"frenchman" poems
Foreigners are people somewhere else,
Natives are people at home;
If the place you’re at
Is your habitat,
You’re a foreigner, say in Rome.
But the scales of Justice balance true,
And *** leads into tat,
So the man who’s at home
When he stays in Rome
Is abroad when he’s where you’re at.
When we leave the limits of the land in which
Our birth certificates sat us,
It does not mean
Just a change of scene,
But also a change of status.
The Frenchman with his fetching beard,
The Scot with his kilt and sporran,
One moment he
May a native be,
And the next may find him foreign.
There’s many a difference quickly found
Between the different races,
But the only essential
Differential
Is living different places.
Yet such is the pride of prideful man,
From Austrians to Australians,
That wherever he is,
He regards as his,
And the natives there, as aliens.
Oh, I’ll be friends if you’ll be friends,
The foreigner tells the native,
And we’ll work together for our common ends
Like a preposition and a dative.
If our common ends seem mostly mine,
Why not, you ignorant foreigner?
And the native replies
Contrariwise;
And hence, my dears, the coroner.
So mind your manners when a native, please,
And doubly when you visit
And between us all
A rapport may fall
Ecstatically exquisite.
One simple thought, if you have it pat,
Will eliminate the coroner:
You may be a native in your habitat,
But to foreigners you’re just a foreigner.
5.4k
Wimbledon’s playing on the TV in the living room. Dad and I are watching on the sofa.
In the kitchen, Mom cuts carrots and cucumbers with a long blade. She slices the vegetables one by one. Orange pieces. Green pieces.
I glance over Mom chops up the carrots and cucumbers without a cutting board, taking each long carrot and cucumber and slices it with precision, as though she’s a professional like the film with Natalie Portman and Jean Reno.
But she’s not a little girl and she’s not a Frenchman. She’s like a mix-in-between, like the asphalt in our driveway and the grass sprouting in between the cracks.
Dad is a computer engineer. He used to be an artist. Used to study technical drawing in a university in Saigon.
He met mom when he was working on a play. She was the lead actress. Shakespeare had said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”
He’s right, but right now I can’t tell what act I’m in. Dad focuses on the TV. Watches Federer and Djokovic, his eyes, darting from left to right like the mood of a young boy that crosses back and forth from light to dark, and back again.
Blade in hand, Mom makes longer and deeper cuts across the cucumber, cutting away the skin, leaving deep cuts in the vegetable. Dad turns his head towards her, his neck cracking like the forehand swung by Federer.
He clears his throat, softly, soft as gas leaking out from a stovetop from a studio apartment, like the scene in Fight Club, a match about to be struck.
Mom sets the blade down on the table, and bites her lip. Her nostrils flare. I press down on the couch arm, and stand up, my head bent, my eyes wandering to the doorway.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 11:29 PM UTC
It felt as though the humidity itself
carried a hint of liquor as we walked
out into the night, wanting only to escape
our lives for a little.
Deep down in Vieux Carre
twisted brass clashed with a piano
running half step from the crowded clubs
on Frenchman Street.
We filled our lungs with the city
and found her to be like certain kinds
of dangerous doses--
intoxicating.
It was our second night
and the more we drank
the more I began to see glimpses
of the specters spoken of by locals.
They linger in my peripheral,
watching me with their sunken eyes.
You could faintly hear them moan,
only in defeated tones
and their collective scowl danced
in the heavy air of summer
as though it were a part from
all that jazz.
In the stranger hours of morn
I was approached by a ghost
a few blocks off Bourbon.
He offered up nothing but his ***** palms
in hopes of some false salvation.
I wrestled a dollar from my pocket
and passed it on to him,
only to watch him fruitlessly grasp at it
before it slide through his ghostly hands
to the floor below.
He looked down at the dollar
all helpless-like and he said
"It’s been slipping through my fingers
like dat for years now
and ain't nobody help’n me."
I walked from him, realizing then
why I had needed this trip,
I needed to remember all the love in my life
because the only difference between
me and the ghosts of N'awlins
was someone cared about me,
and I cared enough about them
not to destroy myself.
Sep 1, 2015
Sep 1, 2015 at 2:06 PM UTC
she stood outside the apartment
finger halfway up her nose
scratching with her free hand
a **** loosely encased
in patchy, ***** blue jeans
ratty sneakers with holes where
her toes and dignity poked through
usually a whiner, a brayer
a donkey among gently purring cats
calling down thunder and racket
like a motorcycle tearing circles through a lamp shop
today, of all days, she swayed
silently
in loose waltz time
to soft piano of a long-dead Frenchman
curling down from speakers
mounted in windows
across the street
her misshapen hips and flexing calf muscles
lifting her up in a rude en pointe
somehow made elegant
by a quiet ballad, a soothing moment
on a hot August morning
in Main Street
of the hinterlands.
