POSTCARDS FROM PARIS

I) The Marais

In the boulevard,
the flowers march by:
company yellow, company blue,
company purple.
The tulips glow in the soft drizzle,
dignified, nod slightly to each other
about that impertinent red
in their white rows.

Everything is magnified, exaggerated:
the boulevards, the gates, the Magnolia trees with
pink flowers, the size of a baby's head.

II)

Paris, wears improbable
beauty like a super model,
tilts her head coquettishly, fans
her dresses in the lime light,
her gardeners chase
rebellious leaves
that digress from the design.

III)

Beauty, here, is contagious, moistly airborn,
it spreads down acute and obtuse angles of streets,
as if the architects of Paris have all taken an oath:
never to create a right angle,
which is a common, vulgar form.

The wrought iron latticework,
made in flowers, ruffle and frills.
Here, even the protest mellows
and the graffiti on the walls rivals
modern works of art at the Pompidou Center.

IV) Hotel des Invalides (Napoleon's tomb)

"Delusion of grandeur" is redefined
in the massive marble coffin,
five Goliaths high and wide, made for
the corpse of one tiny emperor.
Above the coffin rises a golden dome, painted
sky blue with hovering cherubim, as if
the emperor had wished to establish his own
private entrance to the gates of heaven.

V) Chateau de Chambord

They say that Leonardo De Vinci himself
designed the double staircase as a spiral DNA.
The faces of the people going up and down
reflect in the square windows,
facing each other. The image of self forever
going up and down the ladder of life,
in the company of all the other angels,
just different aspects of you. Then
you look down, dizzy with height, you
see the stone under Jacob's head:
he's wearing your face.

VI)

Echoes of distant thunders roll down
the frozen marble halls, like the beat
of heavy-booted feet. Roaring peasants
once charged this empty shell of grandeur,
their faces knotted in fear and rage,
hearts toughened by the plough, intoxicated
with the pleasure of erasing
the haughty smile of their noble lord.
Under darkened sky the thunders chant
the holy trinity:
egalite, fraternite, liberte.

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Tammara Hayimi Slilat, a 41 year old Israeli, is a poet and a painter. She's published two books of poetry in Hebrew and has had a few art exhibitions.

If you want to see more of her work go to www.poetrylover.info

She can be reached at tslilat@kinneret.co.il