Song of the rider
Córdoba.
Far away, and lonely.
Full moon, black pony,
olives against my saddle.
Though I know all the roadways
I’ll never get to Córdoba.
Through the breezes, through the valley,
red moon, black pony.
Death is looking at me
from the towers of Córdoba.
Ay, how long the road is!
Ay, my brave pony!
Ay, death is waiting for me,
before I get to Córdoba.
Córdoba.
Far away, and lonely.
Tune of first desire
In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A heart.
And in the ripe evening
I wanted to be a nightingale.
A nightingale.
(Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn into the color of love.)
In the vivid morning
I wanted to be myself.
A heart.
And at the evening's end
I wanted to be my voice.
A nightingale.
Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn into the color of love.
Sonnet of the sweet complaint
Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent,
the solitary rose of your breath,
places on my cheek at night.
I am afraid of being on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp or clay
for the worm of my despair.
If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my smothered pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,
never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged autumn.
Wounds of love
This light, this flame that devours,
this grey country that surrounds me,
this pain from a sole idea,
this anguish of the sky, earth and hour,
this lament of blood that now adorns
a lyre with no pulse, lubricious torch,
this weight of sea that breaks on me,
this scorpion that lives inside my breast,
are a garland of love, bed of the wounded,
where dreamlessly, I dream of your presence
among the ruins of my sunken breast.
And though I seek the summit of discretion
your heart grants me a valley stretched below,
with hemlock and passion of bitter wisdom.
It’s true
Ay, the pain it costs me
to love you as I love you!
For love of you, the air, it hurts,
and my heart,
and my hat, they hurt me.
Who would buy it from me,
this ribbon I am holding,
and this sadness of cotton,
white, for making handkerchiefs with?
Ay, the pain it costs me
to love you as I love you!
Song of the barren Orange tree
Woodcutter,
cut my shadow from me.
Free me from the torment
of seeing myself fruitless.
Why was I born among mirrors?
The daylight revolves around me
and the night copies me
in all its constellations.
I want to live without seeing myself.
I shall dream that husks
and insects are my birds
and my foliage.
Woodcutter,
cut my shadow from me.
Free me from the torment
of seeing myself fruitless.
The gypsy and the Wind
Playing her parchment moon
Precosia comes
along a watery path of laurels and crystals.
The starless silence, fleeing
from her rhythmic tambourine,
falls where the sea pounds and sings,
its night filled with silvery swarms.
High atop the mountain peaks
the sentinels are sleeping;
they guard the white towers
of the English consulate.
And the gypsies of the water
for their pleasure erect
little castles of conch shells
and twigs of green pine.
*
Playing her parchment moon
Precosia comes.
The wind sees her and rises,
the wind that never slumbers.
Naked Saint Christopher swells,
watching the girl, as he plays
with tongues of celestial bells
on an invisible bagpipe.
Child, let me lift your skirt
and have a look at you.
Open in my ancient fingers
the blue rose of your belly.
Precosia throws the tambourine
and runs away in terror.
The virile wind pursues her
with his hot sword.
The sea darkens and roars,
while the olive trees turn pale.
The flutes of darkness sound
and a muted gong of the snow.
Precosia, run, Precosia
Or the green wind will catch you!
Precosia, run, Precosia!
And look how fast he comes!
A satyr of low-born stars
with his long and glistening tongues.
*
Precosia, filled with fear,
now makes her way to that house
beyond the tall green pines
where the English consul lives.
Alarmed by the anguished cries,
three riflemen come running,
their black capes tightly drawn,
and berets down over their brow.
The Englishman gives the gypsy
a glass of tepid milk
and a shot of Dutch gin
which Precosia does not drink.
And while she tells them, weeping,
of her strange adventure,
the wind furiously bites
at the slate roof tiles.
The gypsy-nun
Silence of lime and myrtle.
Mallows in slenders grasses.
The nun embroiders wallflowers
on a straw-coloured cloth.
In the chandelier fly
seven prismatic birds.
The church grunts in the distance
like a bear belly upwards.
How she sews! With what grace!
On the straw-coloured cloth
she wants to embroider
the flowers of her fantasy.
What sunflowers! What magnolias
of sequins and ribbons!
What crocuses and moons
on the cloth over the altar!
Five grapefruits sweeten
in the nearby kitchen.
The five wounds of Christ
cut in Almería.
Through the eyes of the nun
two horsemen gallop.
A last quiet murmur
takes off her camisole.
