Golden Oldies

Dulcinea

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Dulcinea

 Men of La Mancha

Insubstantial dream
extracted from a madman’s mind,
who dares to magic her back to this world?

Who could want what with her now?
She exists nowhere.
Can you conjure her up from mists?

Once she was Echo: her voice
dependent on a mad rogue’s tongue.

Moonlight through the glade.
White foam atop the sea.
Betrayal of every dream
once she is found.

For he who creeps into her bed
finds plain Aldonza there.
The enticing breasts that made him drool
are shrunken dugs when seen up close.

Her horse is but a donkey
and she herself is but a dream
woven from the fabric of another’s whim.

Begone.
Allow Dulcinea her well-earned rest.
Take care lest she roll over and start to snore:
Dulcinea turned Aldonza ever more.

Sancho Panza

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San Chopanza

 Men of La Mancha

“How much did you say?
Is it in writing?
Let me see the words.
Better, since I cannot read,
let me taste the gold.

You have not brought it?
Just this paper signifying cash?
And promises? Promises
I can trust because you’re known
to keep your word?

Thank God I cannot write.
I will not make my mark.
Men like you I met
when I governed my island,
and I chased them from my realm.

Owners of hollow staffs,
muscular women
strong in the arm and weak
in defense of their honor.
Do you, sir, take me for a fool?

When you awake the man,
beware the grown-up’s fist.
Do you know who I am?
Have you read my history
that tours the world in print?

 Read it, sir, and know me
for who and what I really am.
And the next time that we meet,
if you would drive a bargain,
bring gold, good food, and wine.”

Don Quixote

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Donkey Hotay

 Men of La Mancha

Saddle his steed
and let him ride
uphill and down.

The world is wide
enough for a knight
and his faithful squire
to find at road’s end
what they most desire.

Let him obey his vow.
Let him best portray how
a true knight,
worthy of the name,
guards from shame
his knightly honor
and his beloved’s fame.

Let no mage
despoil that Golden Age.

Onward, ever onward,
to glory and renown,
and let him once again

tilt at windmills and knock
falsehoods down.

Bacchants

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Bacchants
after
Velásquez

Go down to Queen Street
on a summer evening,
or walk to Odell Park
and look in the dark
beneath the trees:

you’ll find them
gathered round a fire,
drinking meths or after-shave.

Fly Karsh from Ottawa.
Lodge him in the Beaverbrook
then bribe these Bacchants with free
booze and bring them to him.

One day their photos will hang
with those of Hatfield or Robichaud
in the New Brunswick Hall of Fame.

That’s what Velásquez did
when he painted his dwarfs
and topers, and you can see them
in the Prado today,
as famous as
Spain’s King and Queen.

Mad Dog Wind

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Mad Dog Wind
Barcelona

from
Last Year in Paradise
(1979)

It rushes through the city,
loses itself in hotel lobbies,
comes out to snatch and snuffle
at the empty hands of children.

It hustles leaves,
leaves paper-trails
of flighty pigeons
flapping, indignant,
across the square.

Delayed by doors,
it snorts at windows,
shudders
tight-closed shutters,
rages at rooftops,

chases
a ragged herd of clouds
around the sky
high above the Ramblas.

Butterflies

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Butterflies

We raise our hands:
you sever them at the wrist.

We lift our arms:
you measure us for a cross.
Where do we turn?
Our fingers bleed from scratching
our skulls in bewilderment.
They catch on the thorns
you so thoughtfully provided.

Stigmata?
No, you haven’t nailed us yet.
Great barbed hooks penetrate our bellies,
inflaming our guts.

Like live bait,
threaded to tempt Leviathan,
we squirm.

Like butterflies
awaiting your chloroform jar,
we tremble

Your collector’s pin is poised:
that final thrust will skewer our flanks
and claim us under glass.

Eternally.

Lorca

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Federico García Lorca

 Solidaridad screamed out from posters and stamps
that carried snapshots of the dead poet’s face.

We still haven’t found his body.
He said we never would.

They tortured him first,
taunted him for being homosexual:
trussed him up, laid him face down,
then shot him, for a joke, in the offending area.

It didn’t take him long to die.
When he did,
his body was dumped in some way out ossuary.

But first they carved the bullets out of his corpse,
three from around the anal tract,
keeping them as souvenirs.

 Later that night, Fascists, drunk,
laughed uproariously in their favorite bars.

They dropped the bullets into their wine
and drank to the re-establishment of law and order.

 Next day his friends were put to death.

Waverers were soon convinced by bullets
lodged at the base of another’s skull …

fine arguments …

Beaver Pond in October

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The Beaver Pond
in October

Open are the pond’s bright spaces,
brown and withering are the reeds.

Clouds float in the pond’s dark mirror.
Small islands of grass seed
where underwater logs have clogged
and rotted themselves back into life.

Around us, emptiness, empty nests,
earth and its waters waiting for what
strange second coming?

Leaves,
like footprints, delicate on the water,
their pale green tongues lapping
towards the land and everywhere
the low light bright against stripped
white branches.

That lone mast standing still,
gift-wrapped this bouquet of grass
and cloud-enhanced,
magic, these sun

rays,
this October light,

descending.

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Wild Bird

 

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Wild Bird

 A wild bird has built
her nest in my heart.

Her blood-beat
flutters new rhythms.

Birdsong streams
sunlight in my pulse.

Afloat I knew the sea-
surge lift and pull.

Now hot blood rises
with the sun and sets
with this glorious fall
from heaven to earth:

sweet helter-skelter
glide of current and cloud.

Hair is to head
as feather is to nest.

The egg of my skull
shows hairline cracks:

tiny beaks pecking
fine-tuned sparks of song.

Juggler

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Juglar /  Juggler
(from Land of Rocks and Saints)

1

 In the beginning was the word,
and the word was tossed in the air:
a dove over dark water.

It grew as it descended,
turned into tongues of flame,
each of them licking
at the listeners’ hearts,
tearing them apart.

Sleight of hand:
this deck of words, tossed skywards;
jacks and queens tumbling,
caught, tossed up again;
words, nothing but words,
this pack of wolves descending.

2

 Lips part as words draw blood;
red wound of the open mouth,
a rose in spring’s garden
bears us down with crimson scents.

The spirit is trapped in its cage,
flesh and bone binding those wings
with their urgent urge to be free and fly ….

“… you would have seen …” he says.

And so we see: the sea, white horses cresting,
St. James riding over the mountains,
bone on lance point, spear bloodied,
Moorish chain mail bursting asunder,
El Cid advancing on his foes.

Words join with words,
become joint with gesture;
they plunge into our chests,
grow tight round heart and lungs.

Juglar: In Spain, the mediaeval juglar was musician, singer of songs, juggler, and general entertainer. The oral tradition still thrives in Avila and in places where the rhythmic and musical emphasis of the spoken word is still important.