Once upon a time, there was a poet in a Cafe...

It's funny how things happen in life, like how you get accepted to a specific university and it just changes your life to go there, or how you notice an unusual extra nice flavour in your mocha in the morning in Mungo's bar, maybe because the girl serving you likes you (that's what you'd like to think) or maybe just because inadvertedly she put an extra dose of chocolate, or you woke up with your taste buds particularly active.
It's also funny, when something which lies deep inside of you is awoken and shaken by something that changes in the air...
It doesn't happen only once in your lifetime, though it can be a rare thing, but the one time I want to tell of happened to me in May of this year (2004), when I was just enjoying my cappuccino on the first floor of Nero's in the High Street of Canterbury (I'm certain, this town has something special about it!!!) , reading some book, probably studying really hard (oh yeah...!*) ; then a girl walks in, nothing in particular that catches my attention, she sits on the other side of the room, I keep doing whatever I'm doing, suddenly I look up and, ah! There is something special about this girl, probably the same thing that is in every woman, the thing that can just charm a man and change his perspective in a fraction of a second/eternity (sorry if I do that, I just thought of something that sounds and looks good). And I start writing; this is what I saw...

Cafe Nero, Canterbury, 25/05/2004

Girl in the Cafe

On your own, twiddling your finger
through your thick dark curly hair
Absent-mindedly looking out of the window
into this sunny day, where below us
people walk along the main street.
It feels like on this busy day in town,
God's eyes just homed onto your pretty face,
for when I turned to look at you,
it caught my attention like some great painting
by some great artist, in a museum.

Je me demande a quoi tu pensais en attendant tes amies,
mais meme si ce n'etait a rien, tes yeux intenses
semblaient concentres sur quelquechose captivant,
comme le ciel ensoleille, reflete dans la profondeur de tes yeux.
Et quand ta compagnie te joignit et tu commencas a causer en anglais,
ton joli accent francais me fit sourire et fremir.
Meme quand tu te ronges les ongles je trouve cela attrayant,
tu es tellement naturelle mais tellement speciale!
Ta chemise foncee a manches larges te definit
comme la couleur et forme de petales definissent une fleur,
t'es un peu "hippie" et "alternative", n'est-ce pas?
En ecrivant ceci, je pense a combien j'aimerais
te passer discretement de melange confus d'idees
(j'ai peu de temps mais chaque chose que tu fais m'inspire),
mais je n'en aurais jamais le courage.
Donc, tu sors du cafe et de ma vue, mais je suis heureux
d'avoir ecrit ce portrait, car j'ai pu t'apprecier
plus que beaucoup d'autres hommes qui t'ont connue!


The first verse is the picture I saw, then I kept being inspired, couldn't stop writing, sorry for those monolinguists, I'll translate the rest when I publish it! Or you can just ask me for it in English if you want it! All my poems are in working progress, I just brought changes to this one as I was typing, when I read them I often see more potential in them! The point is, that in that moment, the poet inside of me took power, for a moment and I was transported into this flow of words and ideas. So whatever it is inside of you, don't repress it, don't be afraid of criticism, don't be ashamed, you will have tried, while those who criticise will just have air, their hearts are made of stone. Have a good experience; it's funny... (sigh)





Thanks Liam, Dodge and Tom.



(Je pourrais en faire une oeuvre pointilliste, on dirait un Van Gogh!)