do your lungs fill with moths girl,

are you made only

of midnight hours

or does the sun also shine

in those hollow bones?

are you happy little girl,

or have your veins sunk

and hid beneath the creaking floor?

is there dust under your eyes

that makes you weep

and scream at night?

are you lonely child,

does it break your heart

to have lost so much?

or are you tired

of not finding what

you were meant to have?

tell me, my love

why have you lost the will to feel

have you misplaced the pieces

that make you stand on two feet?

come here child,

no one will judge

I know that your insides

are twisted and bend

I know that you struggle

because you have given up

shhh, no need to speak

I know that for now

and for some time more

you will remain

feelingless

and that’s alright

now for those short breaths

that leave you in the flood

of salty tears

that’s also fine

just give yourself a permission

to stop for a while

silence in your soul

is also a thing

a feeling made of whispers

but you’re still there

a little quieter

a little colder

on a break from everything

but still you

still so you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-mj-2SVMG4

I can bend steel!!

My calloused fingertips,

Are just senseless.

I open the paperclip,

And it yields,

I carefully straighten all the curves,

It’s nothing.

The metal feels hot,

But it does not sear.

I bow and curve and loop.

Twist the lines into shapes.

The kids love them

Giraffes, flowers, cars, transformers.

All just the st

eel I bent.

Thin rebar in a cardboard box.

Plastic coated at times,

Though I prefer the rawness,

Of the pressed alloy,

Snaking between my fingers.

Don’t need a welder’s arc,

I splice mine by sheer pressure.

Done, it stands firm,

Until it’s given as a prize,

For the best notebook.

I look in the mirror and

This pale faced person

Looks back with wide eyes

And it looks like me but since

When was I pretty or

Sparkling with life

Cause I've always been just

Someone just

Anyone

A face in a crowd

And I'm not all that pretty

But I look at myself

And I realize I am

Who I am

And I like this person

Here

And I don't understand

The people that

Leave me

The people that

Don't see me

Is it me

My fault for not

Holding onto them

Or is it them?

Cause I know

I'm something

More than just another

Human body that wanders

Around

I'm a girl that

Wants and feels

Even when they think

I don't

I am something and I know

I am worth it and

I know that I deserve this

And I know

That you are worth it

Too

None see me, for I am a sneaky devil, reveling in the cycles of this earth. My pleasure is to stoop beneath the roots of trees, to tickle the roof of the sky, to remodel and revise.

I am the Artist. King of artists. The one who paints the leaves. I start by selecting a tree – oh, how I adore the maples and cannas, such perfect canvases – then scurry up the bark. By blowing gently on the stems, I plant seeds of splendor in their veins. Soon... they will be mine.

How glorious my destructive, insidious spirit works! It leaks from a boiling heart and splashes color on those plain, green leaves. Spring has no claim against me! His pastels and swamping greens are pitiful in contrast to the acres of yellow sparks, scarlet blood, and fine dust that I strike into the forests. He despises the alterations to his creations, but oh, how marvelous I make them. Maples, sweetgums, aspens, oaks, sassafras, even the cypress can’t escape my brush.

Those pale creatures that dither here and dither there admire my work. Shivering in my presence, they gaze until their eyes pop out of their skulls. As they should. As they all should. I am the Artist, I am the greatest of everything and everyone – mightier than the blood-and-guts gaze of Summer, more glacial than the height of Winter’s wrath, darker than Death, nimbler than Desert’s bleak winds – I am sovereign!

Burdened with my own magnitude, I grow tired. My shoulders sag under the weight of such magnificence. Effectually, leaves lose their shape, crinkling and crumpling, failing in luster. Like me, they grow tired of glory. The time for rest is nigh, and the leaves can tell. Clutching onto branches and battling the winds becomes such a chore... until, ultimately, they release their tiny, wrinkly hands and swirl to the ground.

That is how I paint the leaves. I make them beautiful, brilliant enough to blind the sun, then destroy them. Trees are left naked from my meddling, and Spring sulks for many moons, while I, for one, dance amongst the trees’ garb.

Yet, I am exhausted, oh, so very exhausted. My mischief is the best, and as the best, the hardest prize achieved. Now I shall rest. A cushion of leaves for my pillow, I, Artist of Nature, bury myself deep in the earth, dreaming of future’s patterns and promises. My kingdom shall await my reign.

Let me preface synopsis of self with a poetic epistle (hopefully such poetic license acceptable viz this non-friction category) before delving into the heart (of darkness) asper this bipedal hominid, the apotheosis sans earth, wind and fire.

