Barbara Dordi
May in Cannes, 2004
Stick insects on the arms
of tousle-headed stars, but
crew-cut Achilles tops them all –
thanks to Homer’s blockbuster script.
The silver screen pales beside the rosy-
fingered dawn of a French spring
that we can view for free,
A fresh, new season, whose greens
we forget to remember:
leaves barley-twisted by the breeze;
gnarled olives in the latest beads;
shoots goose-bumping the combed slopes;
stone peaks spiked with the hooked
tentacles of agave invaders.
And the plot always surprises:
the sun making saints of young vines;
wind weaving grass into waving silk;
tubers crowding the hedgerows
brandishing swords of steel;
prima donna performances from pines and planes;
understudy cypresses on hillsides.
Fiery poppies haze fields left fallow;
sweet peas are on set, perfumed, pastelled;
butterflies whirl in to ooh's and ah's
pursued by blue-black swallows in tails.
For Homer, death is death, fin. Film-stars
come and go each year in Cannes, but
spring takes the Palme d’ Or every time.
Page(s) 32
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- Pen Pusher Magazine
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- Poetry London (1951)
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- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
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- Shearsman
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- Staple
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- Thumbscrew
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