1.. Ballad of the Moon, Moon
                
                         A Conchita Garcia Lorca.

The moon steps into the forge
with the fragrance of nard.
The boy looks at her torch,
the child is looking hard.
Through the restless air
the moon is stretching her arm,
and shows her pure and bare
tin breasts, shiny and plum.
"Run away, moon, moon!
The gypsies are coming soon.  
They will stamp silvery things
from your heart, a necklace and rings."
"Oh, let me dance, my boy,
when they come and see me with envy,
they will not get the joy,
they fill find you on the anvil."
"Run away, moon, moon!
Their horses are near."
"When you going to swoon,
do not crush my white dress in fear."

The rushing horsemen approach,
drumming the plain hard.
The boy is inside the forge,
his little eyes are shut.

They come from the grove, they fly,
Gypsies dreamy, bronze-brown,
holding the heads high,
keeping the eyes down.

Oh, how the owl cries,  
oh, how it sings, wild!
Into the dark-blue skies
the moon is carrying the child.

In the forge they weep,
Gypsies burst into tears,
while the wind will keep
watching, the wind that cares.

2.. Preciosa and the Wind

            To Damaso Alonso.

On a  tambourine, parchment moon,
Preciosa merrily jingles
treading a watery trail
where crystals and laurels mingle.
The shadowy, starless silence
hearing her joyful song
is falling into the ocean
where deep fish belong.
On the peak of the mountain
the carabineers naive
and dozy are guarding towers
where the English live.
And the gypsies of water,
waves, are joking with time,
making fun of sea snails
and forcing pines to chime

            *

On a tambourine, parchment moon,
Preciosa merrily jingles.
Seeing her, sleepless wind
rises shivering shingles.
A giant cathedral, naked,
full of celestial tunes,
looks up as the wind is playing
sweet flutes and brazen bassoons.    

"Hey, dolly, let off your dress
And let me, eternal lover,
To open the rose of your body,  
To see what I can discover."

Preciosa drops her tambourine
and runs as fast as she can
chased by the men-like wind,
afraid of the wind-like men.

The ocean raises its roar.
An old olive tree turns pale
when shadows begin to sing
about the coming gale.

Preciosa, run fast, Preciosa!
The green wind may catch you, gypsy.
Preciosa, run fast, Preciosa,
away from the roaring deep sea,
away from the lowly Satyr,
rugged, bad mouthed, tipsy.

                 *

The girl overwhelmed with fear
runs to the light that shines
from the tower of English consul,
up and beyond the pines.
Disturbed by her loud screaming
three carabineers appear
in black capes and bandoliers,
to see who is getting near.

The English offer the gypsy
warm milk and a glass of gin,
a glass that frightened Preciosa
wouldn't lift to her chin.

And while she tells her story
amid disbelief and smiles
the furious wind above them
gnaws upon roof tiles.

 
3.. The Dispute

        To Rafael Mendez.
 
On the bank of a steep ravine
Albacetean knives are raving,
letting out hot blood
flowing on blades' engravings.
Pressing against the green
hard rays are chasing the fighters,
highlighting the briskly horses
and soft silhouettes of riders.   
Sitting in olive trees
two women begin to weep.
The bull of the bitter strife
is driven to run and reap.
Black angels cover the rocks
with the fabric of melted snow.
Their wings, Albacetean blades,
prepare a mortal blow.
Juan Antonio from Montilla
is cut down and dead.
Irises on his body,
a pomegranate on his head.
No horse, he will ride forever
a burning cross instead.  

                  *    

A judge comes through olive groves
with a group of the Civil Guard.
The spilled blood is crying and singing
a mute song of a serpent's heart.
"Oh Civil Guardsmen, Sirs,
it was the usual performance,
five Carthaginians dead
and four of the stubborn Romans."

                 *

The afternoon, chaotic,
filled with mad figs and heated
sounds is falling on riders
wounded and defeated.
And the black angels are flying
above somebody who departs,  
angels without mercy,
angels with olive hearts.


