| Paul Heidelberg La Casita Blanca 715 B NE 17th Avenue Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33304 954-763-5722 E-Mail: PAUL@paulheidelberg.net |
Paul Heidelberg Heidelberg Poetry Art in Paris 2000 Wines By Pablo |
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SACRAMENTO STREET A flowered curtain rests in front of the street-light. It's midnight's witness to taxi-sounds and smoldering cigarettes. In this quiet we all should be loved. In this quiet we all should be friends. You can count the foot-steps between the late-night pavement and the beginning of the ocean, between the vacant street-corners and the roughness of the kiss upon the stones, between the cheap talk of the alleys and the lovers beneath the sand. |
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i tasted the ocean I tasted the ocean days after floyd anticipating saltiness that bit the tongue -- white-capped life fluid, balancing ships anchored offshore, distant lights in the night riding out the storm, the always-black-clouds finally disappeared, blown out over the salty sea. |
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ALLEGRO This music I hovered over when I was sixteen comes again now as though the years had been erased, or had no meaning; this symphony is today the same. These ears pick the sounds in what different manner now? And the eyes that are baffled by the intertwining plants see the winds similarly. This Sunday is years old. I find myself in the sun with the paper and hours of any time. The circle is at times perfect, and the clean line of a brilliant edge unknowingly continues eternal to the chords of familiar music, to the patterns of beginning and end. |
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AND SO IT IS Apples fall from the untended tree that has been on its own against bugs and worms for years. The bees get the apples, the birds get the apples, the weeds grow high with heavy rains: they are over my head; they were before me and they will be long afterwards, requiring the strongest of man's poisons to be affected. Insects from the weeds bite at the skin, the sky is winter dark in August again. The thunder crashes, an apple falls, a far off bird in the trees calls. |
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WINTER BLOSSOMS The corn plant flowers, smelling of magnolias; days later its spikes dwindle to dusty crimson flakes, the perfume broken through the yard -- vanished. After six years, flowers, drawing insects still after they've withered, their December blooming a joke that might have been missed except for the fragrance of winter blossoms. |
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OF TIME AND THE RIVERS VLTAVA AND SALZACH Long after we are all gone, the rivers flow -- music from snows melting, fairy lands as when we were all children -- brown, not green, with the force of nature. |
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NEW YORK: AUTUMN 2001 Up from the ashes with a toss from Jeter coming from nowhere to save the game and the season (the best play ever?), The Men in Pinstripes rising from the dust of buildings and lost lives, The American Spirit resurrected with The Sport of Baseball and The New York Yankees and The Miracle at Home. (October 18, 2001) |
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This Book of Stevens Reading This Book of Stevens again after 30 years presents a new reality of his reality and non-reality hidden behind his businessman facade that must have been strange, exceedingly. I like to hear Brian, who can not speak or hear, they say, call my name, "Paul, Paul," very elegantly, as if he were French. After these decades, when I read Stevens' "Montrachet," I now know "Montrachet," and have this precise image in my own reality: Driving narrow streets last Spring, I encounter a tall man -- a villager, not a tourist -- striding uphill; on his face: a huge smile. (August, 2000) |
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COGNAC - PARIS, 2001 Out of that century, and into this one; swap milleniums, as well. Using this 21st Century implement in this 11th Century setting, benches by the river, a quasi-mad monk's dream after cognac and Pineau des Charente. Now begin... I The noise of mufflerless motorscooters ridden by premilitary men circling, always circling, the circle of life as their father's circled a quarter-century earlier, in circles, circles, the circle of life the young men circle for the benefit of the mademoiselles they pretend to ignore circles, circles, the circles of life, the circles of life and death, and what came before we were, in circles, circles, and what will come after we were in circles, circles the circles of life the circles of life and death. The band played the music as if they were the marchers in the final scene of 8 1/2: do they come from Italia, or from nearby Espagne, are they in town for the festival, or do they live here year-round, the marching jazz band keeping perfect time with drums, trumpets, trombones and tuba, circling the town, three songs to a stop, circling, circling, the circle of life and death and music and art? The circle of da Vinci, kept alive from hand to mouth his last 10 years by Francois Premier, the King on the Horse: I visited his birthroom in the castle by the overflowing Charente five days ago: light entered the darkened chambre through tall windows that overlook a courtyard circled by the circles of circles of art and music, circles of art and music, circles, circles of art and music circles of circles of granite -- cut from the earth a half-millenium ago. The body may ache, but we play as our sons, our nose is still in the right places, the aroma, the stench, of the circles, the circles of life, of birth and death, the circles of circles of circles of Spring and decay, the circles of what became before we were, the circles of what will become after we were. I sat at the head of the table as it were, as it were in the time of Francois Premier in the banquet room of the chateau of Francois Premier monstrous arches romanesque overhead, cool white stone circling the king and his guests I became the king, circled with sips of vin blanc et rouge, after cognac neat, in tall glasses awaiting soda and orange, tastes of quail cooked in vin rouge, paper thing frommage with a dollop of fruit the noise and smoke of the banquet warming the chambre by 20 degrees farenheit, body heat in circles of circles of guests circling in time with the circles of time, circles of then, circles of now, time in circles, circles under heavy timbers of stone, arched for half a millenium, straining up, pushing, pushing plunging upward, time in circles of circles, circles of time, circles of time, circles of time circles of time in circles, circles of time in circles of now and then. The festival's final night: in the banquet hall of the Art Patron King Francois Premier, who emerged from the moist and warmth near the moist and warmth of the