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| Artwork via Wikimedia commons |
I'm
so sick
of
these novels,
all
these short stories,
this
poetry. so sick
of
working
office-work;
marking
spreadsheets,
tracking
time. sick
of
getting up
and
getting up
early
– 7am shower,
cup
of coffee,
take
the dog out
to
piss. sick of movies
and
especially
of
books made
into
movies. of music,
potted
houseplants,
hospitals,
fear
of death. so sick
of
driving home
and
getting home,
sick
of the dinners
you
make me
because
you're frankly
the
much better
cook.
there's
birds
about,
scratching
beautifully
in
the yard outside
my
window. I'm heartily sick
of
their sounds.
the
sun reaches down
under
earth's deep
moist
surface,
grabbing
the shoulders
of
flowers to pull
upward
with
the violence
of
clumsy
young
children
snatching
at frogs
under
muck.
jetlagged, sagging, I
disembark
in Paris, dragging my bag
past conveyor to
check-out,
where my passport from Ireland
will get me quickly
through. on a train
into the city, knowing Fallon's
rough directions. knowing
roughly
where the flat is,
roughly where
to meet my friends.
I walk the road, pulling
a suitcase, wearing
jeans, a hat
and white linen. I look
fantastic,
frankly, and the girls
look quite pretty to me;
the men unshaven,
unshowered, artistic, and
very
Parisean. everyone
drinking
outside cafes. everyone
smoking.
and my friends are there
too,
stretching like long four
o'clocks – an afternoon
beer
by a stack of locked
bicycles. trees
on the shade of their
t-shirts
and of various dirty
umbrellas.
Forgive me, I can't be general
forgive
me,
I
can't be general – what I write
are
specific poems
and
sometimes with names
of
my friends.
I
am not a painter
or
any sort
of
musician, not even
a
dispassionate
reporter;
at best
a
diarist, placing days
on
pieces of paper
for
the benefit, I hope,
of
someone else.
Guillarmo
comes by
and
again to just drop
off
some boxes
on
the way to the studio
set
up with a friend. and bea
has
told him, since he's got
somewhere
permanent,
he
can move from their flat
all
his paintings, his books
and
his boxes of photos.
he
shows us a series
of
portraits he's doing –
a
neighbour leaning over
his
hot oven stove. intrusive,
I
guess, though there's
something
to voyeurism.
and
the face is just a steam
on
the window. he's flattered,
and
we've framed up
some
pictures he's taken.
shows
us his plans
for
another art
book.
it's good
and
I tell him so: I like
that
he's talented
and
that he's a visual
artist
– it's good for material
to
have friends like these
and
no danger to me
or
my poems.
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