A Talking Head on the Rue du Bac

I can 't advance on. I'll go on.

-Samuel Beckett

The Unnameable

As I staggered into the regret du Bac

The heavens make opened In the zinc bars

Drinkers paused. Outside, police

Took shelter in nearby doors,

And I cogitation of Giacometti,

Legless upon a mantelpiece,

Or Beckett's talking head in a jar,

Who would give the best of themselves

For an hour of conversation,

A sapphirine streak, an unstoppable jag,

Incontinent, shattering

Plateglass windows, Sevre delph

Like a man upon a drunken batter.

Metro spun their monologues

Underground I clos my organ of sights

A moment, to clear my head

Of vodka and foie gras,

Of oyster bedded in ice,

And heard the swish of Michelin treads,

The bicycles, stilettos pass.

And blinked again. I was not dead,

Just following the bend of the world

In my be in possession of small way,

Rambling upon with nothing to say,

From shelter to shelter. by and by a quai

Would present to view itself, round the next bend.

For no beneficial reason, pretty girls

And the stone statue of Chateaubriand

Leapt, like improvisation,

Into the picture. Pedalling

Hard, another Molloy

Downwind of his destination,

Dress in dickybow, held an umbrella

Overhead, as he wobbl away.

Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal

Chimed, just one time I saw, I heard,

At the heart of desperate cheerfulness,

Not spirit, not the Word,

But wing neon azures and greens,

A brilliant pharmaceutical cros

The tricorned hats of Etamine's,

The profit and the los

And abruptly there it was, the Seine

A way the length of a cloudburst

Or a ditty on an underground train

From station to station, falling away

To the free from moisture heaves, to yellow bile,

To the cooled water of rainswept quais.

Bloodshot from a night upon the tiles,

Others besides myself, in straits,

Were waiting for the skies to break,

And whistling in the dark

Alcoholics with the shakes,

Bearded tramps, their flies undone,

Accusing heaven. Early or late?

I no longer knew on the other hand I had to go upon

Harry Clifton was born in Dublin and publicly lives in France. His greatest in quantity recent book is Night Train from one side the Brenner, published by Gallery Pres in Ireland. He was Writer-in-Residence at Bordeaux in 1996

Copyright World poesy Incorporated May/Jun 1997

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