spain – Page 38 – don't confuse the narrator

half found

First of all a picture of a spray of lilac. Because it’s April and it’s about time there were lilacs.

And now some talk of poetry. Because it’s April and even if I’m not managing a poem a day, I am trying to focus a bit more than I sometimes do.

I posted a ‘found poem’ in Spanish a few days ago (yesterday’s poem) along with an unsatisfactory translation into English. In fact the bus station notice about ‘security recommendations’ that the text was taken from used to be much longer and much more detailed. It had caught my attention in the past and I found an old copy of the complete version in my notebook.

This time I have taken more liberties with the ‘translation’, although none of the ideas in the poem are entirely mine: they all come from the Spanish original.
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seeing for yourself

As I’ve said before on the blog (of pigs and poetry), I’ve had in mind for years now to write a poem about la matanza, but have never actually witnessed a pig slaughter. I’d just about psyched myself up to do so this year, but when the time came, the neighbour and his helpers only hobbled the pigs with ropes and then drove them away squealing.

Even this tile – given me recently by a fellow poet who hoped, I think, that it would inspire me to finish the piece I took in to the writers’ group for commentary back in December – isn’t a lot of help as it doesn’t seem to show the actual killing.

I was reminded of the fact I was prepared to witness a slaughter in order to be able to write about it when I was reading during my coffee break this morning.
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yesterday’s poem

I was thinking about poetry yesterday, even if I didn’t manage to find time to write anything on the blog about it. Indeed, I found something very like a poem at the bus station in Madrid – far busier on the Monday before Easter than the quiet small-town bus station in the photo.

I’m not sure if the concept of ‘found poem’ exists in Spanish, but if it does, I think this must count as one (line breaks have been tweaked, but the wording is as found):
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april

Laundry day

Spring blossoms scent the air;
the kitchen smells
of Marseilles soap and ironing.

April is not only the cruelest month, it’s also National Poetry Month. (Though I suppose that may depend on what nationality you are.)
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spring is sprung

Well, Google tells me that it’s the first day of spring today, although to be honest, the sky is more wintry than I’ve seen it in weeks, if not months. So the photos aren’t from today – and they aren’t all from my garden – although they were all taken during the last week: