cameo

cameo*

Was an angle of light relief, the Weathercats snickered…

his heart

the flow

of water

the tides

his moon

cloud and

sky his

mental

spaces

in

sun

and

dark

reflection

 

 december 2020
riverside

Copyright © 2021 Peter Le Baige. All Rights Reserved

*’A piece of jewellery, typically oval in shape, consisting of a portrait in profile carved in relief on a background of a different colour.’ Definition From from Oxford Languages.

The music is from the Piece ‘Fern’ by composer Kate Moore and performed here by Ensemble Offspring at Sydney Conservatorium  of Music in 2015.

memory

Memory

Index of memory, the sun through its moments…self-taught image

I.
space the minute-hand blocks / sun
                                    through window or door
                                           upon the street
index  of  memory.

i called her once.  embarrassed heartbeat / static
                                         fabric  of the pause
brittle leaves in  the  corner  smell of urine
                                 pain as dampness through the
                                    tinder the wind gathered
                                           amidst those trees

 her answers were the grass scars of summer.

II.
above the  sea /  the atmosphere’s quarry of
thunder                  mutes the suburb
we grew  as  the  avenue / the scrape of leaves
                                  subdued beneath rain
                                    sun private in the
                                        passage of work
                                     – a walk through its limpid
                                                edge at dusk –
                                  moon abrupt invented frames
                                          – dream or bedroom sill –
                   laundered our sorrow on the road.
every street drove me through myself / i said ‘you
                                       are its eternal aim’
as shallowing waves web minute flotsam
                                               through the shell / i
                                     willed myself into that grit
                                                  of silence.
sun on the street  gravity of the clock falls
                  as hard / as unclear a touch above
                                                            the surface.

hangzhou

hangzhou*

West Lake (西湖 – Xihu), Hangzhou, with acknowledgements to Brittanica.com for use of this image

the mountains calm
over the lake,
ridges feathered with mist
the mist old as the
poems of loss.

i have known it too,
loss by my own hand
for the sake of one found.
my heart is a lake
no oar can lever
smooth.

here i accept the loss,
the ridges, bright
turnings of the water
forerunners of the