KNOT Magazine
Fall Issue 2022
Francesca Castaño
Apparitions
Sometimes I see the clouds
leaking blood like a cold
moon over a forest
at nightfall; the branches
of the trees are like
useless weapons stretched
over solitary heads;
so intoxicated by the ineffable
hostility of triumphant centuries
failing to remember the dishonour
of history and its dispersed tombs.
Gateway
Windy words slip out
of the mouth unravelling
the mystery of blurred visions
mingling like dancing snakes in a basket.
The rhythm of reality,
always faster than insomnia-
a feverish state in the long
dark twilight bringing back
memories with magisterial clarity
while deleting some other
important tiny shifts
too quickly frozen in the mind.
Strange dreams come later,
wide eyes looking through a window
into a hypnotic silhouette that waits
on the corner of a narrow street.
Relativity
Alone, tonight
after so many
singular things
occurred to me,
I listen to a touch
of foolishness
in my breast
chuckling laugh
in selfish abstraction
embraced in a satin robe
predestined to be ragged
by the impulse of time
and the darkness
of the road ahead
full of dilemmas
and further disturbances;
all is a dream, they say-
even the persistent running
of breath through the lungs-
a natural, primitive system
to edge the blackness
of expectant thoughts
asleep on a pillow
ready to go on to the next
impalpable blossom.
Francesca Castaño lives and works in Barcelona. She is a Spaniard who writes in
English. Her Master’s thesis was published by the University of Barcelona, in February
2010. Her poems have appeared in; Ygdrasil, A Journal of the Poetic Arts: Selected
Poems by Francesca Castaño, Unshod Quills, The Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Shot
Glass Journal, Thefirstcut, The Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Decades Review, The
Stolen Poem, Mad Swirl, The Odd Magazine, Pirene's Fountain and others.