words of a people aligned in their perfect order
06/05/2010 Federico Garcia Lorca,
happy birthday
They disappeared you
on the 16th of Aug
and assassinated you on
a moonless night one or two days later.
in 1936
you had died for all time.
fifty years later a memorial was erected
on the spot where you were killed.
in recognition of your talent
in apology of your end.
and while you weep for Ignacio, our
flood of tears are for you.
– Hoc Scripsi
I listen to sketches of Spain and think of Federico Garcia Lorca and remember how I was obsessed with both when K and I decided to get married. The album causes me to lightly weep and I am hearing it now though I am unsure that it is playing at all.
Often there is this drive to know what Lorca was thinking when he was killed. Looking out at the sky on a moonless night, under a flood of car headlights or no light at all save the muzzle flash of the weapon that bored a hole into him and ended him. in that moment there would have been no fear as we do not fear what is actual and present, there would be no pleading or bargaining as Lorca would have realized the pointlessness of it. What were his last words? They cannot be known.
The world was more interesting before the porn was available on the internet. When you had to go to stores and into booths to replicate the kind of experience available now for free while in your captains chair. I am of course talking about variety now as home films and VHS have been around for awhile.
These things are unrelated.
In a moment or two there will be a poem but for right now there is breathing and thinking and drinking coffee.
My son waits for me to be done so I can sit for breakfast with him.
photographs
you know how I admire
photographs taken in sunlight.
sitting outside back lit
against a screened in porch.
You have become art against
my love now and I am
thinking of daisies that once
adorned you hair,
softened by your face.
how I will always love you
tho I never loved you.
not even in photographs.
– Hoc Scripsi
This is only a sketch in itself, all thought is sketched of loose imagery tied together by patterns of language or images. this we call perception and eraser waste and graphite dust soil the windows.
There has been a death. Our second hamster gave up the wheel and parades now in hamster wherever.
This has nothing to do with that like so many things in life.
If I locate it I will put out my translation of “Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias” which, as you may know, was Written by Federico Garcia Lorca and where the title of this post comes from. Great poem with a lot of poor translations out there. You need to be a poet to create a good translation of a poem. It is more than trying to stay true to the meter and words – you need to stay true to the lyricism as well – even more importantly you need to convey the emotion of such a poem which most out there do not.
I love to translate poetry like the first stanza of a poem that is to be published this week – link forthcoming. Translation is harder for me as I only speak my own language well and just dabble in others all while Spanish speaking poets tend to be my favorites.
the whole of earth
the whole of earth is
beautiful and I carry
a broken watch,
waiting for it to move.
the whole of earth is
beautiful though
we still drop bombs
on weddings and taxi drivers.
the whole of earth is
beautiful;
I am holy in it.
I keep impoverished in
my pockets.
the whole of earth is
beautiful and
I remember when I first
got laid.
the whole of
earth is beautiful, we
watch home movies to remind.
the whole of earth is
beautiful regardless
of telephone poles,
regardless of
pornographic billboards.
the whole of earth is
beautiful, hearing
children play in the streets.
the whole of earth is
beautiful,
never to spite that which
vainly tries to
take its beauty.
– I wrote this
the platitudes of willful resemblance 