4.. Somnambulistic Romance

                To Gloria Giner and Fernando de los Rios.

Green, how I love you, green.
Green wind over a fountain.
A distant sail at sea,
a distant horse on the mountain.
Accompanied by the shadow
she sits at her rail, dreaming,
green body and long green hair.
Cold silver, the moon, is gleaming.
Green, how I love you, green.  
The gypsy sky is unfolding,
she is remaining young
while the stars get older.
    
                *

Green, how I love you, green.
Giant nets of the frost
carry its fish, long shadows,
where the dawn is lost.
The fig tree is rubbing winds
with its sandpaper leaves.
The mountain, wild cat,
arches untamed cliffs.
But who will come and from where?
Dreaming, she leans on a rail.
Green body and long green hair,
the bitter sea and a sail.

    
                  *

"My friend, I want to trade
my horse for a room and a bed,
my saddle would go for a mirror,
my knife for a loaf of bread.
My friend, you see, I am bleeding,
I came from the Cabra Pass."
"I would accept your offer
if this house belonged to us
but I am no longer myself
and my roof is the sky and stars."
"My friend, let me die here,
let me die in my own bed
made of steel, with white linen
to cover my pale head.
Don't you see this deep wound
that cuts from throat to chest?"
"Three hundred blossoming roses
cover your shirt and your vest.
Your blood keeps coming and oozes
around your fine sash
But I am no longer myself
and all that I own is trash"
"Then let me go to the rails,
then let me go, let me glean
the fragments, the shattered mirror,
at the rails of green."

                 *

Then both of them climbed
to the roof with green rails
leaving the tracks of tears,
leaving bloodstained trails.
Trembling above the tiles
tiny lanterns of tin
wounded sleepy sunrise
with their sharp tambourine.

    
               *    

Green, how I love you, green.
Green fountain and green wind
that left a strange taste in the mouth
of gall, of basil and mint.
"My friend, where is she hiding,
where is your bitter girl?"
"So often she waited for you,
so often she could be seen
here, white face and black hair
upon the rail of green!"

                 *

The unbroken mirror of water
cradled the gypsy with care.
Her eyes are chilling dim silver.
Green body and long green hair.
The icicle of the moon
shined above the square
when drunken Civil Guardsmen
appeared from everywhere.
Green, how I love you, green.
Green wind over a fountain,
a distant sail at sea,
a distant horse on the mountain.
 

5.. Gypsy Nun

        A Jose Moreno Villa.

Silence of lime and myrtle,
mallows and grass turn greener.
The nun embroiders wallflowers
on the yellowish linen.
Seven birds of prism's glare
fly through the spider's web.
The church growls like a bear
caught in a hidden trap.
What an embroidery, grace
of emblazoned linen cloth.
How she captures the lace
of flowers she adores.
Sunflowers, magnolias, golden
sequins, what ribbons to prune!
Onto her linen altar
she brings a saffron moon.
In the nearby kitchen
five grapefruit are diced,
picked in Almeria,
five burning wounds of Christ.
Through the eyes of the nun
gallops a gypsy horse,
a murmur of distant run
lifts up her shirt with force.
And far away mountains start
their hiding game with clouds,
breaking her gentle heart
of verbena, sugar and doubts.
Oh how the plain careens,
flooded with twenty suns!
How the river begins
to move its feet and runs!
But she continues to dress
her flowers in the breeze,
while the light plays chess
through the lattice of jalousies.


6.. The Faithless Wife

             To Lydia Cabrera and her black girl.

I went with her to the river
believing she was a maiden,
but she was a smart deceiver.
It was on the night of Santiago.
As if to put me at ease,
conspiring lanterns went out
and glow-worms lit up the trees.
In the dark, remote corner
I touched her breasts, sleeping twins,
and they suddenly opened
like clusters of hyacinth.
The starch of her crispy skirts,
the envy of jealous wives,
sounded like the silk
turn by ten rushing knives.
Fast in the moonless night
grew shadows. The trees caught fever.
The dogs of the red horizon
barked far away from the river.

