Paris Peace Talks
David Solway
1
I’m no expert
my nose’s pressed to the glass
with the rest of the world
just watching
waiting for something to happen
Only been here 7 minutes
unnoticed as a snail.
Already I’d say
something was missing here
In this terrace garden
where ½ the globe’s compressed
into disagreement
about how to save face
with no outcome over 7 years.
2
Like a stamp collection
with major nations’
dumbest faces
badly glued in place
nothing budges
nobody wants to give
& everything’s
ready to unhinge…
So far
only the bees show
no fear. Lords
of the comic & baroque
they just drone
through the trees
& flowers here.
Just hone & drone
as if the whole damn sky
was wishing on a bone.
3
There it goes
boom!
the hoo ha of thunder.
Crowds pour out.
Overhead planes grind east,
carrying cargo over the Atlantic.
Boom! another load:
same trademarks,
same equipment,
same instructions,
same languages,
same countries.
All at war
This too
the mouse-eyed reporters
will nibble on
after they’ve killed
a few more bulbs
on the big shots
and finished talking
to some of the house reporters.
some of the bigjo’s
in pinstriped suits
smiling back like cash receipts
some of the committeemen
who live there
trading recipes
on goodwill might & know-how
the cleancut level
cool ones
still sitting in the driver’s seat
or some of the backward budgetarians
the comic strip people
of uniform collars
multitude muster & tea
polite patient unquotable
sitting pretty
and a few others
just enough for a cozy picture.
4
Time goes, less & less
goes on. There must
have been a botch
way back. I’m tired.
The bees are zooming home
for the sane light
of honey cells. No one’s
packaged their drone.
The bees, those
applied purists –
they know.
This is France
where anything goes.
It’s hot,
it’s August,
it’s early.
The conference rooms
are closed.
And I’m no expert.
Just offhand
I’d say
Debussey’s ear for
overtones
was missing here.
Solway, David. “Paris Peace Talks.” 4 Montreal Poets. Ed. Solway. Fredericton: Fiddlehead, 1973. 25-28.