Greetings from Menton!

 

A town emerges, gently, house by house,

Out of my misty morning memory.

Terracotta rooftops naively painted,

Against the feeling of a bright blue sky,

Where outbound and incoming tourists fly.

 

Menton, where pale consumptives came to die,

Entombed in the hill-top cemetery,

Where, out of breath, I decided to sit,

By William Webb Ellis who, as they say,

First picked up the ball and ran with it!

 

It’s comme si, comme sa, on the Cotes d’Azur,

Where fruits de la mere wash up on the shore.

A life to live, whilst the weather is fine,

To only consider the grape of the wine.

 

Billionaire’s boats bob about in the bay,

Like a stylish playboy’s art installation,

Whilst bullet trains loom around the station,

To take all the used tourists away,

Via Monaco and Saint Tropez.

 

I blow air kisses back in au revoir,

To hotels cast in pastel shade,

Light green, pale orange, powdery blue,

To a stately botanical garden,

which a trainline cuts through.

 

Inevitably, these mem’ries will fade,

Just like heat from the Riviera cools

In the Mediterranean Infinity Pool,

As we journey home, to a different day.