Best Avignon Poems
Alone, in Paris
The flowers sing
Le jardin du Luxembourg
I look at all the pretty ladies
Which one of them pray tell
Is you
The one who wishes for that sweet caress
The one whose painting hangs on the wall
The one who knows beauty runs deeper
Than a river running to kiss the oceans swell
The grandest of castles with candles dim
There in the damp night would bonds begin
If only you would listen to my whispers deep
Forgiving the scars I have suffered
As in the night I have wept
Napoleon marched forth across great lands
I the knight have lesser demands
If only you, whoever you are
Would take hold of me
As we dance away our eternities
Sur le pont de Avignon
Where the river flows
Like poetry
Entwined in a lovers sweat
Passions sated, as a cool breeze
Brings in the scent of the night
Tongues tasting of wine, fully satisfied
Eternal happiness, could this be?
Or should I run under gloomy tormented skies?
Hand in hand we traveled, across the fields of love
Into historié
Sur le pont d’Avignon
We danced the night away
Round and round did we go
Our love fell into the Rhone
Devotion seemed a certainty
Love was passions muse
Broken, life fell in the abscess of my demise
All I truly desired, left sur le pont
The battle of Avignon left me defeated
As my memories fade, melancholy recalls to me
The kiss that never was
Meant to last
Always finding the quite of stillness; peaceful waters her, reflections....
Be it here or, perhaps there ? Assembling their higher educational think tanks
Joey bought a condo at Venice while Pamela, drove down from Malibu; her red eye'd
Flights hurry on now, you shan't be late; composed another read through; his puppets
As their strains ? Marching, time it's Piccadilly manifesto; cross'bow ambassadors
Gin and tonic her double agent stewardess, confides ? Marshall Maverick, concealing the ark
Of the covenant; sequestered at Cardinal Bay to be presented his Prince, Beelzeboob's for surety
At Whirlwind Heights for authentication be a declaration; autism avouched of Babylonia's..
Fourteenth century her papacy ? Avignon, canonized at St. Petrarch's, deflowering school and arts ?
Entering now love's air space Tel Aviv'-Jaffa; gallivant's elaboration bubonic's plague; document six sixty
Six with Father Merrin As Regan to witness Historia's, tableau treaty demonic wedding ? Baby Sebastion's
Lucid trans atlantic delusion; vexations wild west Windsor's castle grand patriarch; sovereign jaegers....
Abominations, standing where they ought not be ? Bethlehem's bright morning star their Angels Melchizedek.
Form:
A Tree grows in Avignon
Planted by a Soldiers hand,
She slept, while Europe blazed.
Bore silence through winters cull,
Captured in darkness, there to laze
Amongst the ruins of Avignon.
Freed by the spring,
Guarded by the sun.
Born in thunders drench
A seedling of hope for Avignon
Gave witness to unjust death,
Found her strength in summer’s breath.
Drank the blood of murders shame,
Grew fertile, her innocence to bear
Seduced by the bees of Avignon
Gave birth, to temptation
Casting forth her gift,
Amongst the ruin,
While Children played, in her boughs.
A new beginning, the bad forgotten
Healing the scars of Avignon
Taken confession, the old to cleanse,
Listened to love,
Their dreams to mend.
Sheltered the lost, from Natures eye.
Watched children grow,
And the old men die,
For she is the spirit of Avignon
Planted by a soldiers hand,
When dark clouds gathered
A place of love, redemption tethered
To forget the war
And find his wife
A tree of Life for Avignon
Time moves on.
The soul returns,
And still she grows.
Anonymous to a stranger’s eye,
A cathedral of hope, a grannies smile.
A tree of home.
A tree that set us free,
That tree that saved my Avignon.
Form:
Enea is Pope! (1)
It doesn’t look good.
There is restiveness around the ‘hood.
Naples is in turmoil, a bastard claiming the throne –
but is he even a bastard? And isn’t he owned
by the French? Cardinal d’Estouteville
is treating the Tiara as a done deal.
