My Siren Song

Cara Andréa,

I am lost at sea here! No shipwrecked! A refugee! I lost my passport! PUTAIN!

I dream of the Indian summer in Firenze, my café doppio made for me by a real paysano, served to me in a white ceramic coffee cup. Not set adrift here in an apartment with a view of the Eifel Tower. However the apartment is comfortable but there are no tea cups so I took my coffee in a Bonne Maman jam jar this morning. When will I leave? Do I want to leave this place? I am lolling here entranced in the limbo of no-man’s-land. Presently I have no country, no papers no proof of my identity, as if I were a clandestine so for now I call this home.

Here in this city there are apartment buildings that have ornate bare-chested bronze and stone statues of beautiful larger than life size women, avec le monde au balcon. Sirens with their chiselled cloth swirling around them, engulfing the balconies as if they were holding up the building somehow like Atlas himself, the Titan. I sense them as if they watch over me as I pass by, as though these beauties were the sirens that hang like the figure head on the prow of ships in this land locked beige wilderness. They peer at me from across the street at this dizzying height of the 7^th floor. The sirens navigating this stone man-built terrain and let the buildings that they cling to rest anchored in this safe harbour. They give their blessings not from the Roman god of the sea Neptune but from Pluto, the god of earth or is it better put Hades, my unknown hell. Singing their siren song to me perhaps in words that I cannot hear a silent choir, I understand this as I cannot sing aloud so when I write it is me singing aloud on the page, this is my songbook, my silent chorus.

There is the most adored ornate old fashioned mirrored, wire and timber elevator to let me down from my perch high up here. It is cold here in Paris and I watched the hail bounce off the old lightening rod yesterday. It glows at night as if it were my lighthouse that has guided me to here, where I have set anchor for now... Oh memory bliss. I have suffered all the nightmares of being left destitute to be close to this man un Arabe en plus! So I stay no longer enamoured...

...with this city and with him, I am no longer certain. I slept alone last night. A man told me he would not leave me alone, not even for a second; he would ‘donnez les yeux,’ in effect give his eyes for a woman like me. Putain! Bientôt, je vais chercher une cigarette. However he is all things to me we are both creatures of the wind. The difference being that I blow towards him and he is set free, wild like the winds in between the sails of a ship. Or is all that billows and blows the indifferent winds of fate.

Perhaps I am just blowing smoke from French cigarettes that seem so very strong. I take a long deep draw. I sip my Bonne Maman coffee and I look out over the grey metal rooftops, dormer windows and endless terracotta chimneys that stretch out seemingly forever to form a distinctly Parisian skyline.

I think and wonder about these old vertical cities of people who dream on top of one another. In these austere times what happens to all those dreams, those hopes and prayers. Do they go unanswered? Left to float into the ether like the smoke from the stem of my cigarette, left to gather like the grey storm clouds above and fall back down onto the tin roofs as rain, the sky mourning with them solemnly.

It is Friday so I lit some candles as if it were Shabbat. The candles glow with the same coloured light as the old girl. I had a thought that she is one big candlestick for the people of this city and for me, it lights up...

... a path in the sky, to let me navigate my way back home, my own land locked Robins & Crusoe tale. I want to live in a landscape, a wild manmade terrain where my stalwart heart is set free not left to lament over it as if love had turned cold like the weather on a winter's day.

It is raining now and the old lady is cloaked in heavy fog. I would prefer to think she is hidden behind a cloud or a haze of my cigarette smoke. It is heady, the smell of the Les Gauloises. When I exhale as I walk in the street it is my smokescreen, as I sit at cafés it is my camouflage.  As though when I breathe smoke there is a fire inside me that comes out when I exhale that no rain, no pompier (fireman) could put out. I am the keeper of my own flame it smoulders and burns inside me. The candles which I lit are burning low so I put on the radio, TSF Jazz and they burn higher - brighter.

The sun shows its elusive face for the first time today heureusement. I look out over the square and I think to Jacques Prévert who had his parc Montsouris and I have the Square de Carpeaux. As I look down on the heads of the tall proud slender poplar trees that are still clinging on to their green leaves, it does not look like an autumn day with the gleaming gold between the trees, a new day reborn on a winter’s afternoon.

Dear Andréa à la proxima.

F.

