Cafe Les Deux Magots Poem by Brian Taylor

The Cafe is famous.
The Coffee is expensive.

I sit
on the self-same red and padded seats,
with original brass rail behind my neck,
and the two Magots
- ancient Chinese statues, which hang above my head -
as
Simone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir
and Jean-Paul Sartre
-ancient post war Intellectual Magots -
sat
as part of their ritual of living together.

The Chinese Magots hang there still.
above my head.
The Intellectual Magots
float in the mists of temps perdu
behind my mind.

He says
'at the moment of orgasm
the illusion is ended
and we return to ourselves.'
He spent much time checking
(with as many of everyone that he could get hold of)
that scientific experience
would always confirm this theory of his.

She says
'one is not born a woman, but becomes one'
She then invented herself as someone
who spent much time wanting
sex with everyone of every sex
especially children
(but without having children.)

Together they reinvented Philosophy
(the love of Wisdom)
as Serial Orgasm;
complete with a philosophistical
justification.

The most famous of her beloved 'everyones',
Nelson Algren, says
'J-P and S were bigger users of others
than a prostitute and her pimp in their way.'

J-P and S say
' there is no meaning to be found in the world
beyond what meaning we give to it.'

The Chinese Magots
still hang
in an eternal present.
The Intellectual Magots
still fade
in an unconsummated past

Ghosts still seeking mutual consolation.

The Coffee is still expensive.