Behind the sharp blackberries
that prickled the cooling air
I pressed into the sand
her beautiful braided hair.
I tore my silken tie,
the skin of her dress was shad,
I lost my belt with a handgun
and she her fine corset.
Her jasmine body was glowing.
Nor pearls under gentle light,
or moonlight on glass and silver
shine so warm and bright.
Her thighs slipped away escaping,
a trembling fish of desire,
half-full of freezing shadows,
half-full of golden fire.
That night, that long night I rode
the path of ivory lilies
mounted on a nacre,
temperamental filly.
The dire words that she whispered
a true man would not repeat,
the cloak of understanding
requires being discreet.
Smeared with sand and kisses
I took her away from there
leaving the knives of lilies
battle with livid air.

And I behaved like I should have.
A gypsy from mother's milk,
I gave her a large basket
of finest rose-coloured silk.
I cut the wings of my love
to the faithless deceiver,
for she was already married
when we went to the river.


7.. Ballad of Black Pain

                     To Jose Navarro Pardo.

When roosters await the dawn
their beaks and voices abide,
Soledad Montoya appears
on the darkened hillside.
She smells of horses, her colours
copper and bronze could borrow,
her breasts are dark ringing anvils
singing the song of sorrow.  
"Soledad, who are you seeking
in the night so lonely and sad?"
"I am seeking the one I've lost,
you cannot help me with that.
I came for what I came,
my darling, my life, my bread."
"Oh Soledad, my pain,
the sea would swallow a horse
that is seeking the waves.
The sea would swallow insane."
"Don't tell me about the sea,
the flowering deadly reefs.
My pain is growing roots
beneath the rusting old leaves."
"Soledad, what pain you carry!
What grievous pain you nurse!
Your teas are bitter lemons,
the juice of the bitter Earth."
"My pain I cannot bear.
Insane, I run around
from the gate to the house,
my braids are wiping the ground.
Black pain, how it invades
From dress to skin, how it cries!
Ay, my beautiful linen!
Ay, the poppies, my thighs!"
"Soledad, go and bathe your body,
this pain is your destroyer.
Bath in the raspberry water,
let go, Soledad Montoya!"
The river sings below,
makes lace with needles of pines,
and light creates a new crown
from the flowering pumpkin vines.
Oh pain! Oh gypsy pain!
Crystal clean and alone.
Oh anguish of hidden channels
and of the distant dawn.


8.. St. Michael (Granada)

        To Diego Buigas de Dalmau.

On the mountain, mountain, mountain,
you can see them in early hours,
their mules and shadows of mules
laden with sunflowers.

Their cool and shady eyes
are dimmed by the mighty night.
With the bend of the breeze
comes soft and salty light.

And the sky of white mules
shuts the mirroring eyes
giving the quiet light
its heart, its most valued prize.
And the water turns colder,
untouchable, wild fountain,
the water, clear, pristine,
on the mountain, mountain, mountain.

St. Michael, stands covered in lace,
in the alcove narrow and white,
showing his graceful thighs
that glow in the lantern light.

Domesticated Archangel,
in one of his dozen gests
betrays a pretended anger  
over feathers and nests.  
And in the stained glass
he sings three thousand nights,
fragrant with wild flowers,
blooming yellows and whites.

    
                *

The sea and the beach are chanting
a poem of balconies astral.
The moon is playing in reeds
and trying voices orchestral.
Beautiful girls are coming,
eating sunflower seeds,
wearing dark copper planets
as their earrings and beads.
Gentlemen tall and hansom
come with sad looking women
who past their better times
of nightingales and seamen.
And preaching to them appears
a weary spiritual healer,
blind, saffron, and poor
Bishop of old Manila.

                *

St Michael, a motionless figure,
in the alcove narrow and white,
his stony coat encrusted
with spangles sharp and bright.

St Michael, king of spheres,
uneven numbers and crowds,
in the arabesque splendor
of mirrors and piercing shouts.

