from Poeta en Nueva York / Poet in New York –written between 1929 and 1930

1.

The fat lady steps forward,
root ripping wet tambourines;
the fat lady prepares
who pulls the dying octopus inside out.
The fat lady, the moon’s only enemy in this scene
ran naked through the streets and deserted tenements
and left songless infant skulls of pigeons in the corners,
and raised the furies of the century cross’d banquets,
and called out to the demon bread across sky-swept hills,
and filtered a yen for light in subterranean springs.
Burning, the burying grounds. Cemeteries burning. 
Nausea. Burying kitchens burning under the sand, 
last month’s dead pheasants and apples,
pushed down our throats by hand.

2.

Then arrived, rumor from the vomit jungle,
with the empty women, with children of hot wax, 
with fermented trees and indefatigable barkeeps
serving salt cocktails beneath massive harps strung with saliva.
There is no remedy my son! Vomit! No remedy at all.
It is not the retching of the soldier on the breasts of call girls,
nor the puking of the cats that polished off a frog at play.
It is the dead that scratch with hands and nails of clay 
under flint graves where clouds and desserts both rot.

3.

The fat lady bustled through the crowd leaving from the ships, 
taverns, and parks—vomit gently stirring its drums among
a smattering of young girls of the blood in supplication to the moon.
Then I sank lost into myself, asking why me?
The shuddering naked matin’s trembling for alcohol helps launch 
the face of incredible ships by the smoky wildflowers of the piers.
I am born flowing from waves where dawn doesn’t kiss the source,
I am a poet with two feet, no arms lost among a vomiting multitude,
and no enthused horse to cut the thick mosses from my temples.

4.

But the fat woman pushed through,
as the throng looked for pharmacies
to buy their tropical bitters and rum.
The flag hoisted, the first dogs emerged
the entire city crowded the railings of the dock.

Author: Federico García Lorca
Translator: Manny Grimaldi