Friday, November 23, 2012

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.