And gazing at clouds and hills
in the strict distance,
her heart of sugar
and verbena is breaking.
Oh what a high plain
with twenty suns above it!
What standing rivers
her fantasy sees setting!
But she goes on with her flowers,
while standing in the breeze,
the light plays chess
high in the lattice-window.
The moon wakes
When the moon sails out
the bells fade into stillness
where emerge the pathways
that can’t be penetrated.
When the moon sails out
the water hides earth’s surface,
the heart feels like an island
in the infinite silence.
Nobody eats an orange
under the moon’s fullness.
It is correct to eat, then,
green and icy fruit.
When the moon sails out
with a hundred identical faces,
the coins made of silver
sob in your pocket.
Farewell
If I am dying,
leave the balcony open.
The child is eating an orange.
(From my balcony, I see him.)
The reaper is reaping the barley.
(From my balcony, I hear him.)
If I am dying,
leave the balcony open.
Romance de la Luna, Luna
The moon comes to the forge,
in her creamy-white petticoat.
The child stares, stares.
The child is staring at her.
In the breeze, stirred,
the moon stirs her arms
shows, pure, voluptuous,
her breasts of hard tin.
‘Away, moon, moon, moon.
If the gypsies come here,
they’ll take your heart for
necklaces and white rings.’
‘Child, let me dance now.
When the gypsies come here,
they’ll find you on the anvil,
with your little eyes closed.’
‘Away, moon, moon, moon,
because I hear their horses.’
‘Child, go, but do not tread
on my starched whiteness.’
The riders are coming nearer
beating on the plain, drumming.
Inside the forge, the child
has both his eyes closed.
Through the olive trees they come,
bronze, and dream, the gypsies,
their heads held upright,
their eyes half-open.
How the owl is calling.
Ay, it calls in the branches!
Through the sky goes the moon,
gripping a child’s fingers.
In the forge the gypsies
are shouting and weeping.
The breeze guards, guards.
The breeze guards it.
Romance of the sleepwalker
Green, as I love you, greenly.
Green the wind, and green the branches.
The dark ship on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
With her waist that’s made of shadow
dreaming on the high veranda,
green the flesh, and green the tresses,
with eyes of frozen silver.
Green, as I love you, greenly.
Beneath the moon of the gypsies
silent things are looking at her
things she cannot see.
Green, as I love you, greenly.
Great stars of white hoarfrost
come with the fish of shadow
opening the road of morning.
The fig tree’s rubbing on the dawn wind
with the rasping of its branches,
and the mountain cunning cat,
bristles with its sour agaves.
Who is coming? And from where...?
She waits on the high veranda,
green the flesh and green the tresses,
dreaming of the bitter ocean.
- 'Brother, friend, I want to barter
your house for my stallion,
sell my saddle for your mirror,
change my dagger for your blanket.
Brother mine, I come here bleeding
from the mountain pass of Cabra.’
- ‘If I could, my young friend,
then maybe we’d strike a bargain,
but I am no longer I,
nor is this house, of mine, mine.’
- ‘Brother, friend, I want to die now,
in the fitness of my own bed,
made of iron, if it can be,
with its sheets of finest cambric.
Can you see the wound I carry
from my throat to my heart?’
- ‘Three hundred red roses
your white shirt now carries.
Your blood stinks and oozes,
all around your scarlet sashes.
But I am no longer I,
nor is this house of mine, mine.’
- ‘Let me then, at least, climb up there,
up towards the high verandas.
Let me climb, let me climb there,
up towards the green verandas.
High verandas of the moonlight,
where I hear the sound of waters.’
Now they climb, the two companions,
up there to the high veranda,
letting fall a trail of blood drops,
letting fall a trail of tears.
On the morning rooftops,
trembled, the small tin lanterns.
A thousand tambourines of crystal
wounded the light of daybreak.
Green, as I love you, greenly.
Green the wind, and green the branches.
They climbed up, the two companions.
In the mouth, the dark breezes
left there a strange flavour,
of gall, and mint, and sweet basil.
- ‘Brother, friend! Where is she, tell me,
where is she, your bitter beauty?
How often, she waited for you!
How often, she would have waited,
cool the face, and dark the tresses,
on this green veranda!’
Over the cistern’s surface
the gypsy girl was rocking.
Green the bed is, green the tresses,
with eyes of frozen silver.
An ice-ray made of moonlight
holding her above the water.
How intimate the night became,
like a little, hidden plaza.
