Christine Harfleet

Love Song

I want to give you something
That can never be taken away.
I want to give you sunbeams
And solid rock foundations,
A sense of your own worth
In this magnificent tornado.
The red sun burns through the morning
Like your eyes burn into my heart.
If I had my way I would kiss your lips
A thousand times a day.




And so passes love


So many levels in the ebb of love
Not steady or predictable,
as the lowering tide
Just a strangely seeping leak
Like internal bleeding

A sad passing of a ghostly spirit
Like a red cloth in bleach
No antidote just
A soul reaching out blindly
To find love gone.




Pain

Pain is…
Sharp shattering glass
Tight splintering ice
Slow crumbling of ancient bricks
Endless torn petals of the blood red flower
Relentless washing away of pebbles on the sea line
Wind blown sands in the dunes
The mountain’s slow subsidence
Glowering menacing storm clouds
Blood flowing, dripping, seeping,
Yet each day presents the chance of paradise.





Fear of Confrontation

Are you distancing yourself from me
So slowly as to be almost imperceptible
Hoping it will pass unnoticed
Even when complete -
Just to avoid admission
For fear of confrontation?





Eyes down at low tide

In my infinite wisdom I let down my hair
Took off my shoes and tiptoed
Over razor sharp rock pools
With eyes riveted on watery treasure chests
Of diamonds
And fragile dreams
With the familiar dust of a thousand ages
My heart bursting with joy
While my spirit soared.





No Killing Fields

There’s no killing in these fields
No past no future
No past
No future
No hatred
A firewall of immunity
Leaving fields of green
Beaches of fortune
Pools of inner visions
And deep dark secrets of desire





San Agustin


Green wet shiny
Elephants Ears – leaves holding giant raindrops
bigger than a shot of rum.
Ducks swim, waddle, hiss, have sex.
Humming birds fight with territorial agro.

Mud slide, dead leaves, rich compost,
Dog alert salsa drifting across the valley,
Bamboo roof hiding shy spiders,
Mountains so familiar they look freshly drawn.
Visitors arrive and I hide to preserve
My soft velvet cocoon
And evade the wide embrace of friendliness.





My favourite seagull


He spies me,
Appears from out of space
Like an aggressive angel
Relentlessly alighting
Strutting his stuff
Stares me out
- he s probably even ‘cussing me mum’
- and I swear he’s chewing gum
- I dutifully present his meal
- he stares at me dismissively as I bow meekly out.



Uncertainty


Claro - a word of fat satisfaction
I long to say it in context
‘of course’ or ‘ surely’
but there is so little certainty
that I get no opportunity
and have to wander through the coffee bushes
murmuring it to the birds
- claro



To an unloved child



So you filled her shoes with rotten tomatoes
and a squashed orange.
Pay back time.
You are owed that my little one.
That pudding basin thrown at you
Across the room:
discovered only because of the wound on your head.
The constant drip of cold cruelty
and loveless discipline,
gives you the right to fill her shoes
with rotting fruit
just before you ran away.


La Luna de las Montanas
How often I looked at the mountain
and resolved to climb it.
I hoped that the moon would be there to see me.

I climbed the mountain
and found my strength.
I gazed at the moon
and knew myself.