POW PROMPT 23

Never let Me Go


It was different then
Grey cold days were softened
with furs,people were fewer and
wearing berets, piano accordians
were on every street corner

It was better then
before the sanitised steam clean
of the city
before the Davy Crockett invasion
of McDonalds Disneyworld and Le Drugstore
before the destruction of Les Halles
when Le Marais was just a slum
studded with iron pewter pissoirs
and turkish lavatories

Life was harder but lovelier in
all its deprivations
even with bullet holed walls
reminder of the Boche

Baguettes came with fresh mayonnaise
and pomme frites were cooked in butter
heart attack heaven
washed down with cheap beaujolais
Wafts of nougat and roasted chestnuts
permeated frosty winter days in a haze of gauloise

Women wore violets pinned to jackets with hair
adorned with tortoiseshell combs and smelt of
loose powder perspiration and perfume

Children were innocent
loved the magic of the guignol
Paris was their playground
running in the street to
the pied piper's whistle
disappearing in alley ways
with the promise of stinging
ears from the PE teacher the next day

Rosie loved it here
with a heart burst of smiles
that exploded into stars
and it loved her in return
Perhaps it was youth combined
with the times but whatever it was

she wanted to stay forever
until beau geste
plucked the brightest flower in the posey
put her in his button hole
and that was that

Rosie still trys to hang on
but the tyranny of time
is cutting her adrift
The feeling of then is fading fast
It was too long ago
It's slipping through her fingers