Pinpoint
 

  From the Sparrow Hills

 From here everything

seems equal.

You try to pick the landmarks

from the landscape,

but it doesn’t wash

against two thirds of sky

sheltering the rings ofMoscow.

From here so many eyes

have watched it burn

in flames or politics

few understanding, many not,

the advantage that a hill can offer.

From here there’s no Red Square,

no Tsars or Stalins

stifling the breeze,

no KGB, Oprichniki,

no words to make you ill

at ease.

Tolstoy’s characters

saw Napoleon from here,

their blazing ballrooms

melting snow from frozen hovels,

lighting up two thirds of sky.

Even the river

hides from here

and all the things

that you’d expect to see

submerged into one third of city.

Still so much space left

for the sun to rise,

the stars to fall.

 Sanctuary Dance

The man from Senegal rolls down

from his afternoon

Montmartre patch

to St. Michel, rive gauche.

So used to Notre Dame

he doesn’t see

that she’s been watching

as he passes through

her piercing shadow,

recognising him.

He claims his favourite pitch

on the corner of Huchette,

puts on the shoes,

turns on the jazz,

really taps Bojangles,

grabs a crowd.

At the back is Esmerelda

on a cigarette break,

she can’t help watching

as he stoops

to change the track,

claps only when he starts again.

He stops in café Hugo,

stuffed with students,

where he’s fed and watered

by her father

who remembers how it feels

to be written as a gypsy.

On to the jazz club night job,

serving beer to Quasimodo

who sits in with the be-bop bands,

chimes any damn time

he likes.

Early morning

he tips his toes

back across the squares,

Our Lady dreams of him

and as she moans

the air draws through

her shaking spires

and rings, so lightly,

a solitary bell.

He looks up;

all he sees

are shadows playing jester

to the ghosts of Gaul.