Ode to the Poets of Paris



A poem for the pigeons of Paris … an excerpt from my latest book If Paris Were My Lover.

Ode to the Poets of Paris

They say the poets of Paris are found  

In attic rooms with slanted light,  

Scratching words into yellowed pages,  

Drunk on absinthe, lost at night.  

But I know better. I have seen them,  

Winged and weightless, grey and free,  

Perched on statues, cooing sonnets,  

Dancing on the cobblestones in front of me.  

No ink-stained hands, no velvet jackets,  

No tortured sighs in candle’s glow,  

Just iridescent throats that shimmer,  

With verses only pigeons know.  

They do not wait for love nor fortune,  

Nor critics’ praise or poets’ fame, 

They whisper poems into courtyards,  

Unwritten lines, as if a game.  

They wander where the people wander,  

Tracing steps of years gone past,  

Pecking at the dust of dreamers,  

Loving slow life, not the fast.

They murmur love songs to the river,  

To the rooftops, to the dawn,  

To every half-lit, lonely morning  

Where a poet’s heart was born.  

Oh, Paris scoffs at them, dismisses,  

Calls them common, calls them small,  

Yet who remains when lovers vanish,  

When poets fade and dreamers fall? 

Not the muses, not the painters,  

Not the fleeting hand of men,  

Only pigeons, Paris poets,  

Cooing love without a pen.  

So let them linger, let them claim it,  

Feathered ghosts on every stage,  

For if Paris is a story,  

They are the ink upon the page.  


Grab Your Copy – Available now in eBook and paperback on Amazon

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Published by MaNi

Martina Nicolls is an Australian author and international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilisation, and foreign aid audits and evaluations. She has written eight books and continues writing articles and thoughts through her various websites. She loves photography, reading, and nature. She currently lives in Paris, France.

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