Michael Harty lives and works in Prairie Village, Kansas, where he divides his time between writing and his other profession, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. His poetry has appeared, or will appear, in Pearl, Third Wednesday, Texas Poetry Calendar, New Directions Journal, Still Crazy, and Mused, and has received awards in the Inter-Board Poetry Competition online.
Fall 2011
Table of Contents - Vol. VII, No. 3
Poetry Fiction Translations Reviews
Michael Harty
I see your world approach: a cyberworld
of virtuality, of robot wars
for sport; a world of hothouse boys, and girls
who’ll never see the plain unfiltered stars.
I make a package for you, joys I’ve known
that will be lost to you: the smell of books;
the misted silence of a lake at dawn;
a fresh-plucked peach; how tall-grass prairie looks.
Yet after all, whose pain do I address?
Not yours, for all I thought to save for you,
you will not miss. You’ll fill your own hope chest.
These pleasures, they were mine; their loss is, too.
And so, a lesser valedictory:
be strong, live long, find joy. Remember me.
© Michael Harty
