Paris, Deuxième temps…
Sur un billet de Metro:
‘You taught me
To
memorise.’ – To Marcel Proust, under a
Stone,
atop his stone; I left a cigarette
For
Beckett, this time, in Montparnasse.
And
Sartre and de Beauvoir, together, forever,
After
Serge Gainsbourg, lipstick-kissed, like Wilde,
Of
whom I photo-ed, for Linz, back at home;
To
where I don’t want to go, after another
Bit
of Paris, il peu de Paris, avec Belle,
Aussi; l’étranger am
I, ami, maintenant, dans
le maison (home?)
où le coeur est. Le travail de travail,
To
come, on the bus – I hope she’ll be alright, unwell,
After
a night, by tour Eiffel, again; a
Veritable
feast, with Callum, and blue-lipped,
Red-haired
Taylor; nothing on our romantic
First
trip down there, for phallic sparkle-spotting:
A
magic retour après 69 année erotique;
And
my irrational hatred of my salubrious hands,
Or
my irrational crush on William F. Buckley, Jr.
Of
Paris’s poetesses, all, and England’s, and Ireland’s,
Dead
(or have I killed…?). Neck and shoulders
Soldered
by a cramp that’s crumpled my back, my back
My
back! And now we go to Victoria; a
Holiday
in rewind, from Pernety, après confit de
Canard et un Stella Artois à Porte
Maillot, now,
Strange
stairway memory of… years ago, now,
With
Adam; un monde différant, perdu.
Inside
The
Palais des Congrès swathes of sound as if
‘In
The Flowers’ by Animal Collective had slowed down,
Via
Paul; entering out that door, into a different,
Sober,
professional, commercial, driven, world: âmes
mort.
Cranes.
Haggard people – English-speaking; sing to me in
Bro-ken
Eng-li-sh… How to say ‘broken’ in French?
Kaput’s
so easy because it’s an onomatopoeia.
Excerption.
Of world. Removal. To rain. On Window-
Lessness.
Full stop. On Champs-Élysées sous la pluie!
A
tropical storm with slatted rain slanted towards us:
And
a tumult overtook the seas: on land. Land us,
Ashore.
On Travelling Back from Manchester, via Oxford
I leave Tristan (he to
Tokyo, I to Paris) after now perhaps
Having told him the same
story twice, and wondering
Whether he thinks I drink
too many pints, but not
Wondering whether I drink
too many pints, at 19:42;
He platform 2, I platform
5, from Piccadilly.
To New Street; Marvell
still minding my own busyness, after
Having had a stearn resurrection,
but no time for Shakespeare;
I mean to have a pint at
New Street, what with delays here and there.
Platform 1A,
indistinguishable from Platform 1B (to 12B).
Ah, a sit down. Next
X-country to Oxford; delayed.
Leamington Spa. No.
Banbury. No. Marvell. No. Two
Girls talk, solely of
themselves, almost without pronouns; shod
Is shoe. I get to Oxford,
where the cloistered wellinbred
Face of the hooray Henry
sits there staring at me,
In the manner of a disused
shallot. This town owes me £50.
The risk of the next train
(headache almost insurmountable;
What is it if you drill a
hole in your temple?): 5 mins
Turnaround at Didcot Prkwy.
(I sneeze so much, at
Peculiar times, I wonder if
it’s… from reading too much
Freud I wonder?) I make it.
“Could have shut the door
Behind you, buddy.” “I
thought there was someone else…”
Train to Cardiff Central,
platform 3, is delayed…
“Police are on it at
Reading”… indefinitely. I take
A field recording of the
creaks of freighters.
And I wonder what there is
to drink…
John Smith’s. But we never
have John Smith’s;
I’ve wondered thrice if
they’re for a special occasion,
And will wonder a fourth
time, pulling ring.
00:42, the train is here.
Two stops, and a 45 mins
Walk, to beer. Arrive,
fourteen hours, for four, after having left.
The Shard
I
saw it, at some terrible o’clock, apocalyptic;
Sharding
the sky, if I can put it that way. It
Was
a wet smog in which its spine was buried;
Did
it see, above, a blue? I wouldn’t want to have
Knew.
I am on its top, somehow, precariously,
Clinging
on, in dreams, of anxiety; awful, inspiring
Total
recoil, from that Babelonion knife; the Shard’s
Sharpness
of Renzo Piano’s magniloquence. I fear it!
Unholy,
tremulous, translucent, skinless thunder, lightning
Strike,
upwards. Disconnected, perpetually unfinished
Looking
at, I wonder. As have, in stages, as we, have built
Our
stages, when it, was our height, on our, first night.
Icepicked
of iceblink luck, as we await our Southbank
Away
from its terrible glare, awith a
Silkier
glace.
