Sonnet 24
Our ferry from Issambres crossed the bay -
all Blofeld yachts with helicopter pads -
to exquisitely cheesy St Tropez,
where Russian billionaires humoured the fads
of girls approximately half their age.
Along the jetty, fauvist headache art
enticed the frozen-blooded copraphage.
The harbour smelt quite pungently of farts.
Not caring what the Salafists might preach
or who, just promenading, might be killed:
a lively market in the shade of trees.
A cemetery slumbered on the beach.
Upon the brown pine needle-coated hill,
the monument to Saint-Exupéry.
Richard Craven
Richard Craven is an Anglo-Canadian Doctor of Philosophy, specialising in high burlesque long fiction, dystopian short fiction, neo-Jacobean drama, and neo-Elizabethan & neo-Augustan verse forms. In the last five years, he has written three novels, Amoeba Dick, Pretty Poli, and Odour Issues, numerous short stories, 155 sonnets including one in French, and a solitary play, The Senseless Counterfeit. He lives in Bristol in the UK.