Ramene ta fraise*

I pissed in the corner of the Cour Carre.
Smelling like asperge and Kronenburg,
I pissed with my back to the angels and saints,
My back to the windless accordion of their prayers.

After zipping up I marched, marcher, around the square,
Stopping dutifully at each impatient statue,
Screaming my stops like a metro horn.


*literally translated as "bring your strawberries," a term used to provoke a fight

Ego-Trip (revised)

I am the hub of all Paris,
The center of its spokes and wheels.
I am the point about which the arrondisements spiral,
The direction of the Triumpal Way.
I stretch from the Arc's wreath of remote control cars,
Past the gold lit match of crane's and unseeing eyes,
Beyond the Sun, beyond his horse, beyond their hooves, years off the ground.

I am buried beneath the pyramids,
Balanced on their tips.

I am the words and the bread,
The wine and the wind,
The flowers hanging form Haussmann balconies.
I am the piss in the metro,
The wysteria growing their paper grapes.
I am the poplars on the quai.
Their leaves a shimmering gypsy dress.

I am the slow pull of the water,
The stubborn push of the land.
I am the broad shoulders over which the Seine is bent.

I am the weight of St. Denis's head and
The angle at which he holds it.

I am the holy kisses of men
meeting at Medditerranean markets.
I am the abrupt kisses of women
cutting up conversations.
I am the soft kisses of lovers,
held like marbles between the lips.

I am the toasts to birth
to health
to death
to love
to sex
to the thin thread of white light which ties them all together.

I am the tunnel with its royal ghosts.
I am the open books of Verlain and Baudelaire,
The ones that have yet to be opened.

I am the flour in the boulangerie.
I am the blood in the charcuterie.
I am the stench in the fromagerie.
I am the appetite which devours all three.

I am Paris, because Paris is made of me.

I am the stars.

I am the stone.

I am the one to whom St. Genevieve still points.

A Short Week of Poetry.

For me, this was a short week of poetry. having jsut finished a week long workshop with poet Cecilia Woloch, I am now going to post some of the poems that came out of the week, including a new version of Ego-Trip. This will have no effect on your lives, but it will be somewhat cathartic to me. I wouldn't want to be stripped of my sobriquet like Bloggins or completely abandon this little bivouac of my thoughts.

Packing up Rome

I rested on the Colloseum steps
My eyes sliding down its slopes
Weaving through its buried maze

I shuffled throught the Roman Forum
My hands against rough stone
My thoughts with virgins underground

I walked beside the Palatine
I searched the hill for its high-leafed trees
Seen before on plates and vases

And when I was done with the Ancient City
I folded her neatly in an old newspaper
And boxed her all away,
Somewhere between the stone and golden age.

silence

one day these bones will dry
then white and still
will sleep

one day this blood will still
then black with sleep
will dry

one day this hand will sleep
the pen then dry
will still

Unfinished

Today I started a poem
a very poor poem

The title bled into the first lines.
the verbs weren't sharp
the nouns, not all accounted for

Upon reflection I cleared my desk
picked up my pen
and quickly wrote another

not as a poet of course,
my poet days ended at the first poem.
I wrote the second, more as a custodian.
wiping clear the trash and clutter
scrubbing up the ball of my pen
unwrapping new paper
and balancing clean words on its blue shelves
in the quiet cupboard of my journal

All of the tea in the Ming Dynasty

I just got back from a little excursion to the French Alps, Cinque Terre, Rome, and Interlaken. I had a good time. I wrote some poems. Here are some of them.