Auckland Poetry.com

The Heartache

You have gone to a jungle of sadness, into the wilderness
of confused love. Where tigers’ claws are poisoned, snakes
twist the truth and scorpions have stings of envy.
I can’t follow you, I have no machete, or an armoured suit
to protect myself against devious tongues.

My world is naïve sunlight, the open plain, where nothing
is hidden in dark corners of my mind. Come to my world
and I’ll meet you in the glade where Spanish bluebells chime
and we will go to the mountain’s sweet fountain and see
the birth of rainbows.

in the night’s
hour of copper
- near dawn i’d say –

you wake to
the drum of
your own silence
the silence you were
born to on blood
on water

a self forgotten
a self remembered
on a single stroke on
that drum

you climb the tree
branch upon branch
each foothold smooth
as dream as easily lost
in the fall as the
moon’s slender silver
on grass on water

in the night’s
hour of copper
you wake to
the passing stone
of quiet given
over to you
in your
living.

2004
beijing

Copyright (c) 2009 by Peter Le Baige

The many miles behind me stamp their mark
The dust of far off places mingles with my sweat
The face I shave from time to time is seamed with age and care
The golden thatch now sparse and grey, but yet

I am still wild

A scarred and weary warhorse seems to fit
The image that my mind projects for me
The din of battles won and lost I carry with me to this day
My weary body longs for ease and peace, but yet

I am still wild

Still wild? You say. What callow foolishness is this?
A man your age should act the part
Not tilt at windmills, dream large dreams or sigh at setting suns
I hear the words and shake my head, for yet

I am still wild

This wild of which I speak is merry
The kind of wild to make an infant laugh
There’s mischief in my eye, an inferno in my heart
So much to do before I die, for yet

I am still wild

Still wild with dreams of frontiers,
Still wild with thoughts of fun
Still wild with love and life and awe for every day whose course will run
Until the day my eyes will dim and I must go away

I am still wild.

evening
the pohutukawa
grows into the
sky the cool
sea-lighted wind
a graft
of stars.

a verandah
the inset dark
on the walls
like a cloud’s
thunder-blade facade
lock you against
the silence.
streetlamps
corrode the iron
sleep stain the
curtains in
rusts of dream.

water scribbled
along scarves
of sandstone.
the streets break
toward the harbour.
low-tide map
of the dawn

june 86
lawrence street
for Kerry & Angelina

Copyright (c) 2009 by Peter Le Baige

How mild the fall is?

I followed a track between tall, pale green cactuses, in this harsh landscape
where even the smallest plant has thorns, where bark and leaves, of even
regular trees, like carob and olive, are tough and will not softens to human
touch. Yet this is a landscape that once was tilled and now abandoned, does
this landscape’s common soul feels rancorous of being left to fend for itself?
I found a ruin. More than a ruin, a pile of stones only its outline told me that
once this had been a home where children had been born, lived and died
for generations, till someone said: enough! And left for pastures green, (most
likely USA or Canada,) poverty is only romantic in movies. Half of November
gone, I’m walking about in shirt sleeves the ground is rock hard and dusty,
the local paper tells us that 14 years ago the weather was mild too till January,
then it snowed and it was cold till May. Feel I’m being watched in the bushes
I see a boar watching me it is a wily old boar it sees I carry no gun, yet keeps
its distance; and high above me circles eagles; the landscape is teaming with
rabbits which used to be food for the people, who lived in the ruin (when
they could snare one) now business men, who have paid for a license to kill,
come here to unwind. To kill seems to satisfy a base desire in mankind; yet, it
is better a rabbit is scarified, then to see a dead Afghan child with eyes that
reflect the grey mountains, poppy fields and the blue unfeeling sky.

Clothed in smiles
Lingering warm touches
Flattering words
Laughter after lunches.
A thick, blinding curtain
fogging vital truths.
walking she’s uncertain,
her heart’s turned aloof.
Deceit sneers at her
Weaving layers of lies
She replies yes sir,
as her spirit torn cries.
Destruction chains her neck
pulling her away
leaving the mark of death
a stench of ashtray.
Helpless to whom she serves
she no longer sees the way
stamped with his ownership
the sun has removed its ray.

You are not the ones for love to know,
You are not the ones for life to please,
All you hunt is dirty euro dough,
It’s, in fact, a terrible disease.

Your infected ego is inflated,
It will burst and poison all your veins.
Even when the beast is saturated,
It is still your helplessness that reigns.

Every step you take will be declared
As the most expected epic fall.
I’m the only poet who has dared
To announce the truth, to say it all.