 9.. Saint Raphael (Cordoba)

        
        To Juan Izquierdo Croselles.
 
                 I

Coaches come to the shore
where among the reeds,
polished by steady waves,
a nude Roman torso sits.
The Guadalquivir grabs the couches
and rolls them piece by piece
on its ripened mirror,
between the clouds and trees.
Yong boys weave fishnets and sing
unhappiness and fight
near the aging coaches
lost in the setting night.
But Cordoba doesn't tremble
with mystery and talk.
Although the shadows raised                                             
the architecture of smoke,
a marble foot, lean and chaste,
affirms its radiant chalk.  
Petals of darkened tin
are shaken in the clutches
Of pure breeze set to win                                                    
above the triumphal arches.
And while the bridge is busy
with the Neptune's brawl,
tobacco vendors escape                                                          
through the broken wall.
    
 
             II

One golden fish in the water,
knows how the Cordoba splits
into Cordoba of architecture                                                  
and soft Cordoba of green reeds.
Undressing on the shore,
impassive boys, smooth-faced,
apprentices of Tobias,
Merlins of thin waist,
ask ironic questions                                                            
and tease the fish too soon:
would you prefer wine
or jumps like a half-moon?
But the fish that gilds the water
and mourns the marble, solemn,                                  
teaches them the balance
of a lone column.

The archangel, part Arab,
with sequins dark and obscure
is seeking in the waves                                              
cradle, rumour and cure

One golden fish in the water.
two Cordobas of splendour.
Cordoba split by the stream,
celestial and tender.   


10.. Saint Gabriel (Sevilla)

        A.D. Agustin Vinuales.        
    
                  I

A hansom reed-like boy,
wide shoulders and thin waist,
with the skin night apples enjoy,
walks through the street, slow paced.
His nerves and blue veins sing
like a trembling hot-silver string.
His patent leather shoes
crush flowers as he moves on,
with a double rhythm, they use
a sad celestial song.
No palm-tree could ever be found
to equal him. Searching far,
no prince, nor emperor crowned,
nor brightly burning star.
And when in prayer and pain
he lowers his head, all feel
the night would look for a plain
where it needs to kneel.
The guitars show their force
to St Gabriel who is keeping
tamed the ghastly moths,
and willows of envy weeping.
Saint Gabby, the child cries
in his mother's womb as he grows,
remember prayers and eyes
of gypsies that gave you cloth.

                  II

Annunciation de los Reyes
dressed in rags and moonlit
opens the door to the star-rays
shining down the street.
The Archangel St Gabriel,
a lily in his smile,
Giralda's grandson and spell
is coming for a while.
Hidden crickets churn
in his embroidered vest.
The stars of the night turn
into bellflowers, blessed.
"St Gabriel I am here,
three nails of joy will fix
the jasmine of your cheer
on my burning cheeks".
"Annunciation, God bless you,
you will have a beautiful child,
beautiful as a few
flowers of wind when wild".
"Ay, St Gabriel, my delight,
dear Gabby, elation!
I dream that I could provide
for you a throne of carnations".
"Annunciation, be blessed,
dressed in rags and moonlit,
your child will have on his chest
a mole where three wounds meet".
"Ay, St Gabriel, my best,
dear Gabriel, shiny silk,
I am feeling my breasts
are swelling with warm milk".
"God bless you, Annunciation,
mother of many kings,
your eyes gleam with adoration
of the arid landscape that sings".

              *

The baby laughs in the womb,
Annunciation enjoys
three little almonds that bloom
and quiver in child's voice.

St Gabriel climbs through the air
on a ladder. He farewells,
while the stars give glare
and turn into immortelles.

11.. The capture of Antonito el Camborios
                
                                                    To Margarita Xirgu.

Antonio Torres Heredia
son and grandson of Camborios
went leisurely to Seville
to see the bullfighting warriors.
Hue of his dark skin
was that of green moon and ice.
black and silver curls
shined above his eyes.
On his way he found ripe lemons,
he cut them and as he strolled
he threw them into the water
until it turned into gold.
And the journey half over,
near elms that border a farm
Civil Guardsmen approached him
and grabbed him by the arm.

