Posts
je rêve à Paris
Mes nouveau amis, Guy-Amie et Phillipe
ask me, the tourist, to photograph
them
handsome young men, with beards,
black and blonde
and slender bodies, clothed in
tees
& shorts, twins of masculine beauty
They are on an open terrace above
me
sitting at a small café table,
wine glimmering in sunlight
“Arrête ça” calls Phillipe,
raising his right hand
He runs down below to
In a planter, taller
than a man
It arches over the table
Cascading red blossoms
Obscure each face
I move to the left, then the right hoping to get them in focus
Zoom button to capture
The camera
animates itself
swiveling in my clutching hands
Exploring, pivoting between the
two men
Embracing/evading the two, as
brothers or lovers
Alarmed, bemused
Taunting, teaching, twisting my
mind like the lens
Phillipe and Guy are amused at my
look
nod & Salute farewell
saying "a bientot au
pique-nique"
the lunch promised in the garden
behind their apartment
I follow, stumbling engrossed
in the images
Swirling on the camera view screen
I am a dog following a scent
my camera's eye
Reverently frames a Renaissance
steeple
peeking between thin arched
buildings
I snap the shutter
which zooms to capture gnarled
glass coupling of electric wires
Turning the a corner
I focus once again
Rue Catherine de La Rochefoucaud
Toward the home art gallery
of mystical Gustave Moreau
the fairy MerryBlueberry blew
these words into my ears:
“Thou were in the
soul and hands of he, before thou was thee”
I slither quietly, a hunters gait
my camera gun
in Urban Forest
buildings tall and thin (it could
be Amsterdam)
before my goal, a garden fronts a building
out of place, its seems
a darker red, lined with white
marble
Inscribed above the 3rd story
of the building:
Connecticut Community Church
at basement level
an arched tunnel entry to the painters
gallery
I raise the camera
It shifts to the garden foreground
Blocking out my beautiful composition
a white brick oval, fencing a garden of lush green grass
Across it walks a large, fat and very furry
Orange and yellow cat, prowling proudly towards the sewer
“Absurd!” I shout to the camera, loving the image
I turn up a hill, up a street
turning on that alley
where I shall greet my friends
there are others
Two chubby men, one with a
distorted face
Missing teeth, and eating roughly
Both without shirts, red with
sunburn and freckles
And I wake, laughing heartily
With Phillipe et Guy-Aime
Still
The cat struts
across my camera lens
As morning sunlight opens the
window of day
A continent away
Dream of 9/5 somewhere between 5
and 6:30 am
©j.m.frase-white 10/5/2021