2/12/2015
Feb 12, 2015
Feb 12, 2015 at 8:48 AM UTC
Well, what now, hey?
I threw the dog overboard yesterday.
The day before, the day?
Where will you go, hey?
I heard the orchestra-man play
The same way,
Sanctum, requiem, asylum
All Latin in his French dog-eared play.
Hear the monkey, playing accordion play
To the whirling whirly-whirly-ghig
Tre dramatique, no? Today
I understand you're just as "tramatig."
I want to hear your Frenchmen play
Play ***** pipes play play
In his dog-eared French organ-man
Play
But I cannot, cannot say
Tears of joy, in hydrant spray
The Hyades triumphant rainbow stay
Cough your little fears away;
Hear the Star Spangled Francis Key play
Frenchmen play, play,
Little piggies counted play
Black white keys with little piggle-plumps play
Atone-al, A-tonal---atonal tonal sounds as if to say
"Getting married here to stay"
All alone and all today
Settle down if for a day
And who will hear the trumpet play
When organ-man Frenchman say
"Where? Home of the free" and stay
Keep your hands away
Never want to let you say
"Hear me, hear ye, all you weary, weary dreamers
But never left your confidence like Russell-rustle leaf-blown willow-white
You fill them up with seventy two pay
Make a kite, to(k)night, allRight
Thank god for the fleas in the right
Hairless creatures for to sway
I threw the dog overboard yesterday
The day before, the day
And if you'd wanted it to stay
You should've say, you should've say
But never let my hand betray
The vein, the line, the artery
Of arterial shells bombastically
Loquacious to a fault, this day
They say "You want another day"
They say "You never wanted say"
They say "You wasted every day"
They say "They say, they say, they say"
But e'er forget, ne'er forget
I'll despise you abandon heaven for earth to get
And leave your money, your millions behind
For mansions with my Lord to find
But in the ceiling never was a god to pray
Feb 29, 2012
Feb 29, 2012 at 10:16 PM UTC
X-rays of the soul,
Madame Chan proclaims,
translucent we stand,
visible out and inside
before our creator,
but only to that
limitable being
if only there were a machine such,
on earth, as in heaven
perhaps seventeen Frenchman,
one hundred and forty five,
mostly Pakistani children,
or thirty five
no longer alive,
just barely mentioned,
already forgotten,
Yemeni young
police cadets,
two NYPD,
might still be adjudged
innocent by those
who only see themselves in mirrors,
blindly believing
they are created
in the image of
God
and knowledgeable in the
execution of
his will
if human Justice is thus blinded,
perhaps God is too?
we need much betters cameras...
more accurate selfies...
Jan 10, 2015
Jan 10, 2015 at 3:15 PM UTC
Dancing
underneath city lights,
jazz bands
reverberating, breathing in
voodoo shop
musk.
Soul
pulsates beneath
cobblestone,
wide eyes
peering up at
beaded balconies on
Frenchman Street.
Freedom is
coffee and baguettes from
Cafe Du Monde at
midnight,
surrounded by strangers.
Find me under strings of
flickering bulbs,
trading trails with
travelers.
Candlelit doorways illuminate the drifters, the curious, the backpackers,the Kerouacs,
the way to the gypsies past
Bourbon.
But not home.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 1:04 PM UTC
Burly bleak plumes roll out aloft corn
Where the dragon fell post spin and ditch
A wretched hulk of ruin splintered and worn
Amongst endless blanch green fields which
Arc with a gust and apart where he treads,
Dragging his silk cape afar from flame
Clueless and concussed to a near house he heads
With a tattered scarf that constricts yet ***** about his mane
Black fists of cloud had boomed around him as they soared
His beast spat metal fire whilst the pale sky turned dull
The zipping ballet of warfare smiled throughout as motors roared
Gnashing its teeth and making forgotten martyrs of them all
Shuddering not from demise rather conflict as a whole
He is as content with death as he is to survive
Just not burn the world and condemn his soul
A horror; men of rule seem keen to keep alive
An agrarian self-dines rancorous and crocked
Half sat, improperly perched from where he was shot
Monsters had come for him once before this day
They took his spouse and his daughter and then took them away
He can hear but does not hark to the battle aloft
It is now like the rain and the trees in a gust
But to the boom and the shake he stands with a cough
And as he cites the invader he sees he must do what he must
The grower limps out with a Chassepot in his arms
As the airman’s hands reach up and he falls to his knees
With beads on his brow the man pleads with met palms
The crofter sees naught but a Prussian blue monster disease
The pilot knows his death, ‘Ich bin nicht sicher, wo ich will gehen?”
