Femmes: Plymouth Lines

There's a nautical light on the ceiling of the room
I'm sharing with Tom.
A breeze comes in from the window behind me,
the great big smell of flowers wafting in from right outside;
hydrangeas.
It's the aroma of the coming celebration,
or I should say of the life I've come out here to see.
It's a dream of a day,
a light in the eyes when I turn around.
It's a light that blinds the mind.

I stare straight at it
and fly the way one does when
he's not quite certain
of the reality of things.
Please let me still be alive,
Please I pray I haven't already taken that leap.
Let me be not sleeping,
let these memories never fleet.

This is one of the grand times of my life.

Femmes: Nauds Marins

I'm in the sun room on a good hash high I am.  There's a consistent waving breeze rushing through the leaves and the garden and the trees in the back on the neighbor's property, over the quaint property wall and across a field of what used to be.  Wild orchids are growing off the walk, growing thick, in the thick of it.  Out of arms reach.  Wild and free.  Free from the march of time we're all slowly marching to.  Matthew said (or was it Tom) that the poppies were the first things to start growing again after the war.  There they were after the shelling stopped and the thousands muddied by death again, growing among the dead in the war fields.

Red poppies.

I've only ever seen orange ones before, in California.

There's a frame in which holds a number of knots with white rope, nautical knots you know, like for sailing.  Each has a different name that sounds quite nautical and French, and above all of them in the frame is a title for the piece: Nauds Marins.

"Nauds marin, hmm. Oh right, knots. Quite right. Those are some knots."  Tom's British.  The way he says things sounds like they should be in an encyclopedia or a Charles Dickens novel. Someone's probably said that before about the British, but it's true.  He had a point that guy.  Anyways, Tom's a wicked sport.  Fucking excellent roommate he is, with a Manchester accent.  He's got a country way about him too, not rough or cockney, but rural and in the way that someone would be if they talked to animals a lot, which he does, his two weimaraners, Buckley, and oh hell, I don't remember her name,  the other one, the new young terror apparently.  Tortures old Buckley day and night he tells me, a true terror.  Bit his friend, bit the postman, bites anyone he's never met before, needs constant attention, bullies poor old Buckley, but what can you do.  He's a rescue.

Tom takes the two for a walk most days.  Tom used to live in London, big on the club scene, knew where to dance all night, knew who had the best uppers, the best acid, the best MDMA.  Now he lives in the north near Nottingham in a small town called Derbyshire.  I stayed by there with Claire when we went to England in the winter.  When he walks the weimaraners it's through the woods, past streams and up ancient sheep's paths, rocky green hills and old castles, and he forages for magic mushrooms.  It's a lush, sleepy timeworn land.

What a life.  He loves it, takes a comfort in the solitude.

We talk, Tom, Matthew and I like old men as we doddle through the trimmed grass and the cherry trees in the dabbled light as Tom calls it.  Good strong word, dabbled.  How very British, Tom.


Now Matthew, he's a Panamanian.

[stop]

Femmes: (Sacha) Mykonos

There was a wedding in the Aegean Sea on a Greek isle in the summer.  The billionaire and the supermodel.  Of course Kendall was going, no time for airport lines.

"I need to get to Mykonos. First class, of course." A glass of rosé champagne.  That fucking boy in line at LAX.  He blew a good kiss.  She concedes that at least, then shakes it off with a smile.  He's nothing.

"Why you cuttin' Kendall?" Because I can silly man.  No one's ever talked to me like that.  I guess anonymous snideness is a new approach.

*****

No, it's a back and forth, this story.  As always.  An existentialist and a princess; TV royalty, well-known, recognizable, envied, adored.  It's one of those Princess Bride tale of the ages kind of story.  Don't let her be boring.  Tit for tat with this one.  Like life, as always.  A reality in the ebbs and flow of two paths crossed only on the most charming of occasions.  An airport, across friends and in Spain.

I say existentialist, like I am one, but am I?  No, hardly.  Maybe I used to be.  When I used to give a damn.  And I always said I didn't care about anything.  In reality, I didn't care about myself, my standing, my worth.  I had a purpose, I was happy, and I thought big picture.  The injustices of the world pissed me off.  Not caring allowed me to care about real issues of civilization, etc.  I mean, hell I still care about all that (I was about to write that I didn't), I do.  I just don't write it out like I used to is all.  Not to Noam Chomsky idealisms anyways.  I wish I could.  I should.  The first thing is obvious.

