New Poetry by Stuart Barnes

Bear Hill

Evening, he’s alone atop Bear Hill,

no longer ‘Bear’: no barbered beard, no buzzcut.

Moonlit bats renew him with a squeal.

Three years back he flushed his crystal

meth, his skunky crack pipe down the dunny.

Evening, he’s alone atop Bear Hill,

supine, arms a crosspiece, eyes ascensional.

Tawny Frogmouths mimeo his wonder.

Moonlit bats renew him with a squeal.

I tried to make myself so ill, so ill,

horny as a cane toad for nine months.

Evening, he’s alone atop Bear Hill

where the darkened musky grasses fill

his lungs with larks that can’t be shushed.

Moonlit bats renew him with a squeal.

Far too many weeks of vinous meals,

that Godlike quack—I should be cuckoo, nuts.

Evening, he’s alone atop Bear Hill.

Moonlit bats renew him with a squeal.

- Stuart Barnes 2012