GUIDED TOUR

I remember Paris
will Paris
ever
remember me?

I came to listen
I came
to write things down

repair my words
speak the language
of those horrible invaders
my ancestors

you see the imprint here
on everything
I say

wandering down
the left bank
hunting for absinthe
signs of
Rimbaud’s
drunken boat

ghosts and absences
mist at dusk
and in
the morning

making my own way
finding things out for myself
unlike the Nazis
in 1940

no one
giving me a guided tour.

Published by Damian Garside