When did power overcome happiness as the motivator for our species.  I guess it's always been like this really.  Men have always craved power, unhappy men.  Unlike happiness, power is an addiction like any other addiction.  Like cigarettes, like cocaine, like sugar.  Once you have a little you want more, you need more, and what's more, you'll sacrifice happiness for this temporary satisfaction.  And what's lesser and more unfortunate is the amount of viciousness and ferociousness that becomes a part of your life when power enters.  Lesser men wilt or are eaten alive.

No, but happiness is the easiest to achieve.  Simply give to someone else, share with others.  It's a wonder to think, that we are conditioned with something so simple, so logical; a Darwinian property attributed to a means of survival as a species, a cornerstone in all major religions.  Give of yourself, help those in need, love one another.  And yet we live in a world of perpetual war, of murder and destruction in many places; led by the guises that we all know to be true evil--money, greed, power.  But we stand idly by and comment and critique and do nothing at our own peril.  Because technology maybe.  Someone in the movie last night referred to the Internet as the anti-Christ.  I hesitate to disagree with her.  I haven't yet.  After all it was never said that the devices of the devil did not serve the masses.  What it did was pull the curtain over.  When you think of life as a collection of time, it is literally taking life away from us.  It entertains and it makes us more efficient slaves.  That is the nature of technology now, in a connected world.

*****

This is all in my head of course.  Me, I'm set at a lovely table just out of the sun by the terrace, inside, at chez Sacha.  High ceilings, room for the mind to unfold and expand.  Sacha's environment in life has always been a place for me to escape to, to expand and unwind and find peace, I love it.  I hope she knows how thankful I am.

We've been smoking hash on a little screw under a cup.  I feel proper bohemian now, whatever that means.  To be true, left unattended, I could write for hours at this post I believe.  Until my hand cramped, and I developed a kink in my shoulder from hunching over the notebook pages, hazy in the hash smoke as the sun creeps through the day in Paris.  If Kendall were to go to Mykonos, Sacha would be the perfect anchor to both of us.  She'd be believable.  She could be anything.  She's amazing as far as people and characters go, one of infinite possibilities.  Now that I think back, it's fantastically odd; I don't think I've ever taken one picture of her.  Out of all the pictures, all the girls, all the worlds.  Oh, the dogs of course, maybe dozens of the chihuahuas, George and Mimi and Coat and her Venice apartment, but none her.  I wonder why.

Let's say it's because a photo would never do her justice.  She worth more in words; a timeless timelessness.  If anyone ever tries to take anything away from my life, doubtful as that may be, I hope they see with all clarity the importance of an actor like her in one's life.  It's a shame everyone doesn't have a Sacha.  Bless you, Matthew.

Femmes: Midnight Mover

Tell me about it, sprinting through Montparnasse.
What is it with this city, eh;
a sweat dried on the metro breeze.
Defeat is now officially a congruent line in my life.
I've seen crushing defeat at the brink of victory in the faces of threes nations now.
The French may be the most romantic so far I'd say,
or maybe it's the air in my lungs at the moment.
It's crisper in the Third I'd say,
the Marais.

Enchanté, I'd say.
The mind's got more space to breathe here,
to think on the nights past and the nights to come in a lovely French clarity.
A convex lens of rose gold and cotton clouds,
cotton candy cotton dreams floating by on the blue sea sky by.
And skylights and chimneys all over along the courtyard.
Overgrown, the vines are a mind of their own.

And the trees are singing,
breeze singing in the seas.
There's a pigeon in the crow's nest.
Another page,
another crease.

I'm a heartbreaker once again then.
Poor Emma

Dear Sacha you're a savior.
Or I should say the lady in the window on Rue de Minimes, Therese
The woman from New York drinking white wine in the window of the first floor flat next door,
She looked yearning at me
at the hour, nearly 3:00
and me
from out the darkness breathing heavy with bags and sweat and a cigarette.

She let me borrow her phone
She told me I could stay with her if all else failed
but Sacha answered and let me in.

