exquisite

How I heard your voice scratched dry with some blight, dry of light.

No measure of lumen that could rival the greyness of the day –

No desk made of sun.

Instead a world cloud obscured, cumulous, and threatening.

Well, you always did want to predict – to divine.

Now you see great storms ahead.

Weather unfit for a king.

Have you learned yet that the beneficent too often loose?

That in such dark matters, it is black-hearted, Machiavelli

who prevail but by what means and to what end, I cannot say.

I would offer you such exquisite relief.

I would tell my father Zeus to push aside the low-ceilinged skies.

To strike carefully at those with aim with his blue-electric bolt with fair or unfair warning.

I would meet you at the river Lethe and hold you as you leaned back,

as you dipped and forgot all that ailed, allowed to begin again –

a new soul from the guff

at last recognizing me as your cousin Aphrodite, Cytherea,

born, wed, to war with Mars at my side – always your protectant.

Full of storm and fury; signifying everything.

dos gefelt mir |

Always you are going.
This after the great sin of arrival;
tish tish tish.
une fois, deux fois? plus?... tu viendras avec moi
and god did you love it, and in the inbetween you dreamt of it,
a fugue state of variations,
craving the partita of my kiss, never-ending, ever-yielding.
The giddy summer-solstice and the musk trees scented afternoon,
the privet waxing filling the air with its you full-bloom,
drawn in by the current of the river,
you whispered, I don’t know when to stop,
and shyly I gave over, taking you in.
Sweet pea, little fig –
you moved your palm across your face
“You – scented of flowers, summer things,
Maydala, maydala… es gefelt mir…I am for you…”
I blushed fathoms deep, the only witness the maple tree,
there on the iron bench on the promonotory.

all these years

All I have to say to say is do it and you do.
You speak to me of times when perhaps this won’t be possible;
perhaps we will grow old and then… then we will be sorry
So we live in the moment; insatiable.
Children who cannot get enough of each other as they play.
He, his reedy arms carry heavy buckets of wet sand while she decorates
their soon-to-be castle with silver-dollar shells crushed
mother-of-pearl that catch the 100 degree sun.
I sit down to write something meaningful and all I can think is this: mud-pies.
Two children making upside down buckets of them on a beach.
A fortress wall ~
How they can spend their day digging deep narrow-handed channels
while their backs are slowly sunburned while their hair blondes in the sun
Time is lost – they have no sense of it, it moves with the in, the out of each wave
until the tide draws near, filling moats, flowing froathily
beneath bridges as they shore up edges.

the typewriter bell's sweet ring

We are easily alone.
Safely surrounded by teacups - they wobble on their saucers-
the background clink of silverware,
and the silent touch
of your spoon as it moves through the liquid,
touches the lip of your cup soundlessly now,
my tongue thick with slow-dripping
clover honey shared.

Remember the typewriter’s barreled-roll
a silver-shift barred slide
as it glides across yesterday’s plain paper,
the sweet carriage-bell's ring -

All rituals must begin in the right key,
or else we stand to lose the fine partita's thread
I have, we have, long chosen and when?
Who will be our final judge and arbiter?
We never did put much stock in ordinary absolution.
Oh, shattered green-glass iris -
your loaded words unspoken - sometimes...

Our shared quiet dialect
now yet whispered with a deeper hush.
It is against such things as this
that I measure my certainty.
We leaned, looped-armed, my body
braced against yours, blonde head resting
on your shoulder – freewheelin’ -
any avenue, alley, city, place,
we repeat what we know without knowing.

Tomorrow, you halve a fruit, take a bite, hand it over
and I will eat where you have eaten.
In this we deeply kiss, our feet lightly resting.

We never tell a soul.

song for a backward lover

A few notes really – Satie & still so much.

Piano-tapered fingers, ivory-spatulate, each note

so gently coaxed, a seduction above all,

a shy melody, a quiet secret, unspoken heard only by two –

a nearly not to have been; perhaps then a back-drop for a backward lover.

The sound of an almost inaudible sigh – but i heard it, I heard it…

caught it… when you leaned in… so definite…

and then...

How to accompany that?

A partita, Bach e-minor,

silver violin-string thing.

Do not look for the conductor.

There is no guide but the self –

this and the piano, that violin –

each timid in its way.

If one counts to three

will both pick up and strike the note on four?

Or does one wait, untrusting of the other… and take a step back?

At one time you heard Satie…

That first movement

What is it that your heart said?

Or is that to him now -

your heart, your ears, the all of you has grown deaf.

song of songs | revisited

I came to your God; even bowed before His cold, stone altar.
Sat in my September birthday twilight
as the blue stained-glass shone and winked
as if to say, “So, you’ve come back after all…”
the holy books whispering in the pews, “I told you so…”
I took it all in until the unshakable grief shook me
& I gently rocked side-to-side, face hand-buried,
and there came such jerked hard sobs.
They echoed on the rebound,
wrapped around the column where, two weeks prior
I had taken your confession, held your own grief to me.
Now that pew was vacant – you were gone,
and all I heard was a broken woman sounding out
some unknowable, untouchable pain –
before I realized it was me.
Me with my blonde hair coming undone;
pale cheeks glistening with tears – a true Madonna,
dressed in my blacks, while outside the sun shone.
When the carillon rang it was only worse –
for on that day, I had taken you to that tower
Let you pull the bell’s clapper and it licked the side,
& tolled high above Manhattan at the off-hour, unexpected –
at our whim because I let you in.
But on this day – my birthday – the bell tolled only the passing of time.
So stupidly I half hoped you might arrive: knowing I would be there.
No matter what you promised in so many private moments –
You never did come..
I lost my faith at 1:06 p.m. on Fifth Avenue.
Turned to the Song of Songs just to see.
No, not because it is your Good Book,
but because it is a real and true love poem,
& such things I found - I wished I had not looked.
It was all there:
The Rose of Sharon, the figs you last spoke of,
the pomegranates, the scented bed of green, green grass,
her doe eyes, his hair black as raven’s, and this:
“…in the streets and in the broad ways I will seek him
whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.”
I let my tears fall; each splash warping that fine thin paper,
wondered when the last time anybody had really read this.
Surely not you.
No. These pages had long been unturned.
None would see my tear-splash,
and none save a few heard my September afternoon cries.
Yes, a few passed-by, looked and wondered.
A young rector began his approach,
saw the hate - then retreated

So this is my Song of Solomon, my Song of Grief, my Song of Fury.
Tell me, what kind of God creates such love then snaps it in two?
I brought you to Him and He took you away.
For your God is a jealous God – If nothing, you've learned that by now.
And so He wins because you let Him.
He is your God now. Do not pray for me.

12:34 p.m.

The last of summer’s persimmon hangs tentatively on the ocean-tree.
When last heard your voice echoed through my tears,
soon turned to laughter, this before the heart’s slaughter.
The geese have nosed the fruit about the once-warm grass.
The day I told you about the ocean grey, thick with current,
yet smooth as glass.
I remember that, your molasses voice.
Such have turned our lives, our obituaries.
Where once there was love there is nothing but
the cold clang of masts,
the first chill of autumn,
and everywhere, even in the mirror, the awful dappled green of your eyes.

as you like it

Quick, Shhhhh, do not say it.
Do not hit that panic button
the one that seeks an I love you
the quick carriage return, the mirrored signal flash back
between my balcony and yours
the bright spark that parses Paris all the way to you…
I saw the minister, Saint Sulpice, confessed
such sin… Where to begin?
When was the moment exact
that I felt myself falling? When I dove
into the moss pools of your eyes and I swam
not coming up for air for so long
that when I did at last it was with such a gasp
that I heard it, did you?
tried to stop, seal my bowed-pout with honey.
You left me sticky-lipped and glowing –
beautiful in the moment…
a rising apricot rouge to my cheeks
as we sat on the bed sharing of the same spoon
I took you in whole
wondered if you would, wanted same
to know the apricot-incense tase of each
limbed freckle, white legs, these breasts,
ginger-ivory thighs; you would never forget.
Year later, I caught the scent of you;
perfect privet, mown grass and I knew then how
easily I would moan, gasp to your touch, to your words, voice,
How now when I see you
I try to hide
feel the blush-rush, the sap-rise
Must move my hand, finger to my mouth
Quick before I cry out your name,
Before I say it just as you like it.

