Mismatched Colours

Lament for a friend, who cannot escape Gadara...

Ho Messo Via

- - I put away a little bit of noise
so you say there's bedside in a mine
tonsils and six thousand watts.
I put away the hide and seek
I did not say the age
if you turn a momomento
I replay it because to me ... goes.

I put away some illusions
that sooner or later that's enough
I have put away two or three cartons
I know they are still there.
I put away a little bit of advice
say it is easier
I put them away because to err
are very good to me.
I'm doing a little place
I expect and who knows
that there was empty space there will be there.
I have put away quite a lot of things
but I do not ever explain why
I am not able to put yourself away

I put away a bit of thrashing
those signs can not be
that is not evil nor the blow
but unfortunately the bruise.
I have put away quite a few photos
that will take dust
both remorse no regrets
that grudges and why
I'm doing a little place
I expect and who knows
that there was empty space there will be there.
I have put away quite a lot of things
but I do not ever explain why
I am not able to put yourself away

In these shoes
and on this earth that rocks
swing swing swing
with the comfort of
a sky that stays there
I'm doing a little place
I expect and who knows
that there was empty space there will be there.
I have put away quite a lot of things
but I do not ever explain why
I am not able to put away
able to put away,
You will be able to put away.

Lament for the Toreador

His eyes did not close
when he saw the horns near,
but the terrible mothers
lifted their heads.
And across the ranches,
an air of secret voices rose,
shouting to celestial bulls,
herdsmen of pale mist.
There was no prince in Sevilla
who could compare to him,
nor sword like his sword
nor heart so true.
Like a river of lions
was his marvellous strength,
and like a marble torso
his firm drawn moderation.
The air of Andalusian Rome
gilded his head
where his smile was a spiked
of wit and intelligence.
What a great torero in the ring!
What a good peasant in the sierra!
How gentle with the sheaves!
How hard with the spurs!
How tender with the dew!
How dazzling the fiesta!
How tremendous with the final
banderillas of darkness!

But now he sleeps without end.
Now the moss and the grass
open with sure fingers
the flower of his skull.
And now his blood comes out singing;
singing along marshes and meadows,
slides on frozen horns,
faltering souls in the mist
stumbling over a thousand hoofs
like a long, dark, sad tongue,
to form a pool of agony
close to the starry Guadalquivir.
Oh, white wall of Spain!
Oh, black bull of sorrow!
Oh, hard blood of Ignacio!
Oh, nightingale of his veins!
No.
I will not see it!
No chalice can contain it,
no swallows can drink it,
no frost of light can cool it,
nor song nor deluge of white Lillie's,
no glass can cover it with silver.
No.
I will not see it!

Excerpt from Federico Garcia Lorca's, "Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias"

Adversity

Daughter of Jove, relentless Power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour
The Bad affright, afflict the Best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain
The Proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple Tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy Sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heav'nly Birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged Nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:
What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,
And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer Friend, the flatt'ring Foe;
By vain Prosperity received,
To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom in sable garb arrayed
Immersed in rapt'rous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid
With leaden eye, that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend:
Warm Charity, the gen'ral Friend,
With Justice, to herself severe,
And Pity dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy Suppliant's head,
Dread Goddess, lay thy chast'ning hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,
Not circled with the vengeful Band
(As by the Impious thou art seen),
With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.

Thy form benign, O Goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic Train be there
To soften, not to wound my heart.
The gen'rous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,
What others are, to feel, and know myself a Man.
-Thomas Gray (1716 – 1771)

The Perils of Posing for the Eyes of the Other

One man hath this ill, another that, and not one of all that the Sun beholdeth is happy in the strict truth of the word.

- Theognis of Megara (167-168)

Imagining Ophelia

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,
Th' expectation and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th' observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down!
Shakespeare, "Hamlet" (Act 3, scene 1, 150–154)

Staying Young!

Play and be young, my heart; there'll be other men soon, but I shall be dead and become dark earth.

- Theognis of Megara (877-878)

Atavism Revisted