Notice Hubble depleting air supply and whip lashing apathy annihilating will to live, thus forever suspending me as still thirteen and thirsting to taste and touch a youth untouched by fiery passion – so:

despite forty six birthdays elapsed

since uber cataclysmic eruption

rent asunder psyche, an internal maelstrom

wrenched worthiness-pitting mien as blunder

bulldozing with razorblades

former childhoods end

wondrous glee raising suicide

quiet riotous ambition, a painfully slow

(self starvation) mine inexorable ride

which chronological frieze kept hog-tied

and hide bound this one grown male

dredging haunting spectre – where

to be gratefully dead – within Elysian dale

youngest o me two female progeny

segued untrammeled ten plus nineteen years

on February fourth two thousand eighteen

triggered flashback to wretched tears,

sans insidious roiling jagged stone shredding/

thwarting desire to lyft motive to be alive

shockwaves extant to this day -

no matter long since recovered from nose-dive

dog gone emotional, psychological

& social repercussions

hound me present mental state

indelible permanent scars (per anxiety, panicky,

quirky tics) seem never to abate

try as I might to shake free

from the riptide affects

that drowned this boy to grow

he experiences, an especially perilous remembrance

of abysmal infernal woe

when thee second punim

o thine two lovely offspring

passed that milestone age

with nary a hint how her papa felt

life locked up within abysmal agonizing stage

impossible to forgive permanent harm

inflicted not only on self but searing pain

my late mother & octogenarian father,

whose angst this dada insight re:

did gain from bringing forth progeny,

which years eclipsed at break neck speed

whereby each special daughter

evincing greater sturdiness akin to hardy weed

bound to surpass their dear ole mister mom

permanently branded with ghost

of Christmases past for never knowing

thee potential that burned black toast

and hunger pains even to this day frequently

blithely ignored as if still callous

tempted, lured and baited by hand of death

this grown man wished inxs to kiss.

---------------------------------------------------------

Social anxiety (incorporating the alphabet soup of physiological symptoms i.e. clammy palms, heart palpitation, nausea, vertigo, et cetera) erupted to rent my psyche asunder and forcefully endearing themselves to my being (like dasher, dancer, Prancer, vixen, comet, cupid, dinner and Blitzen) with most every visit to college cafeterias, (an unpleasant effect explaining termination from the umpteen universities i matriculated), especially when hungry hordes (like madding crowds swelling the sea of Muslims practically stampeding their way en route the Hajj) clamored to be fed sustenance or spiritual succor respectively.

Never did this liberal minded scrivener get trampled underfoot, but he experienced physical manifestations entailing great discomfort probably on par with any devout pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Mecca.

Within the labyrinth of this mortal being i.e. christened matthew scott harris, hid unseen live, googly-eyed, earth-linked, mailer daemons that resounded with a quiet riot chorus of their unheard yahoo kindling the trip wire of damned perspiration, laceration (stinging tips of metallic whips and chains) induced hallucination prodding sphincter muscle to go into overdrive vis a vis via defecation, (irritable bowel ran rampant) creating one wreck of a human abomination kept in check from any unsuspecting observer.

This general figurative broad-brush stroke pertaining to the collective soul wrenching episodes does an injustice to panic attacks.

Best for me to winnow thru the quagmire of countless instances to evoke emotional explosion in an effort to engender comprehension, fixation, interrogation (pardon the hyperbolic exaggeration fueling this assay wantonly craving super) layman preservation, than zeroing in on a singular instance.

Little effort required for me to dial back mental chronology and pluck one generic panic attach festooned with the usual attendant coterie of kindling internal microscopic killing machinations swaggering like hotmail fresh off the field of a winning team.

Meal times at college (particularly with the madding crowd of voraciously famished coed undergraduates), the most frequent settings outbursts generated feverishly essentially annihilating any ambition to enjoy a normal peaceful repast (to satiate hunger), the most common environment envision a generic college cafeteria.

About twenty plus three years ago (two + decades spanning mine total of fifty nine birthdays plodding through the pernicious plots per me world wide web) represents the most recent non-voluntary foray into the field of dreaded descent into the domain of all out internal combustion, whereby attrition into no mans land of wretched undulating spasms quaking ole matthew knocked immunization generally enjoyed clinging assiduously to hibernation, meditation, self actualization as self sedation.

Eyelids now temporarily closed to re-envision the nada so salient salad days whence the feeding time instantaneously transformed into frantic frenzy at Kutztown university. While most all other student feasted on the ordinary industrial chow, i felt the grippe ketchup and override excruciating hunger.

Adrenaline coursed thru this measly dry mouthed body (starving to savor the institutional haute cuisine.

