Return to innocence

no

I did not need a mirror to see my blood

deserting its own artery for another

nor did I need my flesh flaking

in the view of the public

at the sound of this name or that

the quest?

I need it

to give my soldiers their Caligula

someone to follow to their death

with eyes tightly shut

and fingers clenched to their swords

a pair of cracked lips to sip wine with

from rusty pateras

in the early hours of dawn

before the enemy strikes

my hands?

oh, my hands are innocent

the left will caress young Jew hair

the right will carry on

playing Bach

...

In Paris with You

by James Fenton

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Written by Wislawa Szymborska, read by Flora Coker

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AbFab Holiday (...and this has nothing to do with poetry, is to do with France for God's sake!..)

...and as I return from France , rounder round the hips of course, (they eat carbs down under, you know?) and smelling a lot more like Jean Paul Gaultier than 'fish and chips' I feel already light headed...mmm...something to do with the cheese? (NO - fat is beautiful!)...or maybe with the pain au chocolat consumed in huge amounts every morning (pain through chocolate?: NEVER!) ...so it must be the number of miles from Chateau Lez-Eaux, Normandy to London via the P&O wobbly ferry (driving on the wrong side of the road never helps!)....or no, no, no...let's be honest here: it has got to be the wine - and in France the cheaper the better 'vin de table rouge'...gimmie gimmie gimmie...and they did...for about 1 euro/ bottle (funny that, as they charge 50 cents for using the toilets in some restaurants with lights on sensors on/ off)...
...so I could not resist filming myself and my best friend Patsy trying the 'crem de la crem' of French wine and its consequences...
sweety darlings, je ne regrette rien....