They list my reputation under “cold
weathered company” in a temperate locus,
an elegiac title for cerebral phone books
Rhadamanthian enterprise, orangutans of judgment
battering the steel bars of their spurious cages;
Yellow pages flap in the Viking cold breeze
beside creative writers claptrap in illusory Iowa;
I stare across an isolated Place des Vosges
in November, having paid my grand homage
to Victor Hugo; (I paid a receptionist €3,00)
After mingling with hunchback admirers,
many other randoms in a luxury apartment
nicer than ours; revelation of
amateurish admiration, a childish fascination
with ancient Chinese interior design;
‘Draconic has to do with dragons, right?’
I tell myself in a nearby café and think of
ethical Confucian analects leaking from
molecules of lumber and stone, brown and grey,
a waitress regarding my “expressionless” face
Hoping that Gallic good looks will hook her
a wriggling smile of affection for once;
but, face to face, with a spectre of gargoyles,
lifeless receipts of Reunion-warm customers become
as affectionate as letter g’s formed by her wavy brown locks.
——
Felix Purat is the author of Twilight Ruminations from Czech Silesia (Origami Poems, 2018) and Epicurean Ruminations from Turin & Beyond (Origami Poems, 2018). His poems can also be found at Poetry Salzburg Review, Adelaide Literary Journal, Orbis Int’l, Pulsar, Allegro Poetry Journal, Two Thirds North, Ink Sweat & Tears, and Vox Poetica among other publications. Felix is currently working on a novel titled Adultery s.r.o. For more information and more poems go to his website.