Mr. Harry Morgan

Cara Andréa,

I am abroad thinking of my home town of Sydney, to see you again at Bar Milazzo and to take a macchiato together made by that other expat paysano Claudio. I miss you my dear Italian friend. I miss you like I miss my city made up of all my old haunts, my family, my dear friends, and all those much loved and renowned of Sydney's inner city street urchins.

The day before departing I came across a man that I have seen about town from time to time for many years. He calls himself Harry Morgan however I have never been certain if this is his real name as he may have appropriated it from the longest serving WWII veteran of the same name. He roams the inner city much like the man on his maroon moped on high speed, on all the footpaths who blasts Elvis songs from speakers secured firmly to the back for everyone’s pleasure.

I met Harry all those years ago on the corner of Oxford and Brisbane Streets when Surry Hills had not yet been completely annihilated and unravelled by gentrifiers. The White Horse Hotel lay as a vacant shell, rumours of Mafioso biker gangs letting it decay and lay to waste away—I believe they call it demolition by neglect. It was still adorned and crowning with the original crumbling statue horse—hooves proud in the air—wild and unbridled—the building boarded up.

Harry is known to most shop keepers around Oxford Street and the art school students that tramp up and down that street, too impoverished to catch the bus to the train station. He is a darling of the inner city, one of Sydney’s much loved sons. I believe it is because Harry is tuned into life in such a way he doesn't miss a moment of it.

By day he wanders the inner city perhaps unknowingly in search of dérive—an unconscious-altruistic-flâneur-par-hasard-by-chance. To me Harry is a reassuring face in the endless hoards of faceless insincere crowds that march in one direction or the other. What is his story? I have often wondered what was the sudden change or the moment of impact that let voices speak aloud inside his mind. He has his ways I am sure, his idiosyncrasies-a-plenty, less able to disguise them as the rest of us who attempt to present ourselves as normal-well-adjusted-beings. A friend of mine told me once that the world is just one big open asylum. He looks better these days, less distressed than those days of my younger self walking up and down Oxford Street, on my way to-ing and fro-ing from art school, saving the bus fare to buy a cup of coffee. He seems more self assured these days as we all get with age.

I always took a deep breath when exiting at Town Hall Station. The cool air always a stark contrast from the stale-stuffy –putrid-bowels below hot with human-humidity. I felt then and now still how the train delivered me into the mouth of the monster of the world, for me to go into battle with the big bad city. Then making my way to or from art school, I would usually catch Harry standing on Oxford Street wearing his fatigues. He was clean shaven then, but he had the wild look of disturbed thoughts that marched through his head. He would carry on and rant, lost in his schizophrenic scatting, angry at the world. I felt the same, raging against it and yet trying to find my place in it.

There is one day in particular in 2001 all those years ago that I still recall to this day. I must have had bus fare that day as I saw Harry from the bus on the corner of Oxford and Pelican Streets. He was in his full army regalia with his matching metal army helmet, waving the front page of the newspaper, overwhelmingly distressed and distraught. Harry was screaming and the front page he was brandishing read ‘WAR!’

I felt Harry's distress and he was right all along. Why nobody else was screaming along with him I do not know. I wanted to wrap my arms around Harry and tell him the dismal truth. That it would be alright, that there in that far flung outpost we would be left untouched, and the world’s indifference would let life continue as normal there in that city of ours.

I then think to a bicycle courier, one of the many that race about town and gather at Martin Place and drink directly from their brown bottled long necks on Friday afternoons, on the steps to the GPO Building. However, this one bicycle courier is special to me and possibly many silent others I suspect whom traipse the State Street line. In between errands he plays his trumpet for the people of his city, his siren song to the city of the South. Yet his presence and his playing are only for the uptown-Hunter-State-Street-elite where he rides. His sounds catch me and the music resonating, hanging in the air, opening up my unknowing heart.

When he plays he speaks to all the tears that have filled up my paper heart—he echoes all the great sadness’s I have felt in my life in that city. He plays it all out on the streets of Market, King, Hunter and Elizabeth, killing me with his playing. He plays out all the darkest secrets of my woodwork heart and my metallic soul which cannot help but trip up on that trumpet of his, echoing all the solemn cries of the past, as I listen intently before having to break away. As I always do—I toss a coin—offer a polite smile and walk on— letting him and his song fade into the crowd—fade into the background—fade into the past—his songbook still ringing out to all the people of the southern skies.

