Last month I was in Cannes, there was a conference about Shaping the Digital Infrastructure of the Future (which I wasn’t there for), and here’s the poem that came out of it:
*
Last month in Cannes, rain
storms passed us as parties raged
along the Corniche
*
Where badged delegates
sauntered holding forth to all
who’d hear their wisdom
*
A fiery sunset
lit the sky’s darkening cloudscape
trumpeting the rippling sea
*
Swifts gathered screaming
for crepuscular feeding
preening and bonding
and mating, breeding fledglings
*
who still don’t know about flight
*
Just like us, maybe
as we wander through alleys
and for a quiet moment
*
soak in the stillness
*
Remembering that
death can come at any time
for any of us
badgering us with its truth
*
as we breathe the air of Cannes
*
Always beautiful
in spite of shit that’s done here
for power and cash
*
Next month in Cannes, heat
waves interspersed with tempests
roil along the coast
*
To other cities
every bit as beautiful
but not quite as rich
*
The elderly die
in droves, and fires ravage
to swallow up the forests in their smoke
and riots unchained
rip sweltering streets
*
Those mundane horrors
that the mondaine glamour masks
just like us, perhaps
*
Next year in Cannes, there
will be digital breakthroughs
we can’t imagine.
*
**
*
Freddie Omm
June 2026
Photos by Freddie Oomkens
About freddie
I love Cannes and always will. My grandfather was there for the Simone Silva incident, back in the 50s—there were lethal paparazzi scuffles for topless pics of her with the burly actor Robert Mitchum. She succeeded in making herself scandalous, famous, but things turned bad for her, poor thing. I think she was the first to make Cannes the locale for that kind of stunt, there were lots more to come.
Your poem taps into a more modern aspect, an admirable snapshot of the late-capitalist hub it is today (in part).