Gary Cooper

Well, I did appeal for anything cinema related. My thanks to Viv Apple for giving The Agitation of the Mind its first poetry page. Her poem ‘Beau’ is a lovely tribute to the strength and integrity of Gary Cooper’s finest roles.

BEAU


How did it happen? When?
There was no look across a crowded room,
no sudden surge of dizziness as our hands touched.

Was it High Noon, your eyes still steady
in the piercing light, when I first thought:

I love you, Gary Cooper?

Was it the way you looked at Ingrid Bergman
in those Spanish hills where bells tolled,
made me say I love you, Gary Cooper?

Or was it that Grand Gesture
of sacrifice to save another’s honour
with your own? And yet stealing that gem
was a mere fiction. What I saw besides
was who you are. I love you, Gary Cooper.

In your eyes I saw compassion in a playful scene.
Three brothers chase a mouse across the floor -
you raise the broom, but cannot
bring the weapon down to kill.
For that, I love you, Gary Cooper.

I won’t express such love in the past tense,
for death is no more vast than the big screen.
Tears at your Viking funeral, Beau Geste;
and still I love you, Gary Cooper.


by Viv Apple