I've seen you there
amongst the lavender fields
when you thought no one was watching.
Memories that dance
a longing daydream,
weaving strings of lilac through my veins.
I knew you would plague me,
but my eyes supped upon you.
Supped and supped again
until lavished by an allure
a thousand French patisseries
could never usurp.
Your taste inspired madness -
a craze you too endured.
We turned over pages
and bewildered them with Eden's of ivy
that flourished within our skulls.
If Van Gogh were a writer
he'd write like us.
A fable of seraphic beauty
and lucid insanity,
knotted together
with existential philosophy.
"Being and Nothingness"
(Sartre understood)
but we were 50 years too late
to the Café de Flore.
Those were memories of yesteryear,
sealed with the rosy hue of antiquity
I was always fond of.
I can almost lick that scent of lavender
that clings to the photographs,
but I fear my tongue may bleed.
So I admire them on a mantelpiece
in a dust-soaked room
where all that I love
(and have loved)
may live.
I know that room not by daylight,
for I dare not be seen to enter.
Only the high rise moon knows
that those footprints
belong to me.