Has he really as good as won?
Then the Papacy’s off (again) to Avignon.
At the gates
of the Papal States
is a general with an army.
He’s irrupting through,
and proceeding to
slice the land up, like salami.
Piccinino knows
this is how it goes:
there’s no spine to the Holy See, see?
Let him take terrain
on the Umbrian plain –
but must we lose Assisi?
Worse incursions are happening than these.
Hordes of Persians and Medes and Pharsees
(the irrepressible Turk)
are making short work
of humanity’s treasury – Europe.
They’re going to sack Italy soon.
The Muslims took Athens in June.
(When you need it, where’s NATO?)
For the city of Plato,
the game is decidedly up.
When some prince claims a “national church”,
for his motive it’s not hard to search:
they’re stashing the cash for themselves
that once weighed-down the Vatican shelves,
thereby leaving the pope in the lurch.
North Europe views Rome with disdain,
and for reasons not pure, but profane.
Their domestic corruption
brooks no interruption –
they just hate being Ultramontane.
It’s 1914, and Hollywood star Mabel Normand has just
helped new boy Charlie Chaplin to develop his “Tramp”
character. She is wondering if she’s done the right thing.
I gave him everything – even the walk.
He’s too priapic for his baggy britches!
Arriving here still tarred with charred old cork,
this fraud who jawed of Avignon and Sitges
while knowing neither, has the crew in stitches.
Dexterity is not the same as grace:
he’s shaping up for all-time rags-to-riches,
the parasite who rose without a trace:
but we can see beneath the comic carapace.
He’s carrying himself now like a star.
If glibness were the same as eloquence,
I haven’t any doubt that he’d go far.
The talent, if untutored, is immense.
I wish he’d just – when not before the lens –
acknowledge what’s been done for him. That loud
theatricality I tamed. The sense
of something intímate, less harsh, less proud,
I think I gave him. But his eyes are on the crowd.
He’s trying to direct us. We’re his bitches.
That script he wrote permits him to molest
some seven women, like as if his itches
are there to be indulged. The man’s obsessed.
I nurtured him and now, at his behest,
I’m served up as his plaything. I’m incensed!
The cuckoo kicks the babies from the nest,
but still the mother feeds him. My defence?
A woman’s love survives a man’s incontinence.
Easter Eggs and Tulips
Grandaddy was a quiet soul,
born in 1888 on the first day of Spring.
He often stopped to graze his sheep,
on the lush green grass
found at my grandmother’s old house,
where she played with dollys and jacks.
A knowledgable gardener by trade, growing flowers and crops
he caught a beautiful maid’s eye nearby,
some 20 years older than she was he
and yet from their earliest glance,
he remained loyal to his Corrie.
Grandaddy planted stately green Rhododendrons,
bordering the road and our land,
growing his own pipe tobacco.
His battle with bamboo most grand
exotics brought from the Great War,
in France’s trenches he sat long
wondering if he’d make it home,
the mustard gas a near swan song.
My childhood recollections of him digging in the dirt bed
planting Avignon tulip bulbs,
silky pedals flowering brilliantly red
bursting freely with our Easter Eggs,
cleverly hidden from our sight
by gentle liver-spotted hands,
unfurling them with slow delight.
You left us when I was but nine,
my memories are vague shadows,
dreams of you, a bible in one hand,
pipe in the other,
curling smoke around you,
smelling sweetly of spicy tobacco.
Lazy-bones, forsake your bed!
Shake off dull sloth, rise from the dead!
On the bridge of Avignon
there is dancing. Join the fun!
Ye gold-laden, ye who beg,
off to that bridge and shake a leg!
Young men dance with dash and vigour,
old men cut a less bold figure.
A priest and soldier back to back
flash their colours, red or black.
To the sprightly, to the lame
the piper's call is just the same.
Will you dance or will you nay,
all must dance, come end of day.
