A Paris poem

Paris 0902 138
Originally uploaded by SgtRock333

The few days we spent in Paris last month were, despite the cold and the grey and the snow and the rain, pretty cool.

Especially as I managed to get to Shakespeare & Company, a place I'd always wanted to go to; for it's history, it's associated romance, it's useful entry into my 'bookshops I could live in' ledger.

It was a fruitful visit in other ways, as it inspired a poem:

Exchange rate

One waterfalling Monday,
inside Shakespeare & Co,
I was reminded of a lesson
I used to know

but had forgotten,
in the rush and glow
of ‘soaring Sterling’
versus ‘new Euro lows’;

an eternal vérité,
that purchasing power parity
can in reality mean
you’re in need of charity.

Apologies other authors –
I hope you won’t mope –
but all I could afford to buy
was a Wendy Cope.


Now, in the crazy way of these things, I decided on a whim to mail a copy of said verse to the shop. As you do, not expecting anything to come of it.

So you'll imagine my surprise when yesterday, via Facebook, I got this message back:

Hi Rishi, wasn't sure how else to contact you but wanted you to know that we got the poem that you mailed and it's great. We put it up in our library for everyone passing by to read. We also stuck the card up on the Mirror of Love. Cheers, Shakespeare and Company.

As you might guess, I'm a wee bit chuffed.

And now a request: if anyone happens to be in Paris in the next few weeks, could you pop by and take a photo of it in situ in the library? Would be lovely to see it.