Almost (Poem and Photographs)

Almost

(Near 92 Champs-Élysées, Paris)

Thomas Jefferson lived here

And slept here, it is rumored,

With a slave (not commemorated).

But wait, there’s more!

Corporal Robert Birlinger died here

Just two hours before Paris’ liberation.

The fireman turned soldier

Dared to cross

Avenue des Champs-Élysées

Leading a squad to fight

Blazes and German snipers.

Always a bad combination.

He almost made it.

Shot in the leg, he

Gave up too much blood

For France,

While those who could help him

Were pinned down.

Some critics of Birlinger's small plaque

Tell a less heroic story:

A tank shell simply

Blew him apart.

But this all avoids the essential question:
Just before Corporal Birlinger died here,

Had he read the plaque above

What later would be his,
And realized that

Thomas Jefferson always

Made it across the street?

                   -- Si Dunn



From the forthcoming book of poems and photographs by Si Dunn:
The One-Trillionth Picture of the Eiffel Tower
(Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.)

Now at the Louvre (Poem and Photograph)

Now at the Louvre

What does art see

When it stares back at us,

Sculpting its own blindness

With framed eyes?

Are we the vision

Or merely the stone?

The murderous paintbrush

Or the reticent chisel?

What does art see

When we blink? When

We think we understand

Yet never listen

To the endless shapes

We incessantly create?

               -- Si Dunn

From the forthcoming book of poems and photographs by Si Dunn:
The One-Trillionth Picture of the Eiffel Tower
(Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.)

Heading into Notre Dame (Poem and Photograph)

Heading into Notre Dame

Some days,

It's the best you can do.

Indeed, it's all you can do:

Grip your head

In your hands

And wonder

What the holy hell

Just happened?

                   -- Si Dunn

 
 

From the forthcoming book of poems and photographs by Si Dunn:

The One-Trillionth Picture of the Eiffel Tower

(Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.)

Burning Manuscripts: A Poem

BURNING MANUSCRIPTS
No words gather meaning
While they flame. No phoenix
Rises. Cold, the ashes collapse.

The poet smirks at his pyre:
A genre of smoke,
Published by the wind.

-- Si Dunn