Once upon a time:

An aged rabbi talking with two men
Asked them about their holiday in Paris

The first man said: Oh, I hated Paris
There was muck and filth everywhere I went
Stray dogs and prostitutes roamed the foul streets
And the Parisians were incessantly rude

The second man said: Oh, I loved Paris
There were flowers everywhere I went
Artists and beauty, writers scribbling away
And the Parisians were so kind to me

And so:

The rabbi said to them (his voice was kind):
Each of you found the Paris you wanted to find



(Worked up [or down, or sideways…] from a story Rabbi Joel Goor, a visiting lecturer at the University of San Diego in 1975, told his students.)

It's unfortunate that Parisians
Are very hard to bear,
In terms of flash obsequiousity,
They drive me to despair!
And patience is an attribute
I don't profess to have
To mercifully administer
When accents veer to Slav.

Baltics look like jellyfish,
The Germans are obscene
And loud and overbearing
But the Swiss are very clean.
Italians are a swarthy lot
Who gourmandize on food
And sacrifice their suavity
By being impudently crude.
The Spanish are no better,
In fact they are probably worse,
For obsessing in the blood sports
I actually rate them in reverse.

Starchiness is British
They're convoluted to the core,
The Old Boy system's lost it's sheen
Aspirants flock to it no more.
The Yanks are looking slightly crass
Whilst fighting foreign wars,
Their pinky held up squeaky clean
To call "foul" to China's flaws.
China sits inscrutably
Holding all the cards
Waiting for the moment
To strike beneath the guards.

India and Pakistan
Are squabbling like kids
The uproar over Kashmir
Rates them lower than the Yids.
The Yids are walking tightropes
With Iran's nuclear ******,
Whilst currying Yank approval,
Eventual bombing is a must.
The Dutch behave so anally
They're always proven right
When faced with rigid negatives
They blanch with haunches tight.

But not the Argentineans
They love to dance and flirt,
To chase the senorita
Cavorting in the scarlet skirt.
The South Pacific's wallowing
They're adrift from World affairs
Oz's self preoccupation
Mirrors Kiwi's vacant stares.
Africa's way past comment
Lost to heat and dust,
Warfare, **** and pillage
And the rest decayed by rust.

Eskimos are OK
Clean living on the ice
The population static,
Zer-O pollution's nice!

Marshalg
@theGate
Mangere Bridge
14 April 2009

My French Gem
The Rose tickler
finely handwritten

The movie part gave
her the sign life
crossed over gem
French kiss the morning
The burst of Kaleidoscope Sun

Double touched but forbidden
On the Cheetah necklace chase
The French Lieutenant 
 her body and lips moonstruck
On her chaise
To get over it another work of art
that got more attention

To revive her from drowning in
the gem scattered like a
benevolent
blue splat philanthropic
Looking more into his unknown
diving suit mixed
with envy green how she got mixed into
the stranger of Poison Ivy
Her love didn't show all her
attributes God spiritually well
She went to the pastry heart
how it flaked all
over like crystals
He was patiently sitting but got persuaded
That little gem of the lounge
Her firey gem was the canary
that got his tongue
Her gem stands taller  
The crafted lines of quality in the
Pillars

"Le Bonheur De  Vivre Gem-Art"

French kiss went inside the darker side of the painting

      He's transformed.

Shape heart delicate uniform.

"Parisians on a mission
A kiss is a serious manner
  LOVE" Gem birth opens her
He modifies her rainbow
Artwork of brush yellow
twinset platter hello fellow

the essence beloved to follow
So worth her wait being watched
By the crystal rock, he loved her
going up in spirit or she falls for him
The gem to be it

Magical modernly gem -fit clock.

See through hands meditation harp.

Lebonheur De Vivre fine art sharp.

Lips movement beyond hearts.

Le-bonheur De Vivre gem arts.

Artesian heels tapping boots.

Fall for Autumn love cahoots.

Beloved, divinely he's the healer.

The picture spoke she's the winner.

Wilderness he glides kisses prints.

Pushing her waves hints.

Everlasting one thought he's guessing?

Art never part beautify stem.