               *  
The day moves over the sea,
slowly, to rest and cool,
draped from its shoulder in red,
like a fighter, his back to the bull.
The olives are ripe and ready
for a Capricorn night. A fit,
and swift horseman, the breeze
leaps over the hills of lead.
Antonio Torres Heredia,
one of Camborio's lads
comes between the five
three-cornered Guardian's hats.
"Antonio, are you Camborio?
Then where is the blood that flows
like the five gushing fountains
made with five mortal blows.
You are a son of no one,
not one of true Camborios.
Those gypsies are lost, it's over,
gypsies proud and just.
Now all of their old knives
shiver beneath the dust."

            *    

At nine o'clock they put him
in a cell, to talk with his fate,
while the Civil Guardsmen
drank their lemonade.
And at nine o'clock that evening
his cell was locked with a bolt,
while the sky was glowing
like the croup of a colt.


12.. The Death of Tony Camborio
                    
                           A Jose Antonio Rubio Sacristan.

Over the Guadalquivir,
Float the voices of death,
enclosing the trembling voice
a manful carnation has.
He slashed their leather boots
with the tusks of a wild boar,
he leaped into the fight
like dolphins from water soar.
His necktie became crimson,
stained with enemy blood,
but their knives were four
and he had to go down, cut.
When the stars hurled their lances
into the flesh of the river,
and when young bulls were dreaming
of gillyflowers in fever,
over the Guadalquivir
the voices of death went screaming.

              *

Antonio Torres Heredia,
a tough-maned Camborio,
bronze in the green moonlight,
a voice of carnation, a warrior,
who has driven your life away
over the Guadalquivir?
"My four Heredia cousins,
sons of Benameji, drear.
Where others were immune,
they envied it in me.
My shoes coloured maroon,
my ivory medallions,
and my shiny dark skin,
of olive and of jasmine.
"Ay, Antonio Comborio,
a match for a queen and night sky,
remember the Virgin Mary,
its time for you to die!"
"Ay, Federico Garcia,
the Civil Guardsmen broke
my body, without fear,
as they snap a cornstalk."

                *

He gave three spates of blood,
with the image of dying men.
The living coin that never
will be minted again.
His head was placed on a pillow
by the bright seraphim.
Four angels, with faded blushes,
lighted candles for him.
And when his evil cousins
came home, they could not hear
voices of death that went silent
over the Guadalquivir.


13.. Dead from Love

            To Margarita Manso.

"What is it there shining
along the high hallways?"
"My son, eleven is striking,
Close the door as always."
"In my eyes, uninvited
four lights burn through the shades."
"It must be those people
polishing copper plates."

                *
A clove of silvery garlic,
the dying moon comes and scours
with its yellow hair
the silent yellow towers.
The night trembles and knocks
on the balcony doors,
chased by the thousand dogs
showing fangs and claws.
From the hallways come fine
smells of amber and wine.

               *

Winds flowing from the reeds
and ancient voices unite,
howling through the streets,
through the broken arch of midnight.
Oxen and roses sleep.
Four lights continue to scorch
in the screaming hallways
with the rage of St. George.
Sad women of the valley
brought blood of man, brought dry
little tranquil flowers,
and bitterness of young thigh.
Old women of the river
cried at the foot of the hill,
impassable minute, long hair
and names that bear ill.
The lime facades turned the night
into square white moans.
Gypsies and seraphim
played on accordions.
"Oh mother, when I will die
make sure everyone knows.
Send out blue telegrams
From the South to North."
Seven cries, seven bloods,
seven bold poppy blooms
smash the opaque mirrors
in the darkened rooms.
Filled with severed hands
and flowers in disarray,
the sea of curses resounded,
somewhere far away.
And the sky slammed its doors
to the sudden murmur of woods,
while the lights kept screaming
in the high hallways of feuds.

14.. Ballad of the Marked Man

                     To Emilio Aladren.

