Notes From Andalusia - a poem by Chris Zachariou

Lorca

The Narrator:

In Alfacar,
the guns are resting under
the shade of a cypress tree.

The poet is dead.
Breathless in an empty coffin
he laments Ignacio.

At five in the afternoon,
two twisted ravens
daughters of a lurid moon
took his Ignacio away.

The crowds mourn the hero
but who will mourn the bard?
Will anyone give his poems shelter?

Cordoba will give his poems shelter,
echo the Andalusian valleys.

The moon tired of Granada,
its crowds, their laments and tears,
now sails for Cordoba.
She climbs up to the sky, devouring
all the weeping voices below.

From his empty grave,
the bard begins to recite his poem:

The narrator disguised as the poet:

Once so long ago, when
lust was the same as love,
a Gypsy woman
took the devil for her lover.

To them, a girl was born.

By fifteen, her wild black curls,
her playful lips and fledgling breasts
were driving men insane.

When I saw the unsullied child
I was struck by madness.

Seven nuns clasped their shrivelled hands
and twelve obedient goblins found me guilty.
But I was inflamed by her purity
and the lust for sin she promised in her eyes.

Now I'm back in Cordoba
looking in her narrow-cobbled streets
for the girl with the wild black curls.

Gypsy rhythms, flamenco by the river
and there are five brothels and a church
on each and every corner.

Priests and whores and those asunder
all walking hand in hand
pay their dues to God and mammon.

The narrator disguised as don Quijote:

My good lady Dulcinea
leaning on the lamp post,
have you seen my girl
with the wild black curls?

She has slender limbs,
shy young breasts, and her
lips are made for sinning.

A whore disguised as Dulcinea:

My esteemed hidalgo don Quijote,
for a doubloon, I can be the shy young girl
but for two, I can even be her younger sister.'
And she grins a toothless smile. 

I take her to a cheap hotel room.
We heave, pant and scream all night and day
and the girl with the wild black curls, at last, is mine.
But the time for a doubloon is almost up,
her mask comes off and the curls fall off.

With a toothless grin, she takes the money.
then walks off looking for another lamp post.

The narrator disguised as the poet:

In the room next door, twice as cheap
at twice the cost, a weeping padre prays:

Forgive me, Lord,
since she was a child
I watched her from the pulpit.

I sinned each day in thought
and when alone, I sinned in deed.

Prostrated and spent
on the faded floor with fresh and old stains,
the padre begs the Lord's forgiveness.

The end of the poem.

The narrator continues…

The curtain comes down., thunderous applause.

The audience in an onanistic frenzy shout for more.

But the guns under the shade
of the cypress tree are on the move again;

they kill the Don;
they kill the girl;
they kill the padre;
they kill the applauding audience.

Then they kill each other
and everyone in the town is dead,
all drowned in a putrid heap
of torn words and broken hopes.

The bard in his empty grave
with a Delphic smile
and a flourish of his pen
scribbles down the final line:

"THE END"