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      December 23, 2015Bequest: Coat to the PompidouJim Barnes

      Having a lumped head but right mind,
      I bequeath my coat to the Pompidou,
      to hang flapping in the hot wind
      rising from all the farts there to
      view beadling André Breton. They’ll find
      it slick as owl shit, black as flues
      in the Marais. I wore it, and I dined
      in it, and I wiped my nose on it twice
      in the Ritz the day I declined
      the wine the crazy waiter tossed
      the maître d’. Let it hang tough above
      the rez-de-chaussée and the dead lice
      fall on whomever they may. Love
      my coat or love it not. Many a times
      it kept licks off my tanned hide, proof
      enough it ought to be enshrined
      with the other worthless crap that we find
      in the front plumbing and behind.
      Item: the pockets will be bare
      as a rat’s ass, no francs, not one red sou,
      not one token of payment there.

      from Issue #7 - Summer 1997