament,scheduled for release in March 2019! This generous discount off of the $12.00 cover price will be offered for a limited time, so be sure to take advantage of it soon!
Thank you so much, everyone, for your engagement with and support of my work! I couldn’t have come this far without you!
Once, again, credit for this breathtaking cover photo goes to my son, Matthew Harper.
Every Drop
Your light singes my roots
even deep underground, where
worms revel in your joy
and all the days’ secrets line up
awaiting their turn to kneel and
unwrap their daily truths in the
comfort of the chambered soil.
If I were a seed, I would wait
for your touch before sprouting,
and only then would I surge
to the surface, swallowing
your gift. Greedy but grateful,
I’d open, drink every drop.
Dear Stephanie: No one connects here, and no matter
how resolutely we trudge forward, ignoring spinal fusions
and attacking hearts, the line skips lightly ahead, mocking us,
I think, in that way only the ineffable may claim. Looking
out, I see a lone wren, clouds filtering the stars, and strands
of barbed wire looped like question marks around cedar
stumps, punctuating the day’s greeting. No answers there,
only more inquiries blanching under the sun. But this
is my febrile landscape, not your lush green headed by
gray. Nothing matters, or, everything’s imperative.
In this gnarled season I can’t tell which, although
the vulture ripping into a squirrel carcass on my
suburban front lawn tells me something ain’t quite
right. Full or empty, the glass is still a glass, despite
my propensity for seeking more, whether cava or beer
or yes, enlightenment. I fear this reveals too much
about me, and wonder if I should draw the shade or
keep tugging it higher, admitting more light. Have you
ever noticed that half often amounts to less the closer
you get to it, each portion diminishing, divided by two,
and again, until only a thin shadow vaguely resembling
the original shape remains? Perhaps this is how we’re
meant to exit as failures on this field. The horizon’s
still there, red stroking green, clouds feathering in,
and maybe if we keep walking we’ll reach it in a sunburst
of doves and glittering red dahlias. Yeah, right. In the
meantime, let’s multiply our losses and sculpt another
morning truer than its source, stronger than its media. Our
optimism has already blown this joint. What else have we
got to lose? I remain, as ever, yours in insolence, Bob.
Originally penned in January 2017, “Letter to Harper from Halfway to the Horizon” was published in MockingHeart Review in May 2018. I’m reading with MockingHeart founder and editor-in-chief Clare L. Martin, along with Bessie Senette, at 7:00 this evening, October 20, at Malvern Books in Austin. Come on by, if you’re able!
Wherein I confess…
This Island Is a Stone
Raking the sand, I leave only the infinite
trickling behind; our first bed bore your
parents’ memories. This one grows weeds. The
heavenly bamboo (a shrub and not a grass)
issues white petals and inedible red fruit. My
fingertip callouses have softened from disuse;
coyotes no longer answer my yips and howls.
Who replies to liars anyway? A snail’s love
dart impales the object of its affection, but
often inconveniently. This is not a metaphor
for bad sex, but a means of transferring an
allohormone. Today the overburdened creeks
erode their banks and 492 seconds after
departing the sun a ray greets my lawn. I snap
the towel at the fly on the door, but miss
again. The once sacred now lies open and
emptied; a few months ago my father could not
remember my birthdate although he recognized
the season. Some totals may never satisfy.
If I collect my life’s accumulated wastings, will
that sum temper me or merely accentuate the
fool? Nothing is as it seems. We mark our
remaining days with unread books. These
waves are plotted creases, this island is a stone.
“This Island Is a Stone” was published in MockingHeart Review in September 2017. I am grateful to editor Clare L. Martin for publishing this piece. As luck has it, I’m reading with Clare and Bessie Senette on Saturday, October 20, at 7:00 p.m. at Malvern Books in Austin.
Something Lost, Something Trivial
Another word, another bewildered
moment in transition: the phrase
barely emerges from your mouth
before crumbling back into a half-opened
drawer in the loneliest room of a house
that died seventeen years ago.
I nod as if in understanding, and stoop
to pick up a crushed drinking straw,
the kind with the accordion elbow
that facilitates adjustment.
From a rooftop across the street,
a mockingbird warbles his
early morning medley of unrelated
songs, and you say left oblique,
followed by matches, then
collapse on a bench,
winded. I sit next to you
and we both enjoy the warmth
and birdsong, though I know
this only through the uplifted
corner of your mouth, which
these days is how you indicate
either deep pleasure or
fear. I have to leave soon,
I say, and you grab my wrist
and stare into my eyes.
Broom, you reply. And more
emphatically, Broom!
Though I cannot follow you
directly, knowing both path
and destination, I pick my way
carefully through the years
stacked high like cardboard
banker’s boxes stuffed with
papers and receipts no one
will ever see. I know, I say.
I love you, too. Broom.
* * *
“Something Lost, Something Trivial” was published in January 2016 in the first issue of MockingHeart Review. Many thanks to editor Clare L. Martin, for her multiple kindnesses. I am reading with Clare and Bessie Senette on Saturday, October 20, at 7:00 p.m. at Malvern Books in Austin.
Beautiful images. Beautiful writing. Kerfe Roig honors Scarecrow, and knocks it out of the park once again!
Autumn. I fall into disrepair. The sky still covers me, but my shadow dissolves into the remains of the golden ocean that heretofore eddied and flowed at my feet. My skin lies ragged, unfilled.
I was crowned, once, with dark discordant ornaments. They sit on other thrones now, unrepentant pretenders, still calling the sun, the wind–the land itself–to task.
A crow flies over
a graveyard—blackness on stone–
change hangs in the air
When I saw Frank Tassone’s Haikai Challenge about scarecrows, I was intrigued. I can’t think of Scarecrow without thinking of Robert Okaji’s wise sage. So whatever I did would be colored by what Robert has written. I also decided to use the words from Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, synonyms for ghost and hollow, as many of them seemed to fit on Scarecrow too.
As to Crow–he’s always around here somewhere.
Once again, different light makes the metallic paint…
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O at the Edges 