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Only the poem knows what's true

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

The execution of Federico Garcia Lorca

I am drawn to Lorca's lecture on "duende." I've just been experiencing it. And (I) wrote this poem, as an homage to him, over the weekend. Of course, he deserves much better than my pen. Rooted deep in the earth, where what births us brings us to our end. But, he is by far my greatest influence. And I only wanted to capture that moment, in 1936, during The Spanish Civil War, when the horrid Fascists executed him, point blank, reportedly beside a matador and school teacher (also executed). For a man who said Dali found "eternity with limits," I must say, Lorca, your eternity was too beautiful to traverse time:

 The Execution of Federico Garcia Lorca

 The refuge was washed in your blood,
Dead volcano, dead church,
 And for everything that hummed in the silence,
You did not give word.
A Cypress branch
At dawn. The sun.
Mystical reaper with its eyes shut.
Take my body, oh, but never a thousand violins!

 I cannot hear the tears, and think my well is dry.
 And in the mirror of my eye,
I find everything sharp and shattered.
And wonder, why, did I, escape the pool,
That granted me my face,
And gave beauty a mountain?
Is this the dream I must erase?
 Lay down your gun, give the gun disgrace,
But, oh, don’t disgrace me!

 I hear a thousand violins
And oh, they are silent.
Traveling to mountain
And sea. And Andalusia. Just to taste, I see.
But where will the embrace go,
If it cannot carry me?

The lullaby. I need to go where I cannot see,
But oh, the terror, is overwhelming me!
So many, so many, are watching me.
Even as they cannot see.
My body will be a dead church,
My ghost a dead volcano.

 Yet somehow, I must march beyond the birth,
The blood, the breathing, the moaning pain.
And find a morning in its deepest rain.
And see I was not a dream in vain,
Because all dreams are painters,
And we the stealers of their brush,
Even in the lush fog.

 Will my body erase you, mountain?
Or will I erase you, sea?
 I give the brush back to you,
And go, where even summer, cannot dream.

1 comment:

  1. I am also a Lorca's fan.

    Beautiful lines all throughout.

    I like the ending:
    And go, where even summer cannot dream.

    Very evocative.

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