La Alpujarra 1-3

[poliphilo]

La Alpujarra is the work in verse I'm proudest of. Its genesis was this. My sister brought pictures back from Spain- from Andalucia- and I wrote poems for them. I've posted individual poems from the sequence before but it is a sequence and there are echoes bouncing around. There have been stories in the paper these past few days about how  the Pope is beatifying a job lot of religious people who were shot by the Republicans and also how there's a project underway to dig up and properly commemorate the victims of Franco's firing squads- and I feel like I'm being prompted.

But Lorca still lies where he fell......

LA ALPUJARRA

 

1 SNAKE

 

Snake- we do not care for snake

Is not like us- is a very bad creature.

 

Says the book.

 

                             The book is miffed

At very strong snakes of bronze and copper,

Fat with electric, healing jizz,

Snakes that are god.

 

                             A coolness takes

The awning.

 

                   In the darkness donnas

And, fiddly-fiddle, a wireless set

That talks in  snake-speak. Beautiful hissings.

 

2 FIGS

 

The first night I dreamed about prisons.

I blame the sky. (It was like a sheet

Of white hot steel.) and the altitude...

 

But next day we were picking figs

Along the valley. And every village

Sent out its dogs as an honour guard.

 

3.GARDEN

Under the slope of tumbled stone,

Under the dusty, fiff-faff  trees,

A nook, a garden:

Its gate stands open,

Not as an invitation exactly

But as a careless act of grace

Here are medicinal

Herbs in pots

Under the shade of a walnut tree

And hung on a clothes-line out in the sun.

A pillowcase and a shift and a dress.

Comments

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

I particularly like GARDEN.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Garden is a fairly straight transcription of what was visible in one of my sister's photographs

my, my

[amritarosa.livejournal.com]

This poetry makes me swoon!
What a fine work- It ought to be in print & available for purchase.

I am pointing some friends here :)

Re: my, my

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much.