The old Frenchman just sniggers as he thinks never again
With the rifle’s slug now spent and the horror sent back to his hell
The farmer mumbles to himself, ‘je dois me chercher une pelle,”
Sep 13, 2014
Sep 13, 2014 at 9:54 PM UTC
yes, theology reduced to the anti-speculative reasoning
to choose he v. she, as if what pronoun mattered
to be hardly exact - national effigies exist
for ex-patriots - immigrants is a
***** word used by assimilating cultures,
the small intestines and the
the tape worms - she ******* Europe -
he labouring Europe - winged Hussars in Ukrainian mud -
while Versailles was built - Poles, the French of the East -
Moscow was trivialised twice - once by Mongol,
once by Pole - Nietzsche maddened called for
the Slavic-Frenchmen - i can already see the proximity
of French with Polonaise - the duchy of Warsaw -
Napoleon - Justepatron - just partition -
or thus the two bombardments equal -
thus two kept a holy alliance - that the Pole
be Frenchman when a croissant was questioned.
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 11:32 PM UTC
So I said to this German chappie
If there were ten green bottles hanging on the wall
and one green bottle should accidentally fall
how many green bottles would there be
hanging on the wall,
you do speak English?
Nein he said
So I turned to this Frenchman I said
There's a strange smell around here
Don't you think?
He said oui
I said I think you're right old son
Feb 6, 2014
Feb 6, 2014 at 1:10 PM UTC
He wished her ill the sweet Frenchman
As he descended the stair in fury
Leaving the rose embroidery of the carpet to
Extend its thorny clutch to ravage
The ruching of her dress
Later how it would unravel strand by strand along with her to the floor
The frailest of ladies that the Frenchman had adored
“How dare you refute me that which is not yours?”
He implored in anger as he locked her two front doors
Aug 13, 2011
Aug 13, 2011 at 2:29 AM UTC
ººº
*Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit,
according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world,
and not according to Christ.*
Colossians 2:4-8 (NKJV)
His Nietzschean trip moved from Comic toward Tragic:
Deleuze’s delusions flew out the fenêtre
Airborne and ****** on philosphy’s magic
(the nihilist suicide’s raison d’être…)
Propelled from the window, transcending the Ontic,
his organless body in textual flight,
a schiz-flow beyond on a voyage turned frantic.
His thought – a nomadic adornment for speed,
multiplicitly viewing a thousand plateaux
was a force for unhinging the doorways of light
and a plea for postmodern decoding indeed.
His frame soon encountered pure striated space
in the form of the pavement caressing his face.
He joins other smokers of Gallic tabac,
other esotericians of cognitive frenzy
(those mullahs of madness, those sultans of Whack…)
Sorely missed by his victims, disciples and friends
he is mourned, misinterpreted, copied, dismissed
– but for semioticians he heads up the list.
Another brave Frenchman, some guy named Debord
a bespectacled Marxist (who missed all the marks)
made the mediums’ message a radical bore
dialectically fading the lights into darks.
Indirectly disrupting pop-culture with Punk
and other anarchic phenomena-junk,
he too chose to leave with a nihilist bang –
while we whimper and suffer down here with the gang.
The old situationist’s last situation:
an agit-prop funeral short on elation…
So to French de-constructor-philosopher-ravers
and all who rejoice while society wavers
I offer these lines, like a quick coup-de-grace
and be warned – they’re now viewing the Good Lord en face.
Sep 11, 2015
Sep 11, 2015 at 10:16 PM UTC
Your liquid is
leaking
all over my table
yet
you stand tall
beckoning me
4:13 with no mercy
please save
me
drink me
drink me
light another
cigar
...ette
Miette? Miette?
Me yet?
How does this
make sense to
a Frenchman?
How come some
people get fat
but then stop
at a certain point?
Is it
possible to not
lie?
:Tell the truth
all the time
We're all liars
bigots
********
creators of filth
Will my hair
stop falling out?
Will my hands
stop shaking?
Will my feet
stop pounding?
Will my thoughts
quit pouring out?
