I am not fond of photos
Neither taking them
Nor being in them

Their pervasiveness
In everyday life
Has no boundaries

Everything can now be found
Within a photo

Want to capture a beautiful moment?
Photograph it

Want the world to see your lunch?
Photograph it

Want to show off to your friends?
Photograph it

Want to pretend to live a life you don't?
Photograph it

Want to show your weakness, the bane of your life?
You can't photograph it

Want to express that hidden passion within you?
You can't photograph it

Want to express your deeply rooted love for another?
You can't photograph it

A photo is not everything
It is merely a glimpse of a moment

It does not capture the emotion
The flare
The background story behind it

I prefer to write my memories
Re-creating the scene I remembered
Painting a picture with words
So despite others not seeing what I saw
They will feel what I felt at that moment

I was poking a piece of paper with a pen out of sheer boredom.
Thus, a rough sketch of a heart was born
by a simple series of ink blots with repetition.
Then I thought: why did I do that?
At first glance, it was just a random assortment
of ink spots that seemingly have no meaning,
but as it catches my eye every now and then,
I realize it has seduced every nerve in my brain.
I figuratively try to imagine what my mind
looks like, but all I see is an enveloping mist
that my subconscious has sent forth
in an attempt to end my pervasiveness;
to uncover what I deem as truth.
Although, I can tell that the more I try to understand
why my subconscious is doing this,
the thinner this metaphorical blockage becomes.

I can see a silhouette of a person, a woman to be exact.
Her feminine figure exhibiting serenity in it's rawest form,
down to even the smallest of details.
Dare I approach this woman to uncover the secrets she holds
Or should I stand here, jaw agape, as I stand in awe?
Perhaps I may do both.

Please body, grant me the courage to move.
The longer I wait, the chance of her fading increases
and frankly, I do not wish for this to occur.
I feel that every step I make closer to her,
The stiffness of this paralysis only grows exponentially.
Curse these infernal bonds, I cast off these chains,
but it appears it's too late for now,
This apparition is approaching me.

In the beginning we made small talk, but I have to say,
those itty-bitty conversations were worth it.
They manifested into an array of discussions,
portraying our various ideals and goals;
It laid down our foundation,
but what really caught my attention
was the wisdom you so blissfully displayed.
It wasn't forceful in the slightest, but
rather all natural. My infatuation grew.

A dimly lit courtyard.
Flavored tobacco up in the air.

A table amongst friends.
Their chatter all tuned out.

A shoulder to lay on.
Causation of drug induced slumber.

Upon mountains high.
Walkers of the sky.

Ocean of lights below.
Hands clasp tight.

Still night in the park.
No more second guessing.

Gliding across ice.
Cancerous sin now ended.

Sleep tight, together now.
A kiss upon the forehead.

Okay?
Okay.

The longer I continue with this addicting contemplation,
a greater feeling of soothing realization
conquers this brooding mist and I feel uplifted.
There is one thing comes to mind:
I cannot stop adoring you.

History has dreamed of me

And as such in its’ imaginings

Feels the painful days and tragedy

Of my great lament

Scorching the jagged edges of the world

It is a history that possesses

A capricious and intense sensitivity

A receptivity to suggestions of the imaginary

It bestows instability to the great vital rhythms of my life

And the misty memories of that present,

That present past, provide a misery of mood

Fills my veins with an inconsistency of feelings

Creating an all engulfing anxiety

Of fear and contempt for myself

Where amidst this great disorder

I fear that all hope has fled

Vanquished toward a black and purple sky

This causes all the great human dilemmas

To take up unwelcome residence in my mind

Which is tortured by a pervasiveness of antagonism

Antipathy and disturbance

You see  I can no more escape from these

Obsessing reflections in my consciousness

Than I can from my own reflection in a mirror

Desert rocks in desert sand that seem to encompass the land,
Barren empty space of dust, lust in cacti and souls of the lost…
Amorphous figure emerges from the land below-
In ethereal appearance, and celestial glow.
Enraptured is the ordinary soul by inexorable beauty.

It’s hand outstretched and welcoming eyes—
Enchanting me to believe his guise.
Ineffable experience being by his side,
For a moment trapped in time I was alive.

Hand in hand and love in eyes we made a vow to share our lives.
So quick it was and never ceased, to amaze me in a world of tumbling white sheets.
The sea of sheets, on that first night, took me to the world of light,
Skin on skin, eye to eye, lips on lips, three words slips
From mouths who claimed eternal locks, And here were are bodies in knots,
Intertwined in mind, and soul and all, and now we fall.

-deep
-deep
-deep
Into a world of beauteous intention,
Music, light and love had all our attention.
I loved you with the moon and stars, I loved you for all you are.
I was the only thing you need. But bizarre complications and me you heed-
No regard for.

Hands flung, for a lover before,
And my heart fell to the floor,
As you stood aside and let abuse occur,
All of this you did for her?

Now I realise, that the desert was your guise.
You were a mirage, and had no care,
For the Lady who was always there.
Eclectic reasons for leaving you.
Yet, celestial glow, you glow from afar.

I have never felt this pain before, entrails by my feet,
Heart still throbbing in your blood stained hands,
You have no understanding of all this, that you have caused
You have no idea of the kind lady you lost.

