"Madrid" Poem by John Liddy Translated into Spanish

Abstract

No map to distract my roving eye, I marveled at Chicharro's rooftops, an earthy provincialism in the city's canopy, for all of Spain dwells here in manner, speech and accent, food and music, a tribal presence in song and language, their unapologetic claims on what it means to be Spanish in Castile, a nationalism played out in football stadiums, the pride of one's place more strongly felt in the Capital's barrios where Cybele vies with Neptune and defeat for either side like a Viking falling on his sword, a mattress maker lying alone on a bed of stones. Where was the air for the frenzy of sparrows trapped in the belly of the bronze horse in the Plaza Mayor?, the bones of Cervantes in a convent on Lope de Vega, signifying another O'Donnell and Velazquez reputed to be under the asphalt? O King of small Squares, Napoleon's brother, help me to unravel the mystery of a calf's head dripping blood from under a murderer's coat, autos-de-fé in the plazas near convents full of saintly vials; below zero in my bones on knifegrinder street where Luis Candelas, the bandit, picked his prey and Calderon de la Barca's house Saved from destruction not far from where virginal Paloma is still revered by unexpectant women; where Galileo designed a statue and socialists gathered around marble tables in a bar off Sol to right the wrongs of the right who wrote their anthem downstairs in Café Leon now The James Joyce near my half-way house on Álcala where I listened to Van's lush trees swaying on Cypress Avenue, observed the Centre of Arab Learning with its paintings of boat people by Matug Aborawi, their quest for a better life at the bottom of the sea. Delicias was my model train station where Dr. Zhivago walked on crushed marble that felt like snow and the shocking red flags flew in Franco's Spain as I slumbered towards indecipherability and surrendered to Dali's gigantic dolman in the Plaza that cast a phallic joke on all who stopped to view his tribute to Gala and Newton's discovery - gifts from the artist to the mayor, along with Victor Hugo's walking stick, in memory of one who was unique. [...]there was more to take in And take in I did: a copper-coated olive tree and the metallic sculpted plates of your hymnal, symbols of your urbanized story, donde el presente es el pasado en el futuro siempre: a common door, a leaf from the lung that keeps your people breathing, a flower to brighten their day, gun, cable, nut and bolt, book, battery, mobile, the shell of prehistoric sea that covered the sum of what you are, your blush and pride beneath an abandoned umbrella in the rain, the gutters clogged with debris as we scurried to our next port of call in this metropolis.

John Liddy

John Liddy (1954) was born and educated in Ireland, took a degree with the University of Wales but has lived in Madrid since 1982, where he worked both as a librarian and teacher at the British Council. His long list of collections of poems include Boundaries (1974), The Angling Cot (1991), Song of the Empty Cage (1997), Wine and Hope (1999), Cast-a-Net (2003), The Well: New and Selected Poems (2007), Gleanings (2010) and, more recently, The Secret Heart of Things (2014). A book of stories for children, Cuentos cortos en inglés, was published in 2011 and is now on its sixth edition. He also founded and co-directed, along with Jim Burke, the journal The Stony Thursday Book.

John Liddy is living proof that literature shies away from any kind of boundary. Irishborn but adopted into the heart of Spain, the question of nationality in his poetry is imbued with its purest traditional and historical senses; that is, the merging together of human and land and the healthiness of an unoffending political discourse. His pioneering bi-national poetry stands as a lucid example of cultural blending. Liddy harbours the essence of two countries and amasses the national riches of both, multiplying but never subduing. His words, in that they are written in one language or the other, are national but the underlying message is unequivocally universal.

Liddy, in the vein of many renowned Irish writers, left Ireland to live abroad, the better to understand the country, his poetry, himself and different realities such as the Spanish. From both a physical and psychological distance, Liddy meets his native country again through a poetry which evinces a rich life cycle, forged in the fires of self-exile and homecoming. Indeed, living in Spain does not separate Liddy from Ireland; quite the opposite, the fertility and vivacity of Ireland's present and the dramatic undertones of its past surface fearlessly in most of his best poetry.

