TRANSLATION OF 'SON DE NEGROS EN CUBA'
BY FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA

SON OF BLACK CUBA

When the full moon arrives
I'm off to Santiago de Cuba
I'm off to Santiago

in a carriage of black water
I'm off to Santiago
The palm-tree roofs will sing
I'm off to Santiago
When the palm tree wants to be a stork
I'm off to Santiago
And when the banana-tree wants to be a jellyfish
I'm off to Santiago

With the blonde head of Fonseca
I'm off to Santiago
And with Romeo and Juliet's rose
I'm off to Santiago
Oh, Cuba, rhythm of dried seeds!
Paper sea and silver coins
I'm off to Santiago

Oh, waist on fire and drop of wood!
I'm off to Santiago
Harp of living tree-trunks, alligator, tobacco flower!
I'm off to Santiago
I always said I'd go to Santiago
in a carriage of black water

I'm off to Santiago
Breeze and alcohol in the wheels
I'm off to Santiago
My coral in the deepest shadows
I'm off to Santiago
The drowned sea in the sand
I'm off to Santiago
White heat, dead fruit,
I'm off to Santiago
Oh, the bovine coolness of sugar cane!
Oh, Cuba! The sigh of the curve and the mud!
I'm off to Santiago

HOW THEY WHINE

You know that shit
that shit that moronic artists
spout

about
like how their 'art'
isn't about
providing answers
but asking questions

Well,
I vomit
into their
lonely little souls

I defecate inside their
rusty ego-stewed
minds

For in the
magic brew of
my words
you
will
I promise
I GUARANTEE!
find a thousand solutions

You will find
the answers
to all the mysteries
to all the paradoxes
to all the indefinable wonderings

You will
rise to the surface of
the intoxicating
stirring of my creations
and find yourself
speechless
from revelation
and
resolution

otherwise
I'd be wasting my time
and you'd be left dangling
in a sort of vapid
bourgeois nothingness
and we wouldn't want that

SOMEWHERE UNDER THE RAINBOW

Balthasar
stooped
spat out the
unsteady gaze
of everybody
who had smelt
his hate

I was cleaning the dung
from the stables
at the time
I knew nothing
of silly people
who could not create
a universe
in the blink
and flutter
of an overwhelming
undernourished
lonely
split-second

Gaspar
I beat him to
a fucking pulp.
But my cruelty was kindness!
He deserved everything I
served up
I was just struggling to find my
true self
and you know what?
I never did find it

Yeh, the wanker
just came into the stables
at the wrong time
and with the wrong attitude
even the flies
were outraged by his
stranded behaviour

and
yes, it was jealousy
that drove me.
and hypocrisy
that picked me up
it was isolation
that spurred my bones
and every blow I delivered
lived with me
forever

Melchior
sat by his camel and mocked
my antics
"You're a
miserable tosser"
he said
with a smirk

The lazy lizards
crawling out his ears
turned their
indolent eyes
in my direction

I didn't like the look
they gave me

NOW I REMEMBER WHO I AM

all golden bleat it was
like a heartbeat in secret
sending all those visions that
economics presenters
swat away in their
sweaty brain-washed
summaries

Yes, I was wallowing
in words again,
my swords were numerous.
Ahhh, the blade as it cuts,
the thrust,
the dizzy adventure
of lunging
by degrees

and then I cough up everything
the blaze
the flames
all the colours
all the thoughts
I'm sick of reading the thoughts
they're like awkward adventures
you'd rather forget

In spite of everything
the moon went out
the lamb
roared
the apocalypse was dissappointing
the dawn was crass
but the fire, the fire
could explode my mind!

the house that sat on top of the hill
was swaying as I began to make love
to the memory of
everything that had never really happened
and imagine my dismay
when your poison began to work
and all the flowers were
transformed into
a sort of trite torment