I see your soul, the pervasiveness of its beauty.
Ubiquity of love in your soul,
But on my life you’ve taken your toil.
I cannot be but a milk-maid in a Joycean script,
For I am the words that make beauty lift
From the page.
I’m not the bird inside the cage,

Remove yourself from upon my door,
And like the Raven you said nevermore.
Remove your heart from inside my chest,
And you think you can defeat this test.
Remove your pain, from out my life,
I promised you once, but I’ll never be your…

Persistence is key, that’s all you know.
Forget the Raven, and I’ll let you go.

the brilliance of the darkness
served only to annunciate
the loudness of the passing silence

While the pervasiveness of the defeated idea
continues to occur in self-[a.s.s].embly lines
The nano utilizes a scope of micro to flesh out the macro

Simultaneous non-being
duly correlates to the emptiness of the tao’s ***-shaped,quantum hat
Possibility is endless, until you enlist knowledge as your retainer
The origin of all particular things is lost
through the knower being zenly slapped,

I just would have loved to help schroedinger's cat
pur.........
what a *****, he wouldn’t even open the box to check her.

Dear ∞ this is my letter to you while I let her be bound in quite comfortably in lazer-light leather.

The chaos of history
Where we try to find patterns that quickly crumble, where fear of *** is a constant
Fear of free thought is constant
Regret after war is constant
To find organizations of prejudice under the euphemism of protection is constant
Inequality has been constant. I cannot think of a time in history where hierarchy has not existed. This doesn't mean it couldn't ever exist
Perhaps if our empathy was increased by our tools for expression, there would be more equality, if feelings were so out in the open that they couldn't possibly be ignored
That politicians lie for support is a constant

Given these constants, why do we continue to lament?  Because we dream of an ideal, somehow, because we are dis satisfied with what is put in front of us, because as scholars we criticize, why can't we accept?  The individual makes a choice to live for change because he sees the possibility, but he finds that his honesty is misinterpreted and reinterpreted by the ***** to fit an ideal that never was, that the maytr becomes inhuman, a lie of pure soul that was far from the truth of, how perceptions change naturally and the idea of change may be an illusion

That Gandhi did not liberate India, but rather shifted the tides in the right direction as a performer, a martr, that the liberation of India happened on it's own. That a man cannot change the world, but live his life in his own ideal image of it, which influences but does not actually change,

I want to run away from my own thinking
It gets carried away from me, and suddenly I am a victim, or perhaps my self pales in comparison to my emotion, like a small child gazing at the golden gate bridge on a dark night a he huddled in his think windbreaker, it is a hopeless cause, that emotion is as real as any rational thought, that there is no real distinction, the idea that everything is about *** except for ***, *** is about power, but emotion is not about power, it is from a scours that is beyond the animal, it is absolutely an completely human and alien to the natural world, I am pale to the comparison of this life, and my emotion drives my passion, and in my rational mind I am hungry for food and drink and for power, rationality, the animal instinct, that I fear death when I am rational, how pathetic and now time consuming and how completely undeserving of the following feeling of pervasiveness, that I am capable of anything and death is my fate no matter what my choosing, oh, I will choose the former every time, until my rationality dies, yes I will go gently into that good night

I weep and I beg, please take me away
I weep and I beg, please take me away
I weep and I beg, please take me away
I weep and I beg, please take me away

I'll take all of those terrifyingly gorgeous photographs of you
just to cut them into pieces
and use them like paint.

That is me pulling your visage
down from the heights only
to confuse it with the dirt.

It is also me showing you that
the pervasiveness of your form
is never lost on me.

Every particle, entangled.

I don't need to see you.

You will make a science of yourself
before me and I will ask,
"why?"

I drew your viscera by candlelight
before I ever watched you avert
your eyes from mine.

I wept while shrines built in your name were pulled to the earth, your disciples chanting as they bloomed black into the hungry sky.

Every particle, entangled.

"Seen" is a stupid term.

Although I am still seemingly
bound to it's use because of
every single one of you.

the pervasiveness of this type of grief
is hard to comprehend: it's debilitating.
it's the first thing you think about when you wake up,
and it eats at you at varying levels of pain, and anger,
and sadness throughout the day.

onto year two.
jimmy i miss you.

© Matthew Harlovic

I still remember him
his skin a shade of black
eyes off kilter
his red and white stick
propped between his knees.
But here we were in the same group
so I had to look at him
listen to part of his life.
He had the beginnings of a smile
but an overall sense of sadness
as if part of him was in rebellion
against his blindness.
If I had passed him on a sidewalk
I would have wanted to look away
to avoid dealing with his reality
and my own.

Not wanting
or unable to notice
the hole in someone’s life or vision
seems so normal.
After all, we can only take in so much
from moment to moment.
But it’s so easy for me to escape
knowing the pervasiveness
of my own blindness.

I appreciate it
if you are empathetic
enough to relate to
the pains of others.

But, I have seen such barrenness
in the field of human empathy
for quite some time, and though I
have learned to enjoy my life
despite the tragedy that paints this world,
the pervasiveness of apathy
towards what should be our shared humanity
still haunts me terribly.