Paris is haunting me

Paris is haunting me:

I am attempting to move on the Peripherique

Motorcycles are speeding in between the lanes of death

As we ebb like cattle dressed in smog

My retina traps a millipede of tail lights

"qui vont nulle part".

Then I pull off to Versailles

Where I have to vacuum the boudoir of

Marie-Antoinette

She is there, looking out the window

Her hair held up with a diamond pin

My 1789 Hoover delux model P1360-H in Strass

(Today resembling a giant Faberge egg)

Is almost making more "bruit" from the foot pump than

The uproarious chanting from hundreds of women  

Clad in black and peasant attires

Sticks held high pointed at the Chateau

"Dieu rendez-nous nos cartes bancaires!"

Marie gazed at her jardin

Some 800 hectares of vegetation trained

To heel like a dog

She pointed near some botanical acrobatics where

The fountain of Apollo and Diana are caught up in a mud fight

And shouted:

"Vous pouvez planter vos pommes de terres!"

But the cries from the crowd only grew louder

I slipped out pretending to change the Royal satin dust bag

I ran up the banks of the Seine

Fearful of my own shadow

Past the Eiffel Tower I crossed the Pont Neuf and

Sat down for a kebab on the steps of the Pantheon.

Across the street the sign of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Centre des Photocopies

Flashed with the first "e" letter out making it

"Jan-Jacues Rousseau"

I walked in and asked for a photocopy

"But you cannot buy a photocopie, Monsieur", replied an employee wearing a

Floral patterned dress with a diamond pin in her hair

Then she looked at me with dark eyes that made my neck feel tight

She handed me a blank sheet of paper and I could see,

With a beam of light

It was 120 grams.