underneath a fine Parisian sky

Montmartre

on a steep historic butte 

with fresh strawberry tart, 

unwrapped nudes,

& excited affairs of the heart 

underneath a fine Parisian sky 

watched i 

seated outside my busy sidewalk cafe 

wondering what people say 

by the walls of the ancient Sorbonne 

in their studious Latin tongue. 

nearby, the spry 

Agile Rabbit 

sitting on his vineyard hill drinking cheap local swill 

with a painterly friend of mine, 

asked Joyce if he really had a choice 

or was it just a rumor about the invisibility cloak? 

perhaps another drunken joke 

about a man stuck inside his wall:

a shadow of a ghost before his eventual downfall? 

there's more that i should say: 

i recently talked with Claude Monet 

about his first impressionist flowers brush-stroked every single hour until 24 had been made. 

he said he was adequately paid. 

i sipped my warm cafe au lait wishing this Paris memory would stay and stay!

 

then a wind and hard rain came up abruptly and took all the suspense away. 

Montmartre 

on a cobbled July afternoon 

in the shade, 

stirring with an unfashionable plastic spoon, 

i the tourist began to consume 

a Lebanese grape and a sweet pepper with a stem shaped like the quarter moon.