Monday, December 29, 1997

Au Coeur de Paris

Au Coeur de Paris

Ma fenêtre donne sur une petite cour
Au coeur de Paris
A deux pas tourne le Moulin Rouge
Qui mélange et confond à juste titre
Touristes, voyeurs et pervers.

Comme la vitrine d'un grand magasin
Au coeur de Paris
Le monde s'étale devant ma fenêtre
Toutes les langues et tous les goûts à prix unique.

Toute l'humanité passera tâtonnant devant ma fenêtre
Le coeur grand ouvert sur Paris.
C'est un défilé d'amour et de dégoût
Le désir et la déception à chaque tournant de rue.

Ma fenêtre donne un regard
Au coeur de Paris
Et je n'y vois ai-je peur
Que mon propre reflet.

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Saturday, April 12, 1997

When You've Lost That Something

When You've Lost That Something
(Bob Dylan Friends)

When you've lost that something
That ace in the hole
That snap-crackle pop in your breakfast bowl
That well worn lucky charm rattlin' round in your pocket
That extra jolt of juice that a rainy day won't stiffle
And that you thought you could pull from an ordinary socket
Or from the King James version bible
And when you've searched and sought
In every crease and closet
For that something that you had but later lent or lost it
Or maybe you never owned 'cause it wasn't to be bought

When that yellow brick road you were runnin
Is losing it technicolor glow
Like the patent of a tan after a long summer sunnin
And you've chased the end of the rainbow
To find it ain't got no pot
Or maybe the glitter you were chasin just ain't what you thought

When you've cooked up your last deal
Cause you lost that secret ingredient
The thing that makes Coke real
And that Pepsi wants to steal
That final powdery pinch
That culinary expedient
That special sauce and feel
That G-Love's music's got
That little extra something that turned your life from bland to hot

When you can't find that extra pound
To go overtime one last round
When your everyready isn't
And your meter's running low
And your stuck in pedestrian traffic
And the fast lane's moving slow

When your loafers have lost their penny
And your bounce has left you static
When your get-up and go is gone
And you know you're lost and done
If you don't find it fast
And do it all over again
for a quarter
And inflation's got you down

And you can't find it at the bottom of a beer
that you bought for the price of four
And you don't overhear it in that pub
Or in some pep-rally cheer
You can't sweat out in a club
Or read it in a book up on a shelf
No, you just can't find that thing
No matter where you look

When life has turned Picasso
And the Grand Master's lost it too
And all you see is stalemate
Cause you and the red-headed Swede are thru
And when that moveable feast that you're livin
Is come to an end and done
And the day is no longer driven
By joy and laughter and fun
Then I say the only place you can turn
Is to two guys named Jeff and J
And maybe I've got it all wrong
But it seems that this is true
That friends are the best and only way
To keep from turnin blue

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Sunday, March 23, 1997

Frida

Frida

I find myself best in you Frida
And so I pledge my allegiance
to your patriotic beauty:
to your harvest hair falling
to your fair features white
And to your shy in the sky eyes
holding back but the weakest shade.
Frida, my beautiful baltic affirmation,
you fly the colors of my desire.

It began as a piece of cake
Too present perfect, like your icy accent
(I never thought I would have you too).
You were à la mode after dinner
A sweetness that lingered till morning
A pie I was willing to have in my face.

Smoking into my pores;
At work I sweat with your memory
Absently dropping cups and glasses
Losing myself in your bouquet.

We have a few laughs
Then you play Humpty Dumpty on my heart
In a country without queen.
I lay and wait for a young Saint Nick
Fat on Swedish meatballs
To go back north,
So I can put the pieces back together.

Now I sit doubled over in love
Committing romantic Hari Kari;
Like a peddler of cheap clichés
Trying to sell you my pain.
And all I can do is reach for you
Through these bars of broken verse
Trying vainly to span the distance
to overcome the balance of injustice
and Saint Nick’s perfect part.

Doing time in a café outside your flat
I hope to catch a glimpse of you on the way to the metro;
My whisky blind eyes read hope
Like sunlight waiting behind clouds.

In the morning I awake shivering in wait
For this frigid front to blow over.
I'm not sure who is more puzzled,
You or I
Whose heart breaks again every day
Yet still joins you every night.

I’ll believe for the both of us.
It's not the same old music,
It's Ave Maria.
And whatever the song
I'm ready to sing.

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