brick hijab

For you only I drop this hijab: for you only, I let it all go:
modesty, privacy, morality? Is what we do
then lacking in all value. What would Kant
make of this? Would he too partake or would he
say Do unto others as they do unto you –
God you, I would….
some Categorical Imperative.
My love for you imperative.
It knows no bounds. Love, I cannot help this.
I have fallen such heights, still I am exalted
now higher than Mohammad, me lifted by prayer
ten thousand Amens, you pray for me the Torah,
whose pages remain untouched,
each day we make our love,
Fridays for hours – and so it is written, you tell me
And so it must, will be. The book says so.
We shall follow each word to the letter, backward serifed in our tongue
how you lick around, about me, there are so many ways –
I never knew until … I came, found your easy ways,
fell to my knees, prayed I would give you up for Lent
I found you there, we half-Jews in prayer,
we in some Episcopal paradise, we were lifted high on frankincense
as the thurible chain swang and the smoke snaked about my leg,
as your knee pressed against mine and we prayed
the evening vespers that our prayer be set forth –
What did you prayer for that afternoon?
I prayed for you… for you that is…
For you to take me, to shake me, and god yes,
I was all that is blasphemous, and I was not repentant
I was a sinner, not a saint, still you polished my halo
and I shone, glowed and laughed bright and white
until I learned to build this love, brick by brick by brick
until I was sure in it, until our temple was at last solid.

i thought you should know

You alone are my refuge, did you know
does it frighten? or like the deer, do you stand still, near.
so easily, not easily you come
uninvited, a surprise so welcome
I knew you from that moment when the clock swiped
and the second-hand wiped the time
and your knee brushed mine
that all bets were off and we were moving
yet standing still in place
barely treading water, yet never drowning
Still, I would dive steady in this love, my pockets so curiously empty
no grey stones to weight me down
yet I would give a thousand petit morts over to you
a hundred little deaths of your name over and over
Never once have I held a gaze when I came but if asked
Yes I would. Stare into those flecked eyes…
at first me flit shy before the moment passes, such
intensity begins as I rise as I rise as I rise to such heights
as I follow your lead when you tell me you simply cannot dance
yet so simply you lead, I follow your garden path
the waxy-green scent of privet, it leads me all the way to you.

such things

Such things I would do ~
overcome this shyness in a moment
To show my true trust
there is nothing I would not be
to keep this love, I dip, I dive
a line, straight to you, strong vector.
Do you find your heart throbs ~
does it beg for the slow-relief, double tango
that slow, giddied dance that falls to the cosine
I’ll ride your steady algorithm to such ecstatic states
aware of the quick shutter-flutter of all your all seeing eye
I am utterly undone in so many ways
So it is I give up, give over to this fugue
repeat, a private litany heard only by two – me-you
your name, name, name
Twice I tried to give you up for Lent
& twice I failed, fell to my knees in not-so-quiet
prayer, I was utterly unrepentant,
lit candles from Notre dame to Sacre Coeur
From Saint Thomas to Saint Xavier’s NYC
a lit path, it led straight to you
to such holy place.
We make our peace on hallowed ground
Find at last release, a thousand sights indefinable,
once hushed, now I am the dove outside your window,
she who coos just for you.
I am that one.

grand subjection

So it is the grand subjection
we fall soft sweet to circumstance
drawn by and to the sea-tide pull of the cream-thick july moon
I am raw-kneed from such prayers of the ascetic
the want of not wanting,
Love, i am weary of these pleas
i do in full-knowledge of the want -
that which cannot be prayed away
So you come –
and when you arrive, you arrive…
draw near, closer still in the frankincense afternoon
and i hear a full peale of bells ringing your name -
three hours of you
how the clapper licks each smooth bell’s side
my alto five in right in time to your tenor eight
how we move in rhythm and rhythm
until the method is right, every variation of eight
simple math this love
i offer myself up to this providence
give myself over – cry your name - a dulcet lilting Amen
an evening sacrifice for only you to see –

zero-love

The seer-sucker high-flood cuffs such loafers
& these blonde-grey bobs sheared to perfection
for the Valiumed who bed down nightly
beneath linen-lavender eyelet sheet
scented by the Northeast wind, the day’s
clean laundry, pinned, of course, by the ‘help’.
How you’d marvel to see me negotiate this world
Such ribboned latch-key kid putting on her Locust
Valley best who out-snobs the snobs, Stanford whites
out-whites the whites, Aryan they, if only they knew
me half-Jew – what a gas…
Quick send this unclean thing to the Mikvah,
the holy font baptismal, something with water anyway.
You too a Jew, so tell me, where do we fit in
I can play this game.
Volley forever. Smash the ball over the net.
I charge, rushing forward.
Match, fifteen, tennis, love.
I knock down the walls.
Hop a freight train straight to you.

Newport, July 15

summer fugue

You speak to me of fugues as if I did not know -
tonight they distance me even from myself
why I am surrounded by those ladies who lunch!
These men in their blue flannel jackets, their liberty
of London ties, their white-buck loafers, tightly laced –
a distance even I cannot parse – the Jew in me chomps at the bit.
The now vacant self – you are gone.
I wait before the promise of an organ
he plays a fugue, Bach, g Major, a fugue, partita.
You tell yourself chaos this. coincidence –
that chaos is random, unpredictable. This I bring
into your life. I am then unwanted, the pariah,
when really Chaos is really no more than a series of variables
repeating – a pattern forming, the Lorenze diagram
It forms a spread-wing butterfly
you breathe, sigh, cry, and I am, I am.
This night here extant with the promise of Vierne
You could like his wild organ, savor that passion you tell me you lack,
you could later make-love to me,
come at the high-note apex of the symphony, timpani
No.
When all is said and done you say, We are not animals.
That is right. We do not rut like rabbits.

We make love gently.
We approach with such caution, this distinguishes, we verbalize, connect.
Yet still, what are we if not refined savages
whose hearts beat a wum-pum warrior drum of love?
Knowing the what of the want?
Let us imbibe and congratulate
Let us take the High Road
Let us say it was all for naught in the end
Let me not falter to some death-parlor organ grinder music
I am awake
Let me sleep not sleep
Let me greet the dawn, no longer weep
Let me know with absolute certainty this thing I never had
Let me give myself over to this fugue…

temple

You are near but not so near
So tell me, do you hear my cries through your delicate palms
feel the vibrations those years’ long prayers, these weeks,
these responses to our private itany.
Palm-against-palm me to you pray with me
I will be your virgin
kneeling at your feet
in the pew thighs gently touching as the thurible chain rattles
and the frankincense smoke snakes an coils about my
skirted thigh a snake that once whispered something
now incense such places me
in on thees high-vaulted ceilings, stained glass cathedral
she said, ‘your body is a temple; let no man enter who is not holy.’
you, you see yourself as a sinner.
for this you play keepaway
still you covet eyes greedily taking in what you see
you tell me, Betrayal always comes wth a kiss, Biblically,
speak Shakespearean Ides of March of wanting, jealousy, shame
your body is a temple
let him be holy
I decide such things for me – not you.
So I chose and Betrayal comes without so much as a kiss,
despite you and your very Good Book.
How it simplifies the broadstrokes –
You follow the black lines
keep your easy mid-life virtue
but keep it and run.

ellipsis

In my mind you are an ellipsis.
a dot dot dot
a thought unfinished
an action taken just not seen through
so then we let it stand
STET
this or we transpose
you be me, I’l be you.
How would that be?
Neutral? A gearshift frozen midpoint
these firm bony hands they cannot shift…
I would if I could, I you would help
if if if
more dot dot dots
I’m told if you want a thing badly enough
goodly enough?
then you will get it.
The fight may be uphill yet still.
I know of this one hill in The Berkshires where
all laws of gravity are defied
that if you put the gear in neutral
the car climbs the hill but backward.
God’s little trick of physics.
Surely we have our equation.
The variables long thought, tossed, turned
The … between us that leaves us speechless,
shy, ashamed to admit the what of the want.

arbitrary hop-scotch (time)

tongues that tip-toe wrap before the full-on
kiss
of each word that comes so easily so hard…
miss we two I do me-you your sweet pea
such things
they amaze and we do as one does
hold on until the next and the after
searching always the calendar arbitrarily yet still
the clock chimes the blessed hello-hours, the awful grey-goodbyes
the touch that refuses to yield to such partings.
None of that is sweet. Only sorrow there.
It is linear this.
I need I want to find always in my greed to spend
more time
alone
with you
I am never as at peace as when we are alone
together.

welcome | part of the tant mieux project

It's all context. Any city can be romantic, lively, provided you are with the right person, the timing, circumstance, etc... and of course, conversely, it can be awful or worse than that, just sad if things do not fall into place. Maybe melancholy or bitter without the sweet.

