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Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
I popped open a vein to paint my blues, violet

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
The Star-Spangled Banner are Our Mangled Mannerisms

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
Whether we're  positive or negative
opposites attract despite their irrelevance

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Jun 2018
when you finally saw the scars, you dubbed it as art.
i cried violently and you thought it was poetry.
you compared my mutilation to a memoir
as one of my greatest devotees.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Feb 2017
you "like" what i write if it is to your liking
though if i write about your bad side,
you loathe the poor lighting.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2016
i miss having someone to confide in,
someone to provide a bit of guidance
when i'm riding the trident to the sirens.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Jul 2016
after the author’s death
bury his work with his last breath*

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Nov 2014
Pretty little Penny felt worthless on the streets
she got a petty penny when working backseat
but maybe this dime piece’s time is spent.
She thought as she got up off the park bench
Smashing a bottle upon the cobblestone
Time was coddled so she hobbled home
She said, “I’m sorry”, in monotone
“I need you two, I can’t hold my own.
I owe you both way more than I have given.
Find it in your heart, can I be forgiven?
Cause living in the streets
has brought out the worst in me
I’ve been forced to do things, I’ve begged on my knees
But if you take me back I can change, if you trust me.”
And so she finished up her plea in a broken mirror
in the back alley of the place that she ran from last year.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Jun 2019
you owe me nothing.
yes, nothing at all
your nothingness owns me
and I await your call

© Matthew Harlovic
*Response to Sara Teasdale’s poem “Debt”
Matthew Harlovic Dec 2014
Take a little
puff, puff,
before you
pass, pass
judgment.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic May 2016
You put me on a health regime,
full of fruits, kale, and hummus,
you put me on an exercise plan,
and taught me what a burpee was.
You have always put me on something,
taught me something about myself or others,
actuated some facet of my potential, and for that I thank you.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
Quantum mechanics
has discovered the *heavens

but *there was
  no  God

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Feb 2016
I've committed quantum suicide
to exist in a coherent superposition.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Jul 2014
I froze up** on the staircase, staring at space much like a jigsaw falling in place. I was high and dry like a lotus flower in bloom. Lost in the fog as I tried to sail to the moon. I was searching for the subterranean homesick alien on Planet Telex to ask him the million dollar question he spoke in codex. So I’ll never find out the answer for the talk show host just like how the spooks won’t give up the ghost.

© Matthew Harlovic
This is my third poem created by combining song titles from the artist. I believe that each title contains a certain story within itself. Therefore, I took certain titles and created a story out of it. This band is Radiohead. Enjoy.
Matthew Harlovic Apr 2018
It’s raining on the South side and I’m outside
watching the flowers with a mouth wide open.
I was soaking up the rays just a few days ago
Now I’m asking myself where’d the sun go?

You stood on the corner in a yellow raincoat.
Weathering the storm and chasing rainbows.
Reclaim those colors, they suit you well.
Be true to yourself like Lulu Belle.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
Please, take your best guess
Palm readers have *tried
and failed
cause my fists are clenched

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Apr 2016
I've found fear in the causality of death itself,
the parting breath, preceding the prospect of
hell, or heaven or some almighty power
to whom I'll come to know in my final hour.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Feb 2015
A recording booth is nothing more than another padded room.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Aug 2016
you put me in awe
when you justified
your actions with
word is law,
but i broke my jaw
to understand how
our passion spoke
in the raw.

© Matthew Harlovic
i'm reduced to silence...
Matthew Harlovic Aug 2016
i have come
a long way
from where
i began and
i can say  
i have
changed
as a man.
i have set
my goals
and refined
my role
as i aligned
my mind,
body and soul.
i hit new lows
and rose above,
i live a life full
of light and love.
i give all i have
and ask for nil
for the life i
was gifted with
is all i fulfill.

© Matthew Harlovic
finding happiness
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
Religion* won't *disappear,
even if the pope believes in evolution


© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Nov 2016
when we were tracing
constellations, chasing
stars and drinking sun
tea from mason jars;
thinking our time
would never end
as we embraced
infinity as the
best of friends.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Aug 2016
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
Matthew Harlovic Nov 2014
I love you* because I love you
because of you

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Aug 2016
i wished i learned
how to let go
from the get go
because i wouldn’t
have changed faces
like a gecko.
her body was temple,
i painted art deco.
i fell for her tempo,
it resonates like an echo.
i trembled at her tone,
yet her treble alone
could break any heart
made of stone.
she’s known
to play her part,
she’s shown
she can master it.
she'll hit every note,
she’s drop dead
accurate.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Mar 2016
Though passions may dim and fade away,
the love we have will always stay.
Hope springs eternal in our passion play.
Tomorrow delivers our new born day.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Feb 2016
To my bloomed beauty,
rival roses reach for your
garden, not your heart.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Nov 2014
I roll my eyes back
to find the third one.

©  Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Apr 2016
Is it considered ******
to uproot a sapling before
it digs its roots into the Earth?

