DUENDE
“All that has black sounds has duende.”
Federico García Lorca, Theory and Play of the Duende_
drank (was drinking)
a glass of red
ate
(was eating)
a bowl of red
which was even redder
sat next to
a strange-looking man
with the darkest
of messages
speaking German
with a moustache
that
said everything
gave me a pine cone, bade
me take
good care of it
in a way
that seemed possessed
at which point, upon receipt,
my nose caught
(or perhaps just imagined)
an odour between
that of orchid and
that of hyacinth
whereupon
he disappeared with a
Schwarzenegger-style
promise to
be back
and now
the very Earth itself
seemingly keen
on swallowing me
whispering like
some seductress, that
she
was a myriad planet
of so many styles
and forms
of death
and, if indeed I knew
what was good for me,
should write
them before I myself,
as might happen
any day now, die
convert
every
red taste remembered to
solid black
point taken, like you
seeing myself, if just for a flash,
for a moment,
dead snake
in my pocket facing
a firing squad
nothing ever found, Federico,
to confirm that fate
poems 2 die for 