Paris is not a place i would want to be without a lover. Of course, it is a beautiful place to be, and no doubt, i would find my way there, and find myself crossing Pont Neuf and crossing rue Mazarine and visiting the old haunts, but all said and done, i would be returning at the end of the day to an empty hotel room and another night of the prospect of dinner alone (which at home seems fine, although i am married, i can conceive of it being fine here), sending poscards back to friends not with me on the trip and so on while i sit in my room (again, read, singular) and smoking cigarettes and drinking sweet Badoit. It doesn't sound appealing to me.

I like the idea of independent travel and i've done it. I've been all over the world and always enjoyed it and i don't think that it's necessary to have a partner at all. I think Paris would be perfectly negotiable even with a same sex friend (assuming you are heterosexual, if not, then nevermind, because you can apply the going with a lover theory or going alone theory - either/or), but regardless, while you'd still have fun, it would not be the same.

Nope. Paris is made for lovers.

Having just returned, and being in love (which is good and sometimes painful and one thrives, ideally, and sometimes, one is wounded, othertimes, a hand is held out - but love can be the balm and the sting, but always, always love is worth it. The rose worth the thorns, right?) - but being in that place, you can't escape love in Paris. Even in the bloody Metro, i came across a solo violinist playing Bach or someone who sounded like and it was heartbreaking because it took me back. You see, that's just the trouble with Paris: it has all of these connections, like silver threads that cut through the heart and generally that's okay because they run like silver threads, but pull on that thread and it can cut sharp like a knife or blade. Paris, above all, for me anyway, is a city that for anyone, makes you long - even if you are with a lover, you long - you yearn. You yearn because the city itself seems itself to be yearning, in love itself (its lover the big secret), but one senses that even the city identifies. When it rains, the sky cries for us. Funny how the weather can be so fitting of our mood.

All said though, I can say this of any city to anyone in love - the work here happens to have been written in Paris, but by no means does that mean that work cannot be written elsewhere or that you can't find it elsewhere, because you can. I do hope you'll visit Tant Mieux where there you will find a broad range of work, including more poetry, articles, a whole section on Bob Dylan and more.

Thanks for visiting part of the Tant Mieux Project - i hope you'll visit our other sites as well.

Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti
Autumn, 2006
www.tantmieux.squarespace.com

get out of here the man said

09.15.06. Montparnasse. Paris. France.

Get out of here the man said.
You’ve been here too long, and I couldn’t disagree.
I saw the gun on his hip, his badge, blue uniform…
The oxymoron; homeland security.
The clock ticked. A moment perhaps, then I knew.
He was right. I did not belong.
I didn’t even want to.
A country of cowboys and pop –
all gunslingers and swagger.
The teenagers of the world – freedom a joke.
An imposition – a command.
Circumstance keeps me bound.
I’d gladly fly the coop. A wish and a prayer.
A true poet, I can be at times, impractical to the last -
but I am a true pragmatist to the last.
In the end, it’s all mathematics.
It is an If / Then equation ….
and we are stuck on the If.
No, the end not in sight.
I know, this - I studied.
I watch as I slip fast down the hypotenuse -
listen as Pythagoras laughs.

out on a limb - or balcony

09.15.06, Paris, Montparnasse

The black balcony railing was only a foot from the window.
This of course didn’t stop him
hovering dangerously near the ledge,
the Paris cars fuming dangerously far below,
the glint of sun on those black glasses.
He was, in that moment, invincible. Or thought so anyway.
The girl of the moment smiled a gummy smile,
muttered something in French.
She was the entertainment before lunch, he said.
You could tell they’d just met.
Likely fucked or would.
Would is my guess.
Of course, I only saw this through someone else’s lens, yet still…
I could taste the wine on his breathe –
a kiss tasting of white wine, summer, France.
I couldn’t tell if I found such behavior attractive or not.
I think I preferred him behind his typewriter, tea at his side.
This or smoking and strumming that guitar
with the wiry strings about the neck.
Still, however you cut it, he was all charisma and charm –
of course, talent and genius –
but that goes without… Insouciant, pouting.
Youth usually wasted on the young – but not him.
And the one thing l I envied as I watched was this:
That chance she had after they fucked or did what they did –
was just to lie beside him and count
each of those wild, mild brown curls –
Of course, it would take a lifetime, but isn't that the point?
It would be a start anyway.
Of course, I know she didn’t. Intuition tells me so.
Like him, I am a poet. And like him, I would not blow it.
This is where she missed.
This is where I would have hit.

this i do

It is important this night.
Not like the others in America in which
I play the role of the quiet house frau wife.
Here, in France, I am your equal.
It is the whole package that counts: that is, me, you.
Jean, like us, is a writer. And unlike Americans, he treats me as such.
That said, there are subtleties of course.
I am a woman: he a man.
This changes the equation – slightly.
And although this is mostly your show,
I am a quiet violin playing in the background – a dulcet partitia.
The pale silk of my dress drapes the curve of each breast –
My legs taper to silver-ballet slippered feet,
My blonde-bobbed hair, raspberried lips are just so;
On this night, I am, yes your wife, but your lover, your friend, but your equal.
My backward pout pursed speaking French,
carefully doling out each word – so much better this year.
This he respects, still, his blueberry eyes give a sideways glance,
an acknowledgement of the feminine, some charm.
“I really, really like these shoes,” he says admiring my legs
I become “Ma belle Sadi.”
I make him laugh. I make him smile. I put it on. This I do for you.
This exchange is wholly European – never American.
You know, most of all, my love, all of this careful attention is for you, of course.
What I hate about your country is that where I go with you there,
I am never equal, just a stranger, never equal, why hardly a woman,
the men hardly men, me not even a poet, hardly noticed at all,
merely a distraction to keep the other house-frau busy
while she tells me of her ailments… she speak of her latest pills, ills.
Therein lies the difference.
You ask me why I don’t like it here.
Among many, I give you one reason here.

heading south

09.18.06. Langlois. rue St. Lazare, Trinite. Paris. France

Tomorrow we wake and head south.
An annual journey that sees us passing hayfields of brilliant gold,
soft, gentle hills of impossible green – four hours to Pressigny,
where the smooth-manored walls are high, white chalk, grey,
The narrow pavement cobblestone and marble dust.
So vividly I recall how three-years prior we climbed
each small step to the top of that tower,
my pale silk dress, transparent, knee-fluttering, gentle,
and how in that moment you whispered soft to my ear.
Not fifteen minutes later I stood with you shyly in the cool of the bedroom
the balm of September breeze as it breathed through the window,
and how so reverently you undressed me, silently,
my alabaster skin, freckled and I blushed.
In the sheets you took me and brought alive such places
of which I did not know and I trembled to your touch
Nervous as a lily in the spring.
I was yours as you took me, as you took me, as you took me
and as you did, I heard the sound and the song and the cry
of my own voice as if hearing it for the first time ever.

choice and absolution

09.18.06., Paris. rue St. Lazare, Trinite, Paris. France

You has no opinion of either.
The soft tap-shoes or the gentle ballet-slippers,
sweet ribbons that tie about the ankles.
Either / Or.
Some blankness, lack of feeling or thought. Care.
The problem here, after twelve plus years, I know too well your eye for detail.
Recall how you once recounted the exact cast of Amy’s skin, hair.
The hang of her pony-tail – even her shoes – clothes.
(white pumps, floral dresses, jeans, white-oxford,
Converse sneakers, white pumps sometimes)
Others? One lover, also in France, with rounded breasts
with nipples so subtle you could hardly make them out.
Another – she of the red scarf. We all know of the red scarf.
We even visited the building where they finally broke the spell and fucked.
A cold and broken hallelujah, wasn’t that the line? Well then, Hallelujah.
I never did find out if anything was resolved. Does it matter?
Of course, we are not to look in the past. It’s not mine anyway.
But my tap-shoes – This is different. This is my past.
These are an echo of my past – so this then different.
Yes, my lover - savior, protector, kindred, and cousin, that’s the worst part.
It was he who untied those black ribbons.
It was he who left me barefoot on the stair.
It was he who said “Shhh.” It was he guarded our secrets.
It was both who kept them.
He whose eyes like mine, patina green, pin-prick black.
And in that gaze I found recognition. Permission.
Not narcissism this. Just belonging. Knowing.
It was he who had a preference, and each time he chose, he chose me.
And in this affirmation, and yes, my cousin.
You hate me for this. You want I feel the should and ought.
The sin of it. Some need of confession.
I never needed it. I have no need now.
The only absolution I sought was there all along –
in each kiss, a prayer, a thousand hushed amens.

