Images of rows of seats on the footpath,
chattering people looking out to others in
their promenading finery through steam
of rich coffee, clouds of white smoke, clever
words and sophistry exhaled en passant,

sweet lingering sugar on the tongue from
crisp croissants, and the hovering, hanging
on to the taste of the morning, smart cold
cheeks, crossed swords of clever arguments,
and the question of whether to eventually
descend into the Metro at 12 Abbesses, to
surface at a point of interest somewhere else
in the City, or to ascend the steps to Dali’s
Musee, and to mingle in the crowds at Mont
St Michel, touristico painters, purveyors of images
unreal, looking out over Montmartre, its grey
leaden rooftops, clustered ridge top chimneys,
like those people on the footpaths already at
their third Absinthe, a world now becoming of
their making, wondering why they have not yet
met Eliot or Joyce, or Hemingway hard at it, his
pen already out of ink, blunt pencil in need of his
trusted pocket knife, what would they have made
of the burnt hulk of Notre Dame, sickly wood smells
still in the air, these modern custodians sucking for
breath in a plague of their own making, now out of
control, better not to think on it, just have another
of the green stuff and let time creep on regardless.