Duende: After Lorca
                                   
Who wears the lion's head tossed
from the Jucar to the Guadalete?
from the Sil to the Pisuerga?
Colored ribbons still fly from
silver tips of pikes in Granada

Who wears the bull's head?  Flags
wave toward the Andalusian shore
They exemplify the ancient blood
cult & death at precisely 5 in the
afternoon is nothing to laugh about

Who wears Hemingway's head?  Barnaby
Conrad's ghost wanders Pamplona's
streets waiting for the bulls to run
The roots ring true through dusty
Andalusian streets

Who wears Lorca's duende like a
philosophic mask speaking deep in
the throat?  A construct?  A concept?
A gob spat out onto the cobble stone
street

The blue guitar player knows about
duende  He sits hunched over his
guitar his fingers slowly picking
out one more stale flamenco melody

It's mystery  It's power  It's a
feeling  It's a creative act  It's
Pamplona all over again mastering
angrily the running of the bulls

Descartes is a rotten orange floating
in Venice's canals  Lorca's angels
argue with Descartes' muse while Saint
Raphael fences with Saints Michael and
Gabriel

Lorca says Cervantes' mountebanks
palpitate in the shadows of Socrates'
stone statues  He climbs the staircase
like the nude descending and finally
discovers who it is who wears the
bull's head  Who it is who wears the
lion's head  He realizes it is
Hemingway who wears Lorca's duende
like a spent cube

Jim Watson-Gove

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