Oh! Forgive the wandering Brits, nouveau (like Beaujolais)
to the breezy gateway of the Gard du Nord, its charm
not quite that of the Louvre or the Champs Élysées.
It does have, though, a gothic foreboding like the Notre-Dame
where impending doom lurks ugly as Quasimodo
in the rafters, muttering baffling & baroque
possibilities that peal like bells then, in a rococo
development, contract into ornate deadlock.
Just take me to La Select for a croissant & some chocolat
& (forget Fitzgerald) I will lounge like Louis Sixteen,
louche and aloof, observing as this bizarre
spectacle leads itself, still full of bluster, to the guillotine.
INDENT& the cry from the Rive Gauche: ‘You must be crazy…’
INDENT& leaves me wondering just what is the French for whoops-a-daisy?