Like a week in the desert...

(Uluru, 2015.)

In this space between the space
My heart's a-racing in the human race
In desert sky your face I trace
I'm lost again, without a trace.

Stars so close I can feel them on my skin
Your skin so close I can taste the stars
Howling dingoes the only sound
My blood so red, so red the ground.

So far we've come & yet so close
Close but no cigar
Two strangers in a car
Too close to have come so far.


(For Carrie.)

(c) Brent M Harpur 2017.

"Stripping back the coats of lies and deception
Back to nothingness, like a week in the desert."

Neil Mullane Finn

“The planet’s famous red colour is from iron oxide coating everything.

So it’s not just a desert. It’s a desert so old it’s literally rusting.” 

Dick Weir, 'The Martian'.

"I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain."

Dewey Bunnell

This Fickle Beast...

This fickle beast 

has taken so many bites from me
of late
that I'm barely surviving.
But part of survival, I guess
is knowing which parts & wounds to reveal 
and which to hide.

I have swallowed
so much foolish male pride
(these last few months)
that I now have a permanent stomach ache.

I have heard 
(and ought to learn from your wonderful, wise example)
that there is safety (survival?)

in numbers.

I soldier on,
batten down the hatches 
(whatever that really means) 
and tell myself:
"It's just a Winter thing!"

But that telltale box
of now-unloved
books, kitchen appliances & clothes
(slowly-but-surely growing
in the corner of my living room) reminds me...

This is more than a casual,
early-onset
of Spring cleaning.
Snow and the seasons
(it would appear)
are uneasy to predict with any certainty.

Unlike
my old (yet new) familiar, loyal friend;

change.

(For Sofie & Holly)

(c)Brent Harpur, 2019.

Twin Moons...

(i)
Tonight
I have gobbled the full moon up,
swallowed her whole!
She has become as much
a part of me now
as my fingers,
my heart & skin.

I have become many things over time,
I'll try really hard
to be patient & kind -
it came so much more
naturally to you.

But I guess we become
just as much a part
of the things
we leave behind.

I'll never forget
how easily
our fingers entwined
the first day we met.

I have
lost all reference
of the sky now,

comfortable yet blind.

And what good
are these words
without your flesh or skeleton
to hang them upon?
I offer up your ghost
and your memory
to the moon
that now swims & swirls
inside of me.


(ii)
Gemini moon:
this Winter's night,
she has really split me in two!

But maybe that's her point,
and what she's supposed to do?

Sometimes
words they free us
but mostly
they bind -
I'll try really hard
to be patient & kind.

Yes, I'll try
really damn hard
to be....

Oh. Never mind.

Three nights in,
deep in my stomach
and insides
I can still feel
her lunar blush & pull.

It's all making me feel
a little sick
& extremely hard
(for myself and the tide)
to sleep.

Perhaps, in hindsight,
it wasn't such a wise idea
consuming a celestial body?

But
it was all I could do /
to stop those
nagging thoughts of you!!


(iii)
Should I (again) be blessed,
should a mutual love
(like the rare one we shared)
come visit
or pass this way
once more...

This is my message, for you
so you'll recognise me.
And for others
looking on, lingering:

"I am no longer afraid!"

But I'm a little wiser.
Braver, too.
For
I have swallowed the moon
and (along with her)
fear.

And if you ask me to
I'll try really hard to forget
how easily our fingers
entwined,

on that first day we met.


(c)Brent M Harpur, 29/ 6 /2019.

 (For P. & your wonderful lunar blush.)

"As if you were on fire from within /
 The moon lives in the lining of your skin."
 (Pablo Neruda)