Sunday, August 29, 2021

Untitled...

 

Is this poetry or blood that I feel coursing through my veins??
I long to feel you once more, curled deep inside my shape the way wet sand holds a shell. I wake to find you gone. Mere dream or memory. But where you once were, your faint spiral impression still stains my pillow and shore.
I rise, try carefully not to wake the house, foolishly forgetting for a moment that I live alone. In the dim light, photographs of distant friends line the top of my piano. Dust coats glass, but not the smiles & memories trapped underneath.
There are tiny, silent ghosts living (in only ways ghosts can live) in-between these black & white keys. But sadly, no amount of pleading or savings can conjure up a piano-tuner during level four lockdown.
I close the lid in an attempt to capture the ghosts for another time. But, even in the dark, I can still faintly hear their beauty, as they quietly move about and compose; a little like tinnitus, the hum of fridge or a hot water cylinder rumble.
I long instead for the comfort & familiarity of birdsong. But it’s a long wait until dawn. My clock on my mobile reads 11:11. And, for now, that brings me the solace I seek.
Perhaps it does for you, too?
Stepping outside, the night air is so still I can hear my heart beat beat beating in my ears. Earlier, I felt guilty for squandering the first day of Spring. So now, while the rest of the world sleeps, I can savour (instead) the season’s first night. In the dark, I can just make out the faint blur & glow of daffodils along the fenceline. My feet start walking towards them.
Glancing skyward, I stop. The stars warmly greet me. From this earth-bound perspective, they are many. And reassuringly close together. And for a moment, I feel less alone. I remind myself that, up there, they are coldly distant from one another. Not close at all, despite all the songs they sing & stories they share with one another. Billions upon billions of soul-like suns... Being born, humming, dancing, burning, collapsing, dying; but desperately, disarmingly and coolly unaware of each others’ heat.
I feel sad. I shudder. Not from the cold but longing. For a fleeting moment I force myself to remember your forehead pressed against mine. Not so much skin on skin but soul on soul. I still believe this, even now. Fingers that perfectly interlocked. Limbs & lips & sex that all effortlessly became one.
I blink, return to the present moment. Mere seconds (or perhaps thousands of years) have passed. I wipe away a solitary tear, try to refocus on the stars. They seem a little sharper now, appear almost to shimmer and swing. From a distance, yet still so close.
From a distance, you’re still so close.
I open my mouth & inhale star-cold air. And with it, you. I can feel the cosmic swell as it quickly fills my lungs. Holding my breath, I speak out loud the word “wonderful”... Even without your accent, I can feel its perfect syllables. They roll and tumble about inside my mouth and against my teeth & tongue. I exhale. Slowly. Deliberately. I smile. A smile I feel deep within my very soul. I am still grateful. That it happened. That you happened. That I happened upon you. And that we happened.
I close my eyes. Seeing by intuition alone, I reach down in the darkness. My fingers gently close around a stem. Like only the colour green can feel, it is damp to the touch. Gently, quickly, I pluck a solitary golden daffodil. I raise it toward my face. Yellow fills my vision. I hold it closely to my nose and breathe in deeply of its earthy scent and ancient song...
In this tiny moment, I am (again) truly alive. Starlight and dust burn inside my chest, my poorly vision turning to gold. For this is not poetry or blood coursing through my veins...
...but constellations!!

(c)Brent M Harpur
28/8/2021.

"Your vision becomes clear when you look inside your heart. Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens." Carl Jung

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Fridge Magnet Poetry, #174...



i.
The slow men sleep
but they feel fierce Spring too.
Me, above
drunk on animal breath.
You were so frantic with life.
I sing from this bed in pleasure,
make do with her little flicker of night.
Please!
Gimme away, as you do...
To the white, smooth, enormous sea.

ii.
Let no symphony recall
of black shadow.
Their goddess arose after Summer.
You, woman, who are
rock (almost feather)
can only:
Shower,
dress,
chant,
fly away.

iii.
But he is
of his place.
Yes,
they are ready as a dog
that must cry through ecstasy.

