M. L. Hartman spends his days moonlighting as an advertising/marketing consultant and president of Scribe, Inc.,
cranking out integrated marketing campaigns laced with poetry. His poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Slipstream, Margie, Rosebud and Cairn, among others. Hartman lives with his wife and three children in the hills of New Jersey.
A Valley Road
Along the valley road there
are no streetlights glowing soft
like dandelions about to die.
I remember driving in late
autumn with Cole Porter
playing non-stop on a station
Kim found by accident. As I passed
the horse farms I saw broken
split-rail fences, stone walls, antique
tractors, each just a flash of color
then an outline fading to grayscale
as my headlights pulled me closer
to my home near the green lake
and the naked trees together in
warmth and decency. It got colder
as I moved farther up the mountain,
north out of the valley. I pulled
the last drag of smoke from
my cigarette, then watched
the orange sparks hammered
out in my rearview, reminding me
I had been this way once before.
M. L. Hartman spends his days moonlighting as an advertising/marketing consultant and president of Scribe, Inc.,
cranking out integrated marketing campaigns laced with poetry. His poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Slipstream, Margie, Rosebud and Cairn, among others. Hartman lives with his wife and three children in the hills of New Jersey.