Paris 1

The Arc de Triomphe.  Megolomania above, small flame of consecration below.  Too small.  The arch of inscibed names and him, Napoleon, insults the flicker of the unknown below.  The four feet of the arch seem that of an elephant and we, the anonymous tourists and the unidentifiable dead, the field mice atrampled.  But burn on, sad light, and let the monument settle, as all monuments do, into mere thing of public art and no memorial to the forgotten names inscribed.  Eventually, every stone pile is a pyramid: a weathered shape and nothing more.