(c)Brent M Harpur, 2020.

"I hope, or I could not live." HG Wells



Thursday, July 30, 2020

Just for one day...


 "I, I could be king. And you, you could be my queen."
David Bowie

I have given up trying to explain or define this unique blessing / curse that is my eyesight. This gift I wish I could share with all my dearest friends & family. And yet, simultaneously I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy... last thing at night, I remove my glasses, what little vision I do have plunges into a spinning kaleidoscope of colours & intense (think impressionist painting or out-of-focus photograph) fire and intensity.
Every day environment, furniture & objects transformed into swirling Van Gogh like stars... Reaching out clumsily, more by intuition & memory, I put (throw?) my eyewear on my bedside table, all the world a swirl & a blur. I snatch one last up close & too personal glance at my mobile phone, to check the time. flick off my lamp (once again by memory more than overrated sight).... And: for thirty seconds, my mobile phs blue light throws a final, last-ditch upward afterglow onto the blur of contents on my table. A unique, comforting last blurry snapshot of colour and visual beautiful confusion. And then. abruptly, finally: night. Darkness.Tired, weary eyes slowly close, in search of, in hope for: sleep. Or, even better, to dream...


Two weeks into lockdown, I brought into the sanctuary & security of my bedroom (and included on my bedside table, amongst a collage of post-surgery pills, asthma sprays, eye drops, chocolate wrappers, solitary candle,
 eyewear, tiny vase with a fresh flower stolen from my front garden, glass of water). I add to this tiny jumbled array of flotsam & jetsam universe a framed photograph. taken of you & I on one of my (many) fiftieth global birthday parties... 
It still amazes me (to this day) that such a tiny, cheap & poorly-made picture frame, matt board & glass could (somehow! a miracle!!) contain such an immense & all-encompassing, giant, pure Leo heart
as big as yours.
Perhaps the biggest and most purest of heart in all the world? Yes, my sight may be frustratingly limited & incomplete. But I see some things in this world (the important things) that no one else will ever see. Well, not in quite the same way I do, anyway. But in this small stand alone example, more blessing than curse,
now the Afterglow blur before darkness, last thing I see (wrong word, find another later perhaps, in edit)
before darkness: a warm purple & blonde & flesh-tone blur. Perhaps this is it? your giant (invisible to all but me, perhaps?) one in seven billion heart... Is this what pure, unadulterated & true love (grown in distance, apartness, not close geographical proximity) looks like? A love so big & so strong it could illuminate
& cure and light up & set on fire this broken world...

Then. Once more. Darkness. I close my eyes. Once more seeking slumber. But I still continue to see & feel your warmth, your smile, your maji, in my mind's eye. I hold it there for as long as I can.
Goodnight beautiful Leo. 
  I hope for the briefest of moments, you too can share (distant yet close) my unique blessing & way of seeing.
A blur of love, yearning, nostalgia, mystery and the great unknown). I wish I could find & accompany you in the sleep that follows, in the luxury of a mutual dream... but a cocktail of pandemic & pain medication may not allow this sweet, just out of reach (but hoped for all the same) luxury... I'm SO sorry (in hindsight, in all this Covid-19 madness and uncertainty) that I missed your 40th Birthday celebrations in 2019. But (zombie apocalypse or crazed American President-induced Armageddon, withstanding), I promise in nine short years (on this new, as yet unrevealed) world we're all headed towards, I will be there for your 50th, like you were there for mine. This tyranny of distance & fickle artist income won't keep us apart. And with Bowie's voice & saxophone blazing in our ears & hearts, we'll burn up the dance floor. Please: All I ask of you is this... Don't be afraid to let this blind man lead. And just for a moment (or a lifetime), with Heroes spinning on the turntable
as our magic movie soundtrack moment, I'll show you this (more blessing than curse) way I have of seeing...

