"flatlands" poems
Auntie Em is calling….
I was just getting to love my Emerald City
The shiny feel of it, its sweetly diverse demi-monde.
Its shimmering green beauty and tranquil sense of safety.
The heels of my ruby red slippers were well & truly dug in.
But no, the state fair balloon stands before me tied up & ready to go.
A grand exclamation mark in my way if ever there was one.
And Toto for once has gone mute, no chance of a last minute hold up.
"Dorothy, Dorothy, where are you?"
I guess it must have been too fantastical a dream to be true.
A time for goodbyes.
I’m embracing the Lion telling him to always be proud of himself & not to walk unafraid.
The Tin Man’s gentle open heartedness I compliment him on as we both shed tears.
The Scarecrow I kiss and thank for his loyalty & grace under fiery pressure.
With a heavy heart, I climb that first tentative step on the block.
"We’re sick with worry over you"
I could be angry but the wise words of the mystic ring loudly in my year.
I do need to go back – My Auntie Em is really calling me.
Calling me back to the grey flatlands of home.
Back to the numbness of small town heteronormativity.
Where Twisters rarely every came by to sweep you away and save you.
I could only keep singing ‘Over The Rainbow’ in vain hope.
"Find yourself a place where you won't get into any trouble!
Unlike Dorothy Gale, this Dorothy left Kansas voluntarily
The long yellow brick road finally took me under the rainbow and on to my Emerald City
I no longer pined for home but knew all along that it would call me back one day.
And so here I am, drifting higher & higher away from my adopted home.
Perhaps I need to build a revolving door when I get there to pass through both worlds easily
Or perhaps bring something of the rainbow back to illuminate the grey-lands.
Or perhaps – in reality - some reconciliation between these worlds is in order.
Perhaps.
It’s time to slip on the ruby red slippers and prepare the way for Kansas.
Yes, this Dorothy has surrendered but
I always had the power to be me, my dear.
I just had to learn it for myself.
August –September 2018
Sep 16, 2018
Sep 16, 2018 at 10:46 PM UTC
they called it a lake home because there were
no knobs only latches
with padlocks for winter.
it was spring when I left.
the water was in the arroyo
when colorado raised her snowy head
above the hills and brush of northern new mexico.
and you wept
with tears strange to me as yellow flowers
in the canyons and flatlands, laughing for water.
the truck broke down just south of Los Lunas
the smoke and steam drawn off by a fierce wind
that drove the tumbleweeds to
new lowlands. eager with seeds.
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 5:43 PM UTC
Vulnerability is a funny thing. Everyday people urge us to be authentic- with ourselves, our peers, our passions. Yet when we cut ourselves open for the world to see, they run from us as if we are violent rip currents waiting to take them under. When in reality we are nothing but individual tide pools sometimes puddled into something so much bigger than what others want to openly accept.
But I refuse to not live a life of authenticity. So many souls become comfortable with safety, causing them to become deeply implanted in solely just the soil in which they have resided their entire time of growing. Genuine love for something other than yourself has become nothing but a fossil of a feeling. Streams of emotions have dissipated and turned into desert lands.
As for me, I took the time to disappear within myself. I discovered my flatlands and made them curved. Those rip currents everyone always runs from are big, but so am I. A vulnerable soul may be looked at as someone made up of only dainty fallen petals, but the truth is they're looking past someone with roots dug deeper than sunken teeth into bitten skin.
What's authentic to those who shelter themselves like boarded windows in the midst of a storm might as well be forgery to me. I urge you to not be afraid to put your innermost self into another pair of shaky hands. To not hesitate to whisper your deepest ridden thoughts into caverns of a mind that's not your own. To not second guess putting you're ragged edged heart into someone else's hollow chest.
Vulnerability and authenticity meet at an intersection that you must come to terms with stopping at. I hope to see you there.
Oct 15, 2018
Oct 15, 2018 at 10:48 PM UTC
Tucked away in our subconsciousness is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are travelling by train. Out the windows, we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving on a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls.
But the uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour, we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we reach there, so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will be fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes loitering, waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.
"When we reach the station, that will be it", we cry. "When I'm 18", "When I buy a new 450SL Mercedes Benz", "When I put my last kid through collage", "When I have paid off the mortgage", "When I get a promotion", "When I reach the age of the retirement, I shall live happily ever after."
Sooner or later, we must realize that there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.
