CADAQUÉS* by Bridget Sebastian
Arts Richmond
Online - 19 August 2020

“I will build you a castle, my Gala, over the sea at Cadaqués.The thought of death terrifies me. Next to your grave I have prepared my own. Genius must never die.”
– Salvador Dalí
The man in the cave dreams of a blue sky
The boat dips over darkened waters
The gypsy sings his Spanish love songs
The olive trees alight and burning
Run down to the water
The snakes are hiding underground
The sea the sky the awful burning
Cadaques a darkening landscape
Pico’s house a burning shell
blackened at the roots and gone
Pico’s olive groves are finished
Winter sea destroyed our shelter
built to shield from summer’s sun
Pico’s life a burning candle
He will die before his time
Cadaques waiting for another summer
waiting for another lonely child
to hide behind the trees
watching the gypsies in the square
The lonely child in Pico wakens
His mother signals beckoning across the blazing sky
It takes only the flash of a knife for Pico to die
The man in the cave folds his blankets
“Cadaques,” he sighs
*Cadaques: pronounced “Ca-da-kays”.
from ABOUT TIME, the 2019 anthology of shortlisted entries from The Roger McGough Poetry Prize. Copies of this Anthology can be purchased for £5 including P&P from Arts Richmond.
CADAQUÉS* by Bridget Sebastian
EGM and AGM
Wednesday 2 December 2020, 19:30
Online via Zoom
Young Writers Festival Competition
The Roger McGough Annual Poetry Prize 2020
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