three Copernican pieces

three Copernican pieces
by & for Big Cat, november 2022
— Big Cat’s riddle – by Big Cat
‘No matter how fast I scamper,
I am only ever in time,
I never get ahead,
even by a mouse’s tail’
25 november 2021

He’s not the Messiah, he’s just a naughty cat…Big Cat by Little Cat

I.
’tis said
Copernicus
first proposed
the planets orbiting
on their allotted paths
around a golden bench,
his cat, ‘Oblivious’ by name
and nature, knocked the pot of
golden ink over on the drawing
freshly done,
Copernicus
seeing the bench
now become a flaming sun
realised what splendid
sense it made to
see the sun
as centre,
all coming after
in this new knowing
thanking ‘Oblivious’

musick point

musick point
june 2010
musick point, auckland

Where the radio waves were unscrambled… picture by summer day in a camera

the wireless
air-sea-rescue tower
filled with antique
equipment i wondered
at as a child
knobs dials men
working there with
logbooks conversations
crackly on the air
now unstaffed
no ear tuned for
ship or plane
distressed in storm
for enthusiasts only
restoring it
all entry by
appointment

gardens a tidy
unkemptness
the flowerbeds
are filled in
with turf
blackbird thrush

waitress

waitress
30 october 2022
With thanks to the poet Victor Taylor for reviving the notion on which this was based, 40 something years after its conception.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Édouard Manet, painted 1882; image sourced from Wikipedia.

serving in that cafe….
fourty something years
i left her to lean across tables,
since first i thought her
on an afternoon, the hem
of her smock against thighs
stockinged in glow, a line
of unforgetfullness, her skin
the barest pouring of touch
for she was fully imagined as
eternal self, the soul watching me
as i watched her across tables,
her thighs sketched through linen
smock, seeing her a busy, bustling
body only, rustling its starched dress
as she went to lift my plate
away, saying, “i see you’ve
been watching me for a divine
revelation, like buttons come
undone’, i smiled the best awkward