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)

 

at the very beginning of time...

I was there,
at the very beginning of time:

When the red earth,
it cracked & chipped;

When the universal curtain
ripped;

And when the wings
of all the birds
were clipped.

But now,
all I remember:

Is that my worldly possessions
(by sea)
were shipped;

And a day
in May

when your poker-face,
it (finally)...

Slipped.


(c) Brent Harpur, 2016.

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” (Rumi)

self joy (like Spring) eventually returns...

I am out walking to an art opening...
Seeing all the bats circling in the deepest blue night sky, my heart sings!!

I walk past a gate, where a little boy is holding tightly onto his Dad... He is pointing into the air, shouting at the top of his toddler lungs: "That's a bat!! That's a bat!!!"

As I walk by the bat-watchers, his gaze breaks from the sky to me.
He points in my direction, excitedly, and exclaims to his father and the rest of the street:

"That's not a bat!!!"

I laugh, and without looking back, flap my arms, slowly, deliberately, like a bat...

Mere minutes have passed. At the tram stop, I glance up at the night sky again.
But, alas, it is now too dark. I see no more bats. 

The joy of the moment has passed.
But as I think of the small boy and the look on his face,
as he watched the bats circling overhead,
I smile.

The night sky may have eaten all the bats now...
But deep inside
this forty-six year old boy,

the joy remains.


(c) Brent Harpur, 16th October 2015.

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” (Albert Einstein)

“The earth has music for those who listen.” (George Santayana)

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” (Margaret Atwood)

the magic in the small...

In my part of the world, it is Spring now
And in yours, it is Fall /

Perhaps it was a dream (or I imagined it),
Did it really happen at all? /

It's not the big things I remember now.

You taught me
to see
the magic in the

small.


I miss you and every day,

Whether you want me to
or not! /

It was so easy 
falling in love with you.
And whether or nay
you wanted it,

my entire
heart you got!! 



(c) Brent Harpur, 2015.




"Change everything except your loves." (Voltaire)

Voltaire, on his deathbed, in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan:
“Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies."

“Love, It's all we're going to remember, at the end of it. What are we waiting for? Love with all your heart.” (Jeff Brown)

Blood Moon, Super Moon (Nth Vs. Sth)...

In my eyes,
Southern skies -
true, you do not pulse, convulse
with blood-fire /

However, Dear:
the Heavens sear
as you pull our tides inside
out with desire.


(c) Brent Harpur, 28/9/2015.

Photograph: (c) Catherine Satrun 2015.
Used with kind permission. Thanks.

“Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.” (J.R.R. Tolkien, 'Lord of the Rings'.)

“Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.” (William Shakespeare, 'Romeo & Juliet'.)