(no subject)
The train went by and Spring had appeared for the afternoon.
Clément and I sat outside Olivier’s place, waiting for him to come home.
He pulled a beer out of his backpack for us to share.
We were feeling good.
Everywhere smelled like light and Saturday.
Olivier showed up looking like an old legend.
He apologized for the state of his apartment
And put some Caravan on the record player.
He had untidy hair and looked like rock and roll had taken him
In its mouth and spit him out.
The place was small and had lots of movies in piles,
And rice inside pots, and tins which had probably
Come into their antiquity while Olivier owned them.
I found out where he was from: Marseille,
And we shared one or two hashish cigarettes and some more Leffe.
Eventually someone named Rémy arrived with a car,
And we all got in, and he was playing the same song
Which had been playing in the apartment.
It was la chanson du jour, I guess. That was a laugh.
We drove to the outskirts of town over the Sarthe,
Whose water would eventually flow into the river Maine,
Then onward to the Loire and sooner or later the Atlantic Ocean,
Where it would meet with shipwrecks and whales
And who knows what else.
There was a backyard where we went,
And an angry looking cat eating pasta off a plate on the ground,
And a little girl with red hair who was busy going through puberty.
There were all kinds of French people to be introduced to.
I was glad to see a backyard after all this time.
The house was small and full of instruments,
And when the band played the flute and the bass
Came out into the yard while I wrote dialogue into
A story which seemed to be going nowhere,
And the flute and bass sat down beside me
And then they went into the driveway and up into the sky.
My parents called and told me about the United States,
And I stood by the fence enjoying their United States voices,
The particular bickering they put on for me like a radio program
All about weather, the dog and Friday night at the French Club,
A place which is about as French as John Mellencamp eating a hamburger.
I felt the homesick part of me crawl out like a Mongolian death worm
But I told it to go back to the Gobi Desert and stay there.
Later, I sat in the house and watched the hippies play music.
They were some pretty good music playing hippies
If you ask me. For a while I sat paying attention to each instrument
Individually, like eating a meal one food group at a time.
The drummer was stoned but he was doing ok, and
His girlfriend the flute player was a fucking talented flute player.
Olivier played the guitar like a myth, and
Clément played the bass like a taxi driver drives a taxi.
“Look at the dawn, it’s dying.”
After all that we drank mint tea
And threw pistachio shells into a bowl on the table
And at each other. Behind the tea party
The sky turned pink and I thought
About writing this poem.