This is a long poem in 14 movements. Every year in southern France, the cicadas start singing at the start of summer, when the temperature reaches around 30 degrees, and lasts throughout the summer until the temperature starts to drop again – from sometime in June until sometime in September. At first it is a gentle sound heralding the warmth of summer but as the heat gets more and more oppressive, the relentless of the chirping of these insects seems to become less friendly. My point of reference was the short story of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, ‘Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo’, in which the initial welcoming of the rain turns to weariness and near madness at its relentlessness. Each movement of the poem is in a different style – free verse, sonnet, film script, Socratic dialogue and each movement relates to each week of the summer. Here are a couple of its sections.
SEMAINE 27
If, as the poet said,
the moon is a ghost sun,
then surely the sea is a ghost sky,
a man is a ghost woman,
the white pebbles on the show are ghost clouds,
a darting swallow the ghost heart of a lover,
the summer-sweet song of the cicada a ghost poem.
SEMAINE 34
And they shall darken the face of the earth and shall eat of every tree which growth for you out of the field and of every herb which growth for you out of the land.
And they shall eat too of the vine so that the fruit of the vine shall perish and shall produce no wine in which your people may find easeful oblivion.
And they shall eat too of the barley so that the grain of the grass shall also perish and there will be no whisky or vodka either.
And lo your people should capture and kill these insects but they shall be in such abundance that your efforts shall be as naught.
And even though your people shall in revenge batter them and deep-fry them to eat before the TV set with a mango salsa dipping sauce or mayonnaise if that is their preference, these sacrifices and these burnt offerings shall not propitiate the gods nor shall bring forgiveness for their sins.
And they shall descend upon your towns and cities, upon your high streets and your suburbs.
And driven to madness with their own unfulfilled mating calls, they shall in carnal frenzy descend upon the wielders of lawn mower and leaf blower, of edge trimmers and hedge strimmers in your suburban estates.
And they shall fall upon your high street coffee houses and upon the baristas therein, the grinders of arabica, the foamers of milk.
And they shall fill your out-of-town supermarkets and swarm upon the humming freezer units and shall consume all they find therein. And all your false gods, Nero and Costa, Wilko and Tesco, shall be powerless in their path.