eau d'europe

"...'tis some cold, black pool, where in the scented dusk..."* oozes an oily dirge...

"j'ai vu le soleil bas taché d'horreurs mystiques illuminant de longs figements violets...

...mêlant aux fleurs des yeux de panthères à peaux d'hommes!

j'ai vu fermenter les marais, énormes nasses où pourrit dans les joncs tout un Léviathan!
...eschouages hideux au fond des golfes bruns... 

moi qui trouais le ciel rougeoyant comme un mur qui porte, confiture exquise aux bons poètes, des lichens de soleil et des morves d'azur..."* 

"si je désire une eau d'Europe, c'est la flache noire et froide où vers le crépuscule embaumé un enfant accroupi, plein de tristesses, lâche un bateau frêle comme un papillon de mai."*

[*selected lines and verses from "Le Bateau Ivre" by Arthur RIMBAUD, 1854-91]

[alone in a small secret chamber in the Marais, softly scented by Eau d'Europe and the breath of two frenchmen...]

le coffre d'or

a gilded chest distends from that hallowed hall to primitivism on the silvered tongue-river seine...divination primeval in-viscus entombed within, while divining rod of iron inviscous pierces the primal skies above...

were all this gathering of indigenous vestiges an invocation to self-preservation or a mere ablation of vengeful velleities...

[Musée du Quai Branly by Jean NOUVEL, 2006]

mater-adora

behind a pane of textured glass she stands in pale wooden folds with her babe in arms gently shielded by a leafy branch... bathed by a watery light the carved hardness exudes a serene innocuity, a fixated imperturbability, the monocarpous mamaternal eternal...

la calotte d'or

to encase a favoured companion dog skull in golden formulation, to display as mnemonic ritualist object upon an antique desk, to revere tender the noblest animalistic spirit, to crown such meagre ancient bones in such propitiatory resplendence...

"...l'incertitude de mourir et le fer de l'amour dans la plaie d'un sourire...la plus lointaine étoile du plus humble des chiens..."*

[*selected lines from "Lanterne magique de Picasso" by  Jacques PREVERT]

[Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature]

sans-travail

in a more primitive pariscene, this small but hefty 2F saucer once dotted one of countless café tables... but it has been unemployed for a long while now - with the franc a lost currency, many cafés a faded memory, and paris-paradise a fouled foreign investment museumville...

[I have this petit plat in my possession now [found at a brocante], but no knowledge of what its home was like - if anyone out there knew of the establishment and the meaning of the word "NOUBLANCHE", please do let me know*...I will also be posting it on my parigigi antiques site to find a new home for it ]

*Thank you to Peter for letting me know that Rue de Paradis was a street of china and faience manufacturers, so the name and address of the stamp under the dish were for the maker.

sans-patrouille

only in my primitive parisphere does the alligatoress crawl up a wall trailing her numbered eggs...forever in search of  her lost home-swamp in le marais d'art...

[Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou]

sans-chambre

the pretty wallpaper square still clings onto an exposed interior wall after the building has been demolished...a nominal memory patch from someone's intimate life once lived in this missing room, now a revealed personal artifact, a meagre anthropic mural, an exiguous floriated fragment for all to view...