Eyes so genuine he's her gem.

you know what’s really haunting about pictures like this:
    (see profile picture)
i only found out about the paris massacre
at 6pm.
so this whole mental illness debacle...
i guess i’ll have to fake it, improvise,
all the great ones did it to push people away
for some peace and quiet...
i’m seeing... i’m seeing the equivalent of
the 100 years war with islamic barbarism...
there simply isn’t a mein kampf orientation of:
what comes next?
the only thing that comes next is panic...
why didn’t they shout THIS IS FOR IRAQ!
why suddenly involve: ah crap, i knew it,
the re-emergence of poland on the map
ensure the post-colonial nations get the ***** treatment,
i was subjugated to prussian, russian and austro-hungarian
authority for some time, what the ****?!
the french / english / spanish trinity of colonialism
is not my 5pm cup of tea... **** it... let’s tango anyway...
let’s tango with hail marias in england
and magdalenes in corfu or ibiza...
yes... i’ve lost touch with reality... your definition of reality...
but at least i am the one who’s immersed...
you’re still stuck to the slavish realism of paying taxes and
kissing the bonnet of a sports car / boiler -
i’ve lost touch with your definition of reality...
mind the 1% budged of the n.h.s. caring
more for fatties and smokers... wisecrack.
well, what are the parisians gonna do... #: weareeaglesofdeathfans...
that won’t sell... my bet is... they won’t even bother
to entourage democracy this time... watch and learn boys...
they shot sub-culture admirers... they won’t march...
we’re **** to them... the neo-hippies...
they... will... not... march... this time, i promise you that.
it’s not politically adequate for the WE STAND TOGETHER pantomime...
they won’t.... i know them when i see them
crazy eyed and pathetic and uncourageous...
so unto satan and the kabbalah...
ever hear the post-traumatic stress-disorder of satan
having to hear ah ah ah oh oh oh uh uh uh
of woman?
there’s only two left... eh / i = pronoun....
satan does not have access to the vowels e and i....
i.e. he took back a tape recording of ***** into hell
to play on loop... while the tortures took place...
sweet music some say...
let’s see tomorrow.
theoretically though? losing the prefix un-,
and attributing something more functional
in relation to the conscious faculties of thought / memory /
imagination... you can only decrease your chances
of dreaming and provide the antidote to the theories
of the unconscious... it's already stressed in psychiatric
theory as animalistic... animals make sense of the world
with their distinctive "onomatopoeias" & intuition;
write poetry like it's a front-page story
that shoved through the queue elbowing people
to be first... hit the molten iron into shape while it's
amber hot... reference actual immersion in the world
(existence), rather than referencing non-immersion
in the world of idealism (essence / not
necessary essentials).

Hey remember that night when we chased the burglars in the front and back yard
and you almost kissed me?
God, I wanted you to.

I submitted a Post Secret of two young French lovers kissing in the rain
and I wrote “This will never be me” over the woman.
******* Parisians.

Once upon a time,
I bought flowers for myself just because I wanted to.
It was the most empowering thing I could have done.
But for the two weeks they sat on my window sill,
I was constantly reminded no one bought them for me.

Long ago, in a land far, far away,
I used to believe in miracles.

This one time, We sat at the Spanish Arch,
the one the Conquistadors built,
comprised of ancient old stone that caught the tears of the heartbroken,
heard the tales of the old salty men coming home from the bar,
and saw the transformation of an old Irish city into a new, artsy town.
We looked up, saw a shooting star, and wished on it I would be with him forever.

I was 19 once, and he sat on the beach with his flicky blonde hair
and a Corona and his oversized tee shirt hanging off his body
and we sat on that beach for hours, in the eye of the storm, soaking it all in.
It was the first time I realized I could love.

We were 22 and he was in love with somebody else and I loved his soul,
but I wasn’t in love with him and we found out we’re in the same boat.
We will always love each other but we can never be together
because we cannot give each other what we need.
He’s the only man who has never let me down.

As a child, I thought I could fly.
Not physically fly, but Peter and Wendy inspired me,
and I knew I could fly as a dreamer, and soar through the skies
like the hawk or the raven or the finch or the ******* pterodactyl if I wanted to.
And I wanted to. And I did.

I wrote a story once about a girl who ran several miles at two am when she couldn’t sleep
and the personal demons kept haunting her and taunting her
and the whiskey wouldn’t shut them up.

Every once in a while, I clean the house naked.
Sometimes, I kinda wish the UPS guy would catch me.

Every day, my life is filled with sullen, sunken, exposed regret.
I wish I did what I didn’t do.

