Place Saint Michel & Baudelaire

This is a very personal poem, dedicated as it is to my son Liam who has lived in France all his life. I worry about him a lot, these day, due to the protests going on in Paris. I don't get to see him as often as I should, we last met in February last year when I was presenting a paper on the significance of the invocation in Comment c'est/How It Is.

I first went to Paris in 1989, living on the outskirts of Versailles for some years. I used to love taking the train into the city center and walking along the banks of the Seine, on the weekends. Stopping off at the bouquinistes, looking at the books, before grabbing a beer or a wine in one of the old cafes. Parisian life on the left bank.

When we went over in November, 2017, to launch The Dublin Trilogy as a homage to Baudelaire ( it was the 150th anniversary of his death) we stayed in a beautiful old hotel just five minutes from Notre Dame and Place Saint Michel. All the old ghosts came back to haunt me. I was really hit by profound feeling of time passing. This new poem taps into all of that, and my reading of Dante and Baudelaire, two sides of the same coin.

A toi fiston!

Place Saint Michel & Baudelaire

For Liam

Place Saint Michel, exiting from the Metro

Station, head perfectly aligned with street level,

The whoosh of air shunting up, intensity of

Movement from humans and their machines.

As you step up onto the street, like a priest upon an

Altar, or a passenger boarding a transport to some

Foreign destination, transcending the past, and a

Smokeless Notre Dame, without hunchback

But garlanded instead with saints, angels and gargoyle,

Towering above you, and the Seine, and all the goblets

Of Jupiters toasting in Le Depart, all manner of

Phenomenon vying for your eye, till you turn to face

The fountain, and it hits you - the Haussemannian

Edifice sublime! Its demonic aspect, once again

Startling you. This is France, not Ireland, so the

Christian motif is inspired, by Baudelaire.

This then the Satanic tributary where the source

Of evil flows… BOREDOM. The great Dantesque

Symbol of Satan, vanquished at Michel’s feet, the

Residual feature of an acute medievalism, which

On first sight might appear antiquated. This then

The great deception. For, nothing could be further

From the truth. So, what are the modern ingredients

To furnish the monster? What could possibly further

Stoke the apparition to conjure him rudely to our

21^st century, I almost wrote sensibility!... I’m clearly

At a loss as to what to say… However, move on!

Systematic annihilation, or better yet, as the Romans

Called it, decimation. In that it is a form of daily

Destruction, so finely attuned as to be a sign of an

Acute precision. “Why the forty hour week!”, Monsieur

Replies. “Cest ca, l’horreur!”   To borrow a culinary

Term, complete reduction! When played out over an

Entire life, 50 or so years, three hundred and thirty- odd

Days a year, taken away to be consigned to toil,

In the banality of the quotidian, starting with the

Commute, be it on plane, bus, car or on a train.

Body odours, or deodorant, and undesired for

Monologues on mobile phones assail you in

Succession, all with the hellish vision of  1000

Idiots before you scrolling on their iPhones, all

Being continuously surveyed, each conversation,

Text, post, or prattle. No escape from the Leviathan,

Which amasses now in the shape of  Satan.

“Papa Satàn, Papa Satàn aleppe!” This then the

Shape of the ravenous beast that Saint Michael

Seeks to ward off, destroy, attired as he is in

Breast plate, brandishing the sword, finger in

The air! The 19^th century symbolism redolent,

And hitting you like an aural shock. Unbalancing

You. So, that you step out onto the street, while

Catching your breath, getting your bearings as

You slightly falter; such is middle-age.

And walking down the boulevard of your youth,

Crossing over once again into the labyrinth,

In the footsteps of Dedalus. Mon semblabe, mon frere.