From Paris with Love

By William H. Friedman

This collection includes poems from two weeks in Paris, Francewhere I and Mrs. Maguy Joseph visited for seven straight summers or seasons. Then there are also variety of poems about black/white race relations.

The weeks these poems were done were gloomy and cold (in October that year). And rain bothered my arthritic right leg. Nonetheless, I feel the selection of poems were sufficient for this book.

Even the October leaves hadnt turned color yet, as I had hoped for. But these problems seemed surmountable, why? Because I had my partner at home to think about while I was temporarily away.

There are some other poems to fill out this selection too. A few are about the primary campaign between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. At the present time, I'm working on poems with rhymed stanzas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543423167

William H. Friedman

First credit is due to Mrs. Maguy Joseph who empowered me to write my books. Kristen Neal is my partner in all my three books. The latter is Kristen Neal my fiancée since 2001, who is my favorite critic and inspiration. As to myself, I am the poet of “Youth Last Forever”. I am 75. I am a graduate of Williams College (next to Havard, surely the best liberal art school in the country). I also was a teacher at Howard University, the foremost black university in the country. As they say, Semper vertitas!

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Copyright © 2017 by William H. Friedman.

ISBN:                      Softcover                        978-1-5434-2315-0

                                eBook                              978-1-5434-2316-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 12/02/2017

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Contents

Lament over love far away

The Organ Grinder

In Orsay Museum

The Pont Neuf

La Place des Vosges

Love Realised

The Quai, the Embankment

An Exercise in Futility

I am a Jew

A Woman of Distraction

Candide’s Garden

Poor mistreated Hillary

Café de Flore

The Gates of Heaven

To my Love back home

A Bird’s-Eye View of the Opera Garnier

M.O. (Modus Operandi)

A letter to Shakespeare

Autumn: Try the Weather

Starbucks number 001

St. Valentine’s Day

Release me, my Embraceable you

Starbucks .002

A Rural, Russet Pastoral

A love song or poem for you

A temporary, painful experience

National disgrace

Unlike Lady Macbeth

Falling Stars

Racism

Death Be Not Proud

Go Tell it on the Mountain

The Ku Klux Klan

Words

The Masters of War

Sociology

Black Lives Matter

Exodus

Barack Hussein Obama

Poems written over 2 weeks in Paris¹

Lament over love far away

I have lived too long not to have lamented the passage of time" An orphan, François the Waif, (by George Sand) stranded on a far-off pebbled shore; My bones ache with ancient fever that Homer might have sung about. Yet always at my back, the passage of time . . . whose value surpasses even the years. May I bathe in your arms,

O gentle mermaid, naiad, nymph,—Botticelli’s Birth of Venus arising out of a half—shell from out the sea.

Mona Lisa? A thief, a pickpocket would steal my love from me.

I have all the advantages of a salty seasoned sailor, yeoman, whose years on deck have taught him the rough ropes of his trade, halyard and jib sail set yarely to starboard. too many times I’ve been where destiny passed me by. and I prefer to try my own life-line, the help of others not always favorable. Imagine! if experience hardened me, like a wrinkled apricot or prune. grapes made into wine, into raisins. Whose shoes have I to fill ? and in what language? I’m completely overwhelmed, (comble) by your good futuristic attitude, to support the trades I love.

The Organ Grinder

Here comes the hurdy-gurdy man, singing songs of love, — Donovan

His song was beautiful as he played the hurdy-gurdy in the Place de Gaiete. he called himself Jean—Michel he came from Rouen in the North. As I listened, he cranked the box; how did he stay happy all the time? the tingling notes stuck me to the core; to the quick

(no non-objecctive phrases, please). he was a master of legerdemain, a musical magician . . . and I a groupie, a lowly passer-by, under the marche ouvert tent.

In Orsay Museum

We waited in a long, long line at the Museum made of an old train station. La Gare d’Orsay. Searching the faces in the line for signs of life. Disappointment haunted me; Inside, I of course found the impressionism I knew I’d see. Three grand artists—Monet, Pissarro, and Sisley, masters of landscape, en plein air, outdoors— who would elevate me. It unfolded itself slowly. then rapidly. as I noticed many very handsome folk, I