And blood stained Franco flowers,

Treachery ruled that day,

Left with a mourning Caesar,

Germans lost their Nerve,

When Caesar wept for Cotta…

~ ~ (on front of envelope)

La lettre que voici, ô bon facteur,
Portez-la jusqu'à la ville de NICE,
Aux ALPES-MARITIMES (06).
Donnez-la, s'il vous plaît, au Receveur

Des Postes, au bureau de NOTRE DAME.
(Son nom? C'est MONSIEUR LUCIEN COQUELLE.
Faut-il vraiment que je vous le rappelle?)
Cette lettre est pour lui et pour sa femme.

I won't lead English postmen such a dance;
Just speed this letter on its way to FRANCE.
Sender's address you'll find on the reverse.

~ ~ (and on the back)*

At Number 7 in St Swithun's Road,
Kennington, Oxford, there is the abode
Of me, Paul Hansford, writer of this verse.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
For non-speakers of French, the first bit goes approximately -
"Dear Postman, Please take this letter to the town of Nice, in the département of Alpes-Maritimes, and give it to the postmaster at the Notre-Dame office. (His name? It's Lucien Coquelle. Do I really need to remind you?) This letter is for him and his wife."

The earth is the devils playground
Fear He loves to spread all around
On friday the 13th He turned it lose on France
He let his minions do their dance
There is no way of stoping him
He does whatever he wants on a whim
He minions number in the millions
Never knowing which ones they are, they look like civilians
The devil entices them to blow themselfs up
He whispers lies, "you'll be drinking from that heavenly cup"
The devil knows there will be more
Trillions of them wanting to settle the score
All we can do is pray to a callous God, who long ago quit listening to our cries
Us never knowing why
So we bury our dead
Try to comfort ourselves with something inspirational said
As we watch the earth turning red

Alone
Away from home
I stand upon a vessel
Guided by the rivers of romance and light
To seek the histories of distant lands
And the fates that made me
Merge to a new destiny

I watch the waters
Guide the vessel through the historic sights
A sight meant for all foreign eyes to partake
Yet I find myself alone
The famed tower of France spins its light
It sparkles brighter than I remember
As the spotlight seeks a divine host
That appears from its beam
And soars upon wings of white
To land in front of me

The wings carry a familiar friend
One I felt I needed to see closer
Before my latest voyage
Dawned in a bright blue dress
With a white pearl necklace helping frame her gorgeous eyes
Within the locks of sparking brown hair
That light the sky above and sea below
Danced with every little glimmer of light
In a sight I cannot shake

Through in the moments that followed
My eyes fogged with tears of admiration
In the sight of a figure of both strength and beauty
As our arms reached for each other
And embraced our heartbeats
As they coached our feet to the rhyme
Of a phantom song that played
To still the spinning world
To freeze that moment in time
Forever in the dreams from Paris
And forever locked upon my eye
When I see the being in reality without her wings
She doesn't realize are there

on the steps of the notre dame
i lost my sense of color
every moonbeam through the
cracked walls of the House of God
danced around me like blue gypsies
performing a ritual upon
every ringlet of hair on my head

in the catacombs of paris
i lost my sense of touch
every skull feeling like silk
dead calcium caressing
the flesh beneath which
my bones were moving
alive and restless

beneath the arc de triomphe
i lost myself
the curve of stone caving in on me
like a Parisian Goliath
and I, a madman David
names of fallen soldiers
engraved upon the walls
breathed back to life
from dust they have returned
they reach into my cerebrum
their stone fingers pulsing
with the hymnals of war
to meet with the battle
of indigos and crimsons coursing
through every nerve of my anatomy

behind the eiffel tower
i lost my art
paris lights beating down
a beast sleeping through the
tides of eulogies and odes
its orphans have to offer

The earth is the devils playground
Fear He loves to spread all around
On friday the 13th He turned it lose on France
He let his minions do their dance
There is no way of stoping him
He does whatever he wants on a whim
He minions number in the millions
Never knowing which ones they are, they look like civilians
The devil entices them to blow themselfs up
He whispers lies, "you'll be drinking from that heavenly cup"
The devil knows there will be more
Trillions of them wanting to settle the score
All we can do is pray to a callous God, who long ago quit listening to our cries
Us never knowing why
So we bury our dead
Try to comfort ourselves with something inspirational said
As we watch the earth turning red

I pick up a pen.
                           ...or is it a gun?
and write about zen.
The world is all but one.

I pick up my pen.
                               ...or is it my gun?
I will find it soon then,
the war is all but won.

I pick up a pen.
                           ...or is it a gun?
I write about Jen and,
how war may lack fun.

Jen pick up her gun.
                                    ... it is surely not a pen.
my pen loses rhythm and so has the war
and the people who still fight all lose.
                                                                  In the end we will all lose...

To the men who terrorized my innocence,

The screams that night still plague me, they haunt my midnight hours when I
beg for sleep to take its hold on me.
I remember holding her hand.

the girl I loved.

But, to you, she was just another person in the crowd…
Another victim.
To me, she was honey and roses on a summer morning; she was
the one to save me when I mixed too much Hell with Heaven.
I repaid her with the last few kisses I could muster while her tears intermingled
with our blood.

Just a few hours ago, she was smiling up at me in delight; arms wrapped around my waist
as the music played behind our enclosed bodies.

I held her like this until the bullet ripped her life away from this Earth.

An Earth without her,
It wasn’t someplace I wanted to be.
But I held onto the tidbit of life dancing in front of me;
the one that you had injured but had not stolen.
I couldn’t quite tell which set of crimson belonged to I;
the puddles were drowning all of us.
Which screams were mine?
I’ll never remember and I don’t think I’ll care to;
they all mixed into one loud wail as we fought to grip
the idea of hope.

Trust me,
my lungs were filling with so much hopelessness that
I couldn’t quite remember how to breathe without it within those moments
where I begged for God to take me with her.

But you.
Did you take delight in destroying us?
Her, I, and the others?
I had felt someone grasp my hand right after her’s had fallen away;

You know,
they must have felt me give up. because I knew
It was an encouragement to keep myself breathing;
to keep my lungs from restricting and my soul from rising.

I couldn’t quite tell you how long I thought you were there;
to me,
it felt like years.
I can’t imagine how long it felt for those people who were lined up in front of you
waiting for God to show his face in any form possible.  

The ones who stared down at your guns;
who pleaded for you to rethink your decisions
who had children at home,
who had spouses waiting for their smiles,
who had… families.

Those shots will forever be burned within my memory;
This night,
this horror,
this loss.

But will you wake up screaming,
wondering how you could have saved her?

Will you see their faces in every little corner of the street;
in every thought?

Will you relive the memory of how her hand felt pressed into yours,
right before you lost her?

Will you thank God for that one man who tightened his grip
on your fingers, keeping your mind here,
keeping you alive?

Will you trace the line of stitches along your body,
where the bullets had made a home within your skin?

Will you pray to God that this was only a nightmare,
just to hear Satan laugh in your ears?*

-DDF