A Would-Be Literati Epicurean Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

I'm sorry or is it excuse me that I speak Russian
with a slight French accent.

That language is to me a most sophisticated of tongues.

My 2 aunties are to blame with whom I lived in Kiev.

They spoke to me only in that language and Russian,
my other mother tongue, with a kartavit effect

which is pronouncing the letter r with the soft palate
vibrating on the back of the tongue. Parrrisian style!

Thank God I didn't pick that up even though
I brazenly wear three solid sterling bracelets
on my left wrist.

One never knows when one would have to fend
oneself off in some dark alleys and that would make
a good flail.

I am in the habit of visiting such places
while looking for objets trouvés for my art.

In any case I assure you I never thought I was a snob
until marrying one from Hillsboro
when she began calling me a French one.

All because I so often quoted Jean Jacques Rousseau
and Voltaire, Descartes and Montaigne and not least
La Fontaine. Even at times De Gaulle who said
the famous Après moi le déluge!

I never quoted Victor Hugo. Too proletarian for me!

Until then I didn't know I acted with such panache.