Isn’t it strange that the same bloodlust
Which feeds the *** drive, drives
Deep into one’s Egyptian appetite,
Feeds deep, deep around the campfire at night,
Flames of carnal desire: and by carnal, I mean
Literally a yearning for rib-eye steaks,
Pork sirloin & Horse Meat.
Horse meatballs.
Horse sausage.
Horse stew.
Hi-** Silver & Trigger,
Fury & My Friend Flicka, &
Lest we forget:  The Famous Mr. Ed.
Oh Wilbur, I'm talking about Horse Cuisine!
(God Bless the French!)
Dartagnan & Brigitte, typical post war
Parisians with slim pickens
(No relation to the actor)
Survivors with little to choose from
Whatever scroungy edibles offered on the pushcart.
The one good thing about those years, you might ask?
It was a jubilee time, a precursor to
Lean Cuisine & Weight Watchers
Jenny Craig & Nutrisystem, & the lovely
Marie Osmond looking especially edible lately
Having dropped a dumb-bell 50 pounds, yet
Still crammed tightly in Spanx.
“Hey Marie, it’s good to be the King!”
I am Mel Brooks ******* you,
From behind, History of the World: Part I.
Marie is looking  tasty, n'est–ce pas?
France after WWI and WWII: a starving time,
Yet ironically a meat-eater's ****.
The French Cavalry, no longer needed,
It meant liquidation of the local Lipizzaners,
War-weary, would-be Man o’ Wars,
Secretariats, Seattle Slews, & California Chromes,
Shot twice in the head,
Carcasses hung & butchered.
But I digress. Or do I?
MEAT: gives the same ecstatic rush as ***,
Carnival Season, a pre-Lenten animal s’morgasm,
Identical, as nourishing as, perhaps as
A horse of a different color: ***?
SEE ME/FEEL ME: ****** cheeks, dripping jowls;
Shredded flesh betwixt my teeth—oh yes!
I confess that among my forebears,
(Not to be confused with The Three Bears,
Which would, of course, be a whole 'nother story)
Somewhere ‘long the spiral helix
Was a seriously carnivorous naked ape,
Some troglodyte Alley Oop, evolving over Time,
Into a reptilian, puffed-up, junior broker,
Impressing some ***** 21 year-old
In some Chichi Manhattan bistro, trumping
The waiter's or waitress’s shopworn query with:
******!
A fresh ****:
****** & still warm.

Dear France,

I say goodbye today, after so many beautifully painful moments. I want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

I thank you for showing me what it meant to be myself, to fend off my fears and win over my confidence. To know my weaknesses and reassure me in my strengths. France, you're more than a country to me. I thank you for all the hard times, the endless nights and the painful, lonely sundays. For the fun times and the bad times. You made me grow in unthinkable ways. I learned to be comfortable in solitude and joyful in company; I learned the value of long relationships and the ephemeral amusement of short ones. I learned that life is not easy and yet you don't have to worry so much. But most importantly, I learned what it means to be a stranger, a foreigner, an outcast. I learned to love who I am, where I come from, and all that it means.

I thank you for the people I met. For the dully predictable clichés of your society, and the wonderfully astonishing beauty of what each French hides. Parisians so pretentious you'd think their stares are stabbing you, and women so flirtatious your heart stops and you find out with a bittersweet taste what a coup de foudre is, as she walks out of your life as fast as she walked into it. People so nice they'd go out of their ways to give a ride to a lost colombian kid who can't find home. People so nice they take the time to talk slowly so you understand that fascinatingly complex language of yours. People so nice they invite you with their friend even if you're a drag, not getting the jokes and trying to fit in. You have so many wonderful people France, you make other countries envious, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Your culture is unique, surprising and oh-so enjoyable. I learned so much that I think I owe you a lifetime of gratitude. I walked your museums, visited your endless castles and read your writers. I learned your architecture, memorized your history and recited your poems.

I thank you for being a meeting point of cultures, the heart of a continent and the boiling stew of a thousand spices. I had a taste of everything I could, I swear. I fought off my prejudices and made friends wherever I could, changing people's minds about my Homeland as I went. I fell in love with girls I met in your soil, and your language was the bridge to countless encounters.

I leave having seen your lands, smelled your flowers and soared your skies. I leave after climbing your mountains, swimming your seas and sailing your rivers. I leave with love for Bretagne, Provence, Alsace, and everything in between them. I tried all the cheeses I could, all the wines I found and all the foods you have to offer. I fell in love with the traboules in Lyon, the park in Strasbourg, the lights in Paris, the beautiful port that is Nantes. You took my breath away so many times in so many vast landscapes and little towns that I might never breath again if it's not your air.

