Home » Poems » T Wignesan » Unquotable Quotes: Paris the Last Week of the August Reprieve- Xxxv Part Two

Unquotable Quotes: Paris the Last Week of the August Reprieve- Xxxv Part Two

Unquotable quotes: Paris, the last week of the August reprieve – XXXV Part Two II The first signs reek tell-tale Buffer-to-buffer parking lots choc-a-bloc Long insistent hornblowing concertos announce the Yin’s arrogant blazè uppitiness Electric drillers sink deeper into the unconscious stirring unconscionable beasts still dormant Care-may-the-devil youths ride sputtering broncos rearing their muzzles revving their lawn-mower engines signaling their presences to their belles Even lordly crows scare desert languishing lawns pavements quadrangles Chinese crackers drop on the old and weary out to retrieve their morning baguettes Indoors slam the doors drop loads of toilet slam-a-dam-slam Skateboards grind parquets Dark stealthy hands whip carpets down terrace butter-cups Bumpy pubertied girls bounce basket-balls on every stilted cobble stone Harsh threats hurled by gardiennes on some lone defenceless decrepit ricochet between grainy gravely walls The monotonous neurotic beat of the rapper blares out of some open car door Stately high wooden horse-shoed chairs screech-scrape naked parquets The children upstairs take turns with parents to tap-tap with iron tongs your scalp trepanised by stilettoes Lèche-culs gather favourite crowds at your doorstep to wail their concocted woes Mothers dragging loads of holiday-gossip on steel-grip chariots scream at children they enroll for the new-born kinder-garten year Overhead cargo planes and pompier helicopters tie clouds in whirls of hurricanes The Mairie sends forth its armada of grass-cutters branch-lobbers road-washers to churn the cité in a putrefying maelstrom of carbon-monoxide Interminable garbage chariots bring lone scavengers looking for the mislaid meal their gastric growls louder than the grating wheels up and down the basement climb Heavy metal garbage vans pound kitchen utensils discarded car parts used-up batteries spades paint tubs sloppy almeirahs in the still darkened dawn Upstairs thick-skinned villains drop heavy spilling metal ball-bearings metal boxes their nasty bottoms on uncarpeted wooden resounding terrain Bulky chunky women stomp on high-heeled blocks all their way out of the entrance foyer down stoney stair steps to catch the early Metro No less than four-hundred sore throats yell into the intercom on their way in or out Late night revellers arrive in hitch-hiked cars to continue the yelling over the night-club din at the entrance patio never failing to rap on the first door Distraught women yell their chagrin into mobile cases out in the midnight moonshine Tiny tods drag school books paraphernalia through tarmac landing craft rumble The lèche-cul terrors draw tight round their scents conspirators from far Slavic lands Who said the Mediterranean didn’t flow into the Black Sea Even the thunder over the lake recedes into the rear of the ear At the Carrefour cashiers’ the queues thicken and stink longer III One dark perhaps failed actress, beer-can opened in hand, gives herself a captive audience: “….I told him I’m forty-eight. He said: ‘What? Can’t be! (takes a gulp from the half-crushed can) You are thirty, if a day!’ He shook his head, looked me over. (She pats and smooths out her streamlined abdomen.)…What’s this world come to? Prices keep going up and up! You work all day (takes another gulp), work all year (spittle spurt on the guy in front who dares not move, dares not look back, the fear - mixed with pity or sympathy - of those gone round the bend, the fear of what might stalk any one of us, the fear of being opted out of life, the wonder that is life keeping us all in check)…I told Mrs. Minelli, you know, my neighbour… You know what she said? (takes another gulp, her protruding lips on an otherwise elegant classic African-mask of a face, pouts)…What’s this world come to? Who are we? One doesn’t get a fair chance in this life.” (her voice alternates between shouting and confabulating)…you give and give and see what you get in return?” The more she shouts, the more resounding the silence all over the shop-floor. A gathering cloud of grief grips those within ear-shot. Are all withdrawn into their own private shells? People avoid looking at one another. Some sort of guilt descends upon us all – a shroud a winding sheet? Yet, she’s aware of herself; she knows what to do, how to use the self-service cashier machine. She pays and leaves no yells behind her now, her false straggly dull-blond knotted chiffon hair thick with dust, her worn-out décolté dirt-pink blouse slouches over faded bosom, soiled loose dark brown pyjama pants sloppy over hidden canvass shoes. Was the silence due to just one phrase, punctuated by curses? “What? You want a PIPE?” IV – Do turtle doves in love in the last week of August go where halcyons rendez-vous? © T. Wignesan – Paris, 2016

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