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Exhausted from 36 hours of reading Lorna Sage and George Walden, listening to The Bob Dylan Story and watching the Conservative Leadership Debate on TV, I spent the day watching the Australians bat, apart from a visit from my CPN. The sickening thud when Caddick's ball hit Langer's helmet was quite frightening but it didnt slow down the massacre. Then I read Trueblood's Machado again. I am getting too familiar with it and the words dont penetrate me as they did a couple of days ago. I hope I am fresh tomorrow morning then I will give it one last read and file it. I need my sleep tonight but intend to watch Varus and Arminius on TV in a hour in one of those history programmes dumbed down so it can be sold to the Americans. But first a little quote I like from Machado. Anathema to our postmoderns. 'Poetry is song and telling. A live story is sung when the melody is told.' It is better in the Spanish. Machado's last major poem was his poem for Lorca. I cant type it out so I will append my own. Written after a visit to Granada in 1988. I hope my brain is sharp tomorrow morning. The Moor's Sigh (for the Granada of Federico Garcia Lorca) Clear fountain, pure fountain, Fountain of the Cypress and the Oleander, The voices of the children rise to you. Elegant court, arcaded court, Court of the Myrtles and the Lions, The romance of the gypsies plays for you. We weep like women for what we couldn't save as men, City of the Almoravids and the Nasrids, City of Sacromonte and the Sierra Nevada. The Alhambra was heart of your kingdom, The red house on the road from Fuentevaqueros, Serenaded in your verdant greenery. For friendship --- I listen to these drums and these guitars, It is a long way from the concrete tinderbox of New York, A long way from Harlem and wizened Walt Whitman. It is the memory of the deep song of the South, Forever rumbling round the skirts of the Mediterranean, Waiting for its poets to throw off their airs and graces. Scrabble in the dust for your death Federico, When the lyric is done with then comes the tragedy, You were spared old age but not the silence. But you had not finished, you were done too soon, The Civil Guards took your life on the road from Granada, Ignorant envious men hate that which is different, special. Clear fountain, pure fountain, Fountain of the Cypress and the Oleander, The voices of the children rise to you. Good poet, honest poet, Poet of the light heart and the dark gloom, You are immortal in the songs of the gypsies. We weep like women for what we couldn't save as men... Douglas Clark, Bath, England mailto: [log in to unmask] Lynx: Poetry from Bath .......... http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html