Poem 137

Some existential angst about where I’m going or not going in life, whether I’m ever going to escape the antipodean gravitational pull … the person I’m addressing is not in Paris, they’re aiming at that, continuing to use it as their organising lodestar, balancing the banality of life here against their undoubted and oncoming Euro future … while I wonder what my goal should be, having shared that same Northward-ho vision all my youth and now being a few years on from having failed to launch …

… same theme as Poem 85 – but the years between the two poems have made it less theoretical for me, more a lived emotion … 

Paris

Paris is your spot
                    that's where
you hang out your washing on days
when a natural disaster would at least
be natural

Paris is your spot but where should I be
    when I don't know if I want to eat
    something different or sleep with
    someone new
when I want without direction a flickering
tongue?

           there are a million places
to be and I wouldn't cramp your rainwet
cobbles or want to be a pigeon in the squares
you walk in
              in Paris
                      if you dream
don't take me with you
I have too many wives and children
I have to pump up my house
every day
            I'm afraid
to take my foot off the pedal