Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Apologies to Lorca -------- Koon Woon

Apologies to Lorca


I am in a city without time
Where food and sex are squeezed out of tubes.

The three friends ascend the green balustrade
To view the changeless sea from the balcony,
Concluding with infinite sadness
That beneath the green, green waters, fathoms
Deep, lie early sunken Greek ships with corroding
Treasures.

I am in a house without a number,
Where food and sleep come at unpredictable hours.

Maria hides behind the purple curtains
As the three friends descend the balustrade,
Talking of white horses with black manes
And comparing the saddle to the mantle piece.

By and by came Lorca himself speaking sadly to his friends:
“Mocitoes, if I can, this house is your house,
And your horse is my horse,
But I am no longer I and my house is no longer my house.”

The three friends bid the old man adios
And vanished in the Andalusian air.
It is said that sadly from Maria’s green, green eyes,
Silver tears began to flow
As the moon climbs further with the night.

I am in a city without a name, galloping
On a horse from the high mountain pass,
heading toward the water, where the silvery streaks
In the moonlight tell of countless sorrows
In a note in a bottle with the script of the Chinese Empress
That no one can read.
Finding the bottle and leaving it remaining on the beach,
The three friends gallop now to another city,
Another city without time,
As the waves undulant, undulant roll in.
Beneath these fathoms of green, green water,
Lie sunken ships with useless treasures.


Koon Woon



2 comments:

  1. This representation of Lorca reminds me of Sartre's existentialism. The nausea of "waves undulant, undulant". I also noted Lorca's appropriation of the other's horse.
    Is this a comment on his work being derivative.
    There seems to be a similarity of Lorca to Beckett, "a city without time" and "Waiting for Godot". You might know I have no favorable
    view on existentialism. It seems to be a commentary on the existentialist movement as a whole. I may be completely off base but this is what I get out of this very fine poem.

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  2. Thank you, Don. This poem is based on Lorca's gypsy poem, "The Somnambular Ballad." A kind of dreamscape.

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