childhood slowly returning // varying ghosts...

Late at night:

If you press your forehead
hard against the cool car window glass,
you can feel
the stars' slight fever-fire,
crackle & sparkle,
gently burning.

But all the houses & streetlamps
are a little too bright
to notice the
constellations & planets
slowly twisting,
unfurling, churning.

But by dawn's
first early purple light,
you will bear witness to the finest
of Venus' miracles,
yearning.

And your innocence,
magic and
childhood
(reflected in her
 soul, body, shower song
 and eyes):

Are slowly, surely
returning. 

***

I curse
these ghosts
that still haunt
my sheets
and bed,

and
sometimes
my dreams, too.

But I really miss
the ghost
that used to sing loudly 
in my shower...

And leave all her
wonderful shit
& family photographs
strewn about my
living space & bedroom. 


(c) Brent Harpur, 2015.

"Love me two times, then go away!!" (Jim Morrison, The Doors.)

“A photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second." (Salman Rushdie)

magic, part six...

Lying here together
 (under the milky way)
 in your little blue tent /

Every goosebump
  upon your perfect body:
  It was heaven-sent!


(c) Brent Harpur, 2015.

"Forever is composed of nows." (Emily Dickinson)

"We are stardust, we are golden. And we have to find our way back to the garden." ('Woodstock', Joni Mitchell)



   

half a lifetime ago...

Half a lifetime ago

(or was it just yesterday?)

I was twenty three years old.

I had so much love to give...

But I was probably looking

in all the wrong places.

(then again,

it was probably

right under my nose.)

I was crippled by

shyness & homesickness.

I hated my eyebrows.

I didn't realise the power

of my art

or my poetry...

...but I wrote & drew every single day.

'Ramble On' by Led Zeppelin

was a sacred scripture

written just for me.

Jimmy's mandolin strummed

at my very heart & soul,

like angel wings.

I cried. And often.

(but secretly knew

 somewhere deep inside

 that being vulnerable was a strength)

I didn't call my mother

as much as I should have.

I didn't realise how much

they worry about you.

I started to

face up to the childhood monsters

(and wasn't ashamed

 to ask for help with this).

I ate too much chocolate,

slept alot

and hated to exercise. 

I had so much doubt and yet so much ambition.

Every week I tried to do one thing that scared me.

I wanted to be Dr. Seuss when I grew up.

I believed in magic.

I looked after my friends,

and tried to always keep in touch.

And I was in love with Tilda Swinton.

So much

has changed.

And yet...

Nothing at all has changed.

But I am beginning

to love my eyebrows.

(c) Brent Harpur 2015.

"The only things worth living for are innocence & magic." (David Gray)

How did any of this happen...? (the lost blog post)

How did any of this
happen?

How does this ever

happen?

I certainly didn't plan any of this.

Let alone 
anticipate it.

It just (well)
happened.

And it doesn't usually happen
like this.

Not for me.

Usually,
it is very simple:

I am in love,
or I am
not.

All. Or. Nothing.

Seldom
an in-between.

But with you
my dear

it was very different.

Right from the start.

With you,
there was immediate

trust.

And when,

two days later
you asked me

"Do you love me?"

And I replied:

"Yes. I think I do."

I have never been so sure
of anything in my entire life.

And then you said:

"I love you, too."

We made love,
saw god in each other's faces
& souls.

And at that point,
my world,
my entire universe

cracked open.

I didn't realise it at the time
(but then again, perhaps I did)

that nothing
would ever be the same.

Ever.

Again. 

There would be
two defining points
in my life from that moment.

Before I met you.
And
everything
after
those first two words
you said to me:

"Don't disappear."

Now,
nearly three months on
there is no
all or nothing.

I've spent a mere
eighteen days
at your side.

And
alone & together
I have barely known you

for (less than)
twelve weeks.

And yet.

And yet.

I feel like
you & I have known each other
forever.

And in such
a short time
my dear

I think you may know me
better
(certainly more about me)

than anyone else I know
on this entire planet.

How did any of this happen?

The last eight days
we were together in the desert,

even the times when we
lost each other:

I found myself
falling even more
in love with you
that I already was.

A little more
every day.

I've never experienced this before. 

A love
multiplying,
growing little by little by little.

I have never felt this before.
I want you to know I am not afraid.

Is this what it really means
to love,
& to be loved?

I am in uncharted waters.

I am completely
out of my depth here.
I am once more in the water-hole
with you, trusting you.
Skinny-dipping for the first time.

Despite my blindness,
driving a car for the first time.

Seeing shooting stars
with someone else
for the first time.  

How did any of this happen?
What comes next??
When will I see you again???

Nothing is certain.
But this "tremendous" heart

wants
(needs?) you to know
one thing.

That last night we were together.

At four am,
when I woke up
and sobbed so many tears.

And you held me.
Comforted me.

I just want
you to know...

These were not tears
that came from knowing
that later
that same morning
we were
due to part.

No. 

These were tears
that came from knowing:

I had finally...