Liddy's poetry does not imply distance; rather, it simulates a round trip with a suitcase full of new landscapes. He has ensconced himself, both personally and professionally, in Spain. He is an integral part of Spanish life and the other way around: poems such as "Madrid through the Eyes of a Stranger" or "The Knife Sharpener of Madrid" evidence this mutual relationship. His poetic voice, endowed with travelling qualities, does not only interconnect Ireland and Spain; Liddy's poetry timetravels and brings together past and history into the present of our lives. The present drinks avidly from memories of times past and the tragic history of Ireland, still latent in the hearts of the people-instead of undermining them-fills Liddy and the Irish with vital and creative energies. Liddy is a poet whose commitment to past and present realities emanates empathy towards friends, children, strangers and people who suffer or are undergoing painful circumstances, as the last lines of "Blues piece" show: "But, Sheila, remember this:/We are all uneasy/ In our skin".

His commitment also extends to reconciliation, to burying ancient hatred, to prioritising peace. As an Irishman, he has been close to the divisions between Northern and Southern Ireland and the ceaseless troubles in Ulster; one of his poems, "The Bodhrán and the Lambeg drum" invokes the good friend from the North so that both of them can drum together to an equal symphony. This poem means the convergence of history and present, symbol and reality: the Bodhrán is a typical Irish drum and John, through this poem-song- or, rather, a song whose lyric is the poem itself-invites the other northern Irishman to bring along his Lambeg drum, a bulky drum that the Northern Irish play, sometimes threateningly, at the Orangist parades in Portadown: "Ven a tocar conmigo on the common kitchen ground, en el terreno común de la cocinď. The poet asks them to drink a toast to King Billy and Brian Boru, that is, two symbols of the two Irelands; moreover, the chorus of the poem-song features the colour green (Catholic Ireland) and orange (Protestant Ireland). "The Last House in Connaught", a particularly moving poem, tells a profound and pure-hearted story which, as good stories do, flies uneasily towards the future.

We are honoured to present his exciting new poem, Madrid, previously unpublished, to the expanding community of scholars, students and readers of modern Irish writing.

Beatriz Villacañas

MADRID FRAGMENTS

para Miguel Ortega

"Fui sobre agua edificada, mis muros de fuego son." Alberto Corazón

No longer a stranger to your idiosyncrasies,

I set out on the shady side of summer and drank

horchata, that golden Arab girl of the chufa,

to discover the sum of your soul, the improbable

search at the marble counter of a Rastro bar

where a woman worse for wear nodded off

on a high stool, a high-heeled shoe dangling

from a night walker's foot, bare legs the objects

of lingering eyes before a sudden thud on the floor

jolted her awake and no prince rushed to the rescue

as she slowly shod herself and left the clientele

with a weary smile, to contemplate the residue.

So much residue of the past on display:

The history of a country encapsulated in statues.

Royal flushes of monarchic dynasties, Roman,

Greek busts, artists, philosophers and poets,

founding fathers of a squashed Republic, post Civil

War composers and doctors, discoverers of new

lands populated by natives, Irish, English, German

street names, early settlers in Jewish and Moorish

quarters, the conquered and the vanquished -

all accompanied me on my tentative wanderings

through Répide's trellised maze, making my way

with no map to halt my gaze.

No map to distract my roving eye, I marveled

at Chicharro's rooftops, an earthy provincialism

in the city's canopy, for all of Spain dwells here

in manner, speech and accent, food and music,

a tribal presence in song and language, their unapologetic

claims on what it means to be Spanish

in Castile, a nationalism played out in football

stadiums, the pride of one's place more strongly

felt in the Capital's barrios where Cybele vies

with Neptune and defeat for either side

like a Viking falling on his sword, a mattress

maker lying alone on a bed of stones.

Alone but not lonely, I walked your arteries

observing the ordinary and the phenomenal

in your distinctive pulse and underground smell -

necessary knowledge in a blind man's arsenal;

each footstep a revelation in the doorways

of bodegas, herbal shops and municipal markets

that sold fish caught off the coast of my childhood -

necessary connections to sustain me until I found

a rhythm to your noise and intricacies, became

accustomed but not indifferent to your cardboard

lairs in plazas and flyovers, your trickles of piss

snaking along the arches and parapets.

