La Belle Epoque

I think of you as I would any self-made image: I was sitting there in the international terminal, waiting for my flight to Munich, anticipating our rendezvous, and watching Annie Hall. I seem to have established a fondness for Woody Allen, but I'm thinking I'm too young to appreciate him. Still, there I am, wearing headphones and laughing at thin air, with efficient blonde Germans looking at me as a mad man. I waited for boarding, bored. I thought about my brother and his thoughts on relation -ships. His journal told me not to make anything of this chance encounter. He said that we should leave our preconceptions behind, and just be... and just be. I thought about my the rapist. She approved of my recent decision of non- interference, approval being the one thing I seek more than you. One in the afternoon there, and it’s still only four o’clock in the morning to me. And I’m amazed that what took me two weeks in a boat, only takes a few hours here in this flying hunk of steel. It got a little rough over the tip of Greenland. And yeah, like a white-knuckled cliché, I reflected, and then we were touching down and there was a promise: Unfulfilled in my roaming of Munich and their Oktoberfest. Steins over-sloshing and the stench of cinnamon and carnival rides. And still the Rezidence left me unsatisfied, again I was reminded of the futility of you. A perfect mirage oasis and I know one day I’ll find you. And I know one day this thirst will quench, and just be... and just be. Finally Paris - the last true city of the world. Work before play and it pays the bills and I know when this life catches up with me, there will be reckoning. But until then, I’m shaking hands and giving speeches. Surrogate French mères show me a lit Eiffel, bouquinistes, and the intellectuals with their sophisticated disinterest, And then there was suddenly you, Only it wasn’t sudden, that’s just my wishful project- ions. In fact, you were slow and lagging. I wasted hours sitting in a nameless lack- luster hotel, watching MTV and the Simpsons. Wondering which buildings from my view were important. And in the end I suppose everything is important to somebody. In the end I suppose I could have gotten off my ass and dared the unspoken streets. I could have done anything except sitting, but instead I just accepted sitting until finally - stomach turned and threatening future embarrassment, I felt 3% fatter just looking at you sitting there reading your book. Delicate porcelain skin and blood-orange hair, Just then I knew your promise broke, and I could never just be... never just be. Still we smile and hug and walk and play pleasant I tried not to stare while projecting an attitude of casuality We share the friendly disposition of two strangers with a mutual figment past And you are the gracious host Even if you can’t remember your way and must confer every few blocks And we walked the Louvre and I found Mona lacking But your favorite painting gave me chills too The light being cradled like a newborn Slipping through the fingers of Jesus or Mary or Joseph A light older than Notre Dame or Sacre-Coeur or the Seine itself A light that was there before the paint or the canvas Before the chiseled marble stone or gold-laden framework or thinly printed pages A light that just is That just is I got lost in the Opera House streets I must have walked near your job three or four times at least Panic rising like indigestion in my throat What if I kept you waiting? What if you went looking? What if I could never find you again? What would come of us then? And it’s all just so ruined, so completely given up I may as well sleep now And yes this thing keeps going in and out of the past But this is how the mind works The heart however, the one true time traveler The one that knows hints of pasts yet to be created And presents that are felt long before their arrival The heart was there when the light slipped by And this heart felt like home in Paris walking next to you Felt like a home I had already left as a young man Returning to find that everything has changed and moved on But when I wondered lost that heart stumbled Groping for a word or two to orient itself And all it heard was mais un peu et soyez juste et soyez juste And finally the awkward moment of nudity I could count the ripples in your abdomen And I wanted to breathe you in but instead I smiled to ease This beautiful time And after the day had just begun We stayed up all night in the rum-soaked bar Drinking Hemingway and smoking Castro We talked of old lovers and philosophy And I felt 3% sexier, smarter... meilleur And your promise renewed itself Or maybe I was just drunk enough to believe that And maybe you were too Either way the heart stumbled yet again Clumsy fudge-thumbing buffoon that it is Only this time it led us to your door And onto the futon and then the feelings left me The rest of the night I nursed a stormy stomach Back to calm waters The moment passed along with any promises The next day was pleasant but I could feel the waning I was already gone and you pulled ever so slightly Once again two lines came close to a fulcrum never crossed And that felt right, but not very Parisian of me We wandered one last nuit blanche, cold and wet Utterly soaked to the raisin-wrinkled depths I took pictures of the Moulin Rouge And you told stories of kid-spitting Metro blow-holes I caught a cab at the very last second Annoyed with my own anal need for security And the brevity of our goodbye It didn’t feel like an end, but it may as well be A few hours later, I thought of you from takeoff to landing But then Stockholm settled in my mind And it seems that whatever will be Will just be Will just be