Charente, humid and moist in circles, circles of moist, timeless warmth of humid waters, circles of warmth, circles of the moist waters, circles with the warmth and the moist circles with warmth, circles with the warmth circles with the warmth, cirlces with the warmth of birth. Circles, circles, enough of these circles, and then post-festival, circularly, in circles of circles the magical circle appears magically circling itself: the mickeymouse merryground of circles, the circle supreme the most miraculous circle, constructed in the rain at midnight by men in raincoats without hats in the final days of the six month rain circling the ville of 20,000 overflowing the Charente; to this end comes the final circle of circles the circle supreme the never-ending black hole of all circles, the most incomprehensible circle of circles of art and life and time and death and art, the ultimate circle of circles the circle most magical: "FUN 'N' DREAM." II Two bats flew from stone: black from white into the night. III Home again for the tenth time at the Rue de Fleurus et Rue Madame, about 500 meters or so from vingt-sept, and Stein's lair where she held her Saturday night soirees; the Parisian women are more beautiful than I remembered -- they know "how to carry themselves," one guidebook proclaimed -- that's part of it, anyway, Buster. The City of Light is so full of Light that I can never read my laptop screen at this desk: so, close the curtains, close the curtains. That was not the problem in Cognac with the days of "pluie, pluie, beaucoup pluie, beaucoup pluie." Herta emails me from Salzburg: "God Bless You for the ticket. You do not want to know how good the concert was." I know how good it was: The Berlin Philharmonic, all Beethoven program, ending with the Choral Fantasy for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra. But I could not make it; and I may not have begun this, my art, for Herr Mozart, who called his sister Horseface, and for Herr Beethoven, who kept a smelly chamber pot under his piano whilst composing. Ah, the stench of art in progress, Rosita, he proclaimed in this ville of art. They do treat artistes et ecrivains as they should be treated in this city, even if the overzealous police make you wonder at times about artistic freedom; what the hell do you want anyway after passing huge black and white photos of Apollinaire in the subway? In the States such shrines are reserved for garish ads, local political messages and soulless reflections of our absence of history. When I was 18, wandering the backstreets of Naples, I saw two centuries-old statues, 15 feet tall or higher being used in utilitarian fashion: between them was tied a clothesline, from which hung bras, T-shirts and panties. I just looked out the window; as I leaned on the black wrought-iron balcony looking towards the Luxembourg Gardens, I saw a beautiful blonde Parisienne wearing a black leather jacket and tight black jeans carrying a two year old or so bebe in one arm -- the bebe was wearing a pink hat and black leather shoes. In the other arm the woman carried a bouquet of dark red roses. The woman crossed the Rue de Fleurus, stopped just before the sidewalk and kissed the bebe on the mouth before stepping onto the sidewalk and walking towards the Luxembourg Gardens, walking under the red Tabac sign before turning left, out of sight. I just looked out the window again. "Hemingway's" horse-chestnut trees are full with green leaves and just beginning to show their white flowers. A woman with jet black hair walks up the Rue de Fleurus, walking away from the Gardens, clutching a newspaper, turns left onto the rue Madame, past the Hotel de L'Avinir, with its same four signs above second story windows "HA, HA, HA, HA." That's easy for you to say, fortunate and privileged one -- fortunate and privileged to be in belle Paris once again. IV Here again in Eglise St. Sulpice, and I just paid for this privilege -- vingt-cinq francs for friends in purgatory: I may have more than a few of them, and certainly friends-in-purgatory to be. Christ on the cross is laying in sculpture on the floor near the church entrance, surrounded by six candles; it is Good Friday: Christ died for all our sins and Lenny Bruce died for all you foul-mouthed ones who curse so casually to earn the almighty Buck, French Franc or Deutschmark. I have lit candles in this church to those before they died, and after they died; I do not want to go into that -- let's just say this is my church. I have read Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Hemingway all attended mass here. I am surprised they each attended mass anywhere. The bells are certainly tolling for thee, Ernesto, they just struck 12 noon on Good Friday, ami; I will drink to you again tonight at the Closerie des Lilas as I have done in the past in this city of yours and city of all artistes et ecrivains. V This is how this one ends: Sitting on a chair in a guard shack in the Luxembourg Gardens on Easter Sunday. This may look peculiar -- the ecrivain and the laptop -- but I say how much more peculiar than joggers running hatless in the rain? "Beaucoup pluie, en Paris Beaucoup pluie," the Parisienne said to me minutes ago, her husband covering their heads with an umbrella as they walked down the Rue de Fleurus into the gardens for their Easter stroll in the rain. I am stubborn. I wanted to end this work in the Luxembourg Gardens, and I will end it in the Luxembourg Gardens in this little shack: the sign, illustrated with a drawing of a pedestrian in a high wind, says: "Avis Risque de Vent Violent attention chutes de Branches." This may seem like a joke, but when was it that the hurricane-strength winds struck Paris, toppling trees in these gardens -- two years ago? It is raining harder now. Two gendarmes walked passed sans harrassment: I must be safe. A young girl on a bicycle screams after her brother rams her with his; the mother responds with another scream. I remember this event in my life but it certainly doesn't seem like 40-odd years ago. Last night I watched from my hotel room as an old couple walked down the Rue de Fleurus, step by step, so tentatively, they must have been in their nineties. This is a museum and they are an exhibit, I thought to myself, they are the timeless march of time and only seconds ago, it would seem, they were each the bebe in the pink hat being carried by the mother I saw days ago. They are all of us, walking down the Rue de Fleurus, her black-gloved hand very elegantly around his arm, out for a walk as if they were teenagers, they march for us all, children talk and scream in the background "Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa," crows cry in the gardens and they walk for us all, walking, walking the never ending walk, the ceaseless walk of generations, the promenade of life. FINI APRIL 15, 2001 PARIS NOTE: Written "on location" with laptop computer |
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