I don’t want you to leave,heartache, the last formof loving. I feel myselflive when you hurt menot in yourself, or here, but further:in the earth, in the yearyou come from,in my love for herand everything it meant.In that sunkenreality which deniesitself and insiststhat it never existed,that it was only a pretextof mine for living.If you… Continue reading Pedro Salinas
And for however long you do not come,I’ll wait on the brinkof flights, of dreams,of comet trails, motionless.Because I know that neither wings, nor wheels nor sails can travel to where I once was. They have all gone astray.Because I know that to reach where I wascan onlybe with you, be through you. —Pedro Salinas,… Continue reading Pedro Salinas
They’ve bought me a shell. It sings insidea sea on a map.My heartfills up with waterwith a little fishshadow & silver. They’ve brought me a shell. —Federico Garcia Lorca, “Caracola,” Lorca/Blackburn: Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca chosen and translated by Paul Blackburn. Small Pr Distribution, 1979
Arbole, Arbole Tree, treedry and green. The girl with the pretty faceis out picking olives.The wind, playboy of towers,grabs her around the waist.Four riders passed byon Andalusian ponies,with blue and green jacketsand big, dark capes.“Come to Cordoba, muchacha.”The girl won’t listen to them.Three young bullfighters passed,slender in the waist,with jackets the color of orangesand swords… Continue reading Federico García Lorca
The Little Mute Boy The little boy was looking for his voice.(The king of the crickets had it.)In a drop of waterthe little boy was looking for his voice. I do not want it for speaking with;I will make a ring of itso that he may wear my silenceon his little finger In a drop… Continue reading Federico García Lorca
But there is no oblivion, no dream: raw flesh.Kisses tie mouths in a tangle of new veins and those who are hurt will hurt without rest… — Federico García Lorca, from “Sleepless City (Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne),” Poet in New York . Translation by Greg Simon and Steven F. White. Published June 24th 1998 by Farrar,… Continue reading Federico García Lorca
Quasida of the Woman Prone To see you naked is to remember the Earth, the smoooth Earth, clean of horses, the Earth without reeds, pure form, closed to the future, confine of silver. To see you naked is to understand the desire of rain that looks for the delicate waist, or the fever of the… Continue reading Federico García Lorca
If you ask me why I wrote “A thousand tambourines of crystal, wounded the light of daybreak –Mil panderos di cristal, herían la madruga,” I will tell you that I saw them in the hands of trees and angels, but I cannot say more: I cannot explain their meaning. And that is how it should… Continue reading Federico García Lorca
After Love We could not be. The earth could not be enough for us. We are not equal to what the sun intended with its distant desire. One foot draws a little closer to the light. The other insists on darkness. Because love is not forever, not in me, or anyone else. Hatred waits for… Continue reading Miguel Hernández
Angel and muse come from without; the angel gives radiance, the muse gives precepts … On the other hand, the duende has to be roused in the very cells of the blood. — Federico García Lorca, from “Theory and Function of the Duende,” trans. J. L. Gilli, 1933, Toward the Open Field: Poets on the… Continue reading Federico García Lorca
The Vale of Soul-Making 