Published in Overland Issue 208 Spring 2012 · Uncategorized Old Europe (2) Adam Aitken You don’t need to queue at the entrance but then so dark your captions now unreadable since the children left. Come dine with me in a dead café. Let’s dance in my old Turkish residence lined with uncut books where a cigar accords with taste and the chocolatier snores. You may need to sidestep the urine. Rémy flew home in a djellaba the armless no glory veteran the pigeons don’t bother with the bread the accordion’s sellotaped to wheeze a tune. The Romanies sell puppies to lovesick tourists but the light is what we dream, Saron’s scything searchlight, the Eiffel Tower a blingy earring on the ear of Europa. In the courtyard of a hôtel particulier she showed me the seventeenth century rainwashed and dishabille with a horse in harness and a Russian lover who won’t spy for money or love. A warning: the shih tzu twins are locked in patrolling my millionaire terrace, the road a crime scene below, a day-for-night with Citroen and café shoot-out. You might have to step over the body. I only come here for a summer for language, macaroons, delicious cod. Good thing Cheryl got the handbag she wanted she’s so persistent we filmed it. Adam Aitken Adam Aitken has published four main collections of poetry and other pamphlets. His latest is Eighth Habitation (Giramondo Publishing). He teaches at the University of Technology, Sydney. More by Adam Aitken › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 4 October 202418 October 2024 · Main Posts Announcing the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers 2024 longlist Editorial Team Sponsored by Trinity College at the University of Melbourne and supporters, the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, established in 2014 and now in its ninth year, recognises the talent of young Indigenous writers across Australia. 16 August 202416 August 2024 · Poetry pork lullaby Panda Wong but an alive pig / roots in the soil /turning it over / with its snout / softening the ground / is this a hymn