(certainly for the first time
in nearly eight years,
perhaps forty-six years
or a thousand?)

...found someone
I felt safe enough
to let it all 
come flooding out
with.

And
to just

cry.

Be vulnerable. 

Just knowing

I was with someone...

Someone I trusted.

Someone who would hold me,
protect me.

And love me.

I just wanted to tell you that.

And now you know. 

(thank you)

How did any of this happen? How did any of this happen??

I don't know.

All I know
(with any certainty at all)
is this,

my dear:

I am so glad,
so delighted

that it has
happened
with

you.



(c) Brent Harpur 2015. 

 

“The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.” (J.M Barrie)

“Pan, who and what art thou?" he cried huskily.
"I'm youth, I'm joy," Peter answered at a venture, "I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg."

(J.M. Barrie)

“The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.” (Willie Nelson)

Footnote:

This poem was originally posted (and then promptly unposted a day later) on 21/4/2015. (Stop censoring yourself, Brent!!)

 

Fifteen Things I Have Come to Realise, In Her Absence...

Fifteen things I have come to realise, 
in her absence... *

* (in no partlcular order)

15. The Dr Seuss book 'Oh the Places You Will Go' will always sound best when read to you aloud & in an American accent.

14. When I eat mandarins, I get erotic thoughts.

13. Bruce Springsteen's 'Born to Run' album has become the unofficial soundtrack to my life.

12. Autumn is the most beautiful Season.

11. Kindred spirits & soul mates are generally not to be found on a crowded beach or in a noisy bar. **

10. When it comes to matters of the heart, I am a complete beginner.

9. Neil Gaiman and pumpkin soup cannot cure a bad case of "missing someone blues". However, they can come damn close.
(PS Patti Smith is the sexiest woman alive!!)

8. Even a chocoholic can get sick of chocolate.

7. Crickets & tree frogs can rival the beauty of birdsong.

6. When I grow up, I still want to be Han Solo.

5. Hand-written love letters from someone you love are the best thing in the entire Universe!!

4. Dragonflies have become more significant now than butterflies.

3. True friends allow you to feel sadness or disappointment. ***

2. Magic exists.

1.The Beatles were right: "Love is all you need."


** (unless the bar is hosting a poetry event.)
*** (or extreme homesickness.)


(c) Brent Harpur, 2015.

"Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone for others. Unfold your own myth." (Rumi)

"Just wrap your legs around these velvet rims & strap your hands across my engines." (Bruce Springsteen)

King's Creek (Watarrka Kuningka)...

I stand here

in reverence & silence,

here in Nature Mother's cathedral.

The birds, flies & crickets

unite as one choir,

singing their songs

& hymns of praise.

Above me, 

canyon walls from

time immemorial

(20,000,000+ human years)

look down on me

like ancient, sacred

stainglassed windows.

Looking up at them,

I feel reflected

back at me

my very soul.

Is this the

"wild life"

Brother Billy 

referred to?

I close my eyes,

& in the silence I hear

the tiny flap flap flapping

of butterfly wings;

of birds' hearts

beat beat beating

beneath feathered chests;

& tree frogs' eyes

blink blink blinking.

The red soil that stains

my boots and clothes

has seeped into my

sweat and skin.

Wind hisses through trees,

stirs something

deep inside my core,

my very essence & being.

I can now feel
the red soil

inside my veins,

my bloostream.

I feel it silently

traveling up up upwards

to my open, waiting
(wanting?) heart.

I have become one

with this sacred site now.

My heart, my insides,

my very cells & dna,

they all fill
with nature
& with rapture.

I am alive.

I am alone. Yet not.

The sky splits open

in the most intense blue

I have ever seen

- even in dream.

I am here.

Here in the

deafening silence.

And for the

second time

in six weeks:

I see god.

 

(c) Brent Harpur 2015.

“The desert, when the sun comes up... I couldn't tell where heaven stopped and the Earth began."

(Tom Hanks) 

“I asked him if it were a mirage, and he said yes. I said it was a dream, and he agreed, But said it was the desert's dream not his. And he told me that in a year or so, when he had aged enough for any man, then he would walk into the wind, until he saw the tents. This time, he said, he would go on with them."

(Neil Gaiman)

Uluru, Pt. 1...

ULURU...

Tear open my skies!!

In a sacred place where blood-like soil bleeds into my soles & soul, bless me with new eyes;

I am so small, so insignificant, a tiny grain of sand in an alien landscape...

I am so, so far from home, & yet: And yet I am home.

Home in the company of a friend & stranger I have known for fourteen days & a thousand years.

Home with a special someone who leads me without leading, who gives me so so much without giving.

A gentle, kindred flame wise beyond her years.

Who, like you, Uluru:

Gently tears open my skies, & offers me:

The sacred fires of poetry,
of nature,
of innocence & wisdom,
of trust...

And
LOVE.


(c) Brent Harpur 2015.

 "After nine days I let the horse run free / 'Cause the desert had turned to sea."
 (America, 'The Horse With No Name'.)

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams..."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)