Tag Archives: Federico Garcia Lorca

a pretty piece of flesh, please

26 Sunday Jan 2025

Posted by in Kreyòl, Translation

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This is a scene from Federico Garcia Lorca’s 1933 surreal drama, Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding). Set in rural Spain, the story concerns a doomed love triangle swirling around the nameless Bride, Groom and Leonardo Felix, who once was in love with the Bride but is now married to another. Driving the tragedy is the Groom’s bitter Mother, who has lost her husband and older son to an ancient feud with the Felix family. It is during the wedding itself that the Bride unexpectedly flees with Leonardo, leaving the Groom with no choice but to follow them. The two men kill each other and the rest of the play deals with the fallout for all the female characters.

Lorca loved his psychedelic Romanticism and this play does not disappoint. During the chase scene all manner of bizarreness happens, from a trio of otherworldly lumberjacks to the Moon making a walk-on appearance. Perhaps the strangest is Death, who takes the appearance of a curvaceous pauper (though, except for some stage directions, she is only referred to as “The Beggar Woman” throughout). As the scene opens, two young women sit, spinning wool, while the Little Girl (who turns up in the play whenever a comedic line is needed) runs about being sassy. Soon Death shows up and asks, Yon bèl moso vyann, tanpri. [A pretty piece of flesh, please.]

LITTLE GIRL. Ale ale! [Go away!]
BEGGAR WOMAN. Poukisa? [Why?]
LITTLE GIRL. Paske w ap plenyen: ale. [Because you’re whining: go away.]
BEGGAR WOMAN. Mwen te kapab mande pou je ou! Yon bann zwazo swiv mwen: ou vle youn? [I could ask for your eyes! A flock of birds is following me: do you want one?]
LITTLE GIRL. Mwen vle ale lwen ou! [I want to get away from you!]
YOUNG WOMAN I. [To the Beggar Woman.] Pa koute l! [Don’t listen to her!]
YOUNG WOMAN II. Eske ou soti nan rivyè a? [Are you from the river?]
BEGGAR WOMAN. Se konsa mwen te vini. [That’s how I got here.]
YOUNG WOMAN I. [Timidly.] Èske mwen ka poze w yon kesyon? [Can I ask you a question?]
BEGGAR WOMAN. Mwen te wè yo; yo pral byento la: de torrent lapè finalman ant gwo wòch yo, de gason nan pye chwal la. Mouri nan bote nan mitan lannwit lan. [Pauses.] Mouri, wi, mouri. [I saw them; they will be there soon: two river torrents at peace at last between the rocks, two men trampled between the horse’s feet. Dying in the beauty of the night. Dying, yes, dying.]
LITTLE GIRL. Fèmen bouch, dam toutouni, fèmen bouch! [Shut up, naked lady, shut up!]
BEGGAR WOMAN. Flè ranpli twou je yo, ak dan yo se de ti ponyen nèj difisil. Yo tou de tonbe, pandan lamarye a te rive, abiye ak cheve tache san. Anba dra san tache yo pral retounen, pote sou zepòl bèl ti gason. Se konsa, pa gen anyen ankò ka fè. Li jis. Tout sa ki rete yo se flè an lò sou sab sal. [Flowers fill their eye sockets, and their teeth are two handfuls of hard snow. They both fall, as the bride arrives, dressed in blood-stained hair. Under the blood-stained sheets they will return, carried on the shoulders of a handsome boy. So there is nothing more to be done. It is fair. All that remains are golden flowers on the dirty sand.][Vanishes.]
YOUNG WOMAN I. Sal se sab la. [The sand is dirty.]
YOUNG WOMAN II. Sou flè an lò. [On the golden flower.]
LITTLE GIRL. Sou flè an lò a mò yo pote tounen soti nan kouran an. Brown se youn, mawon se lòt la. Ki rossinyol ki nan lonbraj vole ak fè jouda sou flè an lò! [Beneath the golden flower they carry them from the river. Dark-haired is one, dark-haired is the other. Let the shadow of the nightingale fly and call to the golden flower!]

grows

08 Wednesday May 2024

Posted by in Poetry, sonnet

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“La una era la otra/ y la muchacha era ninguna” ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

I am petty. Splintered bones, skirt of green

fire, the skulls of all my foes hung around

my neck. I am mean, ravenously mean:

a hog’s head worth. The ribs over my wound

are all bent outwards. That which was dwelling

within woke hungry. Decades go by. Greed?

A glint. A hint. It’s never gone. Growing

the way greed grows without logic or need,

until it wakes. Wakey-wakey, monster.

You mean, pretty cocksucker. Here’s my hog

sticking knife, pretty-pretty. Damnation

of queens. All that can curl closed my finger

opens. Grey greed blue hue greenish fog smog

kiss. Mist’s kiss of flesh. Wet smack of toxin.

][][

Notes.

The Garcia Lorca quote comes from a longer trippy poem, Casida de las Palomas Obscuras (Song of the Dark Doves) where the roots of this poem started, only to head off in a different direction by line 2. Inspiration can be a surreal beast, I suppose.

