for the love of books and blooms

  

el dia de la rosa...y por amor...
a little belated for wishing all a lovely Sant Jordi day [April 23rd] dedicated to St. George the patron saint of Catalonia - and a combo St. Valentine's and Mother's Day...roses for mothers, wives and girlfriends and books in return to fathers, husbands and boyfriends...
el dia del llibre is also in remembrance of Cervantes who died on this day in 1616...

medieval cache

the follies of youth are somewhat contained in this hostel sanctum of the Marais... they come and they go, storing their little green bottles on the corner ledge  - beyond the reach of the unrefreshed, all so thirsting to be anointed with a dash of spring ...

antique light

one spring day a celestial beam found its way into the dome of Saint-Paul Saint-Louis...
ethereal faces lifted towards the nostalgic light where the spirits of kings and cardinals converge...
Madame de Sévigné silently slipped into her chair, a dark veil hiding her delicate face...
she prayed for her forebears and her progeny and for her charmed ascendancy in the Marais...

antique ghosts

sometimes they hover behind window panes in the darkened chambers of private needs...
sometimes they drift across your field of vision then vaporize into the fading light...
sometimes they loom before you like peripheral gods from the antique mists...
and sometimes they enslave you in their stony embrace and engraved kiss...

of kings and lost lizards

a short distance away from the extreme sculptural opulence of the Pont Alexandre III, a golden salamander bask alone in the sunshine...
in search of the king who had once held it in such high regard to symbolize the mandate of his reign "nutrisco et extinguo"*...

[*"nourish the good and extinguish the bad" - vive la France!]

of kings and old clochards

strung out along the Pont-Neuf  like so many pulled teeth dangling on a chain, these grotesque pearls grimace and glare at the sanitized masses...
they finally found the head of the gallant Henri IV, embalmed and unjuggled, who once crossed over this bridge of vice beaming the glories of France...

gardien d'escalier

the mythical herder contemplates the rise of a steep climb while his baby pan watches for the lost flock...
I descend the winding stone steps and confront their trespass upon my modernist reverie...

[cozying up to greek gods in the Rue de Turenne neighbourhood, 3e Arr]

yellowbricksfloat

"My glass crushes a puddle of yellow beer against the marble table top, a bubble floating in it."*

[*from Nausea by Jean-Paul SARTRE, 1964]

...and below, the seine floats on wordlessly, ever reaching for the great big sea... 

[merci, Peter, for reminding me the name of the artist of this "shadow man" pochoir - NEMO has been leaving his mark around Paris since the early 1980's and has long been established as an officially sanctioned street artist]

bawlingbaldhead

I shout for more...

I holler and I roar... 

I yell in pain...

I cry in vain...  

only to reverberate against the intimate wall...  

     

doubledeergirls

large peartears of cherry drop from the honeyhalo...
the tieredtree sprouts from crossed twintrunks...
a pair of bambigirls reach for each other, eyes closed...
and stroke the grittymouth of the blankeyed stump...

burlybirdman

the buff and muscular adjutant scrunches up in a rude finger pose atop a roof, oblivious to the open orifice through his hip...

rainbow rods spray out on another wall further down the block - delicate veined wings mocking this flightless big-beaked manhawk...

parfois l'oiseau arrive vite...*

"attendre s'il le faut pendant des années

la vitesse ou la lenteur de l'arrivée de l'oiseau

n'ayant aucun rapport

avec la réussite du tableau...

...alors vous arrachez tout doucement

une des plumes de l'oiseau

et vous écrivez votre nom dans un coin du tableau."*

[*selected lines excerpted from 'Pour faire le Portrait d'un oiseau' by Jacques PREVERT, Selections from 'PAROLES', 1965]

BONNE ANNEE A TOUS!  

[chirps the sweet little bird from the Jardin du Luxembourg]

 

l'aigle catalan

crowned l'aliga barcelona, this gegant dances to a solemn chant...
on a wintry sunday morning he appears in the plaça sant jaume...
with his noble wings unfurled, he glides through the flocks gathered
where the flightless aristocracy hides behind drab and tattered feathers...

les faucons-prisonniers

they peregrinate no more, these regal birds of prey...
encased in a glass cage, their feathered forms are unruffled...
their sharp eyes unseeing, yet their heads are held high...
while tiny hearts still beat in flight over some dusty skies...

chauve-souris-femme

darkly over the Ile-Saint-Louis flits a winged creature of the night...
by day she folds up her black cloak and retreats behind heavy doors...
the late tolling from the belfries of Notre Dame soon put her to flight...
swooping low along the river in search of love and other bites...

AERO

partial reveal...obvious reverse...interior mysterious...

specific nomenclature...remnant onomatopoeia...rearranged alphabetics...

AEROspheric EROtomania ROdomontade Or not...

ORFE

stain my walls with your pigmented disgorfement,
squirt and dribble your colourful orfeburst
all over my hard-edged sand-boxed  sprawl...
some will get it cleaned right off,
but some will always get orfe on it...

[HORFE bombs french and british capitals in loud and blinding erorfetions]

BAR

BAR none but for one or two...

no holds BARred but do hold on a while...

please do not disBAR but just go behind them...

that BAR is sinister but only for those bastards...

and the BARtender is really not so tender after all...

SL

the most Royal of Monograms carved into solid Wood

on a Colossal Door that has defeated all Weather...

the Fallen Best have glided by horizontally -

for the Saint of all Louis to clasp in Perpetuity,

as tightly as the S-hroud wrapped around the L-amented...

[sliding reverently past the doors of Saint Louis des Invalides]
 

BG

a spray of roses pierced the iron door,

inherent and finite;

the curly initials stained by the rain...

a life annulled, her soul congealed -

remnants of hair, teeth, bones

sealed in the cold stone closet...

while dust storms gather elsewhere... 

[mysterious nonentities at the Cimetière du Père Lachaise]