I bathed my face in Paris sun beside the river Seine
I thought this way I’d never come nor see it once again.
I always held a quiet faith that not alone I’d see,
The beauty and the awe of life that Paris was to me.

I sat beside where kings once strode with palace entourage.
I walked upon old cobbled streets, down lanes with grand facades.
I passed through open archways addressed in marbled stone,
The timeless granite faces watched as I passed through alone.

I stood upon the landmark place where generals marked their conquests.
I touched the arc, prayed with bowed head and paid my hushed respects.
I murmured down the Champs-Elysees as countless men before,
Lautrec, Degas, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Rodin and more.

I drank in timeless history beside the gothic Dame.
I washed my soul of infancy, of ignorance and of pain.
I strode on through Les Invalides, Beauborg and St Germain.
Transformed the quest within my heart, I’ll never be the same.

I danced passed Blanche and Moulin Rouge, spilled forth with friends and fools.
I hurried down the Pigalle streets with entourage of ghouls.
I stilled the twilight hours ‘til dawn conversing with the tower
And watched as dawn ran down the dark and killed the witching hours.

And all, alone, experienced I with no one by my side.
No one to share discoveries with childish open eyes.
Excitement filled with silence, unanswered sounds of glee.
Something died, forever lost, that once was all of me.

I’ll not forget the man I was or who I’d hoped to be.
I’ll not forget the fairytale that now will never be.
I know now dreams can kill a man and murder easily,
The living hope that burns inside that all’d come true for me.

The simple words I longed to hear, the promise never made,
Revelations learnt too late my funeral pyre made.
All marked the day on which I died whilst standing in my dreams.
Tore forth a hole that opened wide the severed endless seams.

A future lost within her breath, the courage never found.
The emptiness of beauty plagues when no one makes a sound.
Her hollow sentence never spoken launched my haunting sorrow,
For she could not deliver me the promise of tomorrow.