Paris PhotoPoems Series, #4 “Music at Shakespeare & Company”
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Paris : PhotoPoem # 4 : ”Music at Shakespeare & Company”
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Shakespeare and Company Store Front, Paris France
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“Music Inside the Books”
inside
a second generation
literary bastion
quartered in an ancient gallic city
across time’s enduring symbol
notre dame
prayed the flowing seine
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piano-classic played
stroked by a passers-bye-public
keys touched, kissed
like flowers bent down to the dew
pulling strings, sounds, of wonderment
conversing replies to any country’s words
joining forgotten inner movements
flipped like pages soft as the air
in the fertile arts of paris
© 2012 felipe adan lerma
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Sculpture Fronting Shakespeare and Company, Paris France
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dVersePoets
Prompt
today’s photopoem is linked to dversepoets’ prompt from Victoria Slotto‘s fine post, Meeting the Bar: Literary Allusion
“A literary allusion in poetry is, simply put, a reference to another literary work. This can encompass sources such as mythology, the Bible, performance art, a novel, or, of course, another poem. Think of it as a sort of hypertext, linking the reader to another piece of literature, art, or any form of creative expression. Examples of literary allusion also include ekphrasis and response poetry. You are no doubt familiar with ekphrasis, when a work of visual art serves as the inspiration for a poem. A response poem is written, as it implies, in response to another poet, a sort of answering-back.”
she offers excellent examples, including from robert frost, images, and several other interesting pieces
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Shakespeare and Company
though not an exact fit, my own poem is a response in a row of literary artistic impulses, and when doesn’t that happen? 
coming across and entering the history filled rooms of shakespeare and company, created by sylvia beach, and continued by george whitman (after WWII in 1951, after sylvia chose to close her store than to sell a final copy “finnegan’s wake” to the nazis), the stacks and rows of cleanly lined books, whisper-searched by visitors in english and french, rushed like an opening of time’s secrets into sheila and myself
the cloth book-bags (or for otherwise) for sale sport a great saying :
“Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers, Lest They Be Angels in Disguise”
paris, unlike most american cities, still abounds with small sprawling physical bookstores, visible on almost every few blocks, and often filled with browsers
small wood ladders lean against the book-lined walls for reaching upper shelves, and a winding narrow staircase leads to an upstairs filled with more books, old chairs, a room with a window view of notre dame, and even a nook plastered with notes about children’s books
and as we rose into the second level, music soft as the air surrounding the seine shifted and mixed our literary expectations deeper into the arts
a young man, face away from us, intent on his sheet music, moved his body into the intonations his fingers found along an old piano’s keys
i sat on a bench behind him, opened my iphone to my notes app, and let myself respond the waves of sound dancing with the words also preserved on pages
though the oral tradition had a power to move our ancestors, and still does of course to today, without the placement of symbols of those spoken words and heard sounds, onto paper, or even digital form, sharing our past(s) into our present, to create our futures, would be much less rich
the existence, and continuance, of all our artistic traditions is my favored road -
and paris, like yoga with the body and mind, does a fantastic job of this, ;-)
adan
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blessings everyone
namaste´- con dios – god be with you
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Both photography and words capture the special charm of this beautiful City that is a character in its own right. I love the culture, the arts, the diversity and its intensity. You capture them all in this. I wish I could be there right now. Enjoy your time there, Filipe.
thanks so much victoria, our biggest challenge is conserving our time and strength, there’s so much!
oh i see you’re enjoying paris…enjoying the arts, the magic…wonderful book shop…need to go and visit..definitely…
just let us know when young lady
A lovely poem – I especially like the Seine praying – and such a great choice! Great bookshop but really greater publisher! k.
thanks so much k, glad you liked the poem
it is a really neat bookstore, and location 
beautiful brother…i love second hand books shops and you give this one quite hte ambience with the piano play going on in the back ground…i love the smell of them you know….i could get lost in one for days…so i wear a rope so my wife can pull me out….grins…joining forgotten inner movements…like that….
thanks brian,
i can see your wife (trying) to haul you out via a well tied thickly knotted rope, ha!
if / when ya’ll come here, you’ll absolutely love this place, i barely did it justice; they also have open mike nights, author talks, and even musical events (one coming up for thanksgiving) all for free!
Fun images and allusions! Loved the expression: “flipped like pages soft as the air”
thanks so much fabio, i appreciate it! – the air is soft soft soft here, though, when cold, it still bites
i’d had inside images, but the store asks that customers’ privacy be respected, quite understandable, thanks again