Tuesday Poem

Metro, Line 3

Her two dogs cowered

when she stopped

to curse me

in a unfamiliar language

but for the one word she repeated

mongolo mongolo.

I said I didn’t understand

refused to look away.

Maybe I had stared

puzzled by what was in the baby sling

she wore – a silent baby or other small

animal, her own belly?

She might have been my age or

younger, maybe I caught her gaze

and held it while I thought of that?

‘Mongolo, mongolo’

she said, stabbing the word home

poking my cheek

with one grubby finger

her dogs cringing.

Her trousers were torn,

her feet ingrained with the city

through which she led the dogs

on frayed rope – lack can make anyone

crazy with sullen, impotent rage

and I’d have felt sorry

but for the sweet-faced dog

who whimpered, hunched back on its tail

as she pulled up in front of me –

I matched her stare, indifferent.

Lady, I’m no poor toothless bitch you can drag

into your loco world.

The Metro doors closed between us

she cursed, I stared –

unrepentant.

Catherine Bateson, September, 2013

This may be my last Tuesday Poem posting for a while - I'm leaving Paris - so sad! - but moving on to London and from there, driving up to Scotland, back to London and on to Italy. I'm not sure where we have wifi. I'm sure there will be opportunities to blog along the way - but maybe not so many opportunities to write poetry! So, bear with me, please.

Check out the Tuesday Poem hub where there is a strong political poem by Gregory Philp, published by guest editor, Rethabile. And from here you can travel to other worlds. Travel safely! 

Tuesday Poem - a haiku from Paris.

Lavender still in bud -
cardboard pulled over the vents -
cold nights are long.

What continues to challenge me in Paris is the visibility of the homeless. I'm not saying we don't have homeless at home. We do. But in Paris they are almost part of the architecture. Last night I walked home from Shakespeare and Company, noting that the lavender was not yet flowering in the Square Rene-Viviani. When I crossed over the Seine, there were already men sleeping on pieces of insulating cardboard which they'd pulled over the vents. The hot air that comes through them creates heating of a sort. I imagine a damp heat - but that is better than damp cold. These vents weren't tucked away close to a wall - they were smack bang on the corner of the pavement, where two streets intersected.

To cheer you up and warm your soul, skip over to the Tuesday poem blog where you can read more Tuesday poems. I'll be posting my post on the reading at Shakespeare and Company soon, too, so please come back.

In Paris We Highlight! - Tuesday Poem

Highlights

The saleswoman in the BHV matches powder

against my skin. It is, she assures me,

goldy. Then she frowns and rouges my cheeks

because in Paris we highlight.

Highlighted and powdered I cross the Seine

to hear american poetry

and take fashion notes.

The last is unofficial but I love

how people wear their poetry –

think, the young english girl

with long plaits chose blue leggings

to wear under her purple coat and I know

that she made the felt bee on her lapel.

You can always tell the transient

americans by their high-tech joggers.

French lipstick is why everyone air kisses and the men -

crumpled linen suits exuding poetic fatigue –

take polished steps right into heartbreak hotel.

There’s one red beret, an abundance of  pre-raph blondes

and a perky cloche. I’m confident no-one else notices

but the BHV saleswoman would be on my side:

The poetry is fine, I like the one about Che,

but look at your jacket - that asymmetrical zip!

I drag her away before her fingers walk down those teeth. 

She stops to highlight two wistful blondes.

Soon she will be declaiming poetry – yes

She climbs on to a concrete column

without a wobble of her stilettos

and declaims a simple list of colours

sending them like a magicians’ doves

into the heavy night air.

In Paris we highlight!

Catherine Bateson, June 2013

After you've stopped here for some sartorial poetry, hop across to the Tuesday Poem Blog by clicking here.   Jennifer Compton and  I must have been on some strange common wavelength when we started our respective poems - although hers took a completely different turn. Have a lyrical week!

