Paris pines
for us:

...whines for us.

Lurks outside
our window

like a great big
urban puppy.

We're being held
prisoner

( inside our room )

by a vicious sadistic
flu bug

who refuses to
let us go.

We are missing
David Sirosis's

new spoken
word night.

Indeed, all we have seen
of Paris, is:

the inside of
ROOM 411.

ROOM 411
overlooks that famed necropolis

CIMETIÈRE DE MONTMARTRE.

The dead stand
outside

ROOM 411
...and stare.

And...stare.

Envious of even
our flu-ridden life.

They crowd together
in their stone telephone boxes

like fans
at a Dr. Who convention

who have all come
as the Tardis.

"Come...come!"
they cajole.

"Come...join us as
the glorious dead!"
they plead.

See the great
Nijinksy

leap over a moon.

Offenbach, Berlioz et Degas
act a a celebrated Greek Chorus.

The flu grows weary
let's its...grip...slip &

we escape to
a poetry stage &

suddenly it's
PARIS LIT UP &

I'm on
stage.

A bemused amused
Parisian audience

wondering why
the staggery hairy

Irish post stumbles &

wanders in search of
his words &

carrying all of CIMETIÈRE DE MONTMARTRE
about in his ahhhhh...ahhhhh...ahhhhhhhhhh

....shoooooo....head!

I struck a match and held it close, setting it all a blaze. Watching it on bended knee, observing through the haze.

When all this is finally over, I'm hoping that I can cry. Been waiting to escape for so long, that I can't remember why.

Smoke fills lungs to steal my breath, choked I can not breathe. I know that I am absolute, to love is to deceive.

I see it all in ruin now, as fire erupts in euphoric waves. Every dream I ever had, now lay in empty graves.

Wild it burns with furry, warming my pretty face. Smoldering all the hope I had left, leaving me cursed to this lonely place.