Falling Rockets

trans. by G. McClure

July 26, 1920
(Vega de Zujaira)

    On the sun-parched path
I’ve seen a fine lizard
(drop of a crocodile)
meditating.
In the green frock
of a devil’s priest,
his poise precise
and collar creased,
his semblance is the sorrow
of an old professor.
The marcid eyes
of the failed artist,
how they stare at the afternoon,
its lost heart!

    ”Is this your turn
through twilight, amigo?”
Use a cane, you are already
worn out, Don Lagarto,
and the village rascals
will give you a fright.
What will you find on the path,
short-sighted sage,
if the vacillating spirits
of the August afternoon
have splintered the horizon?

    Are you looking for blue alms
from a dying sky?
A penny from a star?
Or perhaps
you’re studying a book
by Lamartine, or you, sir, love
the plateresque whistling
of the birds?

    (You look at the western sun
and your eyes silver,
oh, dragon to the frogs!,
with a human sheen.
The oarless longboats
of ideas cross
the dark water
of your burned iris.)

    Maybe you’ve come looking
for a lovely lizardess,
green like the wheat
of May,
like the long locks
of sleeping fountains,
who spurned you, then
left your country?
Oh, dulcet idyl dashed
on the cool rushes!
But life! Damn!
You’ve found me sympathetic.
The argument, “I set myself against
the serpent,” triumphs
in yours, a Christian archbishop’s
great double chin.

    The sun has now dissolved
in the mountain’s cup
and flocks
cloud the road.
It’s time to leave,
leave the narrow path
and stop
meditating,
which will have its place,
the staring at the stars,
when they are eating you slowly,
the worms.

    Go back to your home
under the cricket village!
¡Buenas noches, amigo,
Don Lagarto!

    Now the field is free of people,
the mountains faded,
and the road empty.
Only, now and again,
a cuckoo sings in the shade
of the poplars.

trans. by G. McClure

July, 1920
(Fuente Vaqueros, Granada)

    Wind from the south.
Dusked, passionate,
you move over my flesh,
bringing me seed
of radiant
gazes, steeped
in orange blossoms.

    Making the moon blush
and tearful
the rapt poplars, but you’re here
too late!
Already I’ve scrolled up my story’s night
on the shelf!

    Without the wind,
listen to me!
Come round, my heart;
come round, my heart.

    Air from the north,
the wind’s white bear!
You move over my flesh
trembling with auroras
borealis,
with your cape of ghostly
captains,
laughing grandly
at Dante.
Oh polisher of stars!
But you’re here
too late.
My alma-armoire is moss-mantled
and I’ve lost the key.

    Without the wind,
listen to me!
Come round, my heart;
come round, my heart.

    Breezes, gnomes, and winds
of nowhere,
little flies on the rose
with petals like pyramids,
trade winds weaned
between the brusque trees,
flutes in a storm,
leave me!
It has rude chains,
my memory,
and the bird is caught
who traces with trills
the afternoon.

    The things that have gone will never return,
the whole world knows it,
and in the bright crowd of the winds
it’s hopeless to complain.
Isn’t that so, black poplar, teacher of the breeze?
It’s hopeless to complain.

    Without the wind,
listen to me!
Come round, my heart;
come round, my heart.

I ride, Night Train, down Lankershim,
black boots and leather, and
shooting Knob Creek with riders
telling history in pictures
etched permanent on proven arms.
But there is a history I keep of you,
of what you’ve done to me in those dark rooms,
with liquor in a glass, and liquid changes
spilling out a front door, filling
for a moment the street with your loud
cut-time easy laugh that sounds, God
exactly like her, exactly like another round,
exactly like possibly tonight,
you know, whatever I want, or
whatever you want.

In your own sweet way you improvise
inside me from outside, with hands and fingers
pressing on strings, lips pressing, shaping,
playing my favorite things, valves clatter,
making air a messenger that sings.
I was yours then, I am now, tonight,
in any La Ve Lee or Blue Note,
you take me any way you want, slow, down,
cut, in a minor key, or any two five
one giant step cycle, roaring down Sunset
up at dawn, hours since the last shot,
an hour since the last fuck you but you’re
still in my head and that’s the history
you make in me, etched in dreams an endless
solo break that has changed the way I everything.