from "Parcel Post Belgique"
Forrest Roth

Cirlgors / Bruant zizi (0,05)

Stubborn to forget Versailles, as well as encyclopedic to a terminal degree, you are somewhat memorialized in an obscure piano solo attempted by students who cannot move past their inflated sense of a Satie melody. During afternoons, your unintentional Cubist sketches of the public-at-large in charcoal have several distinct fascinations for amorous carriage-dwellers, gendarmes wandering their beat, and impolite couples at Pre Lachaise further defacing Jim Morrison's grave. Aroma therapy undertaken when surveying the rose bushes, except individuals of your species may not avoid old man benches at certain hours of the day. Best tree branches claimed before and after lunch. You say surprisingly few compliments in dislocation and consider grimacing a primal insult. Keep your personality suited to a business air about it, refuse to recognize your grandchildren no matter how much they cajole for phony war stories. Speak beside the point. Do not pursue the spontaneous marching band. There is enough time for that, the song plays in your thoughts, when your drawings are returned for a crumpled franc-note inside a Havana cigar box.

Kwartelkonig / Râle de genêts (0,30)

You, there -- do you not think one is prettier to be of this world rather than in it? What price affords the simple comfort of being? Can your life transcend a mere cautionary tale reinvented for our eternal entertainment? Alas, would you have the privacy to consider these meaningless questions forwarded to your secretary after a brief incarceration. All your steps so carefully choreographed, your bemused and indifferent lovers scheduled day by day so they never cross paths with each other -- even if they are easily deceived -- not to mention an elaborate doppelgänger your stepmother trains as a red herring, right down to the funny squeak in your crescendoes, the trademark signature a glorious empire of the senses has been built upon; yes, a wonder that a single hour may pass uneventful, without the fateful gaze of clamor stealing your finest performance to date.

Wintertaling / Sarcelle d'hiver (0,05)

Modest to your own infuriation, you travel short distances and are repeatedly found by some snowy brook that shares other seasons not so romantic. A flair for punctuality follows your dramatic telegraphs asking to be read aloud or passed around in groups at café demonstrations that break up premature. "Unless you care to understand what grand cause I have taken up out here," you choose to address the audience in absentia, "do not bother writing me back -- for I will be dead to you all." And they agree to this, of course, because you are hardly the master of guilt.

Somewhere Over Copenhagen (Perhaps)

I remember Bruchet laughing at me one night at the tavern, well into a third round of ales, calling me a tedious sot when I confessed to him that postal delivery lets me live without any God, and this bears resemblance to plaintive faith every religion must start with, I believe. Who knows when, where, how? What can be proven if indeed successful? I toss the dice until my best intentions are met, but often I am never certain of what I really do. For who is so consistent in both action and thought? Since it has been explained to me the environment becomes at this time of year icy and inhospitable where Felice resides, alone in a ramshackle abode hidden by conifers my mind's eye creates for her, I cannot guess whether she will be alive when your flock arrives to spread my humble message. Hopefully you will temper Bruchet's vitriol in the envelope, its edges slathered by his roguish tonguebuds unforgiving. It remains terrible for me to consider I am responsible for its contents being sent. But, if nothing else, I do possess an address where he has left her to collect the mail. Having thrown you to the winds in this matter, thank you for your charity and determination. Sincerely. The acting postmaster's blessings in a smudgy purple ink ascribes unworthy your soon-to-be frozen countenances: when traveling anywhere with the proper currency, does your will not stand up to the distance? All I can say is, be the kindest sortings should you arrive local. Remind her she may still draw warmth.