We might say a bientôt, Cherie, on account of your beauty,
An approach to which you were scornful, forthright as you were
All your life, and strongly setting for all a form of advance
Or example on and for the position of women, whether living
Alone or as wife. You admitted to 17 partners all told, including
I think your four husbands, the last of whom was adviser
To the poisoned Le Pen, let’s be clear, and so such extremes
Saw you marked as one might deem a Medusa, mesmerizing men
At one juncture and then inducing in some hate and fear
When rejected by you. As was the case with your own son,
When pregnant. In a press interview given your near resentment
Wished you had given birth instead to a dog. You referred
To the child as a cancerous tumour, and worse, after punching
Your womb called for morphine, as if wishing to smear the word
Mother and what was expected of you through fame’s fog. And yet
You were virulent from the start, railing against your upbringing,
Seeking the streets and abandon, you condemned regency,
Only to be versed by Vadim as God’s finest creation. Simone
De Beauvoir quickly cited that you were both speed and vessel
Beneath female history. In the face of MeToo you were the one
Who openly criticized other women. You would have been
Approached and assaulted when your beauty first bloomed,
Yet fucked free, using your full French fire to rise from such
Earth fed ashes, as it was you who left partners
When the temperature fell and exchanged the most notable
Names of the day for the animals you so favoured. In granting
Them your true passion your need for human love grew
Estranged. Your smile had stretched a long way for sure
From the one caught by Dirk Bogarde, or Alain Delon,
Or Kirk Douglas, Jean Marais, Piccolli. Or any number of men.
You, as with Jeanne Moreau who contrasted, were France’s
Foremost female icon from fresh first appearance right until
Your last, easily. As such beauty and poise and sexual majesty
Sent you further then where flesh can take you, into an eternal
World made from wanting and one from which you’d walked
Freely, quitting film altogether in one nine seven three.
For 52 years Medusa made her own legend, from one already
Formed. Stone stares settled, cast by that stunning face
And those eyes, which captivated an Age, but which created
Conundrums for women, to react against or in line with
The losses we take from love’s prize. Bardot challenged
Feminists, liberals, jews, and the human heart, with disruption,
She was elegant and unruly, and a blister borne by a rose,
Whose blood had burst, staining stem as well as corrupting
The petal. She was disdainful, seductive, an unpreying mantis
Whose sharp speared fronds could soon close at an unwanted
Stare. She was an indefinable woman, one whose looks love
Was made for, but she didn’t need the sigh stained strand
We’ve all craved. Instead, she clawed through the modern
Chaos for cats and defined the continued rights of the dolphin.
It would appear that the world Bardot wanted was a form
Of solitary Garbo ground where the saved were those
Who do not express their demands on either flesh, form,
Or future. No doubt she knew as a girl that desire, whether
Dreamt or deranged is attack on the torn target for lust,
Misplaced love, or obsession. She must have grown weary
Of it and waited for age to bring back her own sense
Of purpose conceived before the funhouse mirror thrust
On her. Her perfect face, her mascara, and her figure exposed
Called for drapes to both conceal and reveal what dark doused
Dreams do for sleepers, who when they awake find fresh prisons
From which they can neither appeal, nor escape. Brigitte railed
At these bars. Her extremity was excessive. And yet she was not
A product of her time, but progressive; a one woman mutation
Of the demure and damned. A revolve on what true beauty is.
She was belle and bitch. She was Dolores Haze and Lolita
She was the sin and what’s searched for in a somewhat
Desperate need to absolve. She was the lover for whom
You would leave your old life for and also while tender
Someone who will come to bite the sucked tongue.
She was neither sugar or spice, but rather a volcanic
Ferment of flavours. She was a butterfly with blood on it,
And a chrysalis which in cracking leaked lava to the lips.
Her kiss stung. As it would have been so sharp and so strong
And have the scent of any animal in it. But now Bardot
In the bardo beyond desire and death has begun
A further journey and film for which there is an unknown
Director. Will she do as she’s bid or defy them? Today,
A 91 year old girl is reversing and once more rehearsing
Under an alien cinema of the sun.
David Erdos 28/12/25
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