"Relish the moment" is a good motto, especially when coupled withe the Psalm 118:24:"This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it." It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tommorrow. Reget and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today.
So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more icecreams, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. Then the station will come soon enough.
Aug 13, 2013
Aug 13, 2013 at 2:05 AM UTC
Here, on the flatlands
I was put in my place.
formed and pressed
into their neat and presumably safe little box.
It's all they knew.
It is so hard to think of them as once children themselves,
formed and pressed.
Formed from a different time, with different conformists.
There are no manuals when we are born,
you get leftover instructions from previous pipe fitters.
Agrarian raised, like grain fed beef.
Complete with the fears and habits of bygone generations.
I leave one bite of each item on my plate,
with just enough drink to wash it all down.
I have done that as long as I can remember.
I want the whole candy bar, rather than just a bite.
Pressed and formed my Father saves.
He saves twist ties from bread bags.
He saves old welcome mats, and garage door openers.
He buys in bulk, and has two deep freezers full.
Full of freezer burn, tasteless, barely nutritious,
neatly formed and pressed portions of frozen in time Salisbury steak.
It is as if he himself would like to be frozen in time.
He is a depressionite child.
In the basement there is an old dresser that he found at a yard sale.
He painted it a hideous green,
but it has a formed and pressed neat white little doily on top.
In the top drawer there are various expired drugstore items,
some dating as far back as 35 years ago.
"You never know when you might need something in there."
Expired aspirin that has broken down into powder and smells of vinegar.
Vicks Vaporub, in the pretty blue glass jar, that is dried up and orderless.
All brand new and have never been opened.
Formed and pressed neatly in their little containers.
I watch these molders of my life slowly pass away,
becoming neatly formed and packed into their aging corner of the world,
neatly formed and packed into a stereotypical old folks home.
Forgotten, in the way, slow, aching.
Soon all they will have will be memories.
Soon all they will need will be memories.
Neatly formed and packed in their aging minds.
And then, like a comet that has shuttled through space
for thousands of years, millions of years,
they will burn out and fade into dust.
And their whole lives
will be neatly formed and packed
away,
in a trunk
in the attic,
to be opened like a time capsule,
at a later date.
the result of a week with my 94 yr old Parents
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 4:32 AM UTC
Warm evenings bring a slow haze of conversation.
The moon, rolling on the waves,
has pulled the tide right back to the horizon
Exposing wet flatlands of sand and a rocky skeleton
That crawls in the darkness, like figures on the beach below.
Rosé wine and boredom
Keeps me checking my phone for you to tell me you've arrived.
Jul 23, 2016
Jul 23, 2016 at 6:50 AM UTC
It's a quiet sacred place,
deep in the oak hammocks,
way beyond the pine flatlands
& cabbage palms.
There I commune
with the crows
and the crickets.
And at night,
a bullfrog symphony plays.
The mosquitoes,
*****
and armadillos
come out to play.
It remains sacred,
but is not nearly as quiet.
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 5:07 AM UTC
My sunbaked hands, that are worn in places, handle the grapefruit moon. Juiceless craters embellish the surface that is smooth to the touch, but ¾ it’s natural size, as it has been prematurely picked from the tree above. Flatlands an Amazonian green, resembling the most courageous leaves that journey to find the purest sunlight, with polka-dot peaks that resemble the tint of dewy summer grass in the shade. There is a hole where once stood a pylon that connected the moon to the universe it knew. The scar’s mark forms a pupil and in it’s orbit I see nothing but the incomparable eye of a chameleon. While it twitches and inspects the world, tiny white rovers scuttle across the glossy hide of their new-found planet and big black bugs invade. Bugs! I drop the moon, as it is infested, and recoil as it hits the ***** concrete floor of what is known and rolls into what is expanding.
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 7:51 PM UTC
I am made of mountains
which do not merit their trek,
slumps pregnant with swamps
bubbling ‘round souring slop,
flatlands so parched they cough
as the pustules burst.
I am petals so withered
they perpetually sulk,
shunning the warmth
so to sigh in the soil.
I am blackened fruits
weighing down weary trees.
The flies do not flock to me.
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 3:27 AM UTC
Oh, how she calls to me!
My native land, land of highlanders,
and epics of bygone eras
Take me back to those accursed mountains,
and those flatlands where the farmers do produce their yield.
Sep 4, 2024
Sep 4, 2024 at 6:46 PM UTC
fill me with your ****
until its running out of my pores
**** I've always wondered what that smell was
drown me in pity and kind verses
until my countenance is beautiful to you
because spaghetti knows!