On that last day before departure, seeing Harry on the steps of the Energy Australia Building, on the corner of Bathurst and George Streets, I shared my umbrella with him as it was raining. He told me that he lived in a house now, by himself in Redfern, and he was happy with that. He explained to me that he did not have any money until pay day. I gave him all of my coins—they mean nothing much to me but yet another cup of coffee. In return he gave me a kiss on the cheek, his razor sharp stubble prickling the side of my face as he moved his face away. As we stood under my umbrella I noticed that he was dressed warmly and he started smoking a cigarette, I smoked one with him.

I always thought of Harry as Sydney’s enfant terrible and me some sort of tortured ingénue. He is as much a part of the city in the way we all are, swallowed whole into the mouth of the monster, making the machine turn as we all do, and he is unable to escape.

Now I find myself here displaced, lost amongst the buildings in search of my own dérive, I am here in Paris to be exact and like that last day in Sydney there is the same sadness that surrounds me yet compounded by the crisis here. It is evident all around this city. I am staying haphazardly apart, yet removed in la belle quartier but I know there is always a homeless person somewhere just out of sight.

I was walking along the spiralling intersection on Avenue de Saint-Ouen across the street from the brasserie La Chope nearing the Periferique, late night—last night. I thought I saw a man slowly tumble out of a moving car. I rushed towards him not knowing if he had been thrown from a taxi and was crawling—weaving a path in between the traffic. As he worked his way up to the curb, he made himself comfortable as if he were sunbaking in the gutter, reclining, or daydreaming on a gravely-bitumen-beach at midnight. Strange? A drunken madman I thought being dismissive.

The man rested in my thoughts turning the corner making my way up Rue Marcadet to my apartment building after midnight. Something occurred to me, that the unknown man lying on the curb side, one arm bent holding up his head, gazing wild-eyed at the oncoming traffic was perhaps in effect watching as if the whole world, modern life itself was some sort of curiosity, a spectacle or slow-motion car crash. I felt as if he was lying there literally at the crossroads of living in the moment and eternity near the last exit ramp at Empires end. To reach this conclusion the transformation of my ideas often takes hold in the small hours of the morning—the perfect time when the moon shines, the squares are asleep, and dreamers share while wide awake and me walking underneath the darkened sky going nowhere.

What can any of us do against the failure of Capitalism, sit au café and take our café crème to just wash over the thoughts of today and tomorrow and think dearly of those who we care for, to think of you my dear friend Andréa.

Now looking out over the tin rooftops, terracotta chimneys and arrow-headed-pointed antennas, that stretch out seemingly endlessly to form a distinctive Parisian skyline, a thought overcomes me of how much these grey-topped beige buildings have seen—how many sunsets and bitter winters—the seemingly endless persistence of time and the passing days of old and new—of life here in this city. Like the geraniums that still flower in autumn from the balconies.

What to make of a world gone mad in this grand open asylum waking up from the hangover of Capitalisms glut. Or sit roadside letting it all unravel before us, as if it were some great spectacle made up of flashing lights and moving metal. Or stand road side on an inner city street corner screaming—calling out—imploring for others to take note!

And so I am writing from here, to be by your side and to see you once again Andréa, from your friend thinking of all of you back home,

Fayroze.

Arrive Singing at Les Folies Bergère

Chère Kellie La Merveille, 

I stopped singing the dirty Delta blues. I hope that I have found some resolution between the sheets. I am tired of chasing dreams. I want to put a spell on him because he is mine, didn't Nina once soulfully moan all that jazz? He is mine for now. I am his always. I stopped stabbing the keys, just a gentle tap, a léger tinkle.

The lady on your postcard holds a letter close to her heart, the caption reads, ‘La Lettre Brûlée. Elle est brûlée. Ah c’était fou!’ Translated it says, ‘The Burnt Letter.’ She is burned. Oh it’s madness! I hope you have not burnt all my raving mad postcards.

I can hear the joyous laughter, cackling and youthful uplifting singing of girls leaving Les Folies Bergère théâtre.

