Into Paris's Heart

Into Paris's Heart.

Into Paris's heart we plunged our daggers,
Neither Greek nor Turk,
Did it really matter?
Amid plumes of Gitanes,
After rivers of wine,
At Notre Damm,
We prayed for love,
And absent friends.

A bedsit in Dalkeys no womb for a poet
When the fridge is so empty
And you finally learn that,
Starvations overrated
As a source to inspire.
You've got all those bills
A greek-sized loan
And your just twenty -five.

And I roared at you,
That to art I'd be true,
By every bookshop and gallery,
By Hemmingway and Camus,
And I proclaimed with Beaujolais,
By Emil Zola's grave,
That your legend life,
Your Midas touch,
Would be the end of us.

I read in the paper about your exhibition,
I saw you on TV,
On that "latest edition".
Your work so acclaimed
By investors and critics.
You'd kept your touch
That verbal flow
Your salesman smile.

But it was me not you who
Swore I'd always be true
By every bookshop and gallery
By Hemingway and Camus
When I proclaimed with Beaujolais
At Emil Zola's grave,
That your legend life
All those endless needs
Would be the death of me.

We assembled beneath the sunbleached
Ribs of acropolis.
Vultures of culture,
On this carrion metropolis.
Our Guide rambled on,
About Troy and Thermopolay,
And as the sun set,
I remembered you,
And our Golden Age...