a bird will crash into the glass
you will look and laugh
and you might not see the crack
you might trip up
and you might fall back
maybe you will look back
see you’ve fallen off the track
wipe the gravel off your face
get up and jump in place

By: Roger Harkness
Oct 9, 2011

Roger Harkness
june 11, 2011

In Hate
They Justify

Let’s love
And let hate and bitterness die
But when we sin
To hate
Gives us a reason why
It lets us justify
Yet, back in the deep woods
The truth lies
A beast we fear
We stay clear
When the light shines
We’ll see
We’ve sinned
With tears in our eyes
We will not be able to justify
Someday
The sun will come
The light will shine
They will find
I was not such a bad guy
With hands held out
I say
Lets love
And let hate and bitterness die
But I bet my hand’s slapped
They say I’ve sinned
I’m not perfect
But it is they
Not I
Who have sinned
And in hate and bitterness
They justify

By: Roger Harkness

Just Have A Drink

If you care
You will be cared for
If you see
You will be seen
If you hear
You will be heard
If you feel
You will be felt
And if you could be just a little understanding
You could be understood a little bit

Love is a river
Watering the ground
It makes things grow
If you want some
Just take a chance
Have a drink
And know
If you won’t
Nothing will happen
You will never grow

By: Roger Harkness

TREES GROW DIFFERENT

By: Roger Harkness

The Odyssey

Everyone is living in these space ships
With no need for food, water or air
It belongs to us
and we don’t share
Should one of these spaceships experience
technical difficulty
The occupant will open the hatch
cry out for help
But no one will be there
No one will care
You take care of yourself
We don’t share
At the bottom are all those who lack
Food, water or air
Don’t go down there
They will rob you without care
It ain’t fair
You take care of yourself
We won’t fall down there
But isn’t it so lonely
No one else but yourself in here
Just flying around, going no where
As much as you may
No one will hear, or see
But someday, we will see and know
that we should have at least shared
Because we’re all gonna crash someday
We’ll have to open the hatch and get out
Honor each other as equal to ourself
Feeling guilty and wondering why we were so lonely
out there
While those who experienced technical difficulties
now judge us in the end

By: Roger Harkness

Paradise

There will be a time
When we will all eat bread
and drink wine
Nobody will be hungry
Nobody will thirst
We will nakedly converse with one another
no-longer lonely
The wind will be still
The sun warm
And the air fresh
Feelings will spill over
And we will play
For now
We cry a little sometimes
Wish to die a little sometimes
It rains a little sometimes
Until what we need to learn ends, in-time
In-time for paradise to begin

By: Roger Harkness

I wrote this poem while I served aboard the USS Suribachi, an Ammo ship, sometime between 1979 and 1981. I wrote this for my father and I can’t remember if I shared this with him or not, but I probably did.

I wrote my father several letters throughout my younger years and he would never answer them and it hurt and he doesn’t know how bad that hurt, because I loved him, and he does not know how much I loved him.

My father did some things that were wrong and my dad had a lot of bad things done to him and I always thought him to be a good man, but like most of us, a sin that cannot allow to rule us, he could not admit that he did anything wrong, he could not say he was sorry. Two words (I’m sorry) that could have changed everything I believed. No, what my father did was first claim that he was an alcoholic and did things he couldn’t help, and then it was allergies, and lastly he claimed to be manic depressive and it was just a couple years after that he died of a lung disease he never knew he had. I had already disowned him, because he was always judging me when he should have been telling me he was sorry. When I visited him he felt he had to read the bible to me hoping that I too would go to heaven. That’s the way it works, when you do something wrong to another and you cannot admit that you did anything wrong, you will then turn it around in your defense and pretend that the other person was wrong.

After my father died, I had a dream that he was calling me on the telephone telling me I had to be more forgiving. And I almost fell for it, praying to God I said, you know my dad might be right and then it occurred to me, wait a minute, why am I wrong, he is the one who hasn’t apologized, you can’t forgive someone until they say they are sorry.