My 2020 vision.

Happy 41st Birthday, A!

"Put on your red shoes & dance the blues." David Bowie

(c) Brent M Harpur 2020.

(Originally written: 3AM, 8/5/2020.)

Monday, April 20, 2020

Call and Respond 11:11



I'm pleased for the flush. The words. The the the, I cannot find the words. Please be kindly. Eased from the blush: If you can't find the words,
settle for songs of birds. Lead me, blindly.

In this distance, I will hold you close.


(c) Holly Lee Philipson & Brent Harpur,
April 2020.

"When I don't write, I feel my world shrinking.
I feel I am in prison.
I feel I lose my fire and my colour.
It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing."
Anais Nin



Sunday, April 5, 2020

This WaterSign would be more than content...


Here. Here, at a time when a lot of people in the world are frightened, dumbfounded, lost for words. I am thankful for the writers and the poets, whose outflowing of words, of wisdom; like water to cleanse and awaken us, they sate our thirst & moisten parched lips. I cast aside my umbrella, as a gentle, persistent rainfall brings our deserts and our gardens back to life again. Refilling our riverbeds and our lakes, helping us find our way back to the sea. I will add these mere droplets, tiny words of mine, to the universal ocean. And I will watch, with reverence and wonder, as the tides slowly rise. Today, for the first time since moving into my new home, I can hear the gasp, hiss and roar of the sea. Her ancient song, language and call, it enters me. I am soaked through, but born a-new. I feel her waves and her tide churn & froth deep inside me; healing me, healing the world. I am one. We are all one, with the flood. Tears & saltwater are now one & the same. I no longer wish to breathe underwater. I no longer yearn or learn to swim, dive or sail. No. In this new world we are hatching,
this Water-Sign would be more than content:

Just to breathe. And sigh.
Deeply, like the sea.
(-for W & H.)
(c)Brent M Harpur, 5/4/2020.

"In the thunder-crash / we're a million minds within a flash." Peter Gabriel, 'Here Comes the Flood'.
“Little islands are all large prisons; one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.” Sir Richard Francis Burton
“I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.” Bram Stoker, 'Dracula'.

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Begin Again...

 

There in the fire
deep in the flame
I see your face
I remember your name.

Distant yet close
in isolation
it's true
we're all losing (a little) our mind /
But please, all I ask
(in difficult moments)
is that we don't lose
our ability to be kind.

And there in the fire
deep in the flame
May we burn away our fears
our hurts & our shame.

A new world's a-coming,
and in the absence of cars, aircraft
 birdsong
it'll return /
Spiders will be welcomed back into our homes,
ancient rituals and songs
we'll re-learn.

For there in the fire
deep in the flame
May we never lose hope
we can begin
again.

Yeah, there in the fire
deep in the flame
When all else is ash...
Love will remain.

(-for W.)

(c)Brent M Harpur, 30/3/2020.

"It's the end of the world as we know it [it's time I spent some time alone] and I feel fine. Fine."
(Michael Stipe/r.e.m.)

April Fool Lockdown Blues, Part One...


In these desperate times,
none of us (really) have anything to lose /
So much to gain, perhaps
and if we're really lucky, a distant muse?

And all of this ought to come as
no surprise :
Some of us will be reduced to ash,
scattered in wind
And others,
we will rise.

Try to stay strong, dear.
It won't be long, dear.
I close my eyes, think of you.
And if I'm thinking of you,
you're right here in my bubble with me, too.

In my mind, my heart
(on the other side of this ocean)
I can see that tiny spot - you know the one,
just behind your knees /
Like the wind I will gently blow on it
& find you humming,
like the re-appearing bees.

And when all this is over,
when all of this is through /
I'm going to try real hard
to find a way back to you. 


(-for a distant muse.)

(c)Brent M Harpur, 1/4/2020.


"Oh, that I could shrink the surface of the world,
  so that suddenly I might find you standing at my side."  Wang Chien