DESCRIPTION:
A collaboration with Tiago Benzinho (music) and the spoken words of Hollace M. Metzger (poetry, voice, photography).
Poem from the books OBSERVING THE LABYRINTH FROM HEAVEN (2007-8) and TRANSCRIPTIONS OF TIME (2009) by Hollace M. Metzger.

Tiago Benzinho: www.tiagobenzinho.com
Hollace M Metzger: www.hollacemetzger.com


Underneath Parisian Streets

Sieved leaves
lie straddling
sidewalk grates.
Autumnal fructose
seeps between
rusty crossbars,
nourishing a city,
an Empire,
that never
seems to sleep.

Underneath Parisian streets
is where you'll find me,
lying in my grave, beneath
cobblestone walkways
your forefathers have laid.

With my siphon, sucking
away at your poisoned
pomme-pear cider,
slipping somewhere
between today
and last September.
Lying on a wet mortar bed,
memorizing the feeling
of Napoleon's tread
on my spine while sleeping,
dreaming of life above me...
I've broken your gates again.
I'm not Parisian.
I'm barely American.
I've walked backwards
through my own history
only to fall on my knees,
drunk with love
for something, laughing.
Were you watching me?

Underneath Parisian streets
is where you'll find me,
lying in my grave, beneath
cobblestone walkways
your forefathers have laid.


Recalling your gaze
through window panes
of over-mirrored cafes,
shifting singed hair
this way, that way,
your spirit neither
here nor there
while you exhale
your first morning's
carbon-dated oxide
into frozen, freshly
baked, perfumed air.
I was sitting behind
your reflection,
beyond that glass
that you passed
again and again.
I was sipping
stale coffee, writing
about the man
I never met, wondering.
Did you see me?

Underneath Parisian streets
is where you'll find me,
lying in my grave, beneath
cobblestone walkways
your forefathers have laid.

I see your wrinkled
trousers through
concrete cracks
and untucked
shirt tails, flailing
between fallen
subterranean walls
of plaster. I smell your
préférence du liquor
from last evening's
holiday parties
when the wind spins
its pirouette around
my frozen headstone.
Yes, through your fortified
walls I've passed!
Did you even notice?

Underneath Parisian streets
is where you'll find me,
lying in my grave, beneath
cobblestone walkways
your forefathers have laid.

The morning's
discarded obituaries
fall to the Rue de Rivoli
that I've claimed
my own memorial,
leaving only a pinhole
of daylight as I lie
looking upwards
through unfamiliar
characters, letters
and words where
chipped, deciduous timbers
decided to be less generous.
If I raise my pen
through them again,
will the audience notice?

Underneath Parisian streets
is where you'll find me,
lying in my grave, beneath
cobblestone walkways
your forefathers have laid.

I've been mugged,
raped, staged, played,
put up for auction.
Oh, Madame Gertrude!
Was it this foreign to you?
Shall I call on my brother
or summon my ex-lover
who never came?
If France lowers its flag,
if I raise my number,
will my purpose,
the reason why I am living,
dead in Paris, surface?
If I conceal my ruddy stripes,
the stars in my eyes
and hide my blueness,
if I stand straight, pretending
my heart's still burning,
will your city notice?

Underneath Parisian streets
is where you'll find me,
lying in my grave, beneath
cobblestone walkways
your forefathers have laid.