Long Live the Future

 

Dusk settles in over late April Paris,

Twilight descends on a friends’ meeting place;

Candles lit in the Café Musain’s back room

Gild, like a halo, a far-away face:

 

Head filled with verses rests on a hand, buried

Absently in tousled soft sandy hair –

Waiting, and lost in a lyrical day-dream,

Diffident, shabbily-dressed Jean Prouvaire

 

Pensively, slowly, turns half-tattered pages, as

Candlelight glimmers upon finger-nails:

Resting, forgotten, La Vita Nuova,

Under a slender hand, ink-stained and pale;

 

Thoughtful the face, in idealist abstractions,

Guileless and fragile the trace of a smile,

Innocent blue eyes in wistful reflection

Gaze skywards distantly, dreamily, while

 

Bustling, joking, appear in the doorway

Comrades, compatriots, brothers-in-arms -

Courfeyrac’s laughing exuberant “Jehan!”

Startles the poet to fleeting alarm:

 

Woken from dreaming, now brims with affection,

Beams a warm smile, eyes alive with delight:

Musain now rings with high-spirited greetings

As the young friends settle in for the night.

 

One summer’s day laughter paled into silence -

Rebels and dreamers will do what they must:

Courfeyrac, Combeferre, the marble Apollo,

Gentle, sweet, whimsical Jehan, are dust.

 

You and your verses are faded to echoes,

Your story ended, as everything ends:

You - awkward, blushing, shy, soft-hearted Jehan,

Fought for the future - and died for your friends.

 

 

Told you I should stick to parodies - September ’02)

 

Back to the Pretentiousness | Back to the Gibberish