I thought I had better leaven my late flurry of non-literary postings with a sonnet. I wrote this one the November before last following a long weekend in Paris visiting my friends Kim & Mika and their adorable 9 month old daughter Lila.
XXIV
Sonnet Concerning a Banlieu
Ivry-sur-Seine is difficult to love.
The revolution’s curdled here; St Just
has loaned his name to the tabac. Above,
the chimneys belch their Promethean dust
into the cold hard blank November sky.
The matchstick men from Mali and Algiers
trudge past the concrete cake mix, and the pie
of unfinished apartment blocks. No tears
were shed for beauty, no Lautréamont
has milked this abscess for its clotted crème.
La France Soumise spunked dry for Mélenchon’s
bijou apartment in the 10ième:
Versailles’ most elegantly velvet fist
replaced the Marquis with a communist.
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