​

Thomas Praino

 

 

            ¡Ole´! Federico

     (A Lorca homage for K.S.)

 

 

Three men squint in the sun

opposite a line of five pitch hats

and shoulder slung, well-oiled, Mausers.

The five, unmuzzled minotaurs, in pitch helmets

a finger squeeze away from a cup

of red Rioja, a needed break between warrants,

tidy court records, and labyrinthine files.

 

The three, a bard, well dressed

in a suit of lights, compelled to stand

between two strangers, frantically clad,

shoelaces untied.

 

The hour bellows five

when the snare drum stops.

Pipe artisans of pitch, a wind ensemble

of action musicians with iron bolts

and iron breeches

and a percussionist of clay to calcite,

raise their silver-tuned instruments.

 

The poet stares beyond the barren terrain

to the green, fig trees

of a Cervantes Spain.​

On the downbeat, the lead rings loud.

Like water, the marked men fall,

laces untied.

A protean heart erupts

 

and flares high up, a starburst

of black butterflies.

Butterflies, blocking like a Greek chorus,

I see them circle, a flutter.

India ink wings, white dotted,

fly from garden to garden

between the sun and the shade

 

above the hemlock and the hangman-trees

at five every afternoon.

Black butterflies, ballads of bare feet

and untied shoes.