Will this
beer
stop flowing down
my throat?
Will the Cure
stop making me cry?
Will Tool ever
break up?
What do people do
when I'm sleeping?
Who do I like more
Black Sabbath or
Led Zeppelin?
Dead Kennedys or
The Misfits?
Mozart or
Beethoven?
Philip Seymour Hoffman or
Daniel Day Lewis?
Natalie Portman or
Scarlett Johannson?
Goth chicks or
Nerdy chicks?
or both
or all of the above?
Do my eyes
perceive reality?
Do my fingers
feel gravity?
Does my tongue
taste sarcasm?
Do my ears
dare to fathom?
Can I trust my friends?
Should I trust my lover?
Mother
should I trust
the government?
Who do I hate more
Nicholas Cage or
Ben Affleck?
Nickelback or
Linkin Park?
George W. Bush or
Adolf ******
Money or
Women?
or both
or all of the above?
Jun 1, 2010
Jun 1, 2010 at 2:07 AM UTC
Who is this old man sitting in the tattered old chair,
Yelling French at Mad Dog Vachon,
Bragging about the Crusher's capacity for beer,
Chortling at the desolation of the British Bull Dogs?
Smoking his cigars to their very ends in his old pipe,
Spitting plug tobacco juice
Mostly in the can beside us as my Grandma gags....
The French they speak to each other
Should include requests for pardon....
This raving lunatic is my Grandpa Charles,
And I am five and six and seven,
Sitting on his lap,
Believing every word the Gospel truth:
Seeing Vachon as the savior of French Canada,
The Bulldogs for the evil nation they proclaim,
Kegs of beer as quantities strong men crush.
This old Frenchman whose horse days are done,
Who barely knows to sit still
Though he is a passenger now,
Beside my father...
Knows magical tricks to stun and spell me:
Pushing his teeth out with his tongue,
Leaking smoke from his ears,
Tamping burning coals with his thumb...
An old man who refuses to be old,
Who sits and raves at wrestlers on TV.
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 12:35 PM UTC
It was the running Roman Legionary,
Who hid from troops his own,
And spoke of evil men did do,
For it was why he ran alone.
It was the serf, an ex-soldier,
Who spoke against the sword;
Yet for these words which he did speak,
He earned the sword as his reward.
It was the humbled noble Lord,
Who wrote from tower's tall;
Against all endless border wars,
As it caused good men to fall.
It was the musketman in red,
Who stepped-on out of line;
Opting not to die so still,
As he said, "This life is mine."
It was the trenched machine-gunner,
Who chose his targets quick,
And wished for more than anything,
To cease this endless click.
It was the Spaniard,
Who fought Spain,
And knew the truth was dark;
Yet fought-back fists of fascist pride,
His mission now, to leave a mark.
It was the Frenchman,
Chased by fright,
Who scrambled for the shore;
Escaping from his bled homeland,
He died of bombs in Britain's war.
It was the prisoner of Korea's gore,
Who sat down with the Reds;
Speaking in appeasing awe,
He saved his severed head.
It was the man in Vietnam,
Who was forced the cross the sea;
To fight a war he wasn't for,
Against his will, he stood as free.
It was the Roman,
And the serf;
It was the noble Lord.
It was the musketman in red,
And the dead Spaniard,
Who fought for freedom,
Spoke for peace,
And dreamed to see with their own eyes,
The human mind, taught to be wise,
And cease these endless lies;
To end the "me's" and "mores" and "my's,"
And to remove mans dark disguise.
Oct 24, 2010
Oct 24, 2010 at 7:43 PM UTC
It was chilly in the house of stone
where the body of Maud’s son
had been interred the year before.
(Her first born had died young.)
Her lover was a Frenchman,
Maud Gonne was her name.
She was, of course, a famous muse-
as William Butler’s flame.
She let down her golden hair
and her clothing came undone.
Lucien lay a blanket down
on the gravestone of their son.
She lay her naked beauty down
and took a passive role--
convinced the child conceived that night
would have her dead son’s soul.
Mystic occult spirits danced
as mortal flesh entwined.
Lucien spasmed flush with lust
Maud called on the Divine.
In course of time a girl was born
a child of beauty rare
But that she held her brother’s soul
none can, for sure, declare.