Drunken Civil Guards were beating,
beating, beating on the door frame.
Green, as I love you, greenly.
Green the wind, and green the branches.
The dark ship on the sea,
and the horse on the mountain.
Cabra is a municipality in the province of Córdoba (Andalucía)
Song
The girl with the lovely face,
goes, gathering olives.
The wind, that towering lover,
takes her by the waist.
Four riders go by
on Andalusian ponies,
in azure and emerald suits,
in long cloaks of shadow.
‘Come to Cordoba, sweetheart!’
The girl does not listen.
Three young bullfighters go by,
slim-waisted in suits of orange,
with swords of antique silver.
‘Come to Sevilla, sweetheart!’
The girl does not listen.
When the twilight purples,
with the daylight’s dying,
a young man goes by, holding
roses, and myrtle of moonlight.
‘Come to Granada, my sweetheart!’
But the girl does not listen.
The girl, with the lovely face,
goes on gathering olives,
while the wind’s grey arms
are embracing her waist.
The unfaithful Wife
So I took her to the river
thinking she was a maiden,
but it seems she had a husband.
It was the night of Saint James,
and it almost was a duty.
The lamps went out,
the crickets lit up.
By the last street corners
I touched her sleeping breasts,
and they suddenly blossomed
like hyacinth petals.
The starch
of her underskirt crackled
in my ears like silk fragments
ripped apart by ten daggers.
The tree crowns
free of silver-light are larger,
and a horizon of dogs, howls
far away from the river.
Past the hawthorns,
the reeds, and the brambles.
Below her dome of hair
I made a hole in the sand.
I took off my tie.
She took of her dress.
I my belt with my revolver.
She four bodices.
Creamy tuberoses or shells
are not as smooth as her skin was
and the crystals in the moonlight
were shining brilliantly.
Her thighs slipped from me
like fish that are startled,
one half full of fire,
one half full of coldness.
That night I galloped
on the best of roadways,
on a mare of nacre,
without stirrups, without bridle.
As a man I cannot tell you
the things she said to me.
The light of understanding
has made me discreet.
Smeared with sand and kisses,
I took her away from the river.
The blades of the lilies
were fighting with the air.
I behaved as what I am,
as a true gypsy.
I gave her a big sewing basket
with straw-coloured satin.
I did not want to love her,
for although she had a husband,
she told me she was a maiden
when I took her to the river.
Gacela of unexpected love
No one understood the perfume
of the shadow magnolia of your belly.
No one knew you crushed completely
a human bird of love between your teeth.
There slept a thousand little persian horses
in the moonlight plaza of your forehead,
while, for four nights, I embraced there
your waist, the enemy of snowfall.
Between the plaster and the jasmines,
your gaze was a pale branch, seeding.
I tried to give you, in my breastbone,
the ivory letters that say ever.
Ever, ever: garden of my torture,
your body, flies from me forever,
the blood of your veins is in my mouth now,
already light-free for my death.
Casida of the rose
The rose was
not looking for the morning:
on its branch, almost immortal,
it looked for something other.
The rose was
not looking for wisdom, or for shadow:
the edge of flesh and dreaming,
it looked for something other.
The rose was
not looking for the rose, was
unmoving in the heavens:
it looked for something other.
Casida of the dark doves
Through the laurel branches
I saw two doves of darkness.
The one it was the sun,
the other one was the moon.
I said: ‘Little neighbours
where is my tombstone?’
‘In my tail-feathers,’ the sun said.
‘In my throat,’ said the moon.
And I who was out walking
with the earth wrapped round me,
saw two eagles made of white snow,
and a girl who was naked.
And the one was the other,
and the girl, she was neither.
I said: ‘Little eagles,
where is my tombstone?’
‘In my tail-feathers,’ the sun said.
‘In my throat,’ said the moon.
Through the branches of laurel,
I saw two doves, both naked.
And the one was the other,
and the two of them were neither.
O secret voice of hidden love
O secret voice of hidden love!
O bleating without wool! O wound!
O dry camelia, bitter needle!
O sea-less current, wall-less city!
O night immense with sharpened profile,
heavenly mountain, narrow valley!
O dog inside the heart, voice going,
endless silence, full-blown iris!
Let me be, hot voice of icebergs,
and do not ask me to vanish
in weeds, where sky and flesh are fruitless.
Leave my hard ivory skull forever,
have pity on me. Stop the torture!
O I am love, O I am nature!
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© Gaston D'Haese: 19-08-08.