The ghostly shadow jumps La Gare
Saint-Lazare when Cartier-Bresson
shoots his Leica rangefinder
and the Second World War
sneaks discrete through.
Cheerful women in magazines
smile decades ago and nobody
check out. You can turn freely
the pages of the dusty past,
except for Duc de Berry,
héritier du trône de France.
The smiling young blonde dawns
on the rooftops of the Opéra Garnier,
it is the sun of a new day.
And the runner of the Seine,
today will have a heart attack!
Falling in love with Henriette:
I’ll do whatever you say…
The transgender of bold-framed
Gucci’s glasses laughs out loudly,
and his young lover with moon
and black hair manages to sign
with White Marker Pen the tiny
corner of Le mur des je t’aime.
With unusual strength the mixed
couple lifts freehand her babe
from the stroller, step after step
until they touch the firm ground
that gleams brightly at the station
Porte de la Chapelle.
At night the shinning flash
overlaps the sparkles sequins
of the bride’s oriental dress,
in a quantum physics ceremony:
two quarks up, one quark down.
The mist numbs the cold steel
reflecting the glamorous lights
of La Cité des amants perdus.
Paris sleeps between white sheets,
luxurious perfumes, iconic paintings,
universal poets, sensual dancers,
majestic boulevards, timeless
monuments, silent parks, myths,
night barges, wild children,
headless monarchs, revolutions,
revolutionaries, partisans,
Armed People Victorious…
Navel of the world,
Avant-Garde Tradition
and Individual Talent,
discoverers, science,
erudition, Arts,
and the faraway echo
of a promising speech:
Paris! Paris outragé!
Paris brisé!
Paris Martyrisé!
Mais Paris libéré!
Meanwhile, the champagne’s muselet
spoil to the curvaceous Eiffel Tower:
–Des vins zéro défaut, sinon rien*.
(*) Photographs taken before the coronavirus pandemic
Lluís Bussé 