I skidded on my Lambretta
Near the Champs Elysées
Speeding past Citroens, Peugeots,
Renaults, you on board,
Do you remember emerging
From the Théâtre du Châtelet,
After watching Dostoyevski,
The Possessed in Russian,
Crouched in le paradis
French spooled in our earphones?
The tanks were assembling
In line on the boulevard.
Had the paras descended?
We crossed to St Cloud,
Soldiers with sten guns
At all the street corners,
But it was only a scare
Salan had thought better
(My French friends suspected
The flics would jump with him)
The city was vibrant
Queues over the pavement
Sur la plus belle avenue,
CRS breaking through them,
And patriots fleeing
Algérie, Algérie Francaise
(L’Algérie, Monsieur,
C’est la France)
Vraiment? I said..
I was never anxious,
In the beautiful city,
The smell of warm croissants
Boule Miche, street performers,
Ionesco spoke of theatre,
No sooner started he faltered -
Scared of his listeners,
And his polished French chairman.
He asked us for questions
Then he was brilliant.
Spoke of Les Chaises –
His favourite performance
On the boards two old actors
Brought in with excitement
Empty chairs filled with memories,
Then a wide sea of vacancy
s’étendait dans la salle !
And a pair of spectators
Aghast in back stalls.
A room so it seemed
Full of artists and poets,
Pierre Emmanuel laughing
Je vais prier pour vous
I demurred but replied
Vous m’apprenez quelquechose
Never took up the invite
I would have learned more.
A Sorbonne amphithéâtre
Two thousand students
A squat Sartre at the lectern
Two hours without stopping,
With a thick bunch of papers
Writ large for his eyesight
Bourgeois he repeated
Le théâtre bourgeois.
Yes, there was excitement,
Les cinémas d’essai
And criss-crossing the city
Form-filling, queueing,
The mayor of St Cloud,
Bandolier of the Republic,
Mixed jacket and trousers
Married us quickly.
Yes, life changed in Paris
As I had intended
Not quite knowing how.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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