"Apology to Lorca" --- poem by Koon Woon

Apologies to Lorca

I am in a city without time

while the three friends ascend the green balustrade

to view from the balcony the changeless sea.

I am in a house without a number

where food & sex are being squeezed out of tubes

and sleep and meals come at unpredictable hours,

as deep beneath the green water

lie, fathoms deep, sunken Greek ships full of

corroding treasures.

Maria hides behind the purple curtains when

the three friends descend the balustrade

talking of white horses with black manes,

comparing the saddle to the mantle piece.

By & by came Lorca himself,

speaking sadly to his friends:

“Mocitoes, if I am able, this house is your house,

and your horse is my horse,

but I am no longer I & my house is no longer my house.”

The three friends bid the old man adios

and vanished in the Andalusian air.

Sadly from Maria's green, green eyes,

silver tears begin to flow

when the moon climbs further with the night.

I am now in a city without name,

as the three friends gallop from the high mountain pass,

headng to the water, where silvery streaks

in the moonlight tell again of sorrows, where on the beach

there is a note in a bottle

with the script of the Chinese Empress no one can read.

Leaving the bottle on the sand,

the three friends gallop now to another city,

another city without time,

as the waves undulant, undulant roll in,

and beneath these fathoms of green, green water,

lie sunken ships with useless corroding treasures.

Koon Woon

January 12, 2017