these details| a love poem

In the Now – it is you whom I love.
You make this possible, impossible.
Push the limit. Test the bounds of the bond.
It is to your advantage, I know why –
for if not,, surely this Scottish temper would flare.
and after that, apathy would set in. That’s called settling.
I would quit. Sure, stay, but that’s it.
Still, your words, hurt, confuse.
Vague, uncaring – seeing lack of interest.
No – edit – remove – specific details.
This would hurt where it not that I did not know that you recall
in vivid detail the specifics of past loves – requited, unrequited.
Only you really know.
Don’t deny. You know better. You’re better than that.
Perhaps the past is a reverie. Okay.
The now to me, so present, too real.
When I’m gone, will you remember?
And if so, what will it be?
The way I step into and out of my car (like the other)?
The detail of how I dress, that style?
The exact curve of my breast?
Perhaps the scent of my perfume?
Would you compare? Do you care?
I wonder at the end – who would you prefer?
You will tell me, of course, none of this matters.
A true democrat. We are all of us unique.
None better than the last. Of course. How pretty that is!
Of course, it’s also untrue.
If it were true, it would not be so embedded, you’d forget.
My pen would then now be still.
It is only ‘love poems’ you like.
failing to see that this too is a poem of love.
You’ll say, This is ancient history
When really, it is an inquiry – a question. Re-read.
And because you never answer, I live without affirmation.

affirmation

Affirmation here, is found in glances – a moment, a minute –
sometimes longer.
Here I sit in a corner café, a young man, late 20s
black motorbike at light, stares at me longingly.
This is wholly French.
American men seem crude by contrast.
You tell me, you get this affirmation too!
I roll my green eyes sideways – breaking news!
My husband desired by others!
Of course I see this. I am a journalist, after all.
I see those young girls, 20s, 30s, 40s…
How your eyes hook on their admiring glances –
especially of the young.
Those French girls in their tight t-shirts with their sweet-heart necklines
just low-cut enough; their perfect honey-toned skin, it reaches down, down, down.
Do you imagine then, the length of their limbs?
You tell me No. The look itself is affirmation enough.
How I’d love to believe.
How my eyes roll again; second time.
Too often I have seen you look back.
I watch your gaze follow each step,
as each she disappears around the corner,
out of sight, straight up the stairs of the Metro.
It’s all part of the job: to record the days news,
no matter how horrible. No matter how the hurt.
My byline remains stable. My photo a frozen smile.

je reviens

Driving toward there from here
We listen to this song, Je Reviens
A song about an affair, you say –
A woman returning anyway – from what, who can say.
She sings with such emotion, such regret. Such sorrow here.
Perhaps in the states this would be some reversal of roles –
so maybe you see it this way.
Here, it is accepted, perhaps expected.
What is good for one, good then for the other.
My husband, American, he finds this offensive – even trite.
And me, European, ,while it may not be right for me,
I make my peace, I understand.
It explains the three-hour lunches, those unexplained absences.
We accept that lovers tryst; a passionate kiss.
In any language bed-sheets twist, hair tousles all the same.
These exchanges, they mean something, or nothing.
It is an arrangement like any other – love, not love.
It all depends on the two. Secret, non-secret.
Spoken, not-spoken. Defined, not-defined.
Does this threaten love? Or Love?
Tell me, what is love? Is it with a capital L or no?
Me, European, my love, I cannot define, but I know is singular.
How to explain to one peering in?
Perhaps in this, I am more American.
Somewhere in his desire to comprehend
without knowing, my husband, he has tried to be one of them…
he with is serial lovers of the past.
I understand more than he can know.
I am clear in my wants, my desires, my needs.
I know where they lie. I know where to find what I need.
I seek what I need and I take.
I live my life, I live it awake,
eyes wide open, lids never snapped shut.
I face my virtue every day in all of these ways.

what would you do on parting

09.21.06. - Pressigny

I am not greedy. One will do.
These stone walled farm houses, white-washed and hushed,
a small garden, lavender, passionflower whose leafy-hands stretch
over the high-brick to a path that leads me straight through
to a place where I would build a koi pond that would glimmer gold
with fish that would reflect the sunburst of your iris –a reminder of you.
Would you too build in your reminders of me?
And in which ways?
Would it be the gentle slip of my ballet-slippered feet?
The rose-blush of my cheek when you make me laugh.
I always told you; We fall in love with minor details.
I am certain of this: the exact shape and color of your eyes.
The foreign scent of your skin; the softness of your palm;
your voice, your voice, your voice…
how it would parse, perhaps reach through those long
but not long enough telephone wires draping
A mere approximation of you.
So is it decided, do you want me or not?
I remain, decidedly, yours – s.

the tree that cries

09.20.06. Pressigny

I see it first in the back garden, quiet,
hidden amidst a dance of ballerina flowers, en pointe and ready,
white, blue, fragrant lavender. I know this dance well.
The slender pale will rest against the pale trunk.
This sad tree, I have never seen before – bleached bark.
A shade taller than I.
These branches, these fragile limbs, they drape, now so tired,
pale green-leafed arms that fall gently to the ground.
She tells me this: This is the tree that cries: l’arbe qui pluet.
Surely it has lost somebody – those arms reaching, stretching, searching.
They always come up empty.
It is 8:06 p.m.
I am in the South of France, Pressigny.
Alone in the garden. Like the tree, I too cry.
And although I rarely find, I sometimes seek –
these days, not so often…
This tree though, it knows…
So while the flowers move between first, second, and third
such quiet dance..
Together then we mourn…it is our tacit understanding.
How we guard our secrets well.

why me then?

09.20.06, Pressigny, France

It does not matter that it is late or that I am cold
Nor does it matter that I am here in Southern France,
a poet, surrounded by beauty yet unable to find the words.
Any attempt proves futile, just as my attempt to forget those barbs
you doled out so easily, and forget so conveniently.
No matter that everyone else finds me other and capable
With you, I am never quite there, am I?
And I never will be… why not just say it… we both know it.
After all, who am I to speak French or tread where you trod.
Who me? European and mannered?
Certainly not. You’ve made that clear.
Not beautiful – no Juliette Binoche I !
How dare I, then.
The question then… why?
Empty words, a blank space.
You never wanted an equal. You still don’t.
You lovers, some romantic notion to bolster a fragile ego.
A first wife, a home base, something safe – a place from which to operate,
and the fucking, you fucked in France and then you fucked at home as well.
You fucked everyone, didn’t you. And now?
When it suits, you fuck me too.
A person to toss aside when it suits.
To bring along just as long as it does not conflict with any sense of your superiority.
I have learned. I am not twenty anymore.
Life will always flow smoothly – just so long as you’re above me.
Your perception anyway…
Hey, just yesterday you felt the need to display,
to fan out your peacock feathers –
This wasn’t sharing. It was plain uncaring –
And if you’re honest, if you’re clear, it was a barb –
be brave enough to be clear, to face up, own it.
I just don’t get this at all.
I don’t see the Why at all.

transatlantic reception

09.20.06., Pressigny, France

If you knew… but then, you do.
Perhaps this then, the problem.
No second guessing. So I continue.
It is you. Now, it is you.
And like you, once upon a time, I had another who loved me.
You had lovers. I cannot say if you loved them or they you.
I was not there. Not privy. You no wish to share.
Not my business anyway.
My love, his love, this I know. It was singular.
It was young. It was innocent. It was bittersweet.
It was sacred. It was sin. It was my only absolution.
Yes… you hate it… he was my cousin.
But listen, there is no need to prove your desirability.
I need not tread heavily down the same road
to where you bedded your first love, youthful desire, requited, unrequited.
Your twenties in Paris.
I say nothing about that.
In my life, history does not repeat.
My love is changeable. Unique.
I can’t judge this as good or bad. Does it matter?
That was then, this is now.
This year it is as if there is an unbreakable glass between us – a safety glass you have erected.
I see you, I love you, but nothing gets through.
Are you there? Do you hear? Have you hold of the receiver?
Or have you let the line go dead?
Or are we lost in translation … what you want instead?
You tell me, my French, mediocre at best – and no doubt, you are right.
I cannot write more than simple words.
The situation calls for something more complex.
We are no longer breathing one breath.
I am not her or her or her. This you made clear at Saint Lazare.
In two seconds you tore me down.
I know I’m not her.
So why am I, why are we here?
I’ll tell you what I do know –
true love is requited, -
in every day, in every moment, in every spoken word, in every kiss, in every shared breath.
Each day you take a thing a way, you undo all that has been do.
You edit out the good and in one feel swoop of your red-pen
you erase all that I have been, all that I try to be.
No longer am I me.

the encounter

09/17/06, Jardin Luxembourg, Paris, France

It’s only recently that I allow myself to think of it at all.
Long I’ve played the role of one whose blood runs thin –
Simple straight line: Protestant, clear as gin when, in actuality…
It is mixed, thick, rich – dating all the way back to those narrow chalky streets of Jerusalem.
This, my quiet secret. Anyway, who wants to hear it?
Silent on a bench in le Jardin I am recognized.Two dapper men – French – approach and speaking only French one says,“Excuse me, vous-etes juive?”
So direct, so straight.
Half and half, perhaps. I identify as such.
He tells me, You must visit your homeland. This is important.
I realize in that moment, I have entered only one door,
always wanting to fling open that life-long other – verboten.
With my camera, he snaps picture after picture –
all those variant shades of grey,
For the second time in this life, someone other than you has seen me as I am.

la grippe

09/17/06 – Trinite, Langlois, Paris. Fr

The rain slips in through the window while below,
cars such the pavement speeding fast to somewhere.
I imagine them spinning fast, dispersing at the roundabout as each drops off.
An ambulance chants the siren, screams of my youth.
European, American – emergency all the same.
This much universal.
Today, I am almost one of them, locked tight in our hotel room, with la grippe –
a knife in my stomach.
You’d think here, the body would cooperate – would wait – allow some respite.
We were to go to the country – pass those achingly beautiful fields, bales of hay.
Not on this day.
That’s me – always the problem, never the solution.
Breakable, too frail – drinking Badoit, sweet water of France.
It is only when Mark leaves for some provisions that I cry – this I allow.
My stupid salt-tears mix with the rain.
That French word – doleur –it encompasses so much pain.

in this moment i am

09/16/06 – Trinite, Langlois, Paris, Fr.

I am freckled, speckled, spackled.
A gingersnap blonde thing.
Patina-eyes like marbles – do you think them lucky?
Would you win them in a game? These wide-eyed shooters.
I startle easy – a dove.
Shy as a doe, naïve of the hunter.
I am a glass of white wine, tasin of summer and of pears.
At times, unsteady – a figure painted by Chagall.
A gamin floating in the air – are you still with me?
Can you follow?
In my dreams, I am always running.
Will you stop? Will you pick me up? Will you save? Do you want to?
I am the poet you trust to speak for you.
The writer who will write what you most fear.
This much I can do.
Can you accept the All?
If so, will you gently hold my hand?
Do you really see me as I am?This is all I ever asked. Now, what of you?

pont neuf affirmation

It’s at the end of Pont Neuf.
Right there.
Step off the curb and you can see the widow –
colored stones reflecting back the Paris light – this and your reflection;
a stained-glass double-exposure.
We have been here before.
The evidence on my finger: a shining star of stones – like the window, Notredame.
We return. Our odd renewal of vows – unspoken, understood.
The proprietaire lays out the rings against a black velvet cloth.
Each gleams like a wish, yet now quite right.
I tell him, I will regard others in the window –
and it is there that I see it; a scalloped square of diamonds and rubies,
delicate, carefully cut, the sides diamond leaves – they buoy up the center.
An open blossom, it has been begging for years to be noticed.
A Cinderella slip-fit: perfect it sits.
This now, is ours and here, absorbs the all of Paris.
It listen as I sigh, as I scream when we make-love,
when the church-bell tolls the hour – this too a renewal.
The dulcet tone of bell enters through open window, filling up the room.
This too an affirmation.
This is how we do it.
This is how we love.

how to be kissed

It begins in disagreement – not cantankerous, never that.
More a lively parting of the ways – this is how it starts.
The origin of fiest between two.
The blood begins to run rich, hot with possibility,
that possibility tho, remains vague, with neither knowing which is what –
or what the other is thinking: there is no rule book.
Needs we spend dreaming. Days; guessing, supposing – if, then, perhaps.
Not unlike fencing – you walk a narrow line.
Approach, approach – quick retreat before you meet.
A two flirt tango; so easy to lose your footing –
hence the blush, awkward hush, easy over laugh.
Only the shy will dare and double-dare –
This because they are unable to take that step forward.
All of this known but not intentional.
No guided, deliberate plan, but known to both players.
Neither knows quite what to say.
So it is then, somehow the gap then bridged.
If this, if close-enough, then a kiss.
After all of that, all either wanted was this.

verite

It’s all a question of freezing time.
This, and in black-and-white – rewrite: shades of grey.
Life, of course, cannot be frozen.
Appears deceptively in stokes of brilliant color.
He can’t quite grasp why it is that I want so much to photograph, to be photographed.
It’s verite, but not. Life, but frozen.
In reality we are animated – always in constant motion,
speeding all too fast to mortality.
I’m too aware of this. I know it.
So then I try to catch you in the buttery-fly net of my quick shutter of the lens.
I turn away from an inevitability.
A petulant child, yet a woman in love.

ode to BD - Southern France

There is no contradiction here.
St. Maure, Southern France – just Another Side of Bob Dylan
We pass, up, down lit country hills under the red sky,
only now just appearing – no hard rain, only sun…
‘in the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you…”
So where am I then? No direction home.
Desire? Where?
So we drive, infidels
me with ever-present camera, a black and white self-portrait.
Here, gentle Europe, no John Wesley Harding cowboys –
These are hardly modern times, more time outta mind.
No trains, no tracks, no blood on the tracks – endless horizons of gold.
Yesterday we fought, I said, “Good as I been to you…” –
a real French empire burlesque a deux –
Well, at least here, disagreement is accepted, almost expected –
Street legal anyway.
All I really want is shelter from the storm… Oh, mercy!

the benefit of others.

Always I arrive light & always you tell me, Here
you turn dark. So much had I wanted to come
to the country; the white wash, the dusty roads,
the stone houses, verdant fields, yet the land
disappoints. It is land as any other. No matter the land
of your youth, the house, the old dog long dead.
Land is land is land…
Yes, love, the fields below are yellow, shades of green,
the houses rising, rooftops snaking about the village.
and yet for all of this desire, this beauty, I feel confined.
The introvert comes out, shows her plain face to the night
leaving me stupid, clam shut. With the rich
perfume of pear about my lips, my chin
I lay on a smile. I say all is well.
The benefit of others.

09/24/05, Pressigny, France

the illness

You cannot recover: I cover you with horse-hair blankets
five thick: the peach, the blue, the yellow, more.
They are not enough.
In all these years I have never known you to be sick:
- maybe once, never twice.
No nurse I, unable to heal, so helpless to the demon
who takes hold of your insides and twists and turns a dervish.
I would chant spells. Place a great hex. Dance a Wiccan dance.
Do anything for you.
This is love: this is it. The power to heal.
To warm away your shakes,
to blow cool winds to fevered face.