Oh France, I tried so hard to find out all there is about you, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride you offered me.

You are easy to love, France. Beautifully enticing and glamorously inviting. You make my Homeland jealous, and She's gorgeous as well. You make me wanna split in two and live two lives, so as not to miss anything you have to offer. It's so painful loving you, France. You're a demanding lover. Friends, family, costumes and comfort were prices I had to pay for your charm.

I leave having learnt your language. People even take me for a Frenchman sometimes now! I leave having studied, worked, loved, loss, cried and laughed here, and having done my best effort to breath you all in as best as I could. I promise you, I will never speak ill of you.

I leave with pain in my heart and tears in my eyes, a knot in my throat so big I had to write down my feelings as to not let them go unnoticed. You were such a wonderful friend, France.

I leave with Marianne in my heart, knowing one day I'll call you home.

With all my love,

The word escapes me
Hidden in the death and Carnage
Je veux pleuer pour Paris, Je suis Enraged
Shot Like Cattle at Slaughter, in a
Strange Night in Paris amid the Bistros
Voulez-vous etre mon amies Parisians
In the Night a Rose Cries Tears of Petals
Its Scent mingled with the smell of Gun Shells
And after all the feelings...the word escapes me


All the Work here is licensed under the Name
®SilverSilkenTongue and the © Property of J.Flack

the french are crackpot smart
daylong parking in those cafes
gives them copious time to reflect
the results evident in ubiquitous bookstores

but with their prodigious cafe loitering
curb-to-curb restaurants
and cartons of cigarettes
how is it that parisians
don't cascade off their stools
with lung cancer at age 42
leaving craters from their girth
in bistro sidewalks?

Standing in shamble,
Parisians lament,
It seemed to be just a shell of cement,
Then the smoke cleared,
It was not as they thought,
The altar intact,
Above it…the cross!
Satan did challenge,
But… God had won,
And The great Rose Window,
Still lets in the sun!
©B L Costello 2019

Halfway up the stairs to the bone-white, beehive Basilica of Sacre-Coeur, I lost count of my climb. My legs remembered every trembling step, but they could no longer do the math  On the vast portico, swarming with earnest worker bees, guidebooks in hand, I turned to take in the triumphalist, panoramic view of smog-shrouded Paris -- a vision marred by the massive carbon boot print of 11 million Parisians. As my stomach snarled from my meager morning meal, I searched for a place to eat my equally meager lunch.Soon, I spied a bench wide enough for three people, but with only one occupant, an old Frenchman, blind from childhood. As I watched the tourist crowds run amok, careering into one another, I  asked if I could sit down beside him, and we struck up a conversation in French. Affable, intelligent, alert as a bird among cats, he was reading a braille biography of Marie Antoinette. I was impressed. He then told me how as a result of an untreatable eye disease, he had had his optic nerves cut as a boy. It was a drastic treatment,  to be sure, but common at the time. Now, he said, his life nearly over, he seriously contemplated suicide, plagued by the meaningless daily routine of a visit to Sacre Coeur, where he rested, a fixture unseen by the unsettling crowds. He could find no other purpose. So, thinking myself a therapist to the world, I leaned in close and remarked, "There is always hope." "Why do you say this?" "Because God exists." "Ah, God exists," he retorted in a half question, half scoff. Below, the carousel's calliope played a delightful, dancing tune. He listened intently. After that, we sat silently side by side for several minutes, he hearing the shuffling feet, I watching the mobs of visitors overrun the balcony. We never spoke again, until it was time for me to enter the basilica. We  exchanged "adieux," and I walked away. To this day, I  wonder what the blind man heard, among the noisome crowds, on his lonely bench at the base of the beehive Sacre-Coeur.

"ÇA  PLANE POUR MOI!

You
all that Paris is!

The myth..the magic
the music of being.

Sunlight sifting
through summer leaves.

The dazzled waters
of a morning.

A forgotten orange
on a cobbled street.

Chitter-chatter of
passing Parisians.

A flock of
human birds.

A look-alike Plastic Bertrand
busks Ça Plane Pour Moi!

A crumbling wall shouts
in a strong graffiti voice

"Laisse tomber
c'est pas grave!"

Et dans
Jardin les Tuileries

Madame's tone
scolds and cajoles

"Flick-flac...flick-flac
en dedans en dehors!

Suzanne..sous-sus
sous-sus Suzanne!"

Little children
the puppets of her voice

balance on
their too spindly legs.

Old man lost
in his Tai Chi

grasps sparrow's tail
smiles to his secret self.

These and so much more
grace notes to our loving.

We the present lovers
of lovers gone before

stretching back into time
the ghosts of kisses.

We embody all
that love has been.

I kiss you
in best Bogey style

"At least
we'ill always have

'Ça plane pour moi,
moi, moi, moi, moi,

ça plane pour moi
(Hou-hou-oou-oou!)'


. . .Paris!"

and once more,
remembering the oddest
of events -
   sitting in an armchair in
a pub situated on whitehall -
close to trafalgar sq. -
****... what pub was it?!
ah... the silver cross -
anyway so this
     family of tourists
having a meal, their 3 / 4 / 5
year old (dunno)
starts to engage with me
and the pint of guinness -
can't say a **** word,
but he also doesn't drool
or ask for a a fake ******
to **** on -
   walks around a table,
  i "protect" him by
folding my hand over the table
edges:
   no, little ****** is going to walk,
but if he stumbles,
he'll fall on my soft flesh
rather than the sharpened
wood...
    comes up to me
with a spare armchair to my
left:
  so i pick him up and sit
him it...
and then i do the oddest
thing imaginable...
   i take a salt-shaker and
sprinkle some salt onto my hand,
and then onto his...
and then i rub it into my hands,
the little ****** complies
and does likewise...
    i guess that's what you might
call: metaphor in action -
i.e.? someone is going
to get *****-slapped...
   and it requires an extra sh'ting;
hence the salt.
oh yes, the parents didn't mind,
me and the 3 - 5 year old
had our little moment...
       ha ha, his crisp giggles
of innocence...
         did i mention that frustrated
"writer" sitting at the counter?
  i've seen ethiopian marathon
runners look less constipated
than this chap looked like:
bent over the counter -
   trying to conjure up a paragraph:
or something, or other...
  i was about to invite him
on a little secret... but i thought:
n'ah... rarely does a schadenfreude
moment comes along that
you can enjoy with due pleasure
required of it...
   you tell me to spot a schadenfreude
moment in manual labour,
i'd tell you: go **** yourself...
  but this was platinum -
    honey wannabe -
  this isn't the 1920s paris -
          look at them! look around you!
if you can't write in a toilet,
or hanging up-side down -
you won't get inspired by writing
in a pub...
              no chance in hell...
imagine! an extrovert that wants
to become introverted by
writing (the act of introversion)
in an extrovert environment...
                    how will that work?
not even the parisians share
the sentiment of the 20th century
of writing in public...
   that's a bit like having
                      a **** in public.

"ÇA  PLANE POUR MOI!

You
all that Paris is!

The myth...the magic
the music of being.

Sunlight sifting
through summer leaves.

The dazzled waters
of a morning.

A forgotten orange
on a cobbled street.

Chitter-chatter of
passing Parisians.

A flock of
human birds.

A look-alike Plastic Bertrand
busks Ça Plane Pour Moi!

A crumbling wall shouts
in a strong graffiti voice

"Laisse tomber
c'est pas grave!"

Et dans
Jardin les Tuileries

Madame's tone
scolds and cajoles

"Flick-flac...flick-flac
en dedans en dehors!

Suzanne..sous-sus
sous-sus Suzanne!"

Little children
the puppets of her voice

balance on
their too spindly legs.

Old man lost
in his Tai Chi

grasps sparrow's tail
smiles to his secret self.

These and so much more
grace notes to our loving.

We the present lovers
of lovers gone before

stretching back into time
the ghosts of kisses.

We embody all
that love has been.

I kiss you
in best Bogey style

"At least
we'ill always have

'Ça plane pour moi,
moi, moi, moi, moi,

ça plane pour moi
(Hou-hou-oou-oou!)'

. . .Paris!"

*

The title comes of course from the Plastic Bertrand faux punk hit back in the days of '77 and full of crazy lyrics and mad energy. it is a French idiomatic expression which is best translated as "everything's going well for me" (literally: "it is gliding/sliding for me") or indeed " I like it!".

"That's fine by me "/"Ça plane pour moi"

What is culture

Watching “france24” one would think culture was invented in Paris.
Well, it wasn’t
The Parisians are rude and live on onion soup.
The reason Paris became famous as an art place
Were cheap rent and poor painters and writers flocked there
Well, it is not cheap anymore.
Culture is to show respect for other nations and language
Of which the French sadly lacks.
Anyone who has taken the underground in Paris in the morning
Can testify to this.