Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Even our good friend Marguerite,
quintessential Franco-Italian aesthete,
has kicked us out after serving her usual
haute cuisine, so she can watch the match,
perched three inches from the screen.
“It’s high drama,” she defends, “weeping,
human ecstasy, catharsis, perfect
unity of action, time and place.”

Here for this year’s photo-fest,
we arrive at the highbrow Bishop’s
palace door, find a tacked-up note:
exceptionellement ce soir the show
will not go on. Le match de foot preempts
the South of France, black and white
geodesic domes ubiquitous on sugar cubes,
stamps, on foreheads like Picasso eyes.

We’ve no choice but to join in
with those gathered at the Place du Forum,
sit next to Roman pillar stumps,
sit next to Romans and others international
here, like us. Black-garbed shutterbugs meet
shiny jogging-suited fans du foot meet
tourist couples straight from Nebraska
State’s Art 101 come to see

Van Gogh’s yellow “Terrasse de Café La Nuit”
wilder than their wildest dreams,
chaotic as Vincent’s mind tonight.
Kids instead of stars drip off awnings
to get a look at big screens braced
at every bar: “On va gagner! On va gagner!”
chants rise, cicada castanets. The waitress
places bets, abandoning her post at the square’s

most expensive, only empty, terrace
of the Hotel Nord Pinus. We look
inside, the lobby’s quiet as a tomb.
Picassos on the wall, Miros, Persian rugs
thick as lambs. Encased in glass:
the upper crust’s polite letters,
Maria Callas, Oscar Wilde emoted
at these desks. Calm and tranquil lies Provence,
is the square, is the statue of Mistral

(a tri-color drunk hangs there now)
and Midi days move slowly as the Rhone.
The well-turned staff we find at last
cloistered in the bar, chanting to a froth
the final minutes of the game Deux
Remy s’il vous plait, Madame’s drowned by
                                            on va gagner’s urgent chorus, on va…

                                                                            quatre, trois, and
Zidane sends it home!!

“That’s it! We’ve won!” we’re screaming
with the rest “We’re going all the way!!”
the buildings empty onto quays, walls,
the very sycamores shout On a gagné,
on a gagné and macho moto men
sob each others’ shoulders wet, twist
flats’ buzzers, klaxon the night’s pinwheel
sparkler stars and cypress’ tongue madness
while through the dikes the Rhone passes,
through the moon-rice fields, wild horses, down to sea.