Long Clanked Poems

as the Crystal Mariachis arpeggiate the morning
why do the mighty remain cruel
while we are manning the oars beneath them
they see a tidy world
where mommy wipes their butts
you got your allegory you got your metaphor
plowing the...

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An elephant.
By Stanley Russell Harris

The elephant was so forlorn.
Was in a circus, there was born.
Chained day and night by one foot.
The chain so clanked when moved about.
For ten long years, it was the same.
In the...

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don't even think about it
a bucket of motel ice in the face
proving the thing in itself does not exist
because he registered all the meanings all the time
with a nausea so profound 
the retching never ended
rearranging...

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To her, their apartment was the whole world—a small but cozy place where she felt safe and loved.

It was early morning. She heard her sister squeal with joy hearing that schools would be closed today...

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My big brother is locked away
for taking away a child's innocence
even in prison he can't hide from the shame
it will be something he will always have to live with 
I hope he knows that I...

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From a wide square with an ancient marble fountain,
which borrowed its fresh water
from a nearby, pristine river;
I looked far away...to fix my glance on
the Norman fortress rising on the top
of a barren and steep hill,
that...

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I miss the barn, the hay loft,
a place to listen to the midday sun
creaking through old wood.,
the small clouds of horse flies
moving as one in their jet-pack bodies,
that rose and fell
  their small engines...

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She cried
He died
Many regrets
Growing debts
Nothing really mattered
Threw his ashes off a building, watched as they scattered
She'd felt so guilty
So wretched and filthy
Always denying herself of blame
Her heart dead, its blown out flame
All she ever wanted
Now,...

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Decade of my birth





All Show and No Go,
Ankle biters were Almost Home,
Baby, Ball and Beach bunny,
Brewed bread as Boxes Burnt one,
Even the Bad pipes Bagged some food for the brain,

Chilled the Cat as Chrome dome...

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Through the pane we could react to a future
  Held under the brightest star
  In a sea glaze mass of imperfection.
At the back,
 the harbor clanked and toiled our youth away.
Nights so careless...

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Dry Months


A Dracula drought drank soil’s blood,
in spring and clouds refused to shed
their load of collected sorrow before
the middle of October.

The landscape jaundiced and leaves on
trees petrified into rusty bits of metal
that clanked abjectly in...

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Johnathan, Innsley, Marie, and Paul ---
Tom, Trish, Bea, and Jack:  all of them.
Black, white, asian; Jew, gentile, zen...
Sex, art, love, mores revolved,
entering ever-shallower circles of discovery.
Clear ice cubes clanked on glass;
religion, sex, quality imported...

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She swayed with her head hung over
The buggy that clanked down the street
And I wondered...the will that drove her
As she walked without lifting her feet

Pushing...her tattered life in a kart
Her eyes fixed...in a frozen stare
Was...

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Then
When living lived and life just..
it was then
and then beers clanked happy anger cheers..
and then we loved how we loved
and promised and primped to make each other swell with pride and
Then we slipped and laughed...
and...

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