Here by the Beat Hotel near
the St Michel in a cafe with wine
I feel the hum turn to sizzle and
sparkle and overfill into my eyes
too much till they are brimming with
hope that could spill onto the table
and my heart is swelling with a
optimism and I feel it spilling
over I worry I will laugh crazy
for no reason but to release
all the glowing light inside which
is feeling far too obvious for everyone
they will think I am drunk but I have only had a sip but this
conversation is several glasses of something of energy of
fermented anger and worries
and anxieties about the world

turned into wine and we
sip the sentences we sip the
sentences and eyes clink glances
in holistic belief and hope it
is so much but you
say we are free we
are freer than this ramekin
which once held peanuts which
we nibbled between drink
and thought and you say you
can’t believe you are talking of
Sartre here and it is cliché
but the words
ripple like a song we know we
forget but when it plays
we forget we forgot and always
know we need to hear it again
we wish we could record the
feeling the sights the words the
way you say the words so
that we are filled with childlike
possibility when life weighs us
to stare at our feet.