Friday 16 March 2012

Pére Lachaise

Some were alcoholics, others it was opium or
Maybe cocaine for Jim Morrison, now with
Bubblegum stuck to the tree next to his
Grave, by teenage girls.
Whiskey bottles, too, taped
To the trunk, and dead flowers.
“Maybe they were tired.” Someone says,
after hearing all the stories about the artists
dying young, all the
affairs, jail, disease, work,
dance. Tired enough to die of it.

Victims by choice and gambling
Souls, lovers of all and each other
Now withdrawn beneath life, oblivious
To the glory days of their Parisian spring,
Of love in hindsight and selected histories
And undeclared love in vague elegies,
In requiems for the ignored.

Wine and sleepiness, despair becomes
just neat dissent
and stories to tell.
Erect that grave, dig them in. We
Walk on, past dead flowers
And candle lights
Floating on, bearing back
Lights and crosses, bars, rebirth.

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