Les Clochards

Les Clochards

Les Clochards

Three figures Rodin might have carved
Or Daumier drawn: three clochards
Slouch on a shelf outside the Louvre.

Their mouths hang open, wet and slack,
With sunlight tumbling down the back
Hollow in their toothless heads.

A woman propped against the calm
Storehouse, crooks a ragged arm
Across the sleeper on her lap.

Their faces capped against the sun
Shine like full moons, bloated, red,
While baskets stuffed with straw and bread

Squat around them: wasted ones,
Sleeping in the gaudy suns
Of noisy, Paris afternoons;

Three clochards prolonging night,
Squeaking in the fevered light,
While women, azure, gold and white

Cadence by the huddled forms:
“Comme si elle voyait en toute forme
La lumiere et la douceur.”

“La Joconde?” “Oui” – and up the steps;
While the hunched and huddled shapes
Exude peculiar musky odours
Of strongly acid piss and sweat.