1006 - Bad blood

D-Day’s 65th anniversary
Presidents and royalty viewed the graves
Sullied by a little controversy
That led to boos for Brown instead of waves
The Queen was not invited, and that leaves
Questions about France, why it snubbed Britain
And why Brown did nothing, but seems to heave
From one storm to another like the men
Who crossed the Channel, so young and fresh then,
Back in’44. Seems that Sarkozy
Wanted to pose with Obama by waves
Of Omaha Beach once red with fallen
American blood. Unfortunately,
Politicians just can’t seem to behave…
Sat 6 June 2009

975 - Drinking and smoking outside Notre Dame

Drinking and smoking outside Notre Dame
And at long last the sun now shows its face
All nationalities come here disarmed
All people relax in this ancient place
Photo-opportunities; cameras race
Accents Spanish and Asian, French, German
Young, middle-aged and old, time can’t erase
These special scenes, sunlit moments of fun
Me, I’m content, beer bottle number one
Almost empty; with number two I’m armed
Bottles of Kronenbourg don’t go to waste
Preparing for the match that’s still to come
(Chelsea/Barcelona) and so the aim
Is to get pissed cheaply in this fine place!
Wed 6 May 2009

974 - Plastered in Paris 2

Un autre jour à Paris: Sainte-Chappelle
A fuckin’ long queue, mais it was worthwhile
Those stained-glass fenêtres: sensationelles!
Un peut de shopping, home for a piss, then we’ll
Go for a falafel, served with a smile
Fed les pigeons; on est allé au Musée
Carnavalet, where luckily twas real
Easy a prendre des photos, regarder
Le lit de Proust. Turned into a good day
Despite the clouds. I was OK, but Pearl
Was fatiguée. Walked over to the Ile
De la Cité, ou Pearl est occupée
Dans son restaurant. I thought, fuckin’ ell
What to do next? Qu’est-ce que c’est difficile
Tue 5 May 2009

973 - Tour-ism

The first place we saw was the Tour St-Jacques
Kids played in the sun there and near Les Halles
On the grass, just in front of St-Eustache
We queued but failed to get in Sainte-Chappelle
On to the Latin Quarter: the next pile
Was St-Sulpice; Jardins du Luxembourg
Café Rostand. Montparnasse: half a mile
Up the tower, Paris laid out like a rug
The long line of the Louvre like a slug
Trail; Tour Eiffel cut a vertical dash
Cimetière Montparnasse cast quite a spell
From such a height, and on the ground, graves dug
For JP Sartre, de Beauvoir and Duras
In the evening, poetry in Belleville
Mon 4 May 2009

659 - No kidding

An update on my kids’ progress so far
My eldest daughter’s an Oxford student
Tonight we meet and eat down at Pizza
Express to chat before her summer’s spent
Au pairing in France; it seems she’s long meant
To live in Paris when she graduates
My son leaves school this month, and he’s intent
On studying film-making. He can’t wait
To move to London. He anticipates
Working in LA one day; screenwriter
His chosen trade. My youngest, she first went
To school last September; she’s doing great
So many parties; she’s so popular
Her arts and language skills are excellent
Tue 24 June 2008

652 - Au revoir, mes amis

Oh dear. Poor old France. It’s all going wrong
Ever since Zinedine Zidane’s head-butt
They’ve been dans la merde, suddenly off-song
And now the Champs Elysee’s gates are shut
Sarkozy’s feeling dozy, in a rut
And Platini’s plateaued quite patently
The European Championship’s not got
The French in it much longer. C’est la vie.
Unless in the second half, like Turkey
The French find va va voom, and before long
The golden generation is kaput
La belle epoque is indeed history
But when the tolls of Notre Dame are rung
Les bleus will no longer have made the cut
Tue 17 June 2008

512 - Parisian Pearl

Bon! Bon! Ma fille irai a la Sorbonne!
Bien sur, elle est particulierement heureuse.
Bien qu’elle doit etudier beaucoup maintenant,
Probablement elle voudrait etre chanteuse!
My French is very mauvais, unlike hers!
Just to confirm, Pearl’s going to Paris
In the autumn. Classic philosophers
And literature are on the study list,
But this will be her own Odyssey; this
Year spent among the best young French, ces jeunes,
Les dirigeants de demain, raconteurs,
Une nouvelle belle epoque not to be missed!
And now she’s looking forward to great fun,
Earned by her hard work in these last few years.
Tue 28 Jan 2008

486 - I only have eyes for you

My eldest child, a daughter, is twenty.
(She’s nearly half my age now, the poor thing.)
Her eyesight’s crap, perhaps she could blame me:
I wore glasses at five, then bore the sting
Of contact lenses when twenty-something,
Then laser surgery two thousand-one,
And now, again, deteriorating,
But she’s got some of these delights to come,
Being still young, still undecided on
Career; maybe translator, but can see
The opportunities diminishing
With English ever more widely spoken.
The Sorbonne’s her aim, parce qu’elle aime Paris,
But Lyon and Nice also beckoning.
Thur 3 Jan 2008

313 - To a beautiful woman, La Belle France

To a beautiful woman, La Belle France,
And to her noisy, sweet children, Bonjour!
Though we are years apart, you still entrance,
Singing, Que reste-t-ils de nos amours?
A Paris honeymoon, and old book stores
On the Rive Gauche, the bridges and the Seine,
The Notre Dame gargoyles who, without pause,
Frown down on centuries of loss and gain.
The old lady of Normandie, her rain,
The cliffs in all their stone-faced resistance,
Old Caen that is no more (shelled in the war),
Each little village, vast rural terrain,
Each old bell-tower, towers of La Dé fense:
Quatorze juillet, Bastille Day, alors!
Sat 14 July 2007

267 - The free spirit of jazz is in my head

The free spirit of jazz is in my head:
Thoughts fly off on a tangent like a blown
Up balloon with no knot in it; they’re red
Hot, like Paris; like ET phoning home;
Like tongues of flame licking all over Joan;
Like sweetened air, that special sort of rush
I get from labyrinthine saxophone
Or guitar solos, or the mighty brush
Of Bach’s fast-flying fingers. No, don’t crush
These flighty, flowering, quietly inbred
High towers of Eiffel and Gaudi, grown
Out of an abstract ground, fertile and lush.
From earthly bonds to heaven I am led;
In zeppelin and space shuttle I’ve flown.
Tue 28 May 2007