I can't be complete unless I'm beautiful
to you
and all this time I've been running
broken pottery quotations up your
shivering spine
without thanks for the cold stares
you pierce through my fingertips
hold my hand and drag me through
the cosmic playland you soar your
broken hang glider
without regard for the fact that we
were always the center of the universe
and globally has constantly been flatlands
I want nothing less than the very cells
composing each and every cancerous tumour
exploding through your veins
because Allah knows your breath freezes my neck
solid when you lick down my..
OOH that tickles, you gotta avoid my funny bone
or I'll squeal without worrying about your parents
right outside my door
much less the police stating overbearing bricks
cemented around your walls
break them down and expose your innards
to the outwards and lie reposed in the vulnerability
of your last breath.
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 4:18 PM UTC
I wanna move out to La. Not just to be a celebrity, or superstar. I wanna move out to LA cause that's where dreams come true. Right? Ohio is all dull and grey. And during the summer's it's just less grey. You see the flatlands of Ohio, and they don't inspire you. They make you feel even flatter on the inside. Less motivated. Our winter's are hard, are weather is weird, and all our brains are full of bacon and corn.
We worship football, and don't get me started about those buckeyes. That's all our states about…
But california has palm trees and stars and movies. They have my love.
For in California I felt it all, the world in my little hand. The world in my hand, I was an oyster, and california was my pearl. I was loved, and felt loved, and felt as if the world was mine. But Ohio is damp, and dark, and ***** After spring it's just less snowy. It's icky and spiritless. I'm broken and sad easily split open by the weather.
But I was touched by gold. I was given a chance to see mountains. And I wanted mountains, and that California state breeze. That breeze of a millions others who dream… and I am no different.
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 12:11 PM UTC
we think of them as lazy
slow and peaceful
places of fishing and summer play
but a river...
(one)
the rivers edge
intoxicated by the night air
drunk with the silken touch of her
he walked slow through the old town streets
down to the rivers edge
thought to sit for a space at the calming sounds of
the rivers quiet song
he shut his eyes and pictured her face
thought about each and every soft thing bout her
and slipped into a sleep
the words were printed with legible care
you could sense the measured time taken
perfect each etched line on the paper
like they themselves were children
to be nurtured
and the phrases were trimmed
and crafted
cant you see that this is
the man you were born to be
wordsmith
he stirred in his sleep
deep in the night
the small boat he had fallen asleep on
now carried him silent and swift
miles down the wide old river
from her rich silent forests of the north
through her flatlands of crops
down to the mud of the delta
he dreams of her
telling him a story
with her voice soft and full of love
a story of a man on a boat drifting
down a long river
and of all the wonders that sleeping
man could not see
her story came to its end
as he slowly woke from his slumbers
on a calm sea
with no shore to the eyes furthest see
(two)
the morning light
is twisted up in the eye
the morning air is thick as thieves
as it tries to rob your strength
stagger down long the rivers edge
hear them coming on the dirt road
try and hide your fearful face
but its daylights dark delight
to leave you exposed for all to see
you wade into the rivers cold waters
feel it trying to pull your feet from under you
feel it tryin to pull you down to a hard place
from whence you shall find no return
fight to swim in the stained waters
tastes of metal
tastes like death
but you must flee this place
flee this open grave with your name carved
on the rivers far bank
perceive the tinge of a fast car
escape from this dark place of daylight
all you must do is make it to the shore
just a few feet more
till salvation
you hear them behind almost upon you
come to drag you back
to that soul killing prison
here in the midday sun things growin dim
vision growing faint
as you slip into the darkness beyond this world
they did not claim you
the river did
Oct 19, 2013
Oct 19, 2013 at 2:05 PM UTC
of
velvet crow.
what moving here
might mean.
that waking
beside you
is old; and land. that the land
beside you
is asleep. beside it
a creature
indigenous
to another.
that something
in me
is rich. not to place
in drawers
used
tape. that if a train
is crowded, it is crowded
with libertine
balloons.
the word chthonic.
flatlands, or lowered
beds, when we get there
the top bunk
is yours.
Jul 19, 2012
Jul 19, 2012 at 2:15 PM UTC
I flatlined in the flatlands.
