in the galaxy

in the galaxy*
to Alistair Watt
circa 1985/1986
*lest it needs saying, a Ford ‘Galaxy’

An evening pocket-snap of the said bridge…. staged by Weathercat Productions

an evening.
neon spans
above the highway
___– units our needle
_____lifted past –
greasing the hood
our windshield
theatre with light.

with a glance
a snatch of words
you were telling
me of a midnight
you shot over the
warm shoulder –
____asphalt intimate
____as memory – onto
the bridge at
‘the ton’ felt you
floated clear of
every barrier
till the other side
above the estuary
darker than winter sky
____– ‘hot’ ‘cold’ ‘empty’
______the dashboard framing
______the last possessions
______of sense.

the highway
corrodes the dusk
the steel weave
unravels a slow-lit
dark, voices
clamouring
in the pub.
hardly better nights
to travel than these
or better hands
on the wheel.

Copyright © 2022 Peter Le Baige. All Rights Reserved

Click on the link above to hear a reading of the poem.  The accompanying music is from the track ‘Nostalgia’ from the 2009 album by Ryuichi Sakamoto ‘Out Of Noise’

wall

wall*
march 30 2003
beijing, ulaanbaatar

Someone I knew around 1993, on the Great Wall. Snow started to fall a few minutes later.

just stone
in such amount
built into a supple
turning along ridge
_________into valley
moving with the shadow
of cloud hurled
_________along its flank.

i’m almost taken in
by this unintended beauty
stone shimmer peak to peak
brute insistence
there are no enemies
within no gates to
_________open inwards.

these cut blocks of stone

getting it there

getting it there
7 may 2022
On a phrase by Keikei & for her

A Keikei sun snap

in staging
that trick
photo
of the sun
as if carried
by us
before us
in our hands
unburning,
she said love
was like that;
getting the sun
in the right place,
something warm
between us,
joined to it
in touch,
weighed
in the hands
the near &
bright in
distance
you share

Getting it there, first steps

Copyright ©2022 Peter Le Baige.  All Rights Reserved

Click on the link above to hear a reading of the poem.  The accompanying music is from Dance No. 16. ‘Interrupted Faint Prelude’ from the ‘Pleiades Dances VII. op.76’ (1999) by Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu .