December In Paris

December Paris  

Winter Paris pavement cafés vacant chairs and poor sparrows look for 
baguette crumbs. Artists had gone to their loft conversions, in bed with 
their models and plates of goose liver pate, waiting for a better time. 
I came across a posh bistro people inside wore silk suits, doors locked;
 invitation only. A famous philosopher came out, said something deep 
about peace- in broken English- then asked where the camera was. 
When he saw I wasn’t a journalist he said: Merde, and walked back in. 
At the bookshop Shakespeare, academic tourists had assembled they 
looked through books of famous writers, thought of saying that two of 
my poetry collections were there, but they looked so educated, wore 
capes of superiority and poetry workshop shoes I lost my nerve. Rain,
found a bistro at a side street, had coffee with an Armagnac, thought 
of the days when Ernest Hemingway scribbled away here, other writers 
too, when Paris was not so haughtily conscious of her artistic status.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2011

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Brown Avatar
December 21, 2011 at 5:37 AM
I enjoyed reading your poetry this morning Jan. Wishing you a New Year filled with inspiration and the best to you in your writing endeavors whatever they may be. Love, Carol
Hansen Avatar
December 21, 2011 at 6:19 AM
thank you Carol
Smith Avatar
December 19, 2011 at 9:41 AM
I would love to know how one survives, a poet in Paris today. Write a book. Charm offsets her winter gloom, though she so delights when the sun's out. Bought a book at Shakespere two weeks ago. If you'd said, "Buy mine;" I'd have done. Autographed, of course, for posterity.
Hansen Avatar
December 19, 2011 at 10:59 AM
thank you John
Cornwall Avatar
December 19, 2011 at 5:09 AM
oh the louvre opened first weekend of every month for free... loved the pastries at the cafe you so eloquently wrote...............
Hansen Avatar
December 19, 2011 at 6:27 AM
thank you Patrick
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