09/24/05, Pressigny, France

the bracelet | signs

Is it really a sign, this bracelet.
As I stood still, the man from Senegal held
my finger and tied the thread, a trick.
What would the Magot think of this?
Would he look down, give cynical look
or would he gladly approach, so used to such things.
His eyes, this time are shaded by dark glasses.
His wooden face gives away nothing.
We drive far away to the steady beat
of the windshield wipers and in the distance
I hear the hum of telephone wires that stretch
their giant arms about the country, carrying
messages of love, of hate.
The signal is jammed: you will not get through.
09/24/05 , A10, Paris , France

Absolution, St. Sulpice

Tapers. There are two. You say, Move out of yourself.
Write something new, and I do. Two tall tapers burn,
lit and bright and the church is dark save for ours &
the heavy or light prayers of others, red hot white votieves
the small the medium the large depending on your wages,
the wages of life, of sin, of desire, light the fire.
Each lifting their greyed and curling smoke to some heaven
or at least the high, vaulted ceiling. Outside
the streets wind, run as holy rivers all leading
to this door. They mirror the bony fingers of the priest
as he gently made the saw of his blessing as the light of
his hazels met the hazel whites of my own.

Confessional

It was so simple and so not.
The father speaking French, me pigeon
bald a sinner. I kneeled, confessed as best
as I cold using all the words I knew – the hot
coleur of my anger – et autres choses for those
other things of which here I cannot speak
because outside the confines of the confessional
all things remain sanctified, sacred and unspoken.

I can tell say that I left bright – claire,
sanctified, and pure: simple, free as any
child running quick down the aisle of St. Sulpice.

09/23/05, St. Sulpice, Paris, France

this

This Paris, this France, this tower, this walk, this September, this church, these bells, these leaves, these monuments, this park, this road, this day, this night, this window, these boats, this café, these cigarettes, this cologne, this shirt, this ring, this taper, this kiss, this Metro, this “oh baby”, this touch, this light, this flic, this bridge, this point neuf, this arrondisement, this drive, this rain, this sun, this warmth, this cold, this pavement, this dust, these shoes, these conkers, these stones, this autumn, this confession, this love.

09/23/05, Hotel Langlois, Paris, France

Histoire de Simone

So they say all things must evolve.
How many reflections then in this mirror.
Simone, her beautiful back up against the wall
using her wit, her mind as a filter.
She blows smoke, absorbed now in this mahogany
Throws a look at Jean Paul, thinks, Oh let him eat cake.

09/22/05, Les Deux Magots, Paris, France

in school I was always in trouble for writing sideways

In school I was always in trouble for writing sideways.
The slant of my slant ~ a different way of seeing, of being.
Never quite straight but skewed, the way the roads around
Paris do not follow any grid but simply go and vroommm, you
Are off. Is not then my pen the same way?
Taking anyone who reads from the x. to the y.
The calculus of my brain, these thoughts, this happiness, this pain.
I am not a train on a rail, directed and fast.
Rather, a slow meander through narrow roads
Where everything leads to nothing and everything
At once. Does this writer’s bump not prove all those
Years then of wondering: I am my own foot-happy
Traveler showing everyone the way.
The Pied Piper of epilepsy.
The Pied Piper of today.

09/22/05, Les Deux Magots, Paris, France

pigeon poem, retake

Oh Mark, you are so much like a pigeon.
Greyed and feathered with your funny distinct walk.
I’d recognize you anywhere. In you there are algorithms,
things others do not see. The x. the y. z. of your language.
The plane on which you live – a cosine, a pattern geometric.
You too await scraps, though you’d deny this of course.
Scraps of love (I’d offer you more); scraps of ego (if more you need).
You have no want of such things. No need anymore.
They are yours… Don’t you see?
Pigeon me, pigeon you.
Dove love.


09/21/05 Jardin Luxembourg, Paris, France

the old ghosts

All day you have me walking,
visiting old ghosts, old haunts,
mine, yours. They inhabit the Isle de la Cité.
Isle St. Louis. Mine have some meaning, but it is
for us. For last visits, last candles, first, second,
third rites.
Yours, rites of passage, the narrow
roads where once you lived with some other:
Different life, different wife. I wonder then how
much has changed. I pop two euro in the box at
Notredame Take a prayer card, fall to my knees.
Hold the moment, a brief, shiny souvenir.

spell

Only with you could I reach this vaulted ceiling.
With each reverend yard move closer to your
green and stained glass. Only with you
could I be so fertile and so rich.
Below I hear your hushed footstep.
Toss the salt over my shoulder:
Pray it always be this way.

09/20/05, Pantheon, Paris.Fr

chanbre no. vignt et un

Surely since we have been others have occupied this room.
But have they occupied it. Really taken it all in
and noticed the verdant green of the curtain swag and pull
never undone, the milky white soft silk of the curtain, how it
filters the Paris light and all the sounds of the city as it unfolds
all about you. Did they too become a part of that hum, and fill
the hush with the sound of gentle fucking or did they fritter away
the details, appreciating nothing, seeing this only as a resting place.
A room to stop along the way but never one in which to slake
a thirst or a hunger.

I cannot imagine it All I can see here is us,
as if no-one had been, as if this quiet room
had waited all this time and shouted at last “Fill me up!”
It is only alive when we arrive. This I imagine anyway
and I admit, I prefer it this way. It is ours.
Room number 21, Paris, France, somewhere in the ninth.

09/20/05, Hotel Langlois, Paris, France

black and white still

Before you kiss me you tell me,
You have the perfect ass –
Heart-shaped in reverse.
I dress in a pair of ivory poppy panties, all lace and finery,
Paris bought. You know this is for you.
This kiss is a kiss I will remember.
Just before, a few minutes prior,
I stood before the window
looking over the courtyard,
dropped my simple towel knowing
full-well you were behind me,
holding the camera -
that this image would be etched indelible
in black and white.
I heard the three-time click
and I moved so slight with each
as the light faded on the three.
I was your beauty just bathed,
so in the moment,
the photograph will confirm it.
I knew this in the after kiss,
in the church-bell chime that sung
without hesitation, the clapper licking each smooth side.
Soon we would sound-out to Paris as the autumn fell
all around us as my towel hit the marble as the clock chimed
as you kissed me as we made love within the frame.
I held it all tight in the tick-tock of my heart.

09/20/05, Hotel Langlois, Paris.Fr

the moon, take two

Oh Shit, You would defend the moon: my arch rival.
Oh how she wishes! In my shine she is eclipsed as sometimes
I may be too, yet never am I cancelled out. Always I return,
midday unexpected.

Let me tell you: There is no little man, the moon’s homunculus,
only a moon full of cheese; full of shit, full of hate, full of bile green
but never blue. Can’t you see this fucking lightness?
Do you see only the dark – not her extended bony fingers?
Have they reached you, claws one time too many.
The stars are but her minions: try to count and they defy.
Not because she is infinity but because she lacks order.
Can you not see the beam I now bring before you.
How I offer it up fully, or is this simply my folly?
My saccharine Lite Brite – cheap pathetic colors.
Am I really this to you? You can have her.
Her gnarled and darkened fingers,
face hooded in shadow.

You have been deceived, love.
One finds nothing in the dark.

09/20/05, Pantheon, Paris.Fr

do you see this love?

Do you see this love?
Do you see this, love?
How the past is but a bridge to the present,
so like the wide roads that lead to the Isle de la Cité
To a place so sacred and sanctified that it cannot help
but be good and by good I mean Good in the Platonic sense.
Do you see how much of what I do is for you? For us?
How you make me want to be better than I am.
How you let in the light and it shines, multi-colored
stained-glass in the church with high-vaulted ceilings.
How each time we enter, we marry, and though
the words are not spoken they are tacit, understood.
I light a taper each time.
Do you know it bears your name?

09/19/05, Montparnasse, Paris.Fr

photocredit: ralph gibson

documentarian

When we return I’ll type these up.
I’ll do this because I am a documentarian.
Because I do not remember, yet remember everything…
For instance, I will recall details like:
The girl with giant breasts and brassy hair who just passed by.
How at that precise moment you looked out the window.
How earlier you said, In Paris people look.
It won’t matter. I’m capable of letting go. No.
Of filtering; of seeing only the best. Or the worst,
it depends on the swing: the up or the down.
So when we get home and I type these up
I will leave out the details that to me have no meaning,
because all I want to remember is this moment right now.
The two beer on the table; the red pack of Gauloises, La Poste.Fr
that passes by, yellow and mellow, how the driver
has a cigarette, lip dangling and cool.
How you wear the white oxford that once I posed in
wearing nothing and I tell you I was beautiful,
becoming, no ~ sexy, sublime. Anything to be close.
Your Blenheim, the Metro, the tickets, the beer, the light,
those pens, the criss-cross of the rails, the zebra crossing,
the conkers, the dust as we walk arm-in-arm
down the pavement of Paris.

