It has been brought to my attention that not just anyone would lie in bed, worrying about life’s little odds and ends and come up with something like “Paris Haiku” for a post. ”Just how exactly does your mind work?” I was asked and if I had the answer I might pursue being more normal. Except, that would be no fun. I LOVE the swirly, weird thoughts (for the most part) that come up for me. Actually, that IS my normal and I would have it no other way. I found a quote today about coming up with ideas from nowhere: “Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps subconsciousness–the antithesis of self-consciousness.”Aaron Copeland. I feel better about myself already! Anyway, check this out. I found this book on Amazon–someone took my Haiku idea from third grade and ran with it. I must have been too busy thinking weird thoughts and missed that boat.
Alright, it is time to see how well all you smarty pants did on my little riddle trip around Paris.
out of reach and cold, tortured visions please me, i keep things in place
Gargoyles sit atop Notre Dame keeping watch over all that takes place in the city. Originally used in medieval architecture as water spouts or means for diverting watering, gargoyles can be not only grotesques as you see here, but may take the shape of animals and humans–even happy, smiling ones. They have acquired demonic features, becoming winged humanoid things, through literature.
gravel dust on my boots, grass and marble soften the sound, of a thousand feet
This would be the Tuileries that I walk through constantly and even if I did want to get the gravel dust off my boots, I don’t think I could, or would. No matter where I walk with them on, there is a bit of Paris underfoot. Oops, 6 syllables in the first line. You can take points off for that!
squint to multiply, the stars falling from the sky, that die at midnight
Clearly a gimme!
rubies and garnets, mingle with heady fragrance, mans toil unearthed
Pick your beautiful poison: Cabernet, Bordeaux, Pinot Noir, Côte du Rhône, Syrah, Sancerre Rouge, Merlot….or that fountain of youth, Madiran.
the one we don’t know, smiles so beguilingly, L.H.O.O.Q.
We are all aware of the traditional Mona but this Haiku alluded to another version; a work by Marcel Duchamp, the founder of the Dada movement, who took “mundane” everyday items and transformed them –in this example, drawing a moustache and beard in pencil and changing the title. The L.H.O.O.Q. is a pun in French–if the letters are pronounced quickly in French, the seem to form the sentence, “Elle a chaude a cul” which can be loosely translated as “to be horney”. Difficult to think of our Mona Lisa in those terms but I am sure at some point she was.
There you have it: the first edition of “Paris Haiku”. Anyone interested in helping on this tour of Paris, email me and I’ll get them posted.