O See My Little Red Shoes, Bright Bright, O Clap Your Hands For Me - What I Once Became And Now Still Am - Part-Songs 'y Tranzas' In Lunar Phases Poem by Warren Falcon

Y Tranzas = And Pigtails

for Beti Ramos, curandera, maestra, hermana

tambien para la compañera, Donna


'He fared better with the deceased.' - written by Deborah Solomon of American artist Joseph Cornell


1
(Carolina prelude - near-mountain death - midsummer '78)

serpent strikes the chest,
venom to heart an ill effect

a country ditch the arms of a young
man whose last name is the Spaniard's
moon, malas hierbas -1 a bed beneath

upon which to die

below

Moon's
face in daylight,
detailed, pocked
though clear,

a smile
I know to be
a last horizon


unreal piano then,
abuela's arthritic
fingers, chipped
keys, a boy in thrall
of both moon and
familiar hymns forever
out of tune

'ahora y en la hora de nuestra
muerte' -2

'now and at the hour of our death...'

2
(fase de recuperaccion -3 - Colombia, South America)

...seriously ill, Medellin -4,
a month there in park's pale
blue reading paler Federico -5
and a Colombian poet whose
statue daily glanced when
still in serpent's venom
after-trance after-drift in
and out recalling Cartagena's -6

statue of a pig, its bronzed
lullaby in metal transcribed
pleading

'humancitos, dar palmadas,
mientras tanto -7 hooves in
red shoe' twinkle for a lovely
girl with whom they may lead
in Gulf's -8 rhythms dance...

3
(Hermosita's song)

fetching fountain
evokes Medellin,

doloroso, -9

incantations'

feverish fountain
feverous me far
from serpent sea,

Una Muñeca a las doce
siempre -10 daily comes
to my bench of black
pumice, Purace's -11,
where I write these
lines thinner than
what I had become

'Muñeca sings to me,

buy my cherries please, dark rubies sweet,
tap your feet again, sing the rhymes again

to me of Puercocito's, Little Pig's,
shoes red, Its need also red to dance's
tread, to pledge, to trace with precision's
grace nearby Gulf's pacing crests where

dapper terns
chaste chase
puff chests,
dip beaks to
kiss/trace spray's
undulant lines
pale green
brine-burst
into shine…'

4
She says of me,

'Not goodbye.

Never that.


I dance you,

forevers Little Pig

an untidy breeze

waving its hat

of corded straw.

I will remember to

always polish its

metal shoes - their

espejositos -

mirrors, little

mirrors

for toes'

vincapervinca -

periwinkles -

so heels may still tap

and tap on and on

and on and on


so sings my

song's black

pumice stone


where once,

quick habit you,

you daily bought

my cherries sweet,

ruby dark and red,

a pig yourself, or

like unto, so hungry

you'd eat them


'before I am dead, '

you said.

5
Muñeca,

little Wrist,

you said

of me -

Always the moon,

you are, were,


will be, pale,

Sr. Luna, blancito -


Crossing her red

stained fingers,

delicate,

(red too her lips)


behind her skirt -

sing-songs swaying

from side to side


'I don't mean to hurt

your feelings, Mister,

but you are para

mi niñez, for my

childhood memory



for when I hold my own

child someday,

you will forever be

for me and she:


Sr. Mono Con Ojos Verde
Que Siempre Estan Llorando...

Mr. Monkey With Green Eyes
That Are Always Crying...'

**

footnotes:

-1 malas hierbas - Spanish for weeds

-2 - 'ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte' - Spanish, the last line of the Catholic prayer, The Rosary, prayed to Mother Mary: 'now and at the hour of our death'

-3 fase de recuperaccion - phase of recuperation

-4 Medellin, a city in Colombia, South America

-5 Federico - Spanish poet and international treasure, Federico Garcia Lorca

-6 - Cartagena, a coastal city in Colombia, South America

-7 - 'humancitos, dar palmadas, mientras tanto -
'little humans, clap, meanwhile...'

-8 Gulf's - Gulf of Mexico

-9 - doloroso - very sad; grieving much; full of sorrow

-10 'Muñeca a las doce siempre' - 'Doll/Little Doll always at noon'

-11 - Purace, an active volcano in Colombia, South America