|
PARIS: AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
1998
1
into my own dark sunday light approaches like the moon
through feathers that's no sooner seen than sunk
by blindness & the thought that everyone is dead
around a city that's about to vanish
as it has before
sucked down an empty pocket
oversized & with a smell of earth
the bright adventurers of 1910
whose streets these
were sharing a common grave
with those who followed
reaching even to the place
where you and I are waiting with the friends
who drop out one by one like cyber-monkeys
flying into mindless space
2
above a gorge we hung & swayed
the mountains were alive to every side
stone witnesses
the air was still
with only a distant puff of wind
we sat suspended by an iron wire
voiceless
no one to talk to in the world
but you & me
a silence between earth & sky
that revelation
I think I prize its emptiness the most
so even now arrived in paris
I sit alone & feel it bursting from my chest
electric
final
rush of footsteps down an empty street
3
why does a well-dressed man come up to me
& ask me for a handout?
(this is a dream, I think, it can't be real)
why does a smiling mother dressed for church
reach out a hand to touch me
shadows all around her sitting on the ground
why does she ask for help
& why do I keep walking
walking past her where there is no street
or sun even in paris on this hottest day in summer
what is the sound that comes at us around a corner
sound of a wave suspended in the air
of hives of bees of hands applauding in the dark
who is the man who wears a flower in his ear
a shirt with many folds
a vest
a beard
the buttons glowing like electric sparks
the more I search his features I can see
his lips are gone
his tongue is heavy
hanging to one side & forming words
that never reach me
that the darkness covers
all the people on this street sit flat against a wall
some open-eyed some sunk in a deep sleep
all are dressed up
the men wear business suits & blazers
a cardigan
a double breasted jacket
a tuxedo tie & tails
but have no coats or hats
their shoes are simple
always a dark brown or black
with marks of sand from garden walks
in paris laces open sometimes without socks
& the women well dressed too
although the hair of one is hanging limply
with another's there are open spots
that show her skull
a third one has the traces of a beard
a large wet stain under one armpit
just look at them & they begin to talk
the way that birds talk
feathers that the wind is blowing
swirl across the square
we sit in paradise & pass a ball between us
papers at our feet
then when it's time to leave
we walk around a corner
climb the little flight of stairs
& hear them following
the rush of music
from a distant time a woman's voice
becoming regular
the words emerging low & high
relentless
openings
processions
& it's picasso in the lead
a little man with hairy shoulders
he has stripped down to his running shorts
like frank o'hara both of them now stars
for minneola prep
both now declare their love of evil
with apollinaire
here too his head no bigger than a thumbnail
flanked by gertrude stein eyes
like a crazy doll's & someone looking like my father
max jacob wrapped in a monk's brown cloak
down which his body disappears
here in a world where there are only little people
phantoms where the sky is not a sky
the earth is shrinking daily
under silver plastic
disappearing
slipping through my hands
like balls in a pachinko parlor
eyes revolving like red lights
to end here in la republique
with all the other dead
the hungry ghosts under our windows
a soup kitchen for the dead
the ones who run
the ones who squat
now on the grass they speak our frailty
the doom built into life
decomposition
chaos
anarchy
confusion
worse
confounded helter-skelter squalor
out of whack & out of order
out of kilter
out of money
out of time & out of place
& out of breath & out of work
& out of hope & out of power
because the men who come to us though dead
are just like us & stare at us
like fallen princes
we welcome you to death they say
their looks dividing us in two
the numbers dance again behind our eyes
the circles break
the man holding a clock up to his ear
will count the silence
every day is summer
what was once alive is gone
& what has yet to be alive
is also gone
(c) Esmond Jones 2001
More
Poems By Esmond
Home
|