Last month's poem of the month writer, Helen Shay, has chosen this month's poem. Helen says,"This is an expertly-crafted poem that appeals through its sensuous evocation of an imagined life, described in such naturalistic detail we can smell the Gauloise. It is this juxtaposition of the artificial (a celluloid film experience) with sensory experience of the real that drives the poem. In it, life literally imitates art. After reading the poem and being drawn into its rhythmic momentum, I felt I’d like to live in a French film too. All in all, it is well worthy of being Poem of the Month." Find out more about Gaia and her work at http://www.writeoutloud.net/poets/gaiaholmes I'D LIKE TO LIVE IN A FRENCH FILM where the thin tea-brown light paints me wise and beautiful and the sound of my neighbour playing Elgar on his violin seeps through the walls and makes a stinging soundtrack to my life. Nothing will be bland: you will be addicted to my skin, you will smoke stumpy Gauloise cigarettes, fill your car with lust and violet clouds as you drive through storms dodging monstrous wind-fall trees and crashed telegraph poles just to get to me, just to plant little kisses like forget-me-nots at the top of my thighs. And in the morning, every morning the wet streets will shine like pewter, the world will sound like Paris and rain. The air will smell of hot sugar, swollen dough and carousels.