No sooner did this then rather bony gluteus maximus became situated at the table (often whereby a quick exit could be made in the predictable panic stricken outcome that pierced and hammered me with gut wrenching agony), the medley of organic constriction of throat re: named near asphyxiation, furious pounding of ma poor heart churning out hormonal secretion sans flight or fight, strong sensation sans regurgitation (despite the likelihood my bowels recently purged per diarrhea courtesy of irritable gastrointestinal stress), disallowed even one morsel to appease thine palette.

Much as waste not want not the coda, ethos, general integrity keeping afloat my dogma, that credo went out the window (with or without the baby and bathwater – plugged pulled so no infant drowned, nor any other animal harmed in the making of this mindful video), the tray of uneaten food left for an employee to discard.

Complete discombobulating disorientation (in tandem with the tried and true trademark tell tale signs of tumultuous ferocious fracas re: Tony the tiger witnessed personal pandemonium, which violent trigger, nonetheless did offer a scant few minutes to gather peanut butter and jelly sandwiched haphazardly slap dashed together, whereby to escape this jam.

Cumulative episodes whence tumultuous shell shocked warring faction repeatedly played itself and affecting escape from this perilous perdition.

The shoals of home (which appeared sweeter than ever) specifically sighted when sitting with pangs of stomach churning aches to eat instead delivered a sentence whereby this anguished author felt himself severely lashed and slavishly held within thine fragile self witnessed withdrawal from campus life (for the umpteenth time) and hence avoidance became the coping mechanism.

Fast forward to the present. Now a cornucopia of pharmaceutical medications keep in check (akin to a mate) and put a lid on susceptibility toward chaotic sensation run amok!

This collective soul (whose esprit de corps rose from thine Heiress house of the rising sun) in fits and starts finally seems closer to psychological nirvana.

Now, now longer does a led zeppelin manacle this Renaissance man from the culture club. He scales the Ashbury heights of ecstasy via pharmacological panacea. He feels indomitable emotional strength to haul in the oats of a misspent youth.

February 28th, 1968 marked the date

Boyce Brandon Harris

(my octogenarian widower father)

purchased a small tract of land Pooh would Winnie

constituting shadowed sliver

once hailing, hallmarking, harkening, glorious vast

"Glen Elm" estate, which circa 1910 encompassed

a hundred plus acres of woodland

(including a pond frequented

by migrating Canadian Geese)

eventually zoned for commercial,

industrial, and residential development

(all in the name of productive land use)

particularly put into motion

courtesy Donald J. Neilson,

who transformed expansive woodland

rivaling shutterfly

sprouting like mushrooms towed stools

booming explosively

after ample precipitation

little houses on the hillside

little houses made of ticky tacky...

popped up overnight

transforming landscape

displacing flora and fauna with vinyl city

(minus spit of property papa bought)

manicured bumped uglies with wild wisp

reduced pristine niche leftover jot haven

squawking disoriented geese instincts

thwarted, where drained wetlands

a Arcadian past suburbanization

overlaying (palimpsest like) rural setting

trademark bucolic print Currier And Ives

stock in trade signature prints

landscape sparse human population

country aire sprinkled with family farms

fresh dairy, produce, vegetables

butchered animals free ranging

without synthetic injections

nostalgia faintly recreated here

Highland Manor Apartments

Schwenksville, Pennsylvania

a slip of country revered

against a Paul Ling urbanization

nothing appears familiar

retracing roadways now major highways

frequent moments breeds alienation

familiar ground confusing,

frightening, and perplexing.

I like the idea of weaving broken mirror throughout and around my paintings. It's an amazing texture not to mention a personal reflection of the idea I hold in my mind, that a part of me is a mirror for others. 

An energy mimic.

An amplifier for the things projected on it..

The thought gives me a smile when I see myself in my art (literally)

When the world around me changes, 

when the heart inside me ages, 

when I look around and all my hopes are bound and tied in cages, 

the magic in my mind, 

can reach through and find, 

a way to agree to love the me

that's wild, free and strange.

You can't be taken seriously,

when yelling the word wimbledot,

and you are only taken seriously,

when yelling the word shraknit.

You must be suspicious,

when someone calls you a fiflet,

or ninclopter,

or gantacter,

It's tough not to be embarrassed,

when saying blamfiztle,

and it's hard to say the word gloopta,

without a pause.

Not to mention the awkwardness,

when someone says flibbit aloud.

Or the confusion around the word,

Jantimickguggetalionous.

Words are so wierd when you don't hear them right.

What did you just say?

Whamtistalioniclite?