Le Boheme

Busily the people bustle about

Hastily they hustle and scrape for a living

“Look out below!” comes the shoot from above

The getting is good when the Gov. feels giving

Down the Rue de Descartes

Is an old forgotten well

Where a man sits and drinks 

Alone, by himself

Thinks on the ships

Full of goods at the harbor

Nutmeg and sugar

Tobacco and cloves

Flicks a penny in the fountain

Finishes his wine

Clicks his way down the cobblestones

Lost in his own mind

Makes his way to the Seine

Where the shopkeepers barter

Sees the money changing hands

Decides he’ll go a little farther

Finds a little peace 

On the emperor’s old street

The cobblestones as quiet 

As the Belle who haunted Keats

Pausing near an alleyway 

He hears fantastic sounds

Laughter and elated

Merrymaking abound

Cautiously, he approaches

Turning ‘round the bend

A lively pub awaits him

“Le Boheme” is what it read

He enters surreptitiously

Glancing to each side

No one minds his presence

For so lost they are in life

The barmaid calls him “Dear”

Pours him a pitcher of red

Sits him at a table

And this is what she said

“Le Boheme is the place 

For artists and thinkers

To come when they’re done

With their art and their thinking

It’s a fun little joke

That we play on the Gov.

Where we accept that we’re poor

And will always be so.

We make our own wine

Bake our own bread

And the music we play

Is pure bliss in your head

Let the shopkeepers hustle

And scrape for a living

The getting is good

When Le Boheme does the giving”

She left him alone

To take in the scene

Came back in an hour

To refill his red

He smiled at her

With a smile that said

“Thank you, I love you, 

Can I take you to bed?”

She smiled at him

And looked on the scene

Where the artists were

Cheering and laughing and dancing

The thinkers were sitting and drinking and dreaming

And the music was flying and falling around them

She bent to the man and kissed him to his core,

Whispering “It’s not me, but Le Boheme you adore.”