09/19/05, Montparnasse, Paris.fr

my declaration

Yes, the year clicks by, the second hand, second time.
You say, Everything is the same: Nothing is the same.
The pavement glitters with promise. I try hard to catch my stride
and while perhaps not today, tomorrow I decide I will be beautiful.
The old self-doubt is both a bore and a burden, worn out.

Tomorrow, love, you will see the real thing. A beauty rare and true.
Those French girls you’ve loved ~ they will not hold a candle
to my hip-switch, the slow sashay of my walk, the open-rose of my
pout that suggests all it suggests. On that day you’ll want
to lick the high arch of my foot and although
heads may turn on that day it is still nothing compared to when
I offer it all up and I let it all come down
that mixed blessing that I am,
and you will watch as I fall to my knees
in the old Notre Dame and God, love, I’ll know what you think.
To hell with self-doubt; I’ve had enough.

09/19/05, Montparnasse, Paris, France

pere lachaise and fixed stars

The silver pen must write.
It is beyond all control
Has some inner-world all its own
And a logic unbeknownst to me
Yet comprehensible to the last.
They believed their Ouija board oracle.
~ Fixed stars govern a life ~
A life of portents and hexes, of old
Celtic blessings of winter mornings
of mournings of brutality and tented
Hair hanging over the typewriter as she
Bangs out her suicidal missives that
For years will not be read.

Oh Sivvy, the dead are the dead are the dead.

I saw them at Pere Lachaise
And I tell you, I saw no sign
Of life, after-life or holy
Reunion in which all could
Be right with Mater with Pater.
If not right here, why then right
There? The dead do not gibber,
They simply lie and tell lies.

Lies told in this life…
But carried over to the what?
You, you come here to Paris,
Seeking your own dark reunion.
He would have nothing to do with you.
A girl alone, Paris in the Autumn.
Oh! Put a good spin on it
What else had you left?
When the other, the last
When he left you for some Jew,
That subtle minx all dark you
Fixated again on the flipside
With a man you believe could love you.
It was all you had left. He of Nazi
Stomp, of pomp and circumstance e.
There are fixed stars,
But life is not ours for the governing.

09/19/05 Montparnasse, Paris. Fr

huis clos

So here we are at Les Deux Magots
where people ‘spoke feverishly’ you tell me
as they drank their Pastis or their whiskey
or whatever was fashionable at the time and
they had great arguments about the nothingness
of Nothing. How existential they were. They were!
They were!

So then how much has changed? I mean really changed?
Surely not then did these dull and thick tourists inhabit
this place. Did not walk these tiled, tired floors.
I doubt it.

Did Simone piss for a price, or simply piss away the time
with Jean Paul, over nothing, expecting nothing,
nothing between them but air.

09/22/05, Les Deux Magots, Paris, France

juste une poesie pour un ami

Quand je pense à toi, je pense à moi.
Aux rues pavées, à la manière dont je me sens
quand je suis là-bas, en France, mon Europe, mon pays, ma terre.

C'est difficile à expliquer mais le cœur veut ce que le cœur veut.
Et mais il est nécessaire que je suive ma route comme un petit oiseau
qui cherche sa nichée, pour ne pas être perdu en Amérique.
C'est difficile à dire expliquer comme il me manque, mon pays -
les collines, l’odeur ou la senteur de la terre, la lumière européenne.
C'est différent ici: c'est froid, ou même les gens sont plus froids
Ils ne sont pas comme nous. Mais oui !, comme toi et moi - plus gentils.

Une fois encore, je retournerai à Paris, un de ces jours je retournerai à Paris avec mon mari
...Lui, le seul que j’aime...
Et nous, nous et toi serons réunis parce que nous sommes amis.Quand je rêve, je rêve à ce jour, le jour où je suis
chez moi une fois encore.avec amour, grosses bises,

ton ami,

sadi r-p

the great wrap-up

It is absurd, I am afraid you do not love me. You have taken me to Paris, the delightful Autumn all about us and I am afraid you do not love me. Paris is Autumnal the chestnuts falling easily, Le Jardin coats our shoes with white dust, you have taken me to Paris. The Metro is familiar, the smell remains unchanged, we board a train, our pockets filled with chestnuts. We drink deux demi, we walk the the Jardin (our shoes covered in white dust) and we go seeking Baudelaire, snap a picture, have a conker fight, board the metro, our shoes covered with white dust. On the Metro you kiss me, near miss me a bump, yet still I am afraid you do not love me, I palm the conkers in my pocket and look at my white feet from Le Jardin Luxembourg. This is absurd, you have taken me to Paris. It is Autumn, the chestnuts fall easily, I am afraid you do not love me, we board the Metro – smell unchanged – our pockets filled with conkers, our shoes white with dust, our pockets filled with conkers and Baudelaire in the camera, you kiss me nearly miss me only this time you do not. Paris, the Metro, the conkers the white dust the shoes le Jardin, the park and the kisses, the very near misses, the absurdity, the photos, Paris drops it’s Autumn Baudelaire cracks a smile Il dit, il t’aime.

10/02/05, paris.

the date

it is a date. The corner café, my treat.
All night you look across the table,
certain each thing in its place.
That I am HAPPY. I am. How could I not be?
You are here. I am here. We are there.
Mark the map with an X. It marks the spot,
the moment, the year, the day, the time and place.
I’ll only tell you: We are young, it is Paris, France,
2005.

09/21/05, Hotel Langlois, Paris, France

This Paris, this France, this tower, this walk, this September, this church, these bells, these leaves, these monuments, this park, this road, this day, this night, this window, these boats, this café, these cigarettes, this cologne, this shirt, this ring, this taper, this kiss, this Metro, this “oh baby”, this touch, this light, this flic, this bridge, this point neuf, this arrondisement, this drive, this rain, this sun, this warmth, this cold, this pavement, this dust, these shoes, these conkers, these stones, this autumn, this confession, this love.

09/23/05, Hotel Langlois, Paris, France

fresh blood

and so it changes.
again as we approach
Pressigny I feel the transition
as my body responds, breasts
rounding, the pert under-curve
lifting as a gift to your
mouth from where you’ll
suck hard, draw the blood.
Taste the life that is in me.

09/24/05, Hotel Langlois, Paris, France

the bracelet | signs

Is it really a sign, this bracelet.
As I stood still, the man from Senegal held
my finger and tied the thread, a trick.
What would the Magot think of this?
Would he look down, give cynical look
or would he gladly approach, so used to such things.
His eyes, this time are shaded by dark glasses.
His wooden face gives away nothing.
We drive far away to the steady beat
of the windshield wipers and in the distance
I hear the hum of telephone wires that stretch
their giant arms about the country, carrying
messages of love, of hate.
The signal is jammed: you will not get through.

09/24/05, A10, Paris, France

flux

You tell me, It is not the same as last year.
Both of us thinking the same thing…
Yet still the clock chimes faithful…
the half, the hour. Our ever present guest.
It is a comfort.
Things change, I tell you. They change &
stay the same all at once. One day of illness
you worry the world will not bear it.
Your broad shoulders that always carry so
much, that you feel must then carry me too
At heart, love, you are a bower bird,
always building great arches of sparkle and of blue.
The bright and shine that draws the magpie in me
straight to you. So then let me weave
tonight’s nest. Let my comfort be a rest
while I spin a nest of spittle, of feathered
mud-love and let no man come between this.

09/23/05, Pressigny, France

life in the country

Things are different in the country.
Hum of city far behind. We drive two hours
and leave behind our Paris, plus vite a Pressigny.
Roads curve. A paved and dusty octopus all leading
to the same place; the long arms that circle the town
that lead to the high-road of the castle where the fossils
rest in their cases speaking traces of history long ago exposed
without permission.
Life could be lonely here but I could take it.
I would watch the fronts moving in, always missing
just in time our greenhouse climate – a protectant.
But without your feverish love would I thrive
as the passionflowers that climb about my house
or would I simply be ~ a quasi-hermit,
my small ascetic hut and me so celibate and pure: pure as water, pure as air.
My long hair uncut, greyed and red tenting each letter home.
Darling, life is calm, life is good, but God I miss you.

