Posts for June 24, 2023 (page 7)

blood (is) between beats
(blood) is ((first))
blood (is) working
(blood) is ((hard to push))
blood (is) inside
(blood) is ((ahead of time))

There once was a girl from Vancouver
whose French kiss was quite the maneuver. 
Although very young,
she’d grab hold of your tongue 
and then suck with the force of a Hoover!

Even the floats we ride—

turquoise, white, sunny calm.

But hidden among un-

blossomed perennials 

are frogs that bleat like sheep—

small frogs—

over-the-hill sheep.

Weekends, we would drive the dirt roads south of Tucson,
those old washed-out tracks drug dealers
and human coyotes would use to smuggle their products across the border,
down near Arivaca where it’s said people go to disappear,
picking wild sage from the hillsides for you to bring home 
and dry and bundle into smudge sticks
for your empowerment ceremonies,
burning the sage while you chanted the mantra 
that would unravel the bond tying us one to the other. 

I often wonder if you’re happier now —
I hope so, for the pain of that unweaving to have been worthwhile —
and about the strong magic you must have mastered 
that keeps me, after all these years, smoldering for you.

Today Savannah’s squares
are drizzled gray. On Drayton Street,
a man in house shoes and a raincoat 
shuffles toward the curb, waits for his dog 
to pee, and tells me 
in his thick Spanish accent, 
A good place to go is the Catholic church.
When I say that’s where we’re headed,
he nods his approval.
Take your time. Thirty,
forty minutes. You will love it.
I thank him and wonder, briefly,
as I dodge a puddle,
whether we look lost or if he is 
simply guiding us to reprieve 
from the rain. Maybe he fancies himself
some sort of evangelist to tourists — 
slightly disheveled, unassuming,
pointing us, in his way, toward God.

to a 4-year-old    sand singing
in a box      little bucket
& tiny shovel    someone to play
with past supper    sandbox morphs

to vast sahara        rapture multiplies
desert of knives       fingers
bleed      skin seared
by sunlight    hearts forget

sweet rough       sandbox
becomes memory       child’s tiny heart
seared & hemorrhaging      burgundy
waterfalls of blood       war the end

of advanced civilzation       snail
paced migration    rapture petitions
again, again     rapture’s invitation
to a 4-year-old        sand

singing        again, again

Jet engines roar high
piercing heaven and night sky –
Rolling thunder clap

i imagine you
lying in the grass, asleep.
wake up, son!
                                                 you don’t.

Old servants of my infancy pressing wine and fishing
with the doors of the bodegas rushing wide to the beach,
my fastest friends,
grinning faithful dogs,
gifted gardeners,
coachmen,
poor steersmen at port,
tired marching from today to the hour
to lift your feet anew into a new era of the world,
I deliver my greetings
and call you comrades.
Come with me, 
rise,
ancient and first guardians, the disappeared.
You hear not the voice of my grandfather,
nor the authority, nor the dominion.
Do you remember me?
Tell me.
Older now, much older now.
I am witness to thirty years of your servitude.
This is my voice. 
Yes.
Mine,
the one who calls to you.
Come.

And not to nag you to feed and water my canaries,
goldfinches, or budgies; 
not to rail at you that my prized stallion’s hooves are destroyed 
or that I’m telling my parents you neglected to pick me up 
at school in the afternoon.
Not anymore.

Come with me brothers.
Let us open,
open all the doors leading to the gardens,
to the rooms you swept, afraid to disturb my mother’s porcelain,
to a barrel of wine you personally pressed,
stepping back to the lost orchard gates,
where dark horses are stabled to change your fortune.
All is open, all is open, sit yourselves down.
Rest.

Good morning!
Your very children,
your blood,
have made at last a ringing bell this hour that the world
will change owners.

Author:  Rafael Alberti
Translator: Manny Grimaldi