JACK D. HARVEY - POEMS

Jack D. Harvey’s poetry has appeared in Scrivener, Mind In Motion, Slow Dancer, The Antioch Review, Bay Area Poets’ Coalition, The University of Texas Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, The Piedmont Journal of Poetry and a number of other on-line and in print poetry magazines over the years.

​       Wer im Wohlstand Lebt

​In the blue, the very blue
the so blue,
of the proud,
the only antidote for
fear is wealth;
among the noses upturned,
unhappy he who lacks
a fancy shirt.
 
All of a piece
they are;
up in the air,
unstable
but secure
in the vastness of the
cage they built.
Could King Dis or Kore
ask for more
under land?
They forget suffering;
their own
pride hangs
before them
like a tapestry;
faithfully, nobly
recording
their rich answer
to the absolute.
 

​Self-Portrait

​Yes, that is me
on my pet pony
only two and a half years old.
 
Him? Father?
No, that's me four years ago
in my forties.
That old man with
the big dusty hat
and the tired eyes,
that's me on
three-quarters of a century.
 
Who inverted, who turned
the hourglass so fast,
bent me down and out
of shape like an old plough?
Like old beat-up iron
needing time on the anvil,
but there is no anvil,
there is no smith
to hammer me back in shape,
to straighten me,
to beat back the grains
of sand, falling, falling,
to the bottom of
the unturned glass.
 
Yes, that is me,
going along in time
with a heap of falling sand;
then nothing but ash and shadow,
dead bones
and I won't be back.
  

​But From That Nest

Was there a kangaroo
hopped and hopped
on the desert
tail down,
brown top-fur
burnt tan
under the sun
with his leg tendons
tensing
like ribs on a fan?
Was there the tiniest yellow
swallow swinging and dipping in
gables and winter far off,
far off to the north?
Did he nest, did he sit on
his own ancient crocket?
 
Were there men
building and breaking,
creaking and stamping?
Cities spread out
on slick black roads,
streaming metal
over innocent meadows;
concrete flows like manna,
sets up skyscrapers
transcending
desert nights and tunnels
deep as mines.
 
Hopping, flying,
kangaroo and swallow,
refugees from the pride
in human eyes,
sorrowful grasshoppers
in the barns of Jacob,
try and try
on shaky ground,
in murky skies,
to find the space
in these black days,
the place and time
where no one can get them.

​

​Las Vegas

 
Behold,
the corn-fed chorus girl,
breasts bedizened with pasties,
forgets the business of pleasure,
forgets her place
in this big ongoing
graceless show, forgets
her fleshly trade,
her blazing nakedness
under the big-time lighting
and delivers her Iowa,
its corn, its farms,
still-born on the stage.
Tears in her eyes turn
to pearls and glisten
running down her face;
even the drunks in the balcony
see her pain as
she remembers her home,
spoiling our pleasure.
Can we hate her for that?