Jan 29, 2012
Jan 29, 2012 at 6:43 PM UTC
the painting was literal
figure hunched walking a dirt road in rain
its hues and tone spoke
mute but vividly
each brush stroke matched the images birthplace
in the authors crippled heart
each leaf a burnished gold of autumn
each a dying fragment of the withered tree
even the mans footprints in muddy soil
one can almost feel the squalid mud underfoot
his uniform and helmet named him a frenchmen
from the great war
his boots rendered with bloodstain
figure hunched walking dirt road in rain
a great dying had come to france that day
swords drawn they charged into deaths embrace
this man and his comrades in this awful place
the painting hangs in some museum
an awkward moment for the viewer
is he going into the storm of battle
or going home after
the tale is left untold
it is just the tale of a man on a road in the rain
a frenchmen in the world war
a lone figure in rain
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 10:34 AM UTC
Lover and lover,
Going to sleep.
Both dreamed of peace,
One dream achieved it.
One counted time,
The other drowned in lemon juice.
One dream found war,
The other built castles.
Both woke up,
Neither knew.
Lover and lover,
Going to travel,
Both went to Antioch,
Neither were happy.
One dreamed of Spain,
The other of lilacs.
One dreamed of ******
The other of balloons.
One traveled lightly,
The other was untended.
One saw paradise,
The other lost their eyes.
But still neither saw.
Lover and lover,
daydreaming,
One longed for poetry,
The other for seduction.
One desired reverie,
The other was solely cavalier.
One dreamed of excusing themselves from the booth,
The other welcomed the operating table.
The surgery never happened.
Lover and lover,
Laying down for rest.
One thinks of killing Stalin,
The other calls from a phone booth to warn him.
One takes a trip through the minds of the gods,
The other hikes the Appalachian.
One desires to **** all evil,
The other wishes to turn it into goodness.
One saw carnivals,
The other saw forests.
One saw dirt,
The other greeted a Frenchman.
One made tea for the poor,
The other recorded a folk album.
One planted a flower in a shoe,
The other visited Greece.
One visited a watchmaker,
The other cast lots for clothes.
One put out a cigarette on the ground,
The other buys sunglasses on the street.
One sailed into Norway,
The other read from the bible.
Lover and lover: Alone in a cage.
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 11:50 AM UTC
A light-dappled square,
Buzzing like the
Center of the universe.
Flat-capped Frenchman
Strut like mid-century
Movie stars.
Cigars flaunt from
Languid fingers.
Serious facades mask
Red-blooded kinship.
They wait their turn to
To flick, to spin, to thud
Their steel onto
Provençal terrain.
What a life. What a game.
Mar 13, 2017
Mar 13, 2017 at 8:13 AM UTC
Deep as the motives of an empire,
his chest rises and falls
as quickly as kings through centuries.
---
You may be marooned in my bed,
but of all the boys that have been lost
in the blueish depths left on my neck,
I'm glad you lingered there
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 11:16 AM UTC
Just as the sun sneaks over the Andes, eyes open.
Tap tap, as the birds peck the windows.
Almost 8am... Yep, there he is, selling potatoes over a megaphone.
Papas papas, buenas papas.
Same questions every morning, and it never gets old or frustrating. It's genuine.
The gas stove turns on, eggs hit the pan, tea bags drop into cups of blue. Shirt full of oranges comes inside.
Time to go cobbing.
No one's waiting for anyone to start a conversation during the walk. It just happens. Frenchman with speakers in hands, Marley playing, old Latvian hands grasping trash bags, English folks with food bags, a Korean with just a smile, Ecuadorean leading the way. Step by step on the dry, dusty hills. This is our ritual.
This is our rise.
It's the rise of the dogs. The Stray Dogs of Collaqui.
Oct 11, 2013
Oct 11, 2013 at 12:27 AM UTC
Long ago there lived a man,
a little Frenchman,
he had an idea,
a wonderful contradiction.
If you choose to believe,
decide what you'll get,
make your choice,
your's to agree or contradict.
If you choose disbelief,
and find yourself in the right,
you'll find yourself forever gone,
and if wrong,
everything is lost.
If you choose belief,
and find yourself in the wrong,
you'll find you care not at all,
but if right,
eternal is your delight.
Even if the man upstairs doesn't exist,
I say that he does,
a culmination of ethics and good,
we a member of the godhood.
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 4:54 PM UTC
i hate being uncertain about certain things
especially so when it's 'em hurtin things
but as a writing frenchman once penned
"Of course I'll hurt you
Of course you'll hurt me
Of course we will hurt each other
But this is the very condition of existence
To become spring means accepting the risk of winter..."
and with all winters
warm rosy summers lie ahead.
Dec 8, 2022
Dec 8, 2022 at 8:57 AM UTC