It is a smell— a sweet lavender from running through fields or an overwhelming vanilla from tailing behind your mother or a fragrant burnt from blowing out candles.
It is a taste— the saltiness lingering in the ocean air or bitterness from a disastrous Thanksgiving or soggy from your first kiss with a girl or spicy transporting you right back home.
I once found my reflection in the library
It was resting there plain as can be
When I asked it what it was doing there, it said
“Waiting for you, as you can see.”
I went back again and again
To see what I could find
A beauty mark there, an imperfection there
Blooms and blemishes upon the mind.
My reflection was an exacting teacher
And it did not just stop with me
I found it with a mirror most days
Aping polite society.
One day, my protean reflection
Voiced an uncouth thought
I argued, I blustered, I threatened
honored at freedom fête
of course in my dreams
where Tony the Tiger
roars Matthew Scott Harris
ranks as one hip cat gr-r-eat
showcasing adroitness
with ability to turn a phrase
evident if we could arrange a tête-à-tête
where immortality doth wait.
Pacifist bard of Perkiomen Valley
regaled at Alpine Fellowship conclave
regarding erosion of Democratic rights grave
alarming usurpation of power - Republicans
each and every one a nasty and brutish knave
intent to pronounce decree sentencing
every Homo sapien to pave
An eye specialist Jaques Daviel,
does his cataract field ring a bell,
the word cataract used with respect
on his vision and foresight i reflect
I stood tall in the field
My brown hair parted from my body and stinging creatures crawled,
Pecking off my rotted brown skin,
My friends would visit me, snapping my limbs off
Piece
By
Piece;
Throwing them to the side, watching my battered body splinter away from me;
Blistering their figure, and mine.
I always moved at night:
My legs would rip from the ground, the worm ridden soil
Shedding beneath the might of the leg.
Mine is a wild spring step,
shoe heels dash leaf strewn path,
wrinkled drivers sour mien,
from rueful rush hour toll,
as sluggish cars inch by,
my drained feet moult traction
Flowers ’round a fresh grave,
Whispers of the song,
Bells ring loud ‘round the town,
Mourners gather in the nave,
All happiness is clear forgotten,
The sky, not the grave, is the goal, I’ve found.
The preacher gives his finest speech,
Tear ducts open again to leak,
Callers bring their empathy,
Tonight not a single soul sleeps sound.
Broken is the frigid soil,
Where the soldier-boy is laid,
Too far under to be in the toil.
Flowers afresh all around.
Flowers wilting round the grave,
Buried are the whispers of the song,
Two acquaintances brought flowers
in orange grocery-store pots,
wrapped in crinkling plastic,
to my birthday party — what else
do you buy a woman turning 30?
They don’t know that I’ve murdered a cactus,
or stood by while a succulent’s deathbloom
erupted from an aesthetic teacup,
or that I could never remember
to feed the goldfish I won at the fair.
One of my latest beautiful burdens
is some finicky, high-maintenance orchid
that needs to be watered from below
on an extremely specific schedule,
and kept at just the right temperature.