Champ de Mars

Champ de Mars

I. Rappelez-vous

Paris! Paris!

Our city was once a torch--is now expired.
Take up this broken wood, these crack’d stones,
Undone by those fitful thrones.

I sit here, atop a ruin’d city,
Watching nothing collide with nothing,
And shaking out a sad pity
On the ivies that still cling
To broken stones.

We are as wet clay, unfired.
Hidden in this fatidic kiln,
"Come, take seat!" with these bemired.
And naught for bread but bones.

And in the back room, the hidden suite,
Amidst much of spider work and dust,
Lies, unfurled on the old Jacquard,
Something which we know, and is yet
Incomplete.
A Totten trust.

II. Et Prenez Notre Combat

“They have broken through the doors!
The prison doors!" and out a flood
Comes storming through and past,
Trailing wakes of blood.

From out the École Militaire,
With that one white stripe, unbecoming,
Fly the motley devils of Bailly’s fare:
"Wretches! He is coming!"

Their guns strike thunder; an imbroglio
To tap French blood, and let it go
And let it flow; In the streets—
Mordant Bordeaux!

France! Chatoyant gem of Europe’s land,
Strong and shapely Damask rose,
Which will not fall to God’s own hand,
Nor be beleaguer’d by man’s unsteady blows.

III. Tomber de Mémoire

Certain thoughts shorn of minds,
Certain people without business,
Had conspired,
As to traverse the dark streets
Which yet are stark,
And filled with what had not
Transpired.

O! for the glory of the mass-produced,
The indiscriminate
Iron machines pressing out Proust,
And served by grubby hands.

The shining monotonies, which lay
Day and day to rest,
They turn up the collars,
And tuck down chins to chests.

A shrill voice calls, sounding
Through unpainted halls:

“Fasten the buckles.
Fasten them tight!"
Keep the fancies trimmed--
The vacancies slight.

This life filled, a maudlin notion,
With silly, hollow romance,
That takes no time for thought,
But kicks up the heels to dance.

IV. Dans Embrume de la Nuit

But while still keeping here,
Sitting upon man’s fool monument,
We’ll not let this peace reign,
This tranquility no raiment.

These caliginous streets below,
These dark and violent streets below me,
Fall and rise with ebb of tide
And flow of visceral snow.

The newspaper still raises
The throat that chokes on dust,
To cough up empty words
And dry phrases.

They! they would have us up,
Up, up! from our dirt and dust,
To blink our eyes in garish lights,
And be cast out in disgust.

My voice, like all voices,
Brattled and aged, atop this aerie,
With not the life for choices,
And so many dead to bury.

And always here I sit,
Recalling the days, tender--
With graying eyes,
And human splendor.

Français, nous sommes libres !
Français, nous sommes des frères!