hearing it

hearing it
   in Bob Dylan’s audience this night

Guess I must’a picked up these motes of light in this here black and white picture, when I was in the carnival with Rambling Jack Elliot…

when you blew
harmonica,
days of
my youth
flew back in
shining
note,
your words
were carriages
of a prairie train
i heard crossing
the edge of storm,
the journey i
longed to make
my own and
did, riding your
words as far
as i could,
taking my own
thereafter
even if
they were
off the rails
and out of
sense
still
they
marked
their time

26 august 2018

Copyright ©2018 Peter Le Baige.  All Rights Reserved

The harmonica solo is from Bob D.’s ‘It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry’

the hours & still good

the hours
Wikipedia: ‘In Greek mythology the Horae or Hours (Greek: Ὧραι) were the goddesses of the seasons and the natural portions of time.’

‘The Dance of the Hours’ by Gaetano Previati, 1899, with acknowledgements to finartamerica.com for its use here.

the hours
goddesses
of cicada
wing
stitched
with rainbow
filament
that crinkles
under man’s
brute touch
how they fly
in strength
upon us
gentle
from us.

morning, 29 november 2012
vulcane lane, auckland

still good

i once wrote
a poem while
drinking coffee,
good coffee,
at a little cafe
on a pebbled lane
like those in europe,

Narcissus in water

Narcissus in water

‘Narcissus’ by Caravagio, image courtesy of Wikimedia

it’s an old story:
the dead drink
from a stream to
forget the living
to lose way forever
back to the forests
of touch.

facing your skin
i’m dead
to the living

giving away all
memory in
your hands.

tokyo
1993

Copyright ©2011 Peter Le Baige.  All Rights Reserved

The music is ‘Ricordanza’ from the ‘Transcendental Etudes’ by Franz Liszt, here performed live by Daniil Trifonov