shackles

shackles

“Calypso Calling heaven and Earth to Witness her Sincere Affection to Ulysses” by Swiss artist Angelica Kauffman, 1741- 1807

   a telling of it –
    Calpyso to her sleeping lover, Odysseus

years on i haven’t
     found your measure
words i’d shipwreck in
		your mind
	are poor survivors
lost at the edge of
		your smile

disappearing 	at that horizon
your eyes weep 
into grey.

afraid my taking more
		   than you give
showing yourself only
in the night you make
over me with your hands

		whatever the sun.

   wreckage –
    Odysseus to his sleeping lover, Calypso

i,
abandoned
along your skin
the pulse of surf
a pleasure amidst
		dark rocks
sky turning white
		at the sea-brim
 all things known
		on another shore,
were they unbound,
turned to warmth again
within your muscle.

your body undoes
this sacred island
in winds
becalmed like
iron shackles
from me
undoes a shifting
sleep within
		to match
the dream your
body goes through
rising to the skin
stirring the bed
		of your voice.

a dream
moving together.
				
   still –
    Calypso farewells her captive Odysseus

a fine day 
on this shore
the birds bearing
my shawl aloft 
in flutter above me, 
sun in every 
niche of rock
the breakers 
laying out
their fabrics 
of foam
laced round 
gloss of sky,
the cold of
your going
like the
sea clasping
my ankles
drawing
the soles
of my feet
downward,
the suck
of tears

i swear that
i saw you 
struggle not
to turn and 
face me from 
your false
deck

 tokyo 1993
revised june 2020

Copyright ©2020 Peter Le Baige.  All Rights Reserved

The music is from the 4th piece of Robert Schumann’s Gesänge der Frühe, interpreted by Mitsuko Uchida