French Leave

To every man a country of the mind,

a realm that can never be definitively mapped,

a truth you feel absolutely or not at all…


In the choir of St-Denis Cathedral,

caught like a spider under glass

in the vast windows’ glow

I thrill to the pointed arch

like a tuning fork,

the ribbed vault and half-column shafts

rising from pillar to roof,

a new Atlantis

breaking the waves…



The cemeteries of the Somme:

tens of thousands

of identical crosses,

name, rank and regiment

or no name at all…


In Charleville,

during the festival of puppets,

I stand at Rimbaud’s grave,

quayside of his childhood’s paper boat-

here he is,

after all his voyages,

back in the place he most hated

but could never escape,

the farmyard of human mediocrity.

Out in the forest

wild boar,proud as Celtic chieftains,

root through mushroomed undergrowth

above the twisting river,

while stupid hunters hack about,

desperate for something to shoot at…


Winding among the Carnac menhirs,

With the spirits of the land and sea,

I compass a snake-way to the stars,

Lighting mind-fires for the dead.


In the gloomy château of Angers,

The Tapestry of the Apocalypse is spread:

The Whore of Babylon appears,

Mounted on the seven-headed Beast,

As the Word of God rides out to challenge her,

Galloping his horse into battle,

Chasing Satan’s legions into the fiery lake

That Jerusalem be established anew in heaven.


Canoe-plashing river-drifting light-and-shade summer days on the rivers of proud slow artful France, mushrooming sun-blasted cloud-castles of verse into the atmosphere,as blue fire skis over your face and skin, and sculls into the blood.Sensuous intellect, essay another adventure!Hilarious passion, dragonfly on the…
Like the duc de Condé, I expect to be reincarnated as a horse.