poetic suprise

At the exhibition of Chinese artists in Paris which I visited yesterday, there was a book illustrated by a Chinese artist opened on a page with a poem by a certain Harry Roskolenko. I really liked the poem and made a note of the poet and the title of the poem so that I could find it on the internet later. Well it turns out that you cannot find everything on the internet - although I found plenty of references to the poet (an Australian...) I could not find any of his work.

I sent an email to the museum from their website, not really expecting to hear back from them. Today I received a message on my mobile phone with a photo of the poem, sent by someone who works at the museum. Here is the poem:

These are the heroes, standing as iron or bronze,

Ghosts of the nation on abrupt carrefours:

Danton weeping over the metro at Odéon,

The old man at du Maine, a sans-culotte of history.

All over the city they tower as literature,

Dancers of rhetoric, swordsmen of the people;

They lean in winds above the Friday markets,

Polished by cries of bread, wine, cheese - and the rain.

Each square is carnival, actors and fringed walls,

The blood of verbal wounds sighing in the stone;

The satin mornings, a guillotine of fog,

Cry in the winds to ancient revolutions.

Harry Roskolenko

Isn't that just lovely, that someone made the effort to do that?