09/24/05, Pressingy, France

challenge

I tell you, It has to mean something.
The blessing, St. Sulpice. You arch
your eyebrows skyward, French pout
about your lips. You do not believe.
All about Paris I am ducking
into churches, dropping to my knees
praying prayers for the dead, for the living
and even for you and from your disbelief
some part of you believes. You stand as
a tourist, looking skyward at the green,
tinted windows knowing full well
that you are covered. That I pray for you too.
Otherwise, light a candle: blow it out.

09/26/05, Paris, France (no location given)

we wait

We wait and wait and wait.
No three minute photograph we.
The photomaton is obstinate.
Says, One is not satisfied
with mediocrity: A painting I must produce.
All day I sit hoping for perfect subject
and by chance you arrive! For you
I will produce Van Goghs, Monets, a Rossetti
for your wife, a real come n get me.
So lovely you two, so in love, so not blue.
And when at last at Montparnasse you demonstrate
such patience, such worthiness – I knew it! – I will
not spit out nor drop, but gently
hand to you this work. The souvenir
that lasts forever (and four euro at that!)
Remember me when thinking of Paris.
Remember everything of this day.

09/27/05, The Dome, Montparnasse

attencion pietons!

Ok: First things first. What the fuck
does JCB mean? I mean, I’ve been here
a while, yet still the sign eludes me. Oh sure,
I have un amour de Paris et aussi un amour de la langue
(especially yours love) and when you go to Zone 30 – Wow!
I pray it is parfum de femme – by this I mean not some
American Bar with some seedy American blonde.

~ the dome, monparnasse, sept, 2005, Paris, France

One week and I will be there. Just one week and I will board a plane to Paris where I always feel at home because no matter how many times I hear the French are rude or any number of such comments, I’ve never found it to be so. Whether you speak the language or not, you can fit in in France and easily so.

Sure, speaking is easier and after all, when in Paris... as in Rome... We certainly expect those to speak our language. I was always amazed at the people I worked with who were or are from India. Those who grew up speaking Hindi and Telegoo and yet had better language skills than a lot of us English and Americans.

Truly. It never ceased to amaze me and I knew that had I been in India, there was no way I could get by, though many explained to me that they had grown up learning English in school as a requirement. We too have our requirements though language isn't really a big focus and seems to be dropped by many students after minimal requirements are met, if there are any. And as for translations, we rank almost if not the lowest in the world to carry books in translation. Visit Paris and you'll find in any bookstore a section for books in German, French, and English etc etc.

I visit most American shops and I can only find books in English, which troubles me somewhat because there are books I’d love to read in French that aren't available yet but the shipping alone is hardly worth the price of the book. How to get around this? To lug them all home in my suitcase? To have friends rush out and purchase them and send them to me? Certainly, that is looking more and more like a valid option though one hates to be an imposition. Or I do. Most of us don't like to be such.

So off I go to the place I call home, or once called home because I feel divided. It is my London, weary and wonderful after terrorist attacks; my America, of which I am deeply proud and honored to live, and my France, a childhood home of sorts and place of frequency to which I return again and again, telling myself each time how this time I’ll stay. This time will be different and we'll set it up and it won't be a thing said in the moment. It's not about romanticizing.

God knows there are so many foibles to living in Paris, or France. Everything is expensive, even simple things like linens and appliances. Flowers are cheap but you can't eat them. Rents are expensive but nothing compared to what the appliances and beds cost and try getting one delivered to your house as you would here! Hah! I've heard you have to venture far out of town and then get a truck and bring them back yourself.

Yet still... still... I find myself yearning. I’m not even there and already I’m missing it. How awful. One thinks, then just go! If you love it so much then just go, but like anyone, I suppose it is inevitable that we romanticize places where we do not live and holidays are notorious for this.

Off you go on some wonderful jaunt and come back believing you could really make a life for yourself in Thira, Greece, where you would serve up cappuccinos to willing tourists who would ask you how you like living in your one room, studio type white stucco house with the small little garden and the zillion Greek quilts and the sound of donkey bells at night and you know, just know it won’t be like this. It can’t. Like anywhere, it takes on a daily life of its own. A city becomes a place whre you work, live, try to get by and have the usual routines and domestic bliss and not so much bliss as you do anywhere. It’s just a different setting and while I would argue that some settings make it easier to suffer the invetiables than others, I would never argue that the inevitables marvelously vanish once you get there. Nobody could be that naïve, except perhaps Diane Lane and that woman who wrote the book and even then, she didn’t have such a great time ~ it was a great deal of work and if you’ve read Under the Tuscan Sun then you know it. Life ain’t Diane Lane spinning around on her bed in her charming villa and living it up with some cheeky and saucy Italian. Ah well, c’est la vie, eh? I’ll simply send a postcard.

It will read: having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.

xo

sadi ranson-polizzotti

recollections of you

The tap pants you bought me
The bra with the apricot ribbon
I found in the monoprix in the 19th
and the flowers you bought for no reason
before we went foraging for dinner, returning
home rich with thick clumps of vegetable
radishes, cabbage, carrots, our rich spring onions
a garden of lettuce, tomatoes
the roots still clutching and from each would fall
handfuls of dirt, of this French soil.
I could smell it.
The earth redolent and lovely
as our days in the country
and the photograph of you
snapped at Baudelaire’s tomb;
how you rested, so casual and,
so easily comfortable, already no
stranger in this thick foreign land
but a citizen, like me, European
so easily loose-limbed and elegant
in that way that only the romantic
can afford. The look in the eye,
the present pursed pout, how we stand
hips thrust forward as if made for the fucking -
for true and real kissing on the parched
peck of America . This is why:
I love you. One reason, yes:
but it makes us kindred
woven of same fabric
our silks so easily intermingling
how we lie down together
how we pull the shutter
how we shut out the world,
& how we open ourselves.

the true return ~ paris, 2005

So Autumn comes around again and we find ourselves, quite unsurprisingly, returning to our Paris. I am so proprietary about it, perhaps because to me, being European, it seems to me as Native Soul. Native Land.

How do you reconcile leaving your land, leaving my Scotland, my Britain, my France ~ how does one go about feeling okay with this. What i miss most: shaking the dirt from the clumps of vegetables and fruit at the market. How the fruit and vegetables are loose and tied with string and not prepacked and how they are held in giant bins and how you must bring your own mesh bag. How we carried it all home and made for us a feast on our last night and other nights, but it is the last night that sticks the most, the melancholia of it and the fear and sorrow of leaving and wondering if i would ever return.

Yet we do. We do because he feels it too. He feels the same lack in the heart, the absence that i feel for what is too his native land from the years he spent living there. The days cannot go fast enough. I return to much work, this i know and am glad of it. Glad to have the work and in some way, sorry that the timing is so rough, but having planned this for a year or more, how can we pass up this visit. After all of the immigration issues we have been through, how to say No. And yet i would have. I would again have turned by back on it, but i will not. Not this time and never again.

I am ready to take it all on and to speak only that thick and foreign language that wraps so delicately about my tongue and has my bowed lip pouting as i pronounce my eu and my lu and the words that, at one time, did not come so easily.

There was a time when Paris felt that it had been stolen from me: memories associated that were not so good and yet i reclaim it, independely of anyone and now, let no-one ever take this from me.

I walk a path down Rue Mazarine and could care less who was there and when and who you took to you because that is someone else's life and not my own. It is my pace and i reclaim it with all the vigor and elan of youth, of wisdom, of a new found sense of maturity and as i write this, Nick Drake echoes in my ear, Which will you love the best...

I cannot know. Yet it seems unimportant to me now. All that matters is the love of self and of country and no matter how trite, it is the stuff of life.

sadi ranson-polizzotti, august, 2005

french afternoon in Underground Window

French Afternoon and more in Underground Window August Issue. Or, visit tant mieux and select title poem from the Archives which are arranged in alphabetical order. Sorry the Underground Window link is no longer active.

publication of Photmaton in Elixer Magazine

http://www.elixirmagazine.com/issue1/Photomaton.php publication in Elixer Magazine

what could be better than returning to the place where for all intents and purposes, you grew up; where you learned what it meant to ache and to break and to live and to break bread with the natives and wrap your tongue around a language so foreign and lyrical you would master because it would prove you other than what you were, and that was okay because you were France's native son and while everyone slept peacefully at home, they did not know they had yet lost you, lost me and in the doing, we ran down rue mazarine my hair flying out behind me, the sound of your shoes as they slapped on the pavement.