Boulevard Montmartre in Winter

by Camille Pissarro 1897

Dabs of paint reflect the magic
of that cliché of romance, Montmartre.
Post-Baron Haussman’s inspired re-working
not so different now as then.
Broad boulevards still bustle with life and charm.
Multiple chimneys still warm elegant apartments,
beneath mansard ateliers of hungry writers and artists,
now studio flats of wealthier workers;
luxury and squalor jostle together then as now.

 

Napowrimo Starts today, and has given us a head start with an early prompt to write an ekphrastic poem.  I’m hoping the company of so many poets writing together will give me the oomph to emerge from the poetic doldrums where I’ve been languishing for quite a while.

Elizabeth Crawford  has given a list of words as a prompt, of which I rather meanly only used one, but the others may appear later…