This man of mine seems to be always singing Gainsbourg and his song and tune he hums is, ‘Je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais’ (I just came to tell you that I am leaving). Alone I sing like Gainsbourg and Boris Vain's song, ‘Je Bois,’ (I Drink). Like the blithering-blind-drunk young man from the night before. It took him a half hour to navigate my street hardly 500 metres in length. In his drunken stupor people turned on their lights from all floors of these eight storey Haussmannien apartment buildings. Asking him to be quiet, as if that could contain him, I guess it was nearing midnight. I felt sorry for his girl, who could not quieten him or hasten him. I laughed to myself as he sang in his slurred French vocal stylings.

Perhaps I am singing more the likes of darling Ella (Fitzgerald), her and me together, ‘Sippin’ Black Coffee’. Love’s hand me down brew, and from one o’clock to four all we do is talk to the shadows then pour. Never knowing a Sunday in this weekday room.

Without your voice, I suppose nothing is possible, and you are bound nowhere. The lesson from the imbibed gentleman from the night before and his noted appearance on my street, late night on Rue de la Boule Rouge, the only sound to make is to arrive singing.

We must all sing if just for ourselves, to ourselves as we all hold a song in our heart of hearts. Let it be it the low down blues or a hypnotic schizoid scatting number to hopefully sing the world back into vivid being. A choir of solemn songs creating a soundscape that gives the universe a soul that has a rhythm, that beats like an animal skin drum in line with our own heartbeat.

This city can show itself to be beautiful in the sun but oh what the sunlight masks. However I am just a bleeding-open-wound-paper-cut in this postcard town, I rang this city it answered the telephone and called me here. Although it can be mean spirited and however how cruel it is, I am still keen.

I draw open the curtains leaving them wide apart on the fifth floor so all of the ninth arrondissement can see that I have company tonight; so all of Opéra and the people of Les Grandes Boulevards know that I do not sleep alone tonight.

Love,

Fayroze.

Morocco Mon Amour

Morocco Mon Amour,
I feel forgotten by you, but I can’t forget you. I can’t bury you in the cemetery of the past. It’s a hoax, this business of forgetting. J'ai interrogée mon cœur ce matin de l'architecture de l'oublier. I questioned my heart this morning of the architecture of forgetting. I think back to your near fatal car crash on the expressway from Casablanca, returning to the hotel room to be by my bedside then my deliberate attempt to get you intoxicated. My ill-advised instantaneous cure for when death flashed before you. These near misses come to pass in life; quotidien and what of memory bliss is that to left to rot, left to decay along with that expressway – left forgotten, buried in the past. And, day by day, time puts a space between your memory and that love act, that expressway and all your left with is an old faded watercolour painting of Morocco, a violent haze of ochre and tangelo light if Turner had chosen those colours. That is all that remains now, a painting in my mind of a feeling of being scorched, of touch and go, a tortured twisted raging violent wind, of water and sky of life’s lived fury coloured in ochre.

I walked over the Harbour Bridge yesterday; it has a view of one of this city’s few saving graces, the Opera House. All I saw was six lanes of metallic and the roar of petrol but I’m comforted by the rattle of the train as it passes over the bridge. With work I feel like I pass the day in perpetual silence, chained to my desk, drowning in paper. My friend said, “It’s just a job… change your attitude.” I don’t know… I’m going to continue to write to you and I will not get a reply. It will cost you 89 centimes for a stamp. It seems too much to ask…

I want to frame those first three months I was in Paris with you, and that month last year in Morocco. I want to hang it next to the wooden clock on the wall above my bed. Those hot nights of waiting, talking, making love with our words on Rue D’Aboukir. Waiting for you to return to my fourth-floor apartment with ice cubes for the Martini Rossato and the loud love making that would follow next to paper thin walls where I could hear the neighbours cough. Paper-thin walls never mattered in that hotel room in Morocco. Calling out “Oui”, bent over the bed and the knock of the chamber maid on the door.

What to make of all those moments of ecstasy past? I want to unfold you again, not curl up in the misery of an unanswered phone, or worse, answered with a woman’s voice. I want to smear my lipstick all over your shirt collar with my lips. I want everyone to see you are for me, like yesterday, like before and for always. I don’t want to know another man’s touch or form. I want you to keep me; to make love to me in the mornings before work. To make love so loud the neighbours blush. Oh mon objet d’amour, I will return to you and your embrace.

What to make of all these frayed threads of my heart …?
Je t’embrasse forte, (I kiss you hard)
Ta chérie
Fayroze