i wanted to throw my life
away and catch a bullet
but i dropped my arm
when i couldn't pull it.

© Matthew Harlovic

i caught her glance
by happenstance
but haven’t chanced
the circumstance.

© Matthew Harlovic

i know i'm not worthless,
i know what my worth is
but i'm willing to admit
i lost a sense of purpose
when i heard how you no
longer wanted my service
so until you change your mind
and call upon another person,
i will not surface.

© Matthew Harlovic

this morning i watched
a cigarette drop from
the pocket of a man
onto the floor of the
train. it rained earlier
and bits of dew and
dirt drained into the
cracks, but there lay
the cigarette intact.
i could have reached
for this man and told
him how he misplaced
the nail to his coffin,
yet i said nothing and
let him off coughing.

© Matthew Harlovic

i fell short of breath
or it fell before me
as i explored your temple
and your décor is quite lovely.

© Matthew Harlovic

you tempt me
with your temper
but i have a temperate
response to your tantrum
because a tempest like you
will attempt to ride tandem
if things do not follow through
like you planned them to.
  
© Matthew Harlovic

the day we first met,
you manifested your will
to depart from me.

© Matthew Harlovic

i thought the sun rose
and fell on your horizon,
i followed you like a shadow
but i wish i opened my eyelids
a bit wider so i could have seen
how much time i wasted
waiting for the ends to justify the means.
i loved you with every fibre of my being,
you kissed me like a guillotine
and i felt my breath fleeing.
i tasted truth on your sugar-coated tongue
and yet i should’ve noted how you eat your young.
you beat my gums with cheap talk
and sleepwalk about a bed of nails.
you raised questions so i read the braille
and i was amazed by the minor details you failed
to acknowledge let alone unveil.
yet you’ve shown a new face,
i’ve grown ail of your grace
and how you can encase
your faith by nailing it in place
but with love like a wraith,
you've always found a way
to circumvent the rays
and shine on my darkest days.

© Matthew Harlovic

literature offers an
immersive collection
of the past and an emerging
collective of experience.

© Matthew Harlovic

will the birds sing or sit in a string discussing theories on a wire?
too tired for repercussions from prior trials by fire,
so they pile the pyre and sing for the choir
while the liars catch wildfire to a dire count of 4-5-1
by a child with a drumstick instead of a thumb in his mouth.
you can hear the percussion through his stomach for crying out loud.
are the parents proud of this juvenile behavior,
have they vowed to reconcile with its nature?
are they beguiled by how it reviles exile
but every now and then goes the extra mile?

© Matthew Harlovic

i think* you want
the best for me,
therefore I am
and will always
try my best for you.

© Matthew Harlovic

i like my women like i like my flowers,
down to earth and she was rooted to the notion.
she sprouted out from under the cracks of paper-white pavement
with tulips curled to the cosmos greeting morning glories
as graciously as angel horns. i was hung up on her like a hollyhock.
she was sweet, fragrant like a balm, mellow like a mallow but she
turned a new leaf and called out to me like coral bells.
i rose like a plume of smoke with whirling butterflies in my belly.
i looked into the iris of her baby blue eyes and asked,
“what’s up buttercup?”
she took a baby’s breath
and “forget-me-not”
stemmed from her bearded-tongue.
though knowing she spoke
out of honesty and passion,
i raised my candytuft cuff
and bade her a clarkia.
farewell to spring

© Matthew Harlovic

hope springs eternal
in the human breast.
though, we cope to journal
what we can't digest.
i digress. i confess,
i’m a mess yet i address
what i transgress and i reassess
my disposition. for instance,
i made a decision to make progress and what i set, i met.
yet i let myself regress to a great depression
in which i questioned what was predestined
so i searched for penance and found surrealism.
i heard sundry ideals, the sounds of theism.
i let my thoughts run free among the prisms
and tasted other worldly wisdom on my tongue.

© Matthew Harlovic

your aura is magnetizing,
i fell in your orbit.
i was drawn to your light,
you are my Aurora.
you are galvanizing.
i felt the sparks,
i absorbed it.
i adore it.
i swore it
sort of poured
from my pores
when i stored it.

© Matthew Harlovic

I'll always love you
even when you turn your head
and ask who I am.

© Matthew Harlovic

i thought if i bought an owl
and brought it to Athens,
in return i would find
prosperity and compassion.
yet in all my years
i could not predict,
let alone imagine,
knowledge and wisdom
would have gone out of fashion.

© Matthew Harlovic

she colors the cosmos
with brushstrokes
on my brain
as acrylic paint
plunges into my vein.
did you paint me insane?

© Matthew Harlovic

i theorized the continuity
of my contemplation
as you picked your guitar
questioning all of creation.
you told me, "i hold no
obligation to anyone else.
if i break a promise, then
i will break it to myself."

© Matthew Harlovic

i found penance
in a pen and
transcendence
in a sentence,
i've forgiven
myself for
my past
transgressions.
i live in
the present
and accept
all there is,
ever was,
ever will be,
and all i forgive.

© Matthew Harlovic

i knew a hedge between
kept a friendship green
but as our garden grew
our edges weaned
to common ground,
boundaries were forgotten
as our passion broadened
so here i wait for autumn
to come around.

© Matthew Harlovic

she kissed and told
the world my secrets,
stole my strength and
gave to me weakness.

© Matthew Harlovic

i planted forget-me-nots
to commemorate the loss
of my first love,
the rock to my moss.

© Matthew Harlovic