blowing out

blowing out
19 july 2021
riverside ave

autumn haberdashery in a window display as imagined by a cat with an umbrella

the fading
god of autumn
haberdashery
at the bus stop
in answer to my
question that touched
him like a breeze
on his loose shoulder
whispered to me
in boarding that
the length of any
life was just a
minute, the minute
in which you
are, every other
time was just
leaves in the making
leaves in the falling
we only have a
minute and he
waved like a
gull sheering off

making grey

making grey
howick domain
morning, 3 april 2014

The ‘pie’ in question, as snapped by an errant jazz cat

spilt across
the domain
this morning
a thin low
fog on the other
side of the field
not even up
to the shins
the white of a
magpie in it
matched to it
its black truly
greyed in it
as we did
with crayons
once
a patient scrawl
of white waxing
over the black…
walking on
through it

tattoo of the muse

tattoo of the muse

According to the information given on Fridakahlo.org, where this image was sourced, ‘Frida drew many self-portraits with her pets and this is one of those and she included her parrots in this painting. When this portrait was painted she was just remarried with Diego but was having a love affair with Nickolas Muray, who helped Frida with her first exhibition in New York in 1938 and was a successful portrait photographer.’

your name  a hot needle stitch
			under the skin
in a  m u s cle  of  DESIGN.
details  hinting  f i n e
		as the images the dusk
		 seals on your eye.
for its THERE
   i believe truly 
	we stand.
	   on the crumbling
	BANK OF EVENING
AND  	the stars are the
		Bleeding stems
	          of flowers
                    sheared off by the
	c o o l  blade     of the dark.
it’s these  DETAILS
like   a choreographer’s scribble
	a muddle of difficult STEPS
		and balances
	the precision about
		your name
it’s these details
	journeys
	touches that linger
	    like  j ou rn e y s
i’d have  d r a w n
	within  the blue line
         of a   h e a rt.


july 1988
london

Copyright © 2021 Peter Le Baige. All Rights Reserved

The music for the reading is from the Kyrgzy pop song ‘Appak suiuu’ (White Love) as recorded by the Kryghz singer, Yulia Ruskaya.  A link to the video is posted here below.