© Matthew Harlovic
Just a question.
Matthew Harlovic Jan 2018
the second breakup hurts just as much as the first,
but i cannot distinguish which loss was worse.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic May 2015
The centaur; he who
channels two halves together
on an arrow's quill.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Mar 2014
Across the kitchen’s smudged timber,
twin tomcats with limestone irises
sit and wait for a speck of salmon
to fall from my Mother’s cutting board.
One day they’ll snag a scrap.
If these floorboards could think
they would know when to warn
my Mother of their swift actions.
Noses prodded up like steam,
they could sense that today was their day.
They traced the lemon-soaked salmon
to the sunflower-slick pan.
They stalked the smell of
low-cholesterol cooking.
They hung on my Mother’s, “stay back”, tone.
But they never backed away, they sat there,
soaking up the sight of her setting down the plates.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
There’s a “Y” in sanity, why can’t I find it?

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Jul 2016
i wilted in the winter,
withered in the spring.
the summer was a
****** but i wonder
what the fall will bring.

© Matthew Harlovic
Just staying positive.
Matthew Harlovic Jun 2016
she loves me,
she loves me not,
she loves me
or so I thought*.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Jun 2015
Inviting security into your life
invites insecurity into your life.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Jan 2018
a mind that feels no gratitude to the forest
is a coarse mind indeed—without siladhamma—
the body feeds off doubts the mind will seed.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Apr 2016
A poem with five
moras above and below
and seven above.

© Matthew Harlovic
Inspired by Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.
Matthew Harlovic Nov 2014
The only one I hate more than you, is myself

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
Sometimes my nonsense makes sense
and sometimes my senses are senseless.
But I relentlessly try to make sense,
all the sentences that I’ve sentenced.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Apr 2016
Time is measured
by the length of blade
from the strength of the stone
to the parting day.
Time is treasured
by the angst of a sage
from the shade of the sun
to its passing age.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Mar 2014
The magazines convinced her that fit is divine
so she decided to refine her outer design.
She contorted her diet and cut her life into portions,
then at night she would sneak away to visit the porcelain.
But baby, please don’t cut away anymore
because I loved you just as you were before.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Nov 2014
It took one, to turn her
pupils into shrunken heads.  

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Jul 2016
i won't go off
on a tangent but
tangible goals have
derived from the
different angles i've
taken to understand
why i run instead of rise.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
If I smile too much
it makes me look desperate

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
Someday soon we will be holding hands instead of grudges

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
Someday soon we will be passing praise instead of judgment

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Jul 2017
I’m avoiding a void, Freud warned me of
by worming my way in to the apple of my eye
I know it sounds paranoid as above so below
ground zero dark thirty where I heard the well runs dry.
Hell, I wonder why I try to quench my thirst for knowledge
from any ***** puddle when I’m at a cow college
‘cuz nowadays I rather cuddle up with a good book
than be-fuddled by how to transgress, ring a bell hooks?
Well looks deceive and I can guess
by the wings you have yet to receive
we have come to the some of nothing
from something I thought we were far beyond
but maybe I was wrong at the end of it all.
You said it wasn’t my fault but then again,
Freire taught me how to lock
away my thoughts in a vault.

I’m hemmed in with Hemingway in the corner of the café.
We spend half the day laughing at our neighbors savoring
their lattes but condemning how they stray away from nature
‘cuz labor’s not their taste.
He says, “What a waste of time.
Do you see a better paradigm?”
I agree because I was scared at the time
to embarrass myself in front of an idol of mine.
I know it’s futile to rival a dead mind
but when they’re better than the headlines
I don’t mind if I never shine brighter than a dying light
‘cuz it only really matters in the end if I’m trying right?
but what am I trying for when I lost a friend to love and war?
Cut the ties, I’m alive.
Who was I dying for?
Who was I fighting for?
Who was I writing for?

Shelby tells me where the sidewalk ends
and well, he’s been a better friend than you’ve ever been;
ever since you left me and met he who shall not be named
nor blamed for this game you played against us.
Again trust was just a part of it all.
I was miserable like Margaret Hall.
Withdrawals always reinforce walls of remorse
and of course, I’m the source of all your problems
but who took the time to resolve them?
You weren’t forced to endorse any course of action
except follow the laws of attraction.
Perhaps gravity magnifies abreaction
or the severity of abstraction.
Yet Apollo would swallow
all his pride and passion
hollow out his home
and throw a match in.

© Matthew Harlovic
i cannot equate myself as a rapper when i write poetry.

copy and paste the link below to listen:
https://soundcloud.com/outtatune-1/some-of-nothing
Matthew Harlovic Apr 2017
i know i’m a werido but half my heroes
have pierced earlobes so i don’t fear those
who rose from someone to some zero.

© Matthew Harlovic
Matthew Harlovic Nov 2015
As the only sun
dial in my family,
spacetime encompasses
the face of a fallacy.

© Matthew Harlovic
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