Amor, Amor
(after Garcilaso de la Vega)Love offered me a cloth so fine and rich,
with folds so ample, I could not refuse
but sewed myself a habit, stitch by stitch.
I find the garment shrinks with daily use:
its generous measures pucker and draw tight,
I suffocate where once I’d room to spare;
I stretch and strain to free myself, I fight,
yet still the precious fabric will not tear.
Come, show me one who wants to cut these ties –
these homespun tapes we fashion for our lives
to bind ourselves to husbands or to wives –
and I will show you one who’s spinning lies.
Each wears the cloth he wove, though I confess
I wonder if mine’s shroud or wedding dress.
distorsions*
Glass
Seen through old sash windows, a crinkle of brickwork
and ripple of wrought iron remind me that glass is liquid:
cool and viscous, it creeps earthwards through the centuries.
This thought occurred to me when looking out at the buildings in the picture. Then, of course, I felt obliged to go and research whether glass really is liquid or whether that’s just an old wives’ tale. The idea is discussed at some length and technicality in this paper.
I think the conclusion is that, although glass can be considered a super-cooled liquid, the variations in thickness of old glass are nothing to do with the pull of gravity. Still, I was trying to write poetry not science, so I’m leaving it as it is and will blame any inaccuracy on my fallible narrator.
*oops: I really did spell it that way and publish it without checking. I’ll blame the fallible writer for that; and the fact that it’d be distorsión in Spanish.
the next big thing: “hope street”
For her own contribution, Karin talked about Mord in Switzerland, an anthology of crime stories from around Switzerland; you can read about it on her stories47277 blog in the post The Next Big Thing.
As part of the project, I, too, will invite five fellow-writers to write their own TNBT page and will link to them on this page below my own answers. As Karin put it: “It’s like a chain letter, only that no bad luck will come out of your not participating ;-)”
So, here are my answers about an up-coming poetry book:
Continue reading “the next big thing: “hope street””
kisses
As Valentine’s day approaches, the conversation turns to love poetry; revisiting an old poem, I found this fragment:
So many kisses left
on the station steps: kisses
scattered en la boca
del metro.
If the metro station in question were the one in the photo, I can only assume there was a tango playing in the background.
On a lingustic tangent, I really wish bus stops were underground so they also had a “boca”: then I could have called the post “besos & buses” and pondered the association between the Spanish besar and the English “buss”.
poems from the pueblo
Some of the short poems from this blog have been brought together with others in an eBook: Poems from the pueblo: Haiku & assorted fragments.
There are several formats available for download:
• FREE iPad-only version from the iBookStore. Watch the publisher’s video to find out more about this fully-enhanced ebook:
(The video has music, so you may want to check your volume control.)
Just read/watched/listened to your #PoemsFromThePueblo. What a little treasure box! And love the whole interactive thing. – Elizabeth Hopkinson, fantasy writer, sent via twitter from her Hidden Grove.
• Download the FREE ePub version direct from Tantamount. (This version includes embedded sound files which will only be accessible if your reader supports sound.)
• Or buy it from Amazon.
I’m hoping there will be more poems from the pueblo – both further collections of fragments and, eventually, a collection of the more substantial poems I have written while living in the Spanish hinterlands.
You’ll find full information about my books over on my website. Feedback and reviews are always appreciated.
don't confuse the narrator 