[stop]

Femmes: Depart Un Autre Jour

The fog of the day is fuzzing my eyeballs.  I don't know what to say.  I wonder if anyone in this ticket station feels as lost in life as I do.  No, I doubt it.  Everything is certainty to them.  They're getting out of the city to see family this weekend, or it's a hotel room in the south of France for Bastille Day.  You can go anywhere from Paris.  Same day tickets, short sight, smiling faces, vacation is in the air.  And yet the stress is so prevalent, the rush, the itinerary, tickets to relaxation clutched in hand, tickets to get away, sometimes children in tow.  I guess we're all trying to get away.  Mais I'm not getting away today.  I'm buying tickets from Lamballe in the north to Barcelona for the end of the month, a fortnight away.

Lamballe's the closest station to Plevenon, the little coastal village where Sacha's mom has a country home.  She spends the summers there because it isn't too hot.  Not like it is in Ojai.  The summers are usually overcast and wet.  That's why I have a water-slick windbreaker packed in my bag, added it's wonted weight to the trip.  I'll be thankful when it's raining.  (said the farmer to his wife)

Context is everything.

Femmes: Utopia

Write in the now, write in the now, in the now, now, now.  I'm at a bar in Paris listening to live Creedance Clearwater Revival covers like I'm at fucking Finn McCool's on Main Street.  Mais non, this is France.  It's foreign music here; American music.  I'm not down the street, I'm around the world right now.  Right now, in the now, now.  My hands feel free with no rings on them.  I feel young again, or just younger maybe.  Like with the rings, I've thrown the wear out of my face, my eyes, my mind.  There's everything at my finger-tips again.  This is a city of eternal youth I believe, if I know what sips to take, where the fountain is.  In the Fourteenth.

Utopia.

Emma's friend is a music producer.  He's young an ambitious and bearded like me.  Emma rolls cigarettes on the table and we smoke in the bar.  While the old boys wail away.  They all look about fifty.  An old French Samoan with a ponytail is singing lead and riffing in a Hawaiian shirt.  He doesn't quite sound like Fogerty, but he's not far off; just a pinch of French.  I smoke one of Mathieu's Camel cigarettes.  It makes me think about Max and his Camel Blue's all those years ago when I was always bumming off him.  Like yesterday.

After a beer, Emma takes me home.

Femmes: Emma (Peinture Aerosol Sur Toile)

The Fourteenth seems to be the birdcage of my soul in this city.  I, tweety bird.  I'll fly around for a little today, see all the familiar streets, remember how Paris has grown on me.  I can't wait.

Emma has said to me that we will meet her friends later, but first she promised to take me to a part of Paris I've never been before.  She points on the map because I told her I've never been to the north, past the Seine (an thoughtless lie), and I say sure without looking.  I should pay more attention.  I should remember more because I have been north before.  On the map at Montmartre I see Sacre Coeur, sacred heart.  I remember.

Anyways, we still go north.  I asked her to take me to a lovely park.  There's a few she tells me, and she takes me.  We eat lunch in the park.  I'd picked up some shitty sandwich and a bottle of Orangina from a Monoprix just off the metro.  It's a lovely park, truly.  More ghetto than the pretty parks of the Seventh near where Lili lived, or the one down south by Marie, but lovely none the less.  Lovely with graffiti and shaded walkways and stairs stepping down and abandoned building from the un-remembered 80's.  There's a dried up fountain with a rusted spout, but still there's people everywhere. People on the grass eating and drinking wine, being merry.  There's a family and the father is playing a small drum like they do in Venice on Sundays in the sand.  He plays and sings and his wife dances with their small child.  They're so happy.

I'd been so close.

Emma is a soft-spoken girl.  She ironically smokes hand-rolled cigarettes, but that's not so uncommon here.  It's Paris, after all.  I miss this city.   I coax the conversation from her sometimes, but really she loves to talk, and she's an absolute delight.  On the bench while we eat, she tells me all about living in England, away for London, teaching French to little English kids.  She's so young.  Well no, not so, but she's young than I, and suddenly I feel old being here again in Paris.  We meander south, Emma and I, guessing our way through the city.  Emma's shit with directions.  We stumble upon Republique.  There's a half-pipe erected by the metro stop.  There's young people everywhere, and graffiti and flower laid down by the old monument.  A young man's writing something in French in big white letters on the ground.  I ask Emma, "What's it say?"