When I first sold myself there were
black cottons, brass buttons, iron crosses, steel machines
All the marks of war
All that searing heat
With all that pretty malice
Spilling Paris in the street
‘Twenty marks’ I called
‘Twenty marks’
That was 1943
And Piaf was doing well

Nurse, do you know what it is like:
To have a man inside of you
that you could never love?

There was, once upon a time, a pretty little ****
black cottons, brass buttons, iron crosses, steel machines
Lying on my floor
And Maman was starving, and my sister, too
Dignity wasn’t half the tax it seemed before
He gave me a baby, and a disease,
That was 1944:
Piaf was quite successful, then

Doctor, can you fathom:
Having sores all over you?
Yes, down there, and
all up and down your thighs, your body burns.
Can you feel that?

Then, the Germans left, and the Allies came, all
black cottons, brass buttons, iron crosses, steel machines
All of that decor
Fleeing, running out
On the French horizon
Retreat
The Allies were the same
‘Three dollars’ I called
‘Three dollars’
That was 1945:
Piaf was languishing
Paris had died

Jacques, my dear:
Those were our times
smoky cabarets, sculptured croons, fine wines
your rifle on your back could wind my morning with worry
and with my scourges, you took me all the same
but what I remember is:
black cottons, brass buttons, iron crosses, steel machines
then:

nothing

“Monsieur Boursin - she has passed.”

He sobs,
it sounds like
war.

When I made you, I loved you.
Now I pity you.

I gave you all you needed:
bed of earth, blanket of blue air--

As I get further away from you
I see you more clearly.
Your souls should have been immense by now,
not what they are,
small talking things--

I gave you every gift,
blue of the spring morning,
time you didn't know how to use--
you wanted more, the one gift
reserved for another creation.

Whatever you hoped,
you will not find yourselves in the garden,
among the growing plants.
Your lives are not circular like theirs:

your lives are the bird's flight
which begins and ends in stillness--
which begins and ends, in form echoing
this arc from the white birch
to the apple tree.

No Garden, but this stand of
pines, and no serpents just this
side of night, but a sleepy,
startled porcupine; I'll offer you
some apple wine. You'll kiss
me in the fading light; I'll love
you without shame this time.

Between us, tangled wilds, and through that, a deep ravine – each standing on a
mossy bank with river in between; I say “It's early morning and
the world is wet and green – I'd like nothing any better than
for you to bathe with me. I'll meet you in the middle, like I've met
you in my dreams, and either you'll get ***** or I'll finally come clean.”

In the beginning were the chords
Seven days of rataplan;
The kind of week that John Lee ******
Dreamed in blue and 4/4 time,

Newport on a 60's binge.
Palinodes on saxophone lips
Refusing to look back on Memphis,
Chilling out to Tupelo time.

Spin him a lyric Lady Music,
Camber a tone to smoky heights.
Walk the blues round Jim Beam shores
And drown them in N'awlins nights.

Riff the waves to inner ear
Like satin on the low strings:
From frets on legacies
Feel the descant fade away.

come, undie, and summer you're like
don't sleep (at night even) in moon light
rushes straight lengths of uncoloured
flowers pale at bite of big with, same as
cheeks, mouth that agile flutters with
gossamer limp of sugar's hue and glowing
waft, O
                Summer

like naked, me, like you, I, each parcel
each languor of thy dark eyes is a house
holding my strained dust of burns with
incessant girl needing powder to coat
every petal dusted in my unprim lewd
often slight grin that wants for unbroken
never felt barren pages of wordless girlskin
and dig a ******* into monthly blood

Sir, most honorable one…
It is not in fear or disgust
or in disappointment or revulsion
no, Sir, it is not of such causes that I have
sought the solitude of these hills and rocks and trees
and the lake that whispers ever, even as I lie down to sleep;
but O most revered passer-by -
in the hustle and bustle of our lives in the capital
and in our cities, even there I found an embracing silence
that I could not ignore;
and I saw the shallowness of activity
and I saw the ambition of superficiality;
and let it be what word philosophy or ritual or religion
may call it, whatever labels Organized Thought revels in -
that Silence I found nameless and formless -
and even in the midst of activity
I found inactivity
But Sir, as you ask,
the Impatient saw Rebuke in my Silence
the Virtuous found their Guilt in my Quiet
the Enlightened glimpsed their Darkness in my Stillness
And so it came to be that natural outcome,
society receded from me
Most Honorable Sir, it was not I that left it…
And ah, here you find me now,
insignificant, part of the whole, still, and as content
as the dust that you might find on a blade of grass
amidst the natural wideness that is here…

if you place a stethoscope inquisitively on the
beating chest of your life, expect to hear a -
plod, plod, plod.

you'd think it to be the footsteps of a
fumbling toddler; fumbling feet
feeling the flat, alien earth.

or the muffled footsteps of a stranger
stumbling into your path, turning your
tables, stumbling into your life.

you could regret that it wasn't your
feet's soundless plodding on the moon,
that there was no greatness in your silence.

while at times you remember
the footsteps of friends converging
into your life - diverging from it.

and then to cease all speculation -
you recognise the footsteps
of god at your doorstep.

from a long girl, drinks a glass
of some short chilled evenings
ringed in dapper night coming
purple, big, over everything her
fair lunging breath in flowers
sweetest smelling, dark, and
sleeping. pollen, laughter, ice
in a long girl, drinks a glass of
smoother softness in slow
light, dying, faster than a
short chilled evening (next to
a somewhere park, trees, and
a dog barks