our friend Pete recorded bird songs, slowed them down
on his reel to reels. chirrups & trills morphed 
into freaky atonal arias, slow, stretched thin.

our friend Pete showed us no two bird’s songs were 
the same. we asked him how they talked to each other.
he bark-laughed, said, they don’t, they sing.

our friend Pete wore a dandy’s beard. his laughter
trickled from it, rustling leaves jostled by the wind.
he shaved it off once, but his laughter didn’t change.

our friend Pete barbecued mackerel on hot summer days.
a couple of beers & the tides seeped into his back yard.
the clouds came late, liquid pink & elastic.

our friend Pete invented a pickup arm that stayed 
exactly in the centre of the groove. we said, you’re a tongue &
groove sort of man. static crackled across his garden.

our friend Pete was the great-grandson of a famous painter.
we visited the local museum, recognised the paintings 
printed on his T-shirts. he said, I’m a walking frame.

our friend Pete had a daughter. we never met her.
he lived alone, always straight down the line.
now he’s gone, ghost arias echo, trills ring thin.

we meet once a year to remember our friend Pete.
there’s reel to reel birdsong, hum & hiss, barbecues,
Pre-Raph T-shirts, & laughter, liquid pink.

Phil Powrie is a UK-based former academic who taught cinema studies. His work has been published in Blue Unicorn, Green Ink Poetry, La Piccioletta Barca, The Lincoln Review, Lotus Eater, morphrog, October Hill, Orchard Poetry Journal, Shot Glass Journal, South, amongst others.