Notes From Andalusia Poem by Chris Zachariou

In Alfacar
under the melancholy
shade of a cypress tree
the guns are resting.

The poet is dead.
Breathless in an empty coffin
he laments Ignacio.

At five in the afternoon
two twisted ravens
daughters of a lurid moon
took his soul away.

The crowds mourn the hero
but who will mourn the bard?

And will anyone give his poems shelter?

Cordoba will give his poems shelter
echo the Andalusian valleys.

The moon tires of Granada,
its crowds, their laments and tears
and now she sails for Cordoba.

She climbs to the sky wrapping
all the weeping voices in her darkness.

From his empty grave the bard begins to recite his poem.

'Once so long ago when
lust was the same as love
a Gypsy woman
took the devil for her lover.

To them a girl was born;

by fifteen her wild black curls
her playful lips and fledgling breasts
were driving men insane.

When I saw the unsullied child
I was struck by madness.

Seven nuns clasped their shrivelled hands
and twelve obedient goblins found me guilty.

But I was inflamed by her purity
and the lust for sin she promised in her eyes.
Now I'm back in Cordoba
looking in her narrow cobbled streets
for the girl with the wild black curls.

Gypsy rhythms are dancing on the river
and there are five brothels
and a church on every corner.

Priests and whores and those asunder
all walking hand in hand
pay their dues to God and mammon.

'My good lady Dulcinea
leaning on the lamp post,
have you seen my girl with the wild black curls?
She has slender limbs and shy young breasts
and she has lips made for sinning.'

'My esteemed hidalgo don Quijote
for a doubloon I can be the girl
and for two I can even be her younger sister.'

and she grins a toothless smile.

I take her to a cheap hotel room.
We heave and pant and scream all day
and the girl with the wild black curls at last is mine.

But the time for a doubloon is almost up.
Her mask comes off and the curls fall off.

With her toothless grin she takes the money
then walks into the night looking for a lamp post.

In the room next door, twice as cheap
at twice the cost, the padre weeps.

'Forgive me Lord.
Since she was a child
I watched her from the pulpit
and I sinned in thought
and when alone
I sinned and sinned in deed.'

Aroused beyond all measure
he brings the scourge down
until drained of his pious lust
the padre collapses on his knees.

Prostrated and spent
on the faded marble floor
with fresh and old stains
he begs the Lord's forgiveness.'

THE END
The curtain comes down.
Thunderous applause.


The audience in onanistic frenzy shout for more.

But the guns
under the melancholy
shade of the cypress tree
are on the move again;

they kill the Don;
they kill the girl;

they kill the padre;
they kill the applauding audience.

Then they kill each other
and everyone in the town is dead.

All drowned in a putrid heap of torn words and broken hopes.

The bard in his empty grave
with a Delphic smile
and a flourish of his pen
scribbles down the final line.


' THE END'