Perry Thompson

Hotel du Central



St. Severin tolls on the corner.
Thieves huddle by its gates.
Monsters perch on its eaves.
Across Rue St. Jacques you bathe
in the cold water flat
saying how Paris wastes our days.

We linger in the sidewalk bar,
use callous words.
You've grown restless
in the market on the boulevard.
You tap your ashes in coffee cups.

Peculiar maps, peculiar times.
Tickets in a foreign tongue
lie heavy in your clothes.
Go then.  We a tramp in Italy
or tanned and laughing in Greece.

The city turns cold.
And Paris, thief of thieves,
comes in the loud
night to steal the last
strength in my legs.

OK, I'm tired.
Take what you will.

Hydromorphone Hydrochloride



he sits in the unwashed
backroom in a chair

getting a blow job from
the angel of death

The Man Who Kills You



The man who kills you
will be cold and precise

like the automatic
he will use.

(thin wires of some government
listen to this through the walls)

You were born on the automobile
seat with television

static for a nursemaid
and Edward R. Murrow.

The man who kills you
will be American.

He will look like Jeff Chandler,
like a well-groomed businessman,

and careful to shoot you
in the perfect spot

so you die instantly
and hardly bleed at all.

Just Singing in the Rain



He lost is beautiful hat
somewhere on the sidewalk

when he was singing about you.
Merchants yelled at him

through open windows
and storefronts.  They would

not help him find his topper.
It danced in the rain

on the next block with things
the wind can carry like

old newspapers or leaves.  He will
never find his beautiful hat.

Somewhere
in the subway in its

devilish kindness, in his
waistcoat laughing,

somewhere in the underground,
glittering and dancing,

and singing about you,
he also lost his fucking mind.

Your Hands (Winter is Green)
 for my friend, Vanessa



Your hands (the artist might say)
in line and form are graceful
hills at dusk.  An evening
valley smooths in your palm.

Your fingers (in memory's
oil on canvas) are spires
stolen by distance.   Should
I say the artist paints
your lips as flowers
alive with April?

I say my shoes meet the earth.
How we meet with an embrace
sweeter than the rich soils of May!
Suddenly, winter is green.