IAN AND I IN PARIS

We went to Paris
me and Ian,
on the train
that went via
the Dover/Calais ferry

We arrived virtually penniless
and
naturally
with nowhere to stay.

So, we settled down
for the night
in some boarded up
roadworks
we managed to
break into

I think we
probably had sleeping bags
though it is possible
we had nothing more
than ragged blankets

I have never
and never since
felt a dawn
like that.
There we were
out in the open
the essence of the city
wrapping its half-awake
eyes
round our abstract selves.

As the early morning
revealed its portfolio,
we bathed
in the slow ascending
rhythm of the city,
transported off
into a cacophonic
symphony of sound

For a few hours
we were Paris,
we were the traffic
we were the people
we were its noise, smells
and mutterings.
We were the glitter of transitive gold
on the eternal pavements

Ian,
despite being a scummer
felt it the same way as me
so
the sensations
were not mine alone
but
part of something else

That something else,
you don't come across it
that often
and
it always catches you by surprise

After a few days
for some reason
Ian left
and I started busking
and made a few francs.
If it hadn't been for
those bastard French gendarmes
confiscating
my unamplified guitar
I would have come away
with quite
a good
impression of Paris