Shakespeare and Company

Went to a reading here tonight - Alejandro Murguia, first Latino poet laureate of San Francisco. Interestingly enough he recited many of the poems from memory and was quite theatrical. Political but jokey, sharp and sexy in a confident and generous way. He lives in the Mission section of San Francisco - a section I visited when I was fifteen. I was in America with my step-grandmother who was ill, so I'd wandered around Fisherman's wharf by myself, feeling a little homesick. I'd met a guy selling jewellery who reminded me of the people I was hanging out with in Brisbane - some guys who had just got back from India, made chai tea (this was in the late seventies - chai tea wasn't as prevalent as it is today!) and sold Indian imports. I stopped and talked to this guy and he invited me out. I went back to the hotel, lied to my step-grandmother and went to the Mission section with this guy. I can't even remember his name. He took me to eat tortillas at a little cafe that had a Bleeding Heart picture of Christ on the wall - the heart and dripping blood lit-up in little red neon lights. After than he took me for a tour of the Mission section - some fabulous murals near a children's playground. Then he spilled all his jewellery out and told me to pick something. I kept that agate ring for years. I hope life has treated him well - that night was a generous gift to give a fifteen year old girl from Brisbane.

Tino Villaneuva also read - from his collection voicing Penelope, So Spoke Penelope. Having written some Penelope poems myself I was interested in his work - but his Penelope was not mine. His yearned and waited. Mine got cranky - and then got organised.

The final reader was a younger poet, Chris Garrecht-Williams. I liked his work - it spoke to experience but played with language and image. He's been a writer-in-residence at Shakespeare and Company.

I could quite possibly spend nearly every evening at Shakespeare and Company - they have events on all the time and it's only a ten minute walk away. But there is so much to do and see, a novel and poetry to write and time just slips away from me - even here, where I thought (stupidly) it would unravel endlessly.

Paris!

What a crazy four days! I arrived on Wednesday after a horrendous 24 hours - three of which were spent in Dubai airport. I think I slept for about four hours of that time - on the first leg of the journey there was a spare seat between me and the other passenger, an older woman. But she simply claimed it as hers and then proceeded to sleep the entire flight, encroaching slowly on my meagre space. When she did that, I'd shuffle around until she was forced to retreat. By the time we got to Dubai I itched to slap her.

So, in a state of total exhaustion, I arrived at the Cite Internationale des Arts, where I was warmly welcomed by the staff and shown to my studio. It's actually a fair bit larger than I had imagined - and reminiscent of a 70s Brisbane flat in some ways. I think it's the green lino. I imagine it would be quite cold in winter, although there's a heater thing on the wall. And I imagine it will be hot in summer - it's already misleadingly warmer than the outside because it's on the third floor.

The tiny kitchen has an electric hotplate with two plates, a fridge and a sink. A deep sink, just like the one in Amour. Opposite the kitchen is a little broom cupboard which houses the interesting things other residents have left behind - including art materials.

I haven't actually bothered to cook yet - the first night I discovered the Rue de Rivoli and bought goats cheese, bread, fruit, a tiny chicken, tea and milk. The next day I supplemented that with some salad greens, ham and yoghurt (which comes in little glass pots). By then I'd also discovered the coffee pot, so I gratefully bought coffee.

It's expensive having tea and coffee out - you may as well have wine. Today I had a pot of peppermint green tea and it cost 6.20. The wine was probably cheaper and the beer cheaper again.

I'm so pleased I arrived in the afternoon which gave me time to get myself sorted. As it was I got completely lost - something I've been doing a lot - and spent about an hour wandering around trying to find the studios. That was probably quite a good thing after so much time spent in an airplane. The frustrating element was that I kept seeing signs for l'Hotel de Ville - but it turns out there is a Place d'Hotel de Ville and a Rue d'Hotel de Ville and an actual l'Hotel de Ville. All of which I would have figured out had I managed to take my map with me when I left. (Although I have repeatedly got lost and had a map. Clearly I do not hold my mouth in the correct position when I consult it.)