Happy Valentine's Day! "Edith Piaf" by Joel Allegretti

Nocturne for Edith Piaf

by Joel Allegretti

 

The accordionist, the gigolo,
the pugilist surely knew:

It all came down to the lights —

The footlights that fawned
over your delicious agony.

The lust lights of Place Pigalle.
The chaste lights of Sacré-Coeur.

Mais non

It came down to the heart.
How it fractures like a thrown vase,

Like a lover’s airplane
for which the sky has no further use.

How, in breaking, it is more of a heart —
more than a heart.

Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien

We smoked a Gauloise in your honor.
We danced the Apache in your name.

How we envy you, Mlle Gassion.
You had no regrets. But we do.

This Valentine's Day selection is from Joel Allegretti's latest book, EUROPA/NIPPON/NEW YORK: Poems/Not-Poems, released in 2012 by Poets Wear Prada. “Edit Piaf” first appeared in Compass Rose.  Poets Wear Prada nominated this poem for 2013 Pushcart Prize.

EUROPA/NIPPON/NEW YORK: Poems/Not-Poems
by Joel Allegretti
ISBN 978-0615600208
Soft Cover, Perfect Bound 52pp.
$12.00
Release Date: March 25, 2010
Now available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615600204
and from CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/3785527

Come, children, and take your seat for Europa/Nippon/New York, where Joel Allegretti spans the globe with ears to the ground and eyes toward the stars. “The next world is the next movie,” the poet writes. Phantoms, chanson, Godzilla, bread and wine, riddlers-to-be roll through the projector-light of the poet’s wildly associative forms, his unforced epiphanies and extravagant voice. 

~ Daniel Nester, Author of  How to Be Inappropriate