Nice

Do what you see, what you want, what you feel.

Gustave Courbet


This light makes me a Fauve:
The eye feels the moment’s pulse,
Subtle form, geometry of emotion.
This violence seduces, destroying to create.
Ripening bananas thrust out of the earth…
In the heart’s rococo casino, the croupier
Commands : “Rien ne va plus…”
In Peillon, atop the steep hill,
In the Chapelle des Pénitents Blancs,
I stood before the frescoes by Canavesio :
Judas, hanged and tormented by a black devil
Gleefully ripping out his damned soul.
I will get drunk on pastis,- hey, waiter,
A momie, a tomate, a mauresque, a perroquet !
In the Middle Ages they thought this stuff
Could even cure the plague..
Here comes His Majesty, the Carnival King,
Escorted by the grosses têtes,
Warding off Lent with laughter,
To be burnt alive on Mardi Gras night.
Now the sun is in Leo and shepherds
Make millepertuis, for burns and wounds,
Stealing magic from the dog day sun,
And seal the precious red oil in tiny bottles…
Sometimes I feel like a hotel bar pianist,
Playing for strangers night after night,
Or an ailing Russian Grand Duke
Fleeing through a Siberia of light.
Villainy seduces the soul here
By legerdemain, promising paradise
To the cunning, glory to the left-handed.
The hooded cloak of the Penitent
Conceals a demon’s face.
Exiles’ icons shine on my face
In the Russian Cathedral’s
Echo chamber;those onion domes rose
At the last tsar’s behest,
Another useless amulet to trust.
Might I , too, like senescent Matisse
Find here some consummation,
Reaching for the pomegranate
On the high branch-his gnarled hands,
Unable even to grasp a brush,
Still conjured worlds unerringly,
Seeking truth in line and light…
On St Peter’s Day a boat is burning
On the beach, like a Viking sacrifice,
As the fishermen give thanks for their safety,
And pray for all who go to sea.
Inside the Cathédrale Ste-Réparate
Cherubim and seraphim infest the heavens,
And the chapels of the affluent
Vie in vulgar opulence and trompe-l’oeil;
I light no tapers, offer up no orisons,
Yet linger by the saint’s uncorrupted body,
That first materialized in the bay
In a barge of flowers towed by angels.