the fall

the fall
january 1983

Painting by the Polish painter, photographer and sculptor, Zdzisław Beksiński, as sourced from Pinterest.

dawn would break
the knife-end of
a fall and flight
through streets,
the buildings draped
with hessian.

i would shut my eyes,
summon the depth again,
fall until the ledge
stood me upright.

it did not foretell
the nightmare
this much later:
days to know myself
a ghost
no beauty no gravity
could bend

Copyright © 1986 Peter Le Baige. All Rights Reserved.  Taken from my own collection ‘street hung with daylit moon’ published 1986; acknowledgements to Chamaeleon Press

Click on the link above to hear a reading of the poem.  The accompanying music is from the second piece, ‘An Expert In Human Passions’, from the choral work ‘Choir Concerto’ by Alfred Schnittke, and performed here by the Russian State Symphonic Choir; the text is taken from the third chapter of the Book of Lamentations by the medieval Armenian theologian, poet, musician and philosopher, Grigor Narekaci (951 – 1003 AD).