PART ONE
You tap me on the shoulder and ask whose staff I'm on,
Startled I try to tell you but see that you have gone
Down the path of memory to a place of no-recall
Where I'll no longer find you and you won't see me at all:
Only a booted stranger you've never met before
And a blur of marching soldiers, Marching into war.
I set the cup down slowly, the broth i've made for you,
I draw the curtains slowly to hide those scenes from view,
But in the mirror darkly that stands beside your bed
Your gaze picks out the shadows of the men that you once lead.
You turn to me in wonder and ask where they have gone, I tell you they are marching,
On down to Avignon.
I know not what I'm saying, I blurt platitudes and lies,
I want to stop your memories before they turn to cries
Of dying men and horses, exploding mortar shells,
The mud and blood of warfare, that very special hell
Of living in the trenches when you were twenty-five
And saw your generation
Half crucified alive.
PART 2
Slowly the darkness thickens, you turn to me blind eyes
That see beyond our seeing however much one tries
To shield you from the knowledge that all your friends are gone,
And you ask me if your sisters and your mother still live on.
I tell you they are doing quite well in Kentish Town
And hope to see you shortly
When you yourself go down.
In truth they died tomorrow or thirty years ago,
It makes no sense or difference to what you need to know, Why tell you they have followed those soldiers you once lead,
What purpose can it serve now confessing they are dead?
I do not want you grieving every time I speak.
When you yourself are leaving
I neither ask nor seek.
And so the days continue and sometimes we are friends,
And sometimes you're a burden, a charge that never ends,
Till looking back in anguish to how things used to be, I see again the father who meant the world to me.
And so I stoop and kiss you and gently take the cup
From the gnarled and twisting fingers
Of the man who grew me up.
For my father who fought in two world wars and died of Alzheimers in 1986
Copyright © Carrick Townsend | Year Posted 2020
In the lover's tongue's
they call them romantic
languages for their own sake
Escucho tu susurro amor
I hear your love whisper
Her Spanish tongue trills,
a lingual click on her
ivory teeth reminiscent of
glossy blanco castanets
Her billowing blouse, a hint
of hiding romance underneath.
Colorful skirt flows, just -
just like her sensuous legs below
Sento il tuo soffio d'amore
I hear your love murmur
Dark-haired Italian woman
arms raised to Tuscan air
fingers together in emphasis
tells of passionate effort
to make herself known to
her lover - il suo amante
Je sens votre amour dans mon coeur
I feel your love in my heart
Young blond from Avignon says
as she sits graciously
at the small table
off the Rue Carnot
fingering her necklace
and looking at, you.
How could you not feel that
love is in the air?
Of course you do...
it's soon to be spring,
isn't it?
love grows - amor crece - amore cresce - amour grandit
© Goode Guy 2013-02-22
Easter Eggs and Tulips
Grandaddy was a quiet soul, born in 88 on a spring day.
He often stopped to graze his sheep, on the lush green grass shoots in May
found at my grandmother’s old house, where she played with dollys and jacks.
Knowledgable gardener by trade, he grew crops and purple lilacs
catching a beautiful maid’s eye, some 20 years older was he,
and yet from his earliest glance, he was steadfast to his Corrie.
He planted stately green magnolias, bordering the road and our land,
growing his own pipe tobacco, his battle with bamboo most grand
exotics brought from the Great War, in France’s trenches he sat long
wondering if he’d make it home, the mustard gas a near swan song.
I have childhood recollections, of you digging in the dirt bed
planting Avignon tulip bulbs, silky pedals flowering red
bursting freely with Easter Eggs, cleverly hidden from our sight
by gentle liver-spotted hands, unfurling them with slow delight.
You left us when I was but nine, my memories are vague shadows,
dreams of you with a spade in hand, smelling sweetly of pipe tobacco.
Blackj
on
white art-
sepia
in a time capsule.
Ekphrasis-A Memory of Avignon-Edward Hardman-Photographer.