Bland's Bits

Bland On Bland – Bats

posted by Ian Bland on September 20, 2009

Photo By Jools Thatcher

The theme for this week’s JVG Radio Method is “Bats”

First week back in the studio.

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Ed was busy this week so I have Dan Warner ably filling in on guitar

Bats

The narrow, cobbled lanes of France, once noted for its rats
Less known and less reviled are its populace of Bats

Parisian Bats, soft and chic share that city’s famed panache
Cemeteries, their favoured abode, atop the Maples, Lime and Ash

The dead of Montparnasse enjoy a gentile life indeed
Quiet boulevards, kept spotless, peaceful and well treed

No traffic jams or crowded paths to aggravate past lives
The occasional hearse and gathering when a new resident arrives

Politicians, authors, surgeons, the ignorant and clever
Industrialists and socialists, all lying down together

Artists, poets, bureaucrats – fill row upon endless row
The clergy, atheists and whores, residing head to toe

Tombs of the wealthy and influential – the important – both real and self
Grand mausoleums built to reflect their status, power and wealth

In death every bit as impressive as they thought themselves in life
But no more than a name; a postscript, marks the presence of their wife

Imposing busts cast in bronze – officers on steeds
Names long lost to memory – as forgotten as their deeds

Singles, couples, families free to customize their plot
Developers are welcomed though developments are not

Samuel Beckett, Susan Sontag, Citroen, Chabrier
Belmondo, Dreyfus, De Maupassant – the poet Baudelaire

Jean Seburg still gets flowers – Serge Gainsbourg still gets mail
While others spend eternity cloaked in moss and scale

Simone De Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre share eternal rest
There’s room left on the headstone – perhaps an afterlife tryst

No epitaph – just names and dates, dispelling all allusion
Existentialism meets its existence-less conclusion

Jean-Paul happy to lay beneath – he was first to descend
Simone content to lie on top – French to the very end!

But the bats of Montparnasse maintain a minimalist philosophy
The meaning of life plays second fiddle to finding a sturdy tree

They don’t give a bats who’s dropped off the peg or a stuff for stiffs in the ground
Can’t even enjoy the epitaphs – to a bat they’re all upside down

© Copyright 2009 Ian Bland