My solitude with no rest!
My small eyes with clear sight
and the large eyes of my horse
do not close at night
or look at how to compose
a dream of thirteen boats
receding, set aside.
But clean and hardy spots,
two trustful, watchful knights,
my eyes look towards the north
of cliffs and metallic hearts
where my veinless body
consults with the frozen cards.

                *
Dense oxen of water dunes
charge at skinny boys
bathing in the moons
of horns and raising noise.
On the singing anvils
hammers shout with force.
Insomnia of the rider,
insomnia of his horse.
    
              *
On the twenty-fifth of June
El Amargo was told:
"Cut your courtyard oleanders,
they are getting too old.
Paint a cross on your door
and next to it also write
your name, because young nettle
will soon grow from your side,
and needles of lime will settle
in your shoes to bite.
It will be at night, in darkness,
where oxen of water will stream
from the magnetic mountains,
to drink in the reeds and dream.
Ask for lights, learn the arts
of crossing hands on your chest.
Cold cliffs and metallic hearts
will teach you to freeze and rest.
Before two months gone in clouds
you will lie in your shrouds."
    
                *
A nebulous sward Santiago
swings hard and tries to dice
the sombre silence floating
in the arching skies.

                *
On the twenty-fifth of June
El Amargo opened his eyes,
on the twenty-fifth of August
he closed them, cold as ice.
Men were coming down
to see the man who died,
who threw across the wall
his solitude and his fight.
And the spotless white sheet,
that Roman influence holds,
gave balance to death
with its straightness of folds.


15.. Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard

                    To John Guerrero, the casual general of poetry.

Their horses are blind black
and black is the even tapping.
Glistening, inky capes
are riding the wind and flapping.
Their skulls were cast in lead,
they never cry and together
beat their heavy hearts
stitched from the lacquered leather.
Fuming, hunchbacked, nocturnal,
they carry behind shoulders
silent, sand-grained fear
that penetrates and smolders.
They do what they pleased. The stars,
fast burning and dazzling crystals,
fill their hollow heads
with the phantasmagoric pistols.

                  *

Oh dancing city of gypsies!
Coloured flags everywhere,
the yellowing moon and pumpkins,
cherry brandy to share.
Oh dancing city of gypsies!
Who can forget your flowers?
City of musk and sorrow,
city of cinnamon towers.

                 *

As the night was approaching
silencing crows and sparrows
gypsies at simple forges
shaped their sun-like arrows.
A badly wounded stallion
ran in the lane narrow,
knocking at doors and fences
in Jerez de la Frontera.
The naked wind turned the corner
trying to pick a fight
but finding no one there
in the silvery night.

                *

The Virgin and St Josef
lost their castanets
and hope that they will be found
by cheerful gypsy lads.
The Virgin in chocolate foil,
a shiny silvery blouse,
the necklace of almonds, teasing
the mayor's envious spouse.
St Josef is moving briskly
wrapped in his silky cape.
Behind them Pedro Domecq,
and sultans who rush and gape.
The moon is dreaming and stroking
two storks in ecstatic dances.
The flags and streamers take over
the roofs and inflamed fences.
Shadows plastic and sobbing
play with mirrors and terror.
Shadows and water, shadows
in Jerez de la Frontera.

                  *

Oh dancing city of gypsies,
full of laughter and cheer,
put out your lamps and smiles
The Civil Guard is so near.
Oh dancing city of gypsies,
your flowers, your cinnamon air!
Run, run from the ocean,
with no combs to hold your hair

                  *

They are coming in pairs
Into to laughter and cheers.
The murmur of guns and fury                
invades their bandoliers.
They are coming in pairs,
full of relentless fire.
Glistening spurs and buttons
exhibit what they desire.
    
