TWO POEMS FROM LORCA

(translated by Lloyd King)

HARLEM

They hate the bird’s shadow on a white and full flushed cheek

The struggle of light and wind in a snow-cold room

They hate the fleshless arrow, the predictable flutter

When it’s time to say goodbye

The careful control of the flush and the smile on the pulsing cheek.

They love the clean blue, a wondering empty-gaze, the liar moon,

The curving dance of water on beaches.

Their radiant lively flesh beats with forest lore as, sensually

They skate over the waters and down to the sand

Tasting the bitter sweet freshness of their millennial juice.

Into the crackling blue they go, a blue untouched

By worm or sluggish footprint, where the ostrich egg

Stands forever, and the dancing rain drops patter

Into a blue history, the blue of a night not afraid of the day

Where a naked wind blows, driving on the empty clouds

As if they were somnolent camels,

To a place where bodies dream in the sensual grass,

Where coral absorbs the desperation of their ink and the sleepers

Hide their profiles in the snail’s skein and on the dying embers

Dwells the ghost of the dance.