© Matthew Harlovic
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 4:36 PM UTC
Body:
Pinups and post adolescent boys screaming turbulence
strung out in my room, days for ever growing more jaded
what ever that means, surely these things, will rip my heart out
get back to my head, share anything, better make my head feel still
Reading in the blue light that is a broken hearted city passing by
without it all , skylines for side views, heading south, away from it
when will it all mean surely nothing, will it rip my head out
get back to my bed, share anything, better make my bed feel here
Thankful for all the things i get wrong that i still feel in the day
you out there, somewhere doing good , filling the world with so much hope
where age means nothing, and you can marry me, and stay the same- beautiful
money where it does not mean a thing, money make the world turn , anything
Closure seeking itself in the open flatlands of an opaque remembering scheme
this is him in his prime, waiting for me with the open hands of a martyr stinging
when will you separate the screams from the hit on key singing of angels of sorts
foxes in the court room dancing during the sweeping, over papers left behind foxes
Dec 26, 2013
Dec 26, 2013 at 5:43 PM UTC
We rounded the corner,
the Sandia Mountains glimmering like rust-colored prophets
from the passenger seat.
Far from The Flatlands,
I traced the curves
of Mother Earth with my fingers.
I imagined the way her gentle hands
could carve existence on a whim.
Jan 27, 2021
Jan 27, 2021 at 10:30 PM UTC
I scratched out the names but let me tell you about them
He sits in the sun talks of life
as a passion, he’s tried to **** himself twice
once in a car, once with pills and cheap *****
now he jumps off tall things like cliffs and
antennas and people’s shallowness but he uses a parachute
which seems necessary
he jumps and the blood forgetting it is blood
nothing matters
he tells me it’s the closest humans will ever get to
flying.
The next
He sits in the shades of his four walls.
He can drink a bottle of gin and still drive
To his ex-girlfriend’s house and break his teeth
against the window. He takes pictures of alley ways
and flatlands which make up all the tiny pieces of
America. He screams at night, plays golf and tells me
simple things that make more sense than theology and philosophy,
things like Be Cool and Life Takes Time. Billboard truths.
She presses her lips against a strong sky,
a thing she hopes to believe in. she meditates daily and swears
she’s seen her soul make breakfast and burn the toast.
She floats so well people call her a Queen. If I could be level
headed she’d be my wife. She’s been hiding her perfection
and she knows it, it might be why nervous breakdowns are part
of her diet. She has made meaning out of thin air, I’ve seen it done.
Mar 27, 2011
Mar 27, 2011 at 1:52 PM UTC
A pendulum, rocking to the heartbeat of eternity
In time, in tune, in step with the world
Inside of the footprint of this city street
Like a whisper in the passing wind
Or a whistle nearby yet unseen
Striding forward with a massive force
Unstoppable as the former me
This is the essence of my own demise
And the love which grew too strong and too quickly
In order to keep my song alive
And yet through this I've become an entity
So I will rock for eternity, back and forth atop the hill
And also in the flatlands in the east
Where the whispers were first heard to me
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 4:32 PM UTC
Houses keep falling down
flatlands of dirt and crumbling dust
the ground stained red with avaricious blood
soaked up by tree roots
plaguing our minds
tendrils creeping like veins
out our fingers and toes
sinking into the earth
pricking like knives through our skin
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 7:59 PM UTC
Kids set fire to southern churches
and god turned a blind eye
to this spectacle
when he sent flames to ravage
the flatlands.
the dirge of a dying politician's
diseased voice strains
through the blown out
crackling speakers in my
car that was shaking apart
as we drove further West
towards the smoke and sirens,
the highway coddling it's median,
black with charred grass.
Sun shone through a cracked window,
while outside, the shimmering
wheatfields and acres of sunflowers
were pushing us farther
into unknown territories,
the many fenceposts passing like hours,
we want them to go quickly...
something better must be hiding
beyond that next plateau.
We clung religiously
to our notebooks
and copies of "Being and Nothingness ",
a pen in one hand,
a lighter in the other,
discussing ways to twist the words of others
into our own truths.
The butane flames dance,
igniting the scorched images
of smoldering plains and wooden beams,
angels crucified with the
damning politics of hope.
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 11:15 PM UTC
Asphalt as dark as ****
blacktop baking in the sun.
Eighteen wheelers rolling out,
big rigs headed on long runs.
Long stretches of highway,
from coast to coast they reach.
Across flatlands and over hills,
from mountains to the beach.
Any direction you choose to go,
will lead you to somewhere.
Maybe not the way you planned,
but eventually you'll get there.
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 5:42 AM UTC