I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in Paris settling in. My every appliance, gadget and charger have been bricked by the weird, French electricity, which bobs when it should weave or something - but you still can’t stick a fork in the sockets.

I’ve also been meandering the right bank* arrondissements for fashions. Students at Université Paris Cité, in the everyday, dress more chicly and elegantly than Yalies or nerdy Harvard ‘barneys.’

I’ve noticed a lot of Asian, selfie-taking tourists in Paris. They come in like waves of invaders as the river-cruises dock. Now, anyone that’s known me for some time, will tell you that my friends and I’ve been taking selfies for decades.

Just not in the middle of the street or with total strangers trying to relax on crisp, cool, early summer morning, while sipping an espresso hangover cure. Was COVID deadly? Well, it certainly killed off the last etiquettes that separated us from the animals.

I’m not anti-tourist - nope -  I just moved back here myself - but these smiling, terribly polite, middle-aged people, think nothing of stopping someone abruptly in the street to ask directions, in a foreign language - as if they’re at Tokyo-Disneyland where the locals are cast members simulating real life.

Would you expect anyone on a busy, work-a-day Manhattan street to happily stop and converse? Not a chance. Women would recoil like snakes and the men would dodge like O.J Simpson or shoulder you to the ground. Still, they call Parisians rude.

I am becoming more serpentine and evasive as I shop, as-if I were a spy in occupied territory. Charles and I form a one-man phalanx, with me following in his wake, like a dolphin trailing along a great ship.

They may need to put up signage, like, “Look (at the locals) but don’t touch,” but in what language?

Let’s wax free-versely… freever-ishly?

It’s a pleasure to walk the banks
of the dark, reflective Saine again.
and watch the warm, evenings for
the first cool stirrings of fall.

Once you’ve visited Paris, it stays with you.
Nothing’s simple here, not the moonlight,
the serene european atmosphere or
the better-than-you sense of right and wrong.

I’m young in a very old city.
I like dessert crawls, and “rock’n’roll clubs.”
Hemingway wrote, that
‘‘You receive in return what you bring to Paris.’

That’s probably not an exact quote.
but I think that’s where they got “What happens in Vegas.”
.
.
Songs for this:
Come to Me by Koop
Leena by Caravan Palace
Right Now by The Creatures

People say to me:
“I’m so sorry you’re heartbroken.
I hope you heal soon.”

But what they don’t understand is,
I am grateful to have loved so deeply
that even heartbreak
doesn’t taste bitter,
and that even sorrow
has a sweetness to it.

Great loss can only come
from losing something truly great.
So I welcome the weight,
because I know
I once held the rarest,
most exquisite form of love.

I am privileged to have known it,
to have understood
what I was given.

And yes, sometimes it hurts.
But sometimes,
the memory of your smile
lights up the darkest corners of my soul.

I still feel our love
swirling in the quiet spaces between thoughts,
like a steady, unspoken truth.

Sacred love accepts the pain.
It does not twist it
into anger or resentment.

It carries it
as witness
to the heaven
we once lived.

We lived for the
next drink; the elixir to
erase the memories of
a thousand cruel dawns.
It took work when we
were broken and bedraggled.
Creativity and thirst drove
us through the day.

"Do you have anything to pawn?"

"Hey, why don't we stop by the
old carnival guy's place, he's
always good for a belt."

"Big Brenda will you give you a
10 spot to go down on her,
are you
up for it?"

The **** we did to stay liquid smooth.
We redeemed cans for nickels, It took
hundreds to get a bottle.
In and out of dumpsters filled with
the most vile trash imaginable.
Me and those aluminum cowboys,
knee-deep in the filth just to
get a drink.

Winter was bad, frostbitten hands and
hearts, but summer was worse.
Something about the way the sun
cooked the trash had a hellish putrid
effect on the soul.
That smell was the seed of my
sobriety.

The sinking sun is now undone,
                       the sky is fading red
and shadows prowl neath cloak and cowl
                       for midnight lies ahead.

Beyond the heap, the honchos sleep
                       with bloated bellies fed;
for, yes indeed, no one's in need,
                       at least, that's what they've said.

Amongst the ones that hunger shuns,
                       in day's retreating tread,
are spiders black ensnaring snacks
                       while spinning silken thread.

But as it stands, in conquered lands
                       a famine reigns instead -
and kids at noon, collapse and swoon
                       on stones they call a bed.

With aching eyes they fantasize
                       and dream of gingerbread,
and after while, they wake and smile,
                       now dining with the dead.

We sense it because it comes inexorably,
this is the beginning  of good-bye.
Her eyes avert his, a touch with no
feeling, a caress more cautious than
caring, a kiss when lips do not meet,
this the beginning of good-bye.
A perfunctory placement of the hand,
a conversation moribund, sipping
scotch and sodas in silence, a call that
never comes, memories that have grown opaque,
this is the beginning of good-bye.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

I've walked your floor

sat beside you in candlelight
looking at photos
scattered across the floor.

you remembering names
and people and prayers
I had long forgotten.

you are the dancer
who glides this loner
through sorrows and the stars,
across the mist of moments
most treasured

where in the stillness between kisses
promises are kept
and the warmth of your hand on my cheek
felt in places to real to touch.

your love asks for nothing
and when you smile your quiet gift to me

tender one, every breath I take is loving you.