"I'm still here, Paris...."

"Broken but intact, I imagine myself walking along the Seine, or some unknown stream, somewhere, with a full-bodied smile from my heart to my face, and perhaps a little dance here and there too. Like someone in love, like someone free, for I'll be one with clarity...."

Read the full text on imaginedparis.com

"It snowed, Paris. It snowed in Paris and I’m staying inside my head. I threw away my train ticket back to London last night so I get to spend another day and a half here, mostly to convince myself that Paris is still a good idea...."

Read the full text on imaginedparis.com

"I had a strange dream, Paris. All my dreams are strange."

"Maybe I’ll still walk in the rain alone, occasionally, for feeling misunderstood. But that’s alright – a falling star would fly back up in a hurry if anyone wished to understand me fully. It’s good to be understood by someone, albeit not fully, and it’s great to never be misunderstood by oneself."

(Read the full text on imaginedparis.com)

"You seem so far away with all the paperwork required for my long stay visa. And when there’s any delay in getting any document, you feel even further. But not forgotten – yet. I guess I’m just living in the present more these days – because when there’s still enough water in the tank to flush the toilet, I’m reminded of my existence: I can flush, thus I exist. That, and my casual meditations...."

Read the full text on imaginedparis.com

"I’m here, Paris; staring at a blank page with a fatigue after moving from my Wimbledon flat onto a 2-bed boat in Chelsea recently – yeah, really, what did the universe see in me?... "

"On the boat I have created a tiny corner with a desk, a red Anglepoise lamp, a few cherished books (three of them my own) and a Freewrite Traveler, where the poet feels so at home for the first time in a very long time and has typed 22 poems in Indonesian and English within three days in preparation for the republishing of my second book published 20 years ago...."

Read the full text on imaginedparis.com

"Bonjour, Paris!

"I’m doing everything I can to be with you. I’m doing everything I can to be with you without losing myself. In fact, I’m doing everything I can to be with myself, which I found in you, through you. You of all people know how important myself – I meant this journey – is!"

Read the whole text on imaginedparis.com

"Bonjour! Today is not about you."

"... I have also come to realise that there’s no use in forcing you, or anyone, into my life either. That truth, that freedom, that freedom that comes from everything that’s true and that truth that is achieved in freedom: that is the pursuit."

Read the full text at imaginedparis.com

WARNING: contains one forbidden 'F' word.

"Three days until I’m with you again, Paris."

"I want to talk to you about waves. Not only the ones that came and went rocking the boat my friends let me use on the Thames for a few days last week, and test, or rather train, my balance, which I got used to rather fast. I want to talk to you about the other waves too, and how at times I am soothed by them like a baby, other times they turn my stomach upside down and make me feel dizzy. So dizzy beyond my determination, though my determination could keep me standing – at times."

(Read the full text on imaginedparis.com)