Guitar

empty your hand
to the guitar
it’s one thing to do
with your pain

empty your hand
into the guitar
for the intuition is to sing
though it is impossible to sing

long monotone
like hours of water
like hours of wind
impossible to sing

hours waiting for breath
Southern lands are burning
with a scent of white
camelias

hours like arrows
evenings without tomorrows
and the first stars are dead
save their rays

O guitar!
aching heart
with five fingers.


- after Lorca

The Sleeping Moon

When the moon sets
beyond this country
she brings forth
an impenetrable darkness,

When the moon sets
like a body given to the earth
her cool white heart
still beats in the infinite.

Round as the oranges of the orchard
slowly she rolls away
oh, so slowly
Would I consume that pale fruit of the sky !

When the moon sets
the sky rises, as a curtain of stars
the earth is flat
and so bold in her disguise.

- after Lorca

Sleepwalker’s Romance

Green how I love you green
green wind green rain
as the ship does its sea
a wild horse its hills.

With the shade of leaves
she covers herself
green flesh green skin
eyes of cool silver.

Green how I love you green
behold the lifting moon
the clouds, the strange mirage
she has no need of magic.

Green how I love you green
grand seeking stars
come dressed in a skin of shadow
to light the road of my soul.

As the sail waits for wind
with its twist of rain
O whither, that whispering wind?

She sighs in her passing
green flesh green skin
sleeping like the amorous sea
companion of mine,
who loves to wander

My hearth for your house
my visage for your eyes
my body for your hands
companion, whose traveller’s blood
has opened every door.

- after Lorca

Suppression

Dead was my lover when I called,
with an arrow in her heart.
No, she felt nothing.

Like a trembling fire!
Like a trembling little fire
in the wind !

She was dreaming. Nothing.
No sun shown in her eyes,
the air was very still.

How dead she was when I called
with an arrow in her heart
how she felt nothing!

- after Lorca