Bar at the Folies Bergeres

1. by Edouard Manet a sequence of poems Bar at the Folies Bergeres

2. BELLE EPOQUESomehow sad she is not the belle of the ballher share of champagne is unopenedwhile what she gazes on is reflected behind her.No, the gaze is enquiring, no, amazed, nojust observant, just as Manet wanted,to show the possibility of looking at gaietywhile not interested in taking partin merriment, questions the whole basisfor cheers, even the other near faceis serious, though is this one seriousabout having a good time and so thereis no expression to go with it -could this man, this gentleman want somethinghe cannot have, is not for sale, will remainunopened champagne behind the counter. James Bell

3. "love takes off masks that we fear we can not live without and know we can not live within"  james baldwin     only a little while longer love and we can go, quit this place. i can peel away this mask of indifference before the cracks begin at the corners of my mouth betraying us with a smile. Sherry Pasquarello

4. when you were rational we talked about our house made plans bought furniture planned a future now you don’t want to know the furniture in boxes sits in the hall your paintings stacked against the wall when you were rational we talked of children a family giving up drink never waking in the gutter again now I don’t know where you are whose bed you warm or what you drink our children dead on a whore’s hand when you were rational you said you loved me Jim Bennett

5. Manet's GirlSandwiched between two bottles of Bass Ale,oh how très un-French!  Ma chèrie, you look... bored ... what can I say, we dilettanteslook at you as if you are a cod in a fish store,the buzz of our artsy conversations reflectedin the mirror, monsieurs and painted mesdamesof the demi-monde, but you ... you look so innocentand bored.  I am sorry mes amis and I bore you so.Here's a Louis d'or.  Please, child, eat tonight. Christopher T George

6. She remembers everything. Runs through fields of childhood, hair flying, friends’ shouts echoing louder than the chatter round her now. Sees the boy who loved her before she knew what love expected, feels his hands’ sweat on her palms as they grip the counter’s edge. Hears her mother’s wheezing lungs, wipes blood from powerless lips that bestow nothing but womanhood, responsibility and pain. At this moment of stillness in a whirling world, she thinks her life is over. Stuart Nunn

7. I can't say I go for these Manet bitchesmy bar is much smarter, my clienteleso smartly francaise, my companionsjust the thing, their parapluiesto catch raindrops. My sense of Parisis nattier, fresher than theirs.They can dress us as dancers,and often do. It's all they can do,but I own the rainbows. I thank you, sir.The glint stays in my eye and hair.I'm Renoir's girl. Sally Evans

8. Suzon at a Bar at the Folies-Bergere You, monsieur, bore me, another Parisian thug with artistic aspirations and no talent, not fit to weed M. Monet’s water lilies and garden. Mademoiselle, all I ask is a little kindness, an address, perhaps a bit of late supper after your shift ends, maybe a shot of the absinth hidden beneath the bar. All artists are liars – actors, poets, authors, sculptors, dancers, painters – it doesn’t matter; all would sooner lie than tell the truth even when they gain from it. Witness, monsieur, this painting we are in – a reflection in a looking-glass, and nothing true to this reality we imagine is as authentic as God could make it – the bar foreshortened, the bottles different, the barmaid a fat harlot too willing to chat up the villain wilting her smile with his garlic breath. The painter excuses his inability to paint the bar as it is as only an impression, yet the only artist who does not lie is he who keeps the canvas blank, Gary Blankenship the painter of light and air, not he who sketchesclothes for his model that she would never wearto cover a nudity she will never let him view.Dear Suzon…Leave, Jacques, my feet hurt and the night is far too young. Return to your mistresses and dream of when you’re good enough to lie as well as M. Manet.

9. Des Folies Des Rêves/ The Follies of Dreams I was mad to think you would be the answer to dreams I had when I was so naïve when you came to take me away from fields dozing in lavender clouds under my window Jean Claude cried because he was losing his sister I told him I would bring him back sweets and toys my mother looked so worried as you took me away my father counted the money you gave him you promised to love me you said I would wear a silk couture gown we would be married in the cathedral its bells would play for our life together now I wear a jewel at my neck from M. Boisvert the butcher who sells his famous sausages everywhere you don’t notice what I wear as long as I’m here to meet the men you bring tonight I’ll leave while you’re having another absinthe I’ll sleep on straw again with the child within me Barbara Phillips

10. another dreary night listening to some bloke throw flirtatious comments about my hair, my eyes my beautiful lips come on, I’m no oil painting I mean, look at those gorgeous ones whose eyes dance with laughter their breasts full of promise I’m tired of this pretence give me one of those voluptuous ladies and I will die a happy woman Jazz

11. Is this how you see me; blank, reflected, human, but not like you? I am confined to this vision, the lies that describe and define me, that empty hint of covetousness and lust in this stranger’s eyes, no more strange to me than the multitudinous liars who stare right through me. I could court you, listen to each and every one, but I am weaving my own short tale one that begins with my liberation and ends… for you anyway, in something brutish, loud and short. I shall not apologise I shall not explain I shall simply step over your ashes and walk away, for this, I can wait. After all, I have eternity. Carolyn Edwards

12. I hate this damn place rich people chatting under the chandelier your breath stinks of scotch whiskey and you want more of me after work fuck off Carol Sircoulomb

13. After Manet I thought I knew what he was after, when he said he’d like to paint me, make me live for ever. I’d been around, the bar was always full of lowlives, artists, riff-raff, slumming aristos from half a dozen countries, on the pull. Fancy words come cheap from Paris gigolos, and all of them come out ‘let’s go to bed’. But it turned out I was wrong, dead wrong, about him: he was the worst, the one most full of sin, with that charming tongue so supple and so clever, for all he never laid a hand on me that way. You can see for yourself: the others only wanted skin; but he came with brushes, sly and innocent, and stole something of me, my youth, a piece of soul. Paul Blake