Today I caught the X9
and it was like hell
and it was like heaven
we laughed as we stared
down on everything

all golden bleat it was
like purified oxygen mixed
with some difficulty
into the hum of a bus
with a mysterious name

and we fly
we fly along
past me,
past you
because we're no longer here,
no, we don't for a minute
think anything will stay still
we just enjoy the company
of the wading birds
and the loving ghosts

CORRECTION

I wrote a poem in
my book of poems,
about fuck-arsed poets
who stick semi-colons
in the middle of their
tedious lines of twaddle

however
I was wrong
that's not what they do

I check out all
these modern shit poets
by reading idle snippets
of their bilge,
whilst browsing
in bookshops,
you remember them?

and
I have now observed
it ain't semi-colons
they bang around,
it's full stops. Like this

So,
I stand corrected
you stand corrected
we all stand corrected

I do wish
they'd stop doing it
though

DID SOMEONE REALLY WRITE THIS?

Trawling through
the swampy wastelands
of modern poetry
in some vain attempt to get
my 'stuff' about
I came across this:

"We prefer poems with these qualities:
image, subtlety and point of view;
a surface of worldly exactitude,
as well as a depth of semantic ambiguity;
and a voice that negotiates
with its body of predecessors."

Well, I'm fucking up for that!

Oh, body of Predecessors!
Sorry, I just kicked you in the nuts,
I didn't know who you were.
If I'd have known,
I would have, like,
semantically,
and ambiguously,
and showing a fucking fistful
of worldly exactitude,
not to mention using
real subtle imagery,
torn your heart out from your body
and thrown it to the dogs

How's that
for a point of view?

POEM FOR SOMEONE ASKING TO BE TAKEN OFF MY MAILING LIST

Your soul
stirring in the breeze

Your soul
swaying like a bucket of bile
on a cruel wind

Your soul
lilting,
trying to escape
the awkwardness
and the uncomfortable
conversations;
more english than you can
ever imagine

Your soul
disintegrating in
front of  our eyes

and you know what
I'm doing
..while all this is
going on?
Well, I'm waving...
y'know...
fond farewell,
all friendly like,
a dainty 'will not darken your
doorstep again'
look on my face

Here I am,
No, here I am.
Can't you see me?
Can't you discern me?
Come on!
I'm everywhere

YOU HAVE BEEN SIGNED OUT DUE TO INACTIVITY

Signed out
due to inactivity,
what a way to go

Hung out to dry,
slung down the basement,
lobbed up the attic,
kicked into the alleyway,
ditched in the canal,
downloaded into oblivion

Left to rot,
yes,
ROT!
and all because
I was inactive.
And all because
I did not,
I did not do anything

Cruel computer
screen,
carrier of hurtful messages,
harbinger
of cold, icy cold,
large, blue fonted
words of dismissal.

Staring upon your
present passive perfect
notification,
I do not feel stronger,
I do not feel like a rainbow,
I do not feel like a bud about to burst

Signed out
due to inactivity,
and there ain't nothing I can do about it,
except
sign back in again!

ARSEHOLE

Malingerer,
voider.
Whipper-snapping
proximity of
a human being

Jerkhead,
pissed off,
pointless, mouth-farting
lump of
uselessness

Everywhere person,
crap-faced,
non-thinking,
hole of desolation

Slithering,
withering
negation
of any semblance
of joy and
sincerity

Off you go,
go on, get out there,
into the world!
You've got lots of people's
lives to fuck up.
Why waste time
reading poetry?

FRENZIED

The previous 98
poems on this here blog
have been gathered into
an e-book thingy
called
'Selfish City will not fall'
available from
Kindle, Smashwords
and hopefully all the others
when I overcome
some teasing technical challenges

There's a vid
of me reading two poems
on youtube,
called, errr, 'Two poems'.
I'm out with my novel
A.N.D./O-R,
in a little while
and there's music stuff around

I hope you too,
dear fan,
you are also
living a useful life.
We all must try,
mustn't we?

The shit will inevitably
hit the fan.
Humiliation and
disappointment
will crunch our brittle bones.
Indifference and
failure
will lock us in their
unforgiving embrace

but if we don't do
anything,
who will?