(mostly) first person poetry, prose & opinion
Ten sounds that make it impossible to forget that you’re in Madrid:
1. The neighbour beating eggs to make a tortilla española.
2. The squeak of the washing line pulley in the patio interior. Often closely followed by:
3. The sound of a clothes peg falling into the patio interior. (The only sound associated with the clothes that are dropped is the exclamation of the housewife who’s hanging them out.)
Continue reading “sounds of Madrid”
Well, it’s September and this hasn’t been updated for a whole month. I’ve obviously been affected by my years in Spain: Spaniards of all ages take their summer holidays seriously.
Most Spanish workers get twenty days vacaciones, and they usually take the whole period in July or August as four consecutive weeks at the beach or in the mountains, often with several generations of the family holidaying together.
Continue reading “bridges in Spain”
After a busy evening
listening to cicada orchestras
and dancing with
grasshoppers
through the weeds,
the cat comes home.
He sniffs the bowl of kibble
then looks up, looks
dissatisfied, as if to say,
“dried cat food’s
just
not
cricket.”
Strappy sandals;
at every step
my toes launch grasshoppers.
In tune with all the Harry Potter hype, I’ve been reading articles, blogs and opinions about the final book. One piece which caught my attention was: So, Does Harry Potter Live?, an article which has the sub head: “Giving away the secret at the end of the last book in Rowling’s series—whether downloaded or bought legally—betrays both author and audience.”
The writer, Weinstein, is a “Corporate Ethics Consultant”, whatever that might be. Sadly, I think he probably isn’t much of a reader or film-goer.
Lizard
trickles across concrete:
memory of water
Wind skitters leaves
across the yard. They crumble
to sand-coloured dust.
Honeysuckle drapes
overflowing wheelie bins:
summer-scented air.
Si has llegado aquí buscando un plano del metro, encontrarás algunos enlaces útiles aquí. – Añadido agosto 2008.
“Metro de Madrid se sale del mapa” dice el anuncio, y suena mucho mejor en castellano que en inglés. A mí me cuesta no interpretarlo como “los políticos se salen con la suya y el Metro de Madrid se ha perdido” pero en realidad es una referencia al nuevo diseño del plano del Metro. Después de tanta carrera para inaugurar el mayor número posible de estaciones antes de las elecciones, ahora han inaugurado un mapa nuevo para que quepan todas en la misma hoja.
Y, sinceramente, a mí no me gusta.
