Corey Harvard
Corey is a fascinating young poet and musician with an excellent and inquisitve mind. He writes equally well in traditional verse and free verse. Corey resides in southern Alabama, is a past editor of the Oracle, the college literary journal of the University of Southern Alabama, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2009. He is also co-editor of a sonnet anthology which is due to be published this year.
Corey's Poems
Schindler's List
"for the dead and the living, we must bear witness."
- Elie Wiesel
I see the aching words of Elie Wiesel
born in black and white: the metal eyes
of Nazi Germany on Israel,
the numbered numberless, the animalized
who once were men — whose children will not know
the innocence of childhood again —
and still, the falling ash, the burning snow,
the deep, remorseless appetite of sin.
And there am I, entirely, one of them,
lost in the heavy silence of the room
without the power to conquer or condemn
the tyranny, the terror, or their doom.
Too many think of hell and live in fear
of death, and never know that hell was here.
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Could I But Show You
Could I but show you how a word can grow
into a thorn that lodges deep within
the softest places of the hardest men,
you wouldn't be so quick to let one go.
In silences, defenseless and alone,
security and self-esteem descend;
ambitions cease and aspirations bend
in the victims of a fatal verbal blow.
If I could show you how a word can rise -
bring laughter, bring excitement, bring rapport,
bring nations out of poverty and war -
perhaps your speech would seek a different guise.
What problems of this world could be deterred
if we revered the value of a word?
Corey's poems have been widely published and he received a Pushcard Nomination for this poem in 2009.
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We Feel The Silence
We feel the silence on the edge of sleep --
an ache, a stillness that has you and I
both gazing from our windows at the deep.
Unwelcomed doubts arise, routine retreats;
and caught between a sorrow and a sigh,
we feel the silence on the edge of sleep.
Too full of thoughts to dream, too tired to weep,
and nothing in our hearts to tell us why --
we're gazing from our windows at the deep.
Ten thousand stars aren't bright enough to keep
the ache at bay; regardless, how they try.
We feel the silence on the edge of sleep.
With restless souls, we scale the incomplete;
as though a code were written in the sky,
we're gazing from our windows at the deep.
The winds, with wails of Sirens, slowly sweep
an audience of branches side to side.
We feel the silence on the edge of sleep,
still gazing from our windows at the deep.
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House-sitting the Day After
You left your textbook
open-mouthed, pink highlighter
on top
its dry tongue
touching
a stale cup of coffee.
It rained
a fifth grade nose-bleed
that morning
when I found your home
sick with suggestion:
scattered mail on the kitchen table,
knife gutting the body
of an envelope,
and your dog
quiet as December.
I imagine
that the call came
and your throat didn’t find
your voice
but the sound of your gasping
broke like an ambulance.
The curtains
stiffened into steel,
your car door
snapped like that bullet
echoing
still
the house entire:
hand over mouth,
salt on the counter,
towels in the dryer.
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Steeples
There must be hundreds of them
punching holes in the clouds
around my house,
a choir of ivory fingers
declaring without volume,
suggesting without words;
street signs for lost sheep
like me.
How many times
have I longed to be found,
hiding in the shadows
of enlightened obelisks?
Oh quiet God,
if only I could open my flesh
and count the sweat stains
on my soul.
If only I had
a ladder long enough
to plant steeples
on the edge of the atmosphere
and point them down
to earth.