Por las ramas del laurel
van dos palomas oscuras.
La una era el sol,
la otra la luna.
«Vecinitas» les dije,
«¿dónde está mi sepultura?»
«En mi cola» dijo el sol.
“En mi garganta» dijo la luna.
Y yo que estaba caminando
con la tierra por la cintura
vi dos águilas de nieve
y una muchacha desnuda.
La una era la otra
y la muchacha era ninguna.
«Aguilitas» les dije,
«¿dónde está mi sepultura?»
«”En mi cola» dijo el sol.
«En mi garganta» dijo la luna.
Por las ramas del laurel
vi dos palomas desnudas.
La una era la otra
y las dos eran ninguna.

In the laurel tree’s branches
I saw two dark doves.
One was the Sun,
the other the Moon.
“Little neighbors,” I said,
“Where is my grave?”
“In my tail,” said the Sun.
“In my throat,” said the Moon.
And I, who was walking
with the earth round my waist,
saw two snow-white eagles
and a naked girl.
One was the other
and the girl was neither.
“Little eagles,” I said:
“Where is my grave?”
“In my tail,” said the Sun.
“In my throat,” said the Moon.
In the laurel tree branches
I saw two naked doves.
One was the other
and both were neither.

amor oscuro

15 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, sonnet

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[for Hart Crane]

I’ve had more than just ink in my mouth. Grail
tasting like brine when you let go — you freed

your hand then leaped over the tramp ship’s rail
to drown. You could’ve called me rent boy, greed,

nephew, hint of hope. I’d have given you
my youth and made a life out of rapture

and bare-backing. You didn’t want rescue,
though. You didn’t want to wait. I’ve never

loved the despair of urban sprawl enough
to call it epic — but you did, I’m told.

You saw, “amor oscuro,” as dead weight,
a curse. The void called. No amount of rough

sex would hold you back. I tried to hold
you — but no, you let go, you wouldn’t wait.

][][

NOTE:
Hart Crane (1899-1932) was a Modernist poet who wrote an epic-length ode to America called, The Bridge. He was also a chronic alcoholic, filled with homophobic self-hatred. While returning from Mexico, on the steamship Orizaba, he committed suicide by leaping off the deck. Dark love, or amor oscuro, is the term that the Spanish poet, Federico Garcia Lorca (1898–1936), called his homoerotic desires.

translating lorca

14 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in Poetry, Potawatomi, Spanish, Translation

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“VERDE, QUE TE QUIERO, VERDE.”
“Skebgezo, gmenwénmen, skebgezo.”
“Green, I want you, green.”
Potawatomi is an oral language meaning that it has only been until (relatively) recently that a dictionary using English has been made available to people like me who just want to learn the language because it sounds beautiful. To complicate things there are both Southern and Northern dialects that have their own vocabulary. I live in the north but my on-line language classes are from a southern band (Citizen Nation) who, logically, use southern terms. Today I am struggling over how to say green in Potawatomi in the context of the first line of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poem, Romance Sonambulo. “Verde, que te quiero, verde.” In Potawatomi the world is broken up into things that are animate (all that which is living, all which is spiritual, etc.) and inanimate (man-made things, etc.) The green that Lorca addresses (verde) embodies both hopeful and thwarted desire. I’ve always seen it as something otherworldly and alive. Animate green. One Potawatomi word-list I found on-line from Wisconsin says that green is, “eshkebok.” I liked that, since I could rhyme it with sleepwalk which plays nicely with the title of Lorca’s poem (Ballad of the Sleepwalker). However a different word list (this one from Oklahoma) says that green is, “skebgezo.” Perhaps it’s that regional difference I don’t really understand yet? Perhaps one is animate and the other not? I don’t know. The frustration of learning by oneself is that there is no one to correct my errors as I go along. Que te quiero (how I want you) is easier since I could find the actual phrase in Potawatomi in several sources. It is: “gmenwénmen.” I’m not at a place in my studies where I can keep translating the poem but one day I will. One day I will translate all of Lorca’s work and a brand new world will open up, just like that. I am endlessly excited to see a new world.

britches

09 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by in Poetry, sonnet

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“Millay-Lorca-Kerouac,” I announce.

Driving to Flint we play Fuck-Marry-Kill.

 

“Edna?” you doubt. “Look at this ass. I bounce

when I strut” — I show off my tight Goodwill

 

britches, crotch frayed — “and when I’m on all fours.”

I love your truck with its [Off-road Princess]

 

[NDN Grrlz, please] and [My Pussy Roars]

decals. “Edna loved queer boys. She’d hit this.”

 

“Federico?” “Love my bambino.” “Jack?” “Hate

Jack; the white crayon of art.” “A huge sack

 

of limp cocks?” “Yes, literature’s eight dollar

haircut.” You laughed. I like your laugh. Irate

 

raving aside, you’re a blessing: laid-back,

hep, steps beyond she and he, his and her.

Quote

quote unquote

20 Sunday Mar 2016

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Naturalmente queen la poesía vive un problema sexual, si el poema es de amor, o un problema cósmico, si el poema busca la batalla con los abismos.

Within poetry there naturally resides a sexual problem, whether the poem deals with love or a more universal issue, or whether the poem battles with the abyss.

— Federico Garcia Lorca