My Paris begins with
Those early days
As a conscious flâneur;
I recall the couple
On the Metro,
*
When I was still innocent
Of its labyrinthine complexities;
*
Slim pretty white girl,
Clad head to toe
In new blue denim,
Wistfully smiling,
While her muscular black beau
*
Stared straight through me
With fathomless, fulgorous orbs;
*
And then one of them spoke
(Almost in a whisper):
‘Qu’est-ce que t’en pense?’
Until it dawned on me,
Yes, the slender young Parisienne
*
With the distant desirous eyes
Was no less male than I.
*
Being screamed at in Pigalle,
And then howled at again
By some kind
Of wild-eyed wanderer
Who suggested I seek out
*
The Bois de Boulogne
For what he saw as my destiny;
*
Cash squandered
On a cheap gold-plated toothbrush,
Portrait sketched at the Place du Tertre,
Paperback books
By Symbolist poets,
*
Second hand volumes
By Trakl and Delève,
*
Metro taken to Montparnasse,
Where I slowly sipped
A demi-blonde
In one of those brasseries,
Such as those
*
Immortalised by Brassai
In the famous photographs.
*
And where an ancient loup de mer
In a naval officer’s cap,
His table bestrewn
With empty wine bottles
*
And cigarette butts,
Repeatedly screeched ‘Phillippe!’
*
Until a patient young bartender
With patent leather hair,
And an affable half-smile,
Filled his wine glass
Quite to the brim,
*
With a mock-obsequious:
“Voila, mon Captaine!”
*
Losing Rory’s address,
Scrawled on a page
Of Musset’s Confession,
Walking the length
And breadth of the Rue St. Denis;
*
‘What an artists paradise,’
Comme on m’a écrit une fois.
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