A Morning Letter
I wait in the mist.
The block waits for me.
Strange yesterdays let themselves be forgotten.
Demanding one hill at a time,
My legs make their own day.
Faces turn away from themselves.
Now kindness reaches into
A heart I gave up. The one unbroken gear
Turns for the morning.
Paris
il fait la cité avec ses amis
1968 postcards
from the most beautiful woman
he’d ever seen –
her parents always voted communist
in the preliminaries, conservative
in the run off.
et M., giving him the word
‘anarchist’ at
four in the morning
put underwear on
turn the mirrors to the wall.
et R.’s stories
the tenderness
of a man’s eyes
a city in other people’s memories.
Fine acacias by the stop.
On my way, I will lose touch
For a lifetime, a few hours.
Can’t get home from anywhere.
Send value, relief,
Small response.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2022 02:31AM by petersz.
That poem is obviously a very personal one of reminiscence, Peter. And full of apparent non-sequiturs, as personal memory often is.
With imagination, triggered by the reference to 'the most beautiful girl ...' I can almost get into the delusion of sharing such memories. But then I realize it would have to be in another life.
In summary, I enjoyed the read, without understanding most of the references.
Ian
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2021 08:48AM by IanAKB.
I like this, although I can't say why. Kind of like the feeling I got when I first read Ulysses
Joe
Now guys,
I knew the thing was made, almost from beginning to end, out of direct, personal references that ought not under ordinary circumstances be transparent to readers...putting me in danger of having made public pieces of flotsam and jetsam with no meaning to anyone except the participants, and perhaps not being made of stuff that would even appear lucid to all of them. Everybody lives a life that is incompatible with that of the author of a piece of writing, but the poem can be a touchstone to other people's personal experience. I was attempting to mark how personal anybody's experience is with all this personal stuff You might have experience of Paris and Parisians that would give you more direct understanding of Paris than I. The actual point of the letter the narrator is reading titled 'Paris' which ends with the word 'eyes' is that the narrator's only experience of Paris is through other people.
The irony is that Paris is just as 'real' to him as it is for those who have been there because of the reality his friends have shared with him.
tra la,
Peter
Heck Pete, the earth is bipolar.
Right, Merc, and it wobbles on its axis, like I do when I get really drunk, though that ain't been for over 35 years now. Thanks for stopping by. I'm sure your experience of Paris is a lot more direct than mine, yet, since so many of my friends have been kind enough to share their times in Paris with me, I value that little vicarious glimpse at it. Hope you are well, now that you are out of Xe. lol.
Pter