I.

It all falls quiet tonight

down in the sixteenth; and, up

on Trocadéro, en plein air, nothing new.

Just one burst dove beat

on-the-sudden rising:

a full squab clap, all wing-squall

of flustered fat pipio percussion

struck out in stocked air, as I pass. So, listen

as the bumblefoot beats and trips tip

to detonate quick on every upstroke,

to take soft pop and pump-up,

in oh-so coolest petrichor.

II.

But, look. Towards the Musée d’Art Moderne,

my radiant blackbody smoothes

through your Doppler surf, out

among your smartwaves of ultrasonic, out

along your nodal net and web mesh,

slipped out fast through the heterodyne hum.

I took to your turf to rap and bump

your cast-heart lockers, to

shimmy up and shiver up your glass.

Here, I dawdle past each tapped-up

winking watchman, evading each

their every unplugged lectric amber eye;

and they hear nothing, even as I

tease and tumble out

pins from the semantic stretchers, as I

strip out the semiotic shadowboxing,

jemmy the passe-partout; they’re stone,

stone deaf to the soda lime crack, as I

peal away each prised picture,

snapped-so from the snug rabbet,

slipped from the happy frame.

Such soft and plastic larceny

undone down in the rosy dark,

drawn down elastic under covers:

my fingers are so full with

thick gesso nips and twists,

all oily in their rolling; my fingers

are so full,

          full of pigment, slick

with safflower, with heavy tug of pine;

        my hands

                are stained,

        full of wild beast,

                                                but you

                                            don’t even see

                                                   these trees?

III.

There’s still no sign, no trace

of my absent old accomplice

idling on the avenue; there’s

                   no sound

of quick motors, running,

all gunned for our getaway;

                   no auto-bandit ally

out in a warm night

along an empty esplanade.

‘These five paintings are unsellable, sir.

You thief, you are an imbecile,

so now return them.’

IV.

Off-cuff, when I heard

the sound of peelers’ heels

come crashing in my stairwell;

all wail and yelp and crackles;

and heard and heard

the short smart shock

of friction locks, and hammer’s

cock, so sharp struck

by blackjack and Monadnock

so slap-jacked, slungshot

on the buckling buckling

backdoor, bootstrapped and

snap cracked, cracked

by kinetic breach! breach! as up

and up they came, all reeling hot,

all reeking pentrite, out

from their smoky mouse-holes,

and streaming streaming out

from their dusty doorways

to trail their reels of cordtex

all along and all along my heartstrings,

to drag detcord umbilical,

clean across and clean across

my heartstrings;

and when I saw – blur blur

between my bromide tears –

the surface play of surefire,

and saw each red hot dot slice

and slip the white phosphorus

in o dazzling o yellow tips;

and saw them [DUMMY TEXT] slide

across my [DUMMY TEXT] stoops

and trace my [DUMMY TEXT] missteps;

and when I saw and heard

the manganese prick and dance

across my ceiling, o’er my bed,

the sound of random-shock rippling

long around their digital airwaves

picking up on my long my long-gone echoes;

and when I blink blinked back

the channelled capsicum burn

of loss and vegetable love and loss

and blinked back along each

long peppered ion spool,

each keen-laced skein of mace;

                                   I ducked and

fixed my childish grin. I weaved, and

set my text. I’ll see you now, I said, come in.

V.

his book-club, reading-group,

FBI and IFAR squads incoming.

Monsters, sniffing up my staircase.

But, off-the-cuff,

I sold some dummy up

and deftly sloughed Le pigeon aux petit pois

                                               trash-down

                                               trash-down

                                               right to the compact.

The five pea cluster

that tucked up safe

among the shattering plate,

the claw that clawed at air

and beady peepings,

picked out in candlelight,

go gulping-down

some laundry hatch:

a lovely thing

                      spat out

among the garbage,

the hawks of dear-darling rejectamenta.

Just as I told that bold brigade,

                     those bandit catchers,

‘I just panicked.’

pearls, pearls worth all my yeggman tribe,

dancing down the shute; green pearls,

blown in the silk.

VI.

This is appalling. Pastorals fall as

fans flicker, as olives tumble, and chandeliers

crush to crumble. But you said nothing.

And so I dumb-stood, fingers crossed

and bent back dumb double, tips crammed

in my stitched-up pocket’s rubble,

all innocent with my blank-face,

my open open-hand – no jokers here,

no aces, no jacks, no tricks, no bluff –

just caught white-knuckled

in my Alcatraz coup, one short

of the full blitz, and not quite chunky,

just dropped, dumped down

and cold now – utterly unread –

in the coffeehouse. Turbid in the dregs.

VII.

Perhaps it was those silent silent phone calls,

spooked me; made me chuck all in, and ruff it,

quite psyched by such high-stake publicity.

Resounds in the cross-wires, retorts on

the currents, caught in a cross-hair trigger:

I couldn’t catch a risk, and folded.

These were unpassable paintings, you thief,

and I, sir, am an imbecile, quite

complexed at all my all extremes.

Unless perhaps the pigeon sits

somewhere or place, tipped off the market,

such hot-property, and ripe for a reset;

unless of course, of course,

she got away with wetwork, sits

smug with her grizzled mockers,

and turns her blue cheek – my cher ami

– slowly, to pay out one long last cupid line

towards her last her last hurrah:

unless, perhaps, the pigeon sits,

nap on her cedar stool, snug to the fence,

and screaming.

Still all still

down in the sixteenth;

and up

on Trocadéro,

en plein air:

nothing new.