R-ead
O-de
S-tyle
I-n
E-xcellent
B-eauty
O-nce
U-ntold
R-hymes
G-et
E-xact
T-en
Topic: Poetess (Rosie Bourget)
Form: Vertical Monocrostic
(The writer Bourget is discussing the murder of
his friend, Gaston Calmette. Sixte is the hero of
one of Bourget's novels. Proust, another novelist,
lived in the street where the murder occurred.
Sorel was a pre-Fascist philosopher.)
3. Paul Bourget
I wonder why she'd do it? It's unclear,
at least to me, why Calmette had to die.
Unless we penetrate the sleek veneer,
we'll never know the who, the how, the why.
Like Sixte, assailed by Greslou's angry mother,
poor Calmette had to square the circle, and
make heat and ice accord with one another.
One might as well try growing rice on sand.
Perhaps the novelist may be of use.
The fellow Proust lives near, at one-three-three.
He'll know how human nature's an abstruse,
illogical, symbolic pot-pourri.
Or Sorel is the moral. We're not free.
For all our empty talk of Liberty,
our lives are ruled by (could we only see!)
the crude determinist machinery
that novels have. For such lèse-majesté
he got his just come-uppance. Ça suffit.
(Calmette, the editor of "Le Figaro" newspaper,
is ending his chat with his friend, Burget, as he
returns to his office. The "other Lipps" refers to
the Brasserie Lipps, a fashionable Paris restaurant.
He's pleased to see a glamorous woman awaiting
him, but does not realise she is about to murder him.)
2. Gaston Calmette
Just think? How? Yesterday? He was? (Alive
to women's charms, dear Bourget, I must take
my leave of you. A lady has arrived,
and I must sacrifice all, for her sake.)
You'll dine with me tonight? I want to know
just how the story ends. Forgive the quip,
but duty calls: I see her waiting, so
I'll try these lips, and then the other Lipps.
Just after five. Chapelle Expiatoire.
I'll soon be finished here: shall we say eight?
Let's dress for dinner -- what of rouge-et-noir?
I'm sure that one of us will show up late!
I wonder who she is, and what she wants.
A woman, on her own -- it makes no sense.
So beautifully-dressed. Not one who haunts
hacks' offices. Une dame d'influence.
What could her reason be for calling here,
I wonder? Why she'd do it - it's unclear.
Villanelle: The Dilemma of the Non-Violent – 45
Sound the gongs Blow the trumpets Let pigeons soar
The most well-kept secret’s about to be sawn
At last Great Leaders can reveal the true Law
Who makes worlds go round and round like swinging door
Who turns on firmament lights like on home lawn
Sound the gongs Blow the trumpets Let pigeons soar
Who drew Andromeda into Milky Way’s maw
Who raised Wall of Galaxies as tennis lawn
At last Great Leaders can reveal the true Law
Who made glacial periods run like mad wild boar
Who swung meteorites like golf balls every dawn
Sound the gongs Blow the trumpets Let pigeons soar
Truth ricochets like Le Bourget planes roar
The secret’s hidden from us poor folks ill-born
At last Great Leaders can reveal the true Law
Thanks to COP21 we now know much more
NATURE is the plaything of those who use brawn
Sound the gongs Blow the trumpets Let pigeons soar
At last Great Leaders can reveal the true LAW
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2015
Scarce a year it was before my birth,
that Lindy set The Spirit down
at Le Bourget one night
and all the old voitures
as suddenly lit up the runway
with their headlights.
as he taxied to a stop.
Thirty years beyond, I landed there
from fair Bruxcelles and it was day;
the city of the light took rest
avant le gaiete of night—
there was no welcoming:
"Attencion Monsieur,
you are in zee way,"
and my attempt at French
brought only curious stare.
"Et je n'ai pas de plus argent
and little more to bear me home
to Orleans. Je suis un etranger
dans ma cite des grandes lumieres, "
I thought, and sent my fond farewell
to Brussels and its wondrous minature
Etats Unis and Circarama
still unknown in fifty years back here.
Sacre Bleu! C'est incroyable
that naked little boy in Belgium,
and the Champs above the catacombs
in Paris, now still flaunt their youth,
their vibrancy, as I advance
to that dim room somewhere
when irony prevails—where Lindy,
luckier than I, will share with me
the just equality of death.
~
Gabriel A. Levicky
A DEAD TYPEWRITER
OR
1000 + 1 JUDEN VERLASSEN*
Here I go again!
The not-so blind date
With history
Narrowed my and-I-thought-they-have-seen-everything eyes.
All I can touch
Is
A paper, a report
Blown in from the past.
Everything else becomes a crippling echo.
Paris 9.4.1942
To
Berlin.
Attention: Eichmann.
Time: 8:55 am, transport # D901/23
From Le Bourget-Drancy to Auschwitz
With 1000 Jews
Has been just dispatched.*
Each Jew received 2-week provisions.
Please confirm.
Neatly typed Pica letters report.
On a polished typewriter,
A victim of war,
Now long dead.
The earth is not round yet
And
It is not turning.
Only the past is rotating, whirling
In the autumn park carousel.
Now you feel it.
Now you don’t.
NYC, October’ 01
*Based on the found written report dated 9/4/1942, sent at 10:30 AM by an anonymous Nazi officer stationed in Paris
to Eichmann
in Berlin