I can almost recall a time when I didn’t care... there was so much life laid up in store

frivolous days tossed aside:
grisly hangovers of endless nights,

I used to observe the characters of Paris from a window in Chez Camille... sun light flashing through the green of horse chestnut trees lining wide Montmartre streets-

well heeled parents guiding their chattering children past a
staggering drunk, **** marks up his trouser leg, greasy hair clinging to his beard

he’s avoided too by those girls in summer dresses, all legs and laughter and dreams

they are ogled by the old men drinking coffee outside cafes, complaining  about their busy wives...

back in that time when our choices could send us anywhere-
careening into old cinemas watching movies with wide eyes,
building driftwood fires on deserted beaches
or writhing with nameless shapes in little rooms
washed in strawberry *****

back before our choices defined us and hardened into everything we are.

back when right and wrong were only whispering
and the streets of Paris called my name

Imagine there’s a painting
adorning the wall of some president’s master bedroom. It hangs
beneath a mirrored ceiling where his wife
(lucky her) gets to watch his pumping ****
wobble like a pale hairy jelly.

Let’s say it sits above a dozen nicotine silver wigs
on a perfect chesterfield dresser,
and maybe it gazes down, in lurid grey and gold:

a grinning Adolf ******
riding a merry go round of charging marble stallions,
one leather glove tightly gripping the reigns
the other waving at scores
of muscular blonde women
and heroic dead eyed men
with lantern jaws.

Let’s just say this now and get it out in the open
before it’s too late.

finally, their sirens cease.
                    wailing echoes fade
          into foreign silence

at first... everything is still

until the first cellar door tentatively
cracks open

very slowly those that are not dead emerge
eyes shielded from sunlight
             squinting at nature’s misshapen forms

lungs greedily gulp clean air

everything is changed
                    yet we are the same