Nouvelle Vague

Always in Paris

Gray and chilled,

 Just after a rain

With mist in the air

Like a smokey room

Filmed in thick grains.

The sheer stark beauty

Of Tri-X film

Pushed two stops

Like a slow jazz riff

In black and white.

The cafes seemed better then,

So littered with American signs

And the pre-Mersey beat

Of early rock n roll

In a post-bohemian sigh

Laced in Gauloise Bleu and

Where the women were

Sleek as sorrowful fawns

With Botticelli eyes,

So studied in the ways

Of Montaigne and Marilyn Monroe.

The frantic roil

Of each New Wave

Childish in its feelings

And ancient in its thoughts,

Until it vanished

In the Merry May

Of a Maoist haze

And a Los Angeleno

Daze.