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

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)

In Every Star A River...

"In Every Star, A River."


I know I could never love you
the way the river loves you,
 
But should you gather enough of these words together
they may begin to resemble the heat & the light of a star.

Distant, yet warm / fierce & forlorn.

I no longer seek love,
Its memory is now enough
to warm me through Winter.

Streetlights, they may strip us both of starlight
but beyond blue, behind these closed lids
they're still there.

Time and distance will never take that away from us.

They still continue to shine.
Indeed,
they sometimes shimmer & shiver / 

I remember now
a time (long ago or yet to come?):
when I moved inside you,

like a river.
 
(for E.)

(c) Brent Harpur, August 2018.

Photo (c) Sarah Birchall 2018.

 "We are all... Children of this universe. Not just Earth, or Mars, or this System, but the whole grand fireworks."
Ray Bradbury

“Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful.”
L.R. Knost

like driftwood...

 

And on days such as these
I'd swim out to you if I could /
Feelin' low on high seas,
the bones in my legs like driftwood.

Every rock on this beach has a story to tell,
just like every grain of sand / Tell me, what do I have to do to break this spell
when love doesn't go as planned?

Bless you for giving this blind man back

his eyes / 

And the ocean doesn't roar, my friend:

it sighs!

and if I pick up every shard

of broken paua shell

I find on the beach,

perhaps I can use them all

to piece back together

this shattered heart?

(c) Brent Harpur, 2016.

“Little islands are all large prisons; one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.” 

(Richard Francis Burton)

“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.” 

(William James)