In Paris With You by James Fenton

I came across this and really liked it. I actually heard Stephen Fry talking about James Fenton, so this is the first poem that I found.


In Paris With You


Don't talk to me of love. I've had an earful
And I get tearful when I've downed a drink or two.
I'm one of your talking wounded.
I'm a hostage. I'm maroonded.
But I'm in Paris with you.

Yes I'm angry at the way I've been bamboozled
And resentful at the mess I've been through.
I admit I'm on the rebound
And I don't care where are we bound.
I'm in Paris with you.

Do you mind if we do not go to the Louvre
If we say sod off to sodding Notre Dame,
If we skip the Champs Elysées
And remain here in this sleazy

Old hotel room
Doing this and that
To what and whom
Learning who you are,
Learning what I am.

Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris,
The little bit of Paris in our view.
There's that crack across the ceiling
And the hotel walls are peeling
And I'm in Paris with you.

Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris.
I'm in Paris with the slightest thing you do.
I'm in Paris with your eyes, your mouth,
I'm in Paris with... all points south.
Am I embarrassing you?
I'm in Paris with you.

James Fenton

Mu-ziq and Modest Mouse

Just got these on random on my lovely Kenwood mp3 player. Nice start to the day!

Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson - Relator

Bikkuri, as they say in these parts, Scarlett's a good singer. I knew she had solo album but I'd never listened to any of her stuff. This was just the thing I was in the mood for.

Paul Klee

A great quote from Mr. Klee - 

"A line is a dot that went for a walk"

And I thought that this picture by his good self illustrated the quote very well!

“Animal Catching a Scent,” 1930, Watercolor and india ink on paper mounted on cardboard

The Rain Stick by Seamus Heaney

I heard this great poem on 'Poetry Please' on Radio 4. It's by Seamus Heaney.

  The Rain Stick   

Up-end the stick and what happens next

Is a music that you never would have known

To listen for. In a cactus stalk

Downpour, sluice-rush, spillage and backwash

Come flowing through. You stand there like a pipe

Being played by water, you shake it again lightly

And diminuendo runs through all its scales

Like a gutter stopping trickling. And now here comes

A sprinkle of drops out of the freshened leaves,

Then subtle little wets off grass and daisies;

The glitter-drizzle, almost-breaths of air.

Up-end the stick again. What happens next

Is undiminished for having happened once,

Twice, ten, and thousand times before.

Who cares if all the music that transpires

Is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus?

You are like a rich man entering heaven

Through the ear of a raindrop. Listen now again