I keep replaying
Your words in my head

"Don't go,
I'm begging you,
Please stay..."

The broken record torments me
Day and night

I didn't know
It would end like this

I didn't know
How bad it would hurt

I would've stayed up
All night with you
If only I'd known...

Now here I am,
Sitting at your grave
With your voice
Whispering to me
"Please stay..."

The Corps of Discovery was born
The year was eighteen zero four,
To find a way to Pacific waters
From St. Lewis they would explore.

The famed expedition to map the West
Led by Lewis and companion Clark,
New discoveries were vast and plenty
Each mapped a unique historic mark.

A Shoshoni girl helped guide them
Through tribal lands of sage and pine,
In Montana they looked in wonder
At three waters they would define.

Alternately titled: 111th leap year since 1582
the year Pope Gregory XIII world leader
(i.e. essentially paterfamilias among
Roman Catholic flock)
timely maneuvered around calendrical rock
and hard space implementing
viable system tracking years ad hoc
out of sync and lock
step by one day
with astronomical calendar,

Fore score minus xv orbitz ago
from being centenarian
strong contractions forced me
to pass thru cervix,
buck naked bare lady,
I ranked as only grandson sharing
same surname as Aaron,
(mine paternal grandfather)
me the sole heir –
foreshortened to Sol Aire

I show her the poem
with the noisy words
building to a crescendo.

My scribbled paean, foolishly trying
to say these things to her
better than they’ve been said
by others, in ink on paper.

“Maybe I should tone all of this down some?”, I propose.

She smiles and says, “I like the clamor just the way it is.”

Taking station on a crystal dais
of many levels, see them.
These men these over lords
as they stand in judgement,
knowing their every word an uncut gem.

Meting out retribution
for each crime of passion,
to wear a heart on their sleeve
as if it were a statement of fashion.

Case not yet heard for trial,
Specifics have been leaking...
Lawyers calling for mistrial
running from door to door sneaking.

Asia generic guy gastronomy (and how gourmet foods eat destructively clearly beyond any) excess enthusiasm, the necessity to feed and clothe this corporeal essence christened Matthew Scott Harris revels more so within the medium of writing.

In the evening we walk backwards
To nowhere in particular
Collecting shoe stories.

Avenues and alleys blind
Old haunts that no one wants
They remain like a stalker.

Shoes of patent leather pounded
Pavements blister bloody red
Small rocks our shoes collected.
Full of painful pebbles

Tripping and stumbling,
Treading and re-treading.
Regretful and remembering,
Walk right back to the beginning.
Walking backwards all evening
Collecting the Shoe stories.

When the entire mug awash
with floating leavings
by golly by gosh,
sipping said herbal brew
analogous challenge
to eat spaghetti squash
with one chopstick.

Earlier yesterday February twenty fourth
two thousand twenty four
found yours truly (me)
blithely consuming delicious
La COLOMBE DOUBLE LATTE
cold iced latte, complete
with a frothy layer
of milk and a touch of sugar.

Lower gastrointestinal war civil
immediately declared
because yours truly beleaguered
by lactose intolerance.

"Where are we going?" his young daughter asked.

"To cheer up some of my friends," he replied.

"They seem to be a lot of work for you," she offered with concern.

"Yes," he said, “You’re right. The very best kind of work."