‘French Open’: a poem by Michael Farrell
The following poem is from Googlecholia, a collection by Michael Farrell published in 2022.
French Open
You can’t see said Chuck Baudelaire your own shoelace Flowering flowers of New York nearly demonstrating an Evil can derive from doing another person’s job for them Flowers of evil Yves Montand Alain Delon in the stands Angering McEnroe with their intrusive invasive glamour Cameras of evil with hovering operators inviting violence American epidermis sensitive all over in its unlikely eros Vulnerability of tennis player juxtaposed with his double Cardboard relatively innocent next to plastic grows quieter Photographers breathe more uneasily as game progresses Hostility is my drug my defining structure quips Baudelaire When the ref chants baby over and over they’re not quoting Flower of evil extraordinaire petunia of evil Justin Bieber Bieber in 1984 is no more than a glyph in his father’s thigh Gladioli of evil Sofia Loren eating homemade marinara Forking it up in the sun her glinting shells favouring Lendl Climate change feeling it breathing hurricaning on his neck Just a breeze it’s not the twenty-first century Johnny not yet He says bet you can’t see where the ball will be when game Ends with a drop shot