                  *
The city, courageous city,
multiplies doors and places.
Forty pillaging Guardsmen
come with hatred and blazes.
Clocks paralysed and torpid
get ready for stone bruises.
Fancy bottles of brandy
hide, masquerade as juices.
Weathercocks screamed in terror,
in voices that fly and swell!
Slashed by the whistling sabers
the wind cried out and fell.
Rushing through half-lit alleys
old women on sleepy horses
escape with the jars of coins,
not counting their losses.
The sinister capes are climbing
steep streets and unleash satanic
shears of wicked whirlwinds,
hurling and cutting panic   

               *
As in Bethlehem gypsies
Gather, humble and mild.
Wounded, dim St Josef
covers a murdered child.
Stubborn, tireless rifles
rapture weeping guitars.
The Virgin cures the children
with saliva of stars.
But the Guard is advancing
sowing and spreading flame.
The naked imagination
trembles and burns in shame.
Moaning Rosa Camborio
sits at her open gate
holding her breasts, severed,
on a silvery plate.
Other girls run around
chasing each other's braids.
Roses of brisk explosions
blossom in dark arcades.
And when the tiles of roofs
emerged like the furrowed earth
the down lifted its shoulders
to witness fire and curse.

              *
Oh dancing city of gypsies!
The Civil Guard rides away
through a tunnel of silence
into the acrid day.

Oh dancing city of gypsies!
Who can forget your scent?
Who can ever forget you,
the play of the moon and sand.


Three Historic Ballads

16.. Martyrdom of St. Eulalia
            
                                 To Rafael Martinez Nadal.

                1

Panorama of Merida

A long-tailed horse on the street
runs, struck with a whip.
old soldiers away from Rome
play cards, lie down and sleep.
Minerva's mountain opens
its leafless arms and soaks
suspended waters that gild
the edges of rough rocks.
The night of reclining torsos
and stars with noses torn
wait for the dawn to crack
and tumble with their scorn.
Here and there, blood-stained
blasphemy comes up.
The moaning of blessed girl
breaks the crystal cup.
Hooks and knives are sharpened
on the turning wheel.
The bull of the roaring anvil
shows its untamed zeal.
And Merida adorns
itself with blackberry thorns.

                 2

The Martyrdom

A naked flower climbs
wet stairs on its quest.
The Consul asks for a tray
to put on Eulalia's breasts.
A stream of green veins blossoms
on her delicate throat.
Her body trembles in thorns
like an injured bird.
Her gentle hands, severed,
fall to the feet of her slayer,
hands, still able to join
a sweet, beheaded prayer.
In the crimson void
where her breasts begin,
live two miniature heavens  
and streams of milk are seen.
A thousand trees of blood
grow on her broken frame,
holding with liquid trunks
the knife of the spreading flame.
Centurions dressed in yellow,
with flesh browned by summer,
arrive in heaven, clanking
their silvery armour.
And with the fevered noise
soon appears, well dressed,
Consul carrying a tray
with Eulalia's breasts.

                3

Inferno and Glory

Snow in the fields lies still.
Bodies hang from the trees
Eulalia's carbon nakedness
smears the freezing breeze.
The night is tense and faint.
Eulalia hangs, bound.
The inkwells of the towns
spill their ink around.
Tailor's black mannequins
dance in the snowy fields.
Long lines of moaning
the suffering silence yields.
Broken snow reappears.
On the tree Eulalia, bright.
Squads of woodpeckers poke
sharp beaks into her side.

                  *

In the burned-out skies
the Shrine shines and screams
with nightingales in branches,
in the gorges and streams.
Stained glass sprays its colours.
Eulalia is a gleam
"Holy, Holy, Holy!"
sing Angels and Seraphim.         

17.. Joke About Don Pedro on a Horse (Ballad with Lagoons)
            
                            To Jean Cassou.

Don Pedro appeared
riding along the trail,
giving away a weird
wail!
Riding a nimble horse
without a break, he is
coming from the north
in search of bread and a kiss.
All the windows around
ask the wind about
his dark cries that resound
loud.

First Lagoon

Under the water
the words commune.
On top of the water
a round moon
is bathing.
The moon in the sky goes wild,
envious over nothing,
and on the bank
a child
says when he sees this scene:
"The Night, play your violin!"

