they say lorca foresaw his death

“A thousand violins fit in the palm of my hand.”

- frederico garcia lorca

they say lorca foresaw his death,

that his friends carried him

around the college yard

in an empty casket,

dressed formally for the funeral.

later, when they arrived at the party,

and there was always a party,

he would rise out of that lovely wooden boat,

poems dancing from his glorious lips,

those lips glowing with histories and wine

and the whole of the inevitable lorca future,

that future spread out before him into the dusk,

wave after wave of ghosts and desert winds,

the hollowness of bird wings in flight,

the hollowness of blood on the sand,

of all the moonlight one could long for.

so, here, right now, i pray again, i pray

for a certain soft singing for that extravagant poet,

that lovely poet of olives and bull rings,

that poet of the burning south,

i pray even as the uniformed ones, the ones

with no faces, the ones with borrowed bodies,

with no families save those made of mud,

even as those fleshless soldiers level their rifles

and slam frederico across the border, naked and alone,

hurl him past dead eyes and sharp edges,

pitch him into the forever pleading night,

throw frederico into the grave that never ends.

so please let us go now to the hotel nearby,

to frederico's favorite bar there,

let us share his favorite cognac,

let us go this very afternoon

as the sun grows hot,

let us go there now and drink

and learn to wait,

learn to wait and wait

for the now very absent sound

of his once and always

ever beautiful

voice.