MOULIN ROUGE BY LAUTREC
Anyway here is part XI of my poem in progress " AN EPIC FOR OUR TIME "
So stay awhile-
“AN EPIC FOR OUR TIME : A REQUIEM ”
PART X : " Dreaming Café Apollinaire "
Dreaming Café Apollinaire where once we talked of revolution
filled with fire & passion
rowdy loud & boisterous
our cigarette smoke circled round our heads
becoming the tzars of the café
acting the fools of the café
believing everyone was corrupt
believing not everyone was corrupt
believing in justice & brotherhood
having gone on a march or two
making fun of those who still go on a march or two
and other silly nonsense
feeling so superiour
believing in nothing
believing in art & poetry
discussing theology & philosophy
wandering through Plato’s Cave & Dante's Inferno
always accompanied by our muse -
later with our student days at university behind us
becoming patrons of more upscale fern bars
where the toilets always over flowed
sitting with our drinking companions
our friends of the moment
telling of our adventures of hunting for deals
of the newest gadgets & home renovations
to which there is no end
arguing about films of the pretensious sort
or some predictable prepackaged Hollywood bit of fluff
fast food for the mind always the same
or repeating lines from some popular tv show
did you see this weeks episode they ask
forgetting the rules of the game after one too many drinks
admiring the works of Hemingway Orwell & Kerouac
drifting into De Sade & Sartre
arguing about St. Augustine Nietzsche Freud & Marx
circling round to Baudelaire & Rimbaud
always writing the same poem
art collapsing in upon itself
then down upon the heads of the patrons of Café Apollinaire
someone takes the stage reading real poetry
unveiling the heart & soul of poetry
not just the trivial & the quaint
divorced from stilted academia
twisting the knife into the champions of the status quo
where meaning is not lost in obscurity
or buried beneath a truck load of erudition
or taking shelter in forms & styles long dead
searching instead for what is truly felt & thought
seeking substance over style -
later again falling back on old habits
having left the life of ease behind
becoming jaded & cynical
searching for a new role to play
drunk every night for years on end
being tossed out of the best & the worst bars
in the shadows of towers of steel & glass
sitting in noisy smelly bars
dreaming of the girl in the yellow angora sweater
lusting after the Goth girl in leather boots
an original then becoming a fad as common as dirt
they suck the fun out of everything
all those guys marching for this or that
just to get laid growing into empty headed accountants &
cynical lawyers only in it for the money &
willfully blind bureaucrats hiding in those towers of steel & glass
( passing by the whores hanging out on Hollis Street
do the whores still hang out on Hollis street )
now we are old & complacent
living in a world of gadgets
dreaming of acquiring a thousand new improved gadgets
to fill our empty over-sized house
always in the act of renovating
never quite satisfied
we’ve seen it all before
knowing just where it will all lead
more shattered dreams more broken hearts -
where once we joked about revolution
lost in our glibness & cynicism
surrounded by the walking wounded
surrounded by the walking dead -
as we watch our numbers dwindle
as we watch our friends disappear
as we watch them confess their faults
major or minor or just imaginary
in public trials staged for the media
for family & their new & more impressive friends
those of the right sort -
See you later,
GORD.
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