Continued

Don Pedro has come
to a distant town,
a golden farm,
a forest, brown.
Is it Bethlehem? Flowers
of rosemary float in the wind.
Clouds and towers
are gleaming. Don Pedro leaned
to ride through a broken arch.
Two women with silver lamps
and a man with a crutch
came out to meet him.
But the poplars say "No."
The nightingales sing "Dream."


Second Lagoon

Under the water words
continue their accords.
Over the water's combed hair
is a circle of birds in the air.
And in the thicket of canes
witnesses know what remains.
Aimless and acute
dream of guitar wood.

Continued

An old man and two women
go down the level road
carrying lamps to the cemetery
and quietly praying god.
They found Don Pedro's horse
dead in the saffron flowers
when they looked across.
The voice of the afternoon
was bleating in the sky.
The Unicorn of void
broke his horn nearby.
A great and distant city
burned far away, meanwhile
an old man was crying
in pity.
To the north, a star, to the south
a sailor who's left his house.

Last Lagoon

Under the water words
remain concealed.
The voices are lost in silt.
On the cold flowers and rocks
Don Pedro, forgotten, ay,
plays with silly frogs.


18.. Thamar and Amnon

                To Alfonso Garcia Valdecasas.

The moon is crossing the sky
over the arid lands.
The rumbling of tigers and flames,
sawn by the summer, blends.
Above the ignorant roofs
the nerves of metal are beating.
A wind full of curls and wool
Came howling and bleating.
The earth is begging and praying,
covered with savage scars,
burnt by the sun and prickled
by cauterizing stars.

                   *
Thamar is asleep and dreaming,
singing birds in her throat,
accompanied by a moon-shaped
cittern and a joyful thought.
Like a sharp star of a palm
her nakedness under eaves.
He belly begs for the snowflakes
that air, when frozen, weaves.
Thamar is dreaming and singing
about the things she loves.
Around her feet sit frozen
five gentle, platinum doves.
Amnon, slender and hardy
watched her from the tower,
naked, his groins foaming,
curl-bearded, vibrating power.
His body, illuminated,
stretched on the naked terrace
challenged the whistling murmur
of trembling just-struck arrows.
And in the moon, low and round,
full of magical glister
Amnon saw and desired
the arching breasts of his sister.
   
                   *
At half past three in the morning
he went to bed in despair,
letting whole room to suffer
his rigid and piercing stare.
The dawn came to bury
the village in sand, to dry
the transitory roses
and dahlias in the sky.
Lymph of the well keeps silence
in the delicate jars.
A cobra, uncoiled, sings
its prayer to dying stars.
Amnon is moaning feebly
on sheets chilling and fresh
while the ivy of shiver
entangles his burning flesh.
Thamar quietly enters
the silence of the room,
colour of veins and Danube,
darkened by signs of doom.
"Thamar, burn my eyes, Thamar,
your dawn, your stare invades.
My blood is colouring threads
weaved into your braids."
"Leave me in peace, my brother,
your kisses are thorny storms,
the wasps that play the flutes
of raving, and swelling swarms."
"Thamar, from your rising breasts
two shiny fish swim close,
and from your fingers comes
an ovary of a rose."  

                  *

One hundred royal horses
whinnied in the yard.
Sunlight cubes bent vines,
pressing deep and hard.
He grabbed her by the hair
tearing fine sateen,
drawing lukewarm corals
on her fair skin.
 
                   *

Oh, what shouts were heard!
Oh, what terrible threats!
How many knives were shining,
turning tunics to shreds!
On stairways, lamenting
slaves move their thighs,
tireless copper pistons,
beneath the halted skies.
Virgin gypsies gather
around Thamar and cower,
picking up the drops
of her martyred flower.
White cloth reddens
behind the bedroom doors.
Rumors of the sunshine
exchanged by vines and claws.

                  *
Amnon, the enraged violator
flees on a golden horse.
Useless arrows and darts
the Nubians send across.
And when the four clicking hooves
echoed and fallen mute
King David took a scissors
and cut the strings of his lute.