Within the arches of the seven standing gates

I beheld your walking maimed: the one-legged

cripple thin as a twig, the beggar dragging his body

along a footpath, the pickpocket on the 61 bus

and José Hierro less than eager enroute to La Princesa,

while Marcos Ana's loveless prison poem screamed

from behind the placards and Muelle's haversack

bulged with canisters for a derelict wall in need

of a mural as you readied yourself for protest

and all that perceptible sorrow in a young woman's

eyes after a quarrel, the inconsolable tear falling

to the ground, which only you can comprehend.

So much to decipher in the whisperings

from the Palacio Lináres: the meaning of bat ears,

cat whiskers and rabbit teeth above the bullet

ridden columns of the Puerta de Álcala - a rightof-way

for the migration of sheep, a severed head

of unrequited love on Soldier street, Hemingway

departing the Hotel Suecia and two slave-lions

pulling Cybele towards the Gran Vía where the bull

of my childhood was slain by Fortuna, the bullfighter's

own sword, as Pedro Chicote strolled the boulevard

with Ava, Lana and Rita for a nightcap in the Hilton

after a sunset of incandescent reflection.

In the all-seeing mirror I spied a banquet on its way

out of Llardy's to a conman in the city jail as I travelled

back in time from Serrano to Sol on a mule-tram,

dined with Paco the Dog in Café Fornos, ambled

with Galdós and Valle-Inclán past the tintinnabulation

of Goya's musical mannequins chiming for two

parliamentary lions made of melted-down cannons -

a gift from O'Donnell to a fledgling state, a sign

that read Nosce te ipsum which I carried in my head

like a hankering for other times that served to remind

me that I walked where others had been; kindred

spirits, sufi performers balancing on thin air.

Where was the air for the frenzy of sparrows

trapped in the belly of the bronze horse in the Plaza

Mayor?, the bones of Cervantes in a convent

on Lope de Vega, signifying another O'Donnell

and Velazquez reputed to be under the asphalt?

O King of small Squares, Napoleon's brother,

help me to unravel the mystery of a calf's head

dripping blood from under a murderer's coat,

autos-de-fé in the plazas near convents full

of saintly vials; below zero in my bones on knifegrinder

street where Luis Candelas, the bandit,

picked his prey and Calderon de la Barca's house

Saved from destruction not far from where virginal

Paloma is still revered by unexpectant women;

where Galileo designed a statue and socialists

gathered around marble tables in a bar off Sol

to right the wrongs of the right who wrote

their anthem downstairs in Café Leon

now The James Joyce near my half-way house

on Álcala where I listened to Van's lush trees

swaying on Cypress Avenue, observed

the Centre of Arab Learning with its paintings

of boat people by Matug Aborawi, their quest

for a better life at the bottom of the sea.

From six hundred meters above sea level,

I imagined the splash of surf, the cliff's

immaculate gull, all that I had left behind

for you: an itinerant teacher who flogged

verbs instead of trinkets in the vicinity

of Fleming's statue, savior of the gored,

where the hero is shouldered out the gate

by a delirious crowd, where the philanthropic

Duke received me for a penultima in Silma

before the glad key turned on home and sleep

beside the warmth of my love who greeted me

without grumble as I slipped into dream.

In my restless dreams, the Manzanares,

'where the frogs and mosquitoes', according

to Quevedo, 'die of thirst' but I was carried

in a downpour along the hill of the sliding

buttocks and halted in my tracks by the giant

from Estremadura who whispered a prayer

for me to the Black Virgin of Atocha train

station, scene of carnage, with its exotic garden

and dumping pond for turtles, the river, my lick

of Shannon, spoke to me of Alexander Dumas

and the Marques of Salamanca who could

have been his model for Montecristo.

Delicias was my model train station

where Dr. Zhivago walked on crushed marble

that felt like snow and the shocking red flags

flew in Franco's Spain as I slumbered towards

indecipherability and surrendered to Dali's

gigantic dolman in the Plaza that cast

a phallic joke on all who stopped to view

his tribute to Gala and Newton's discovery -

gifts from the artist to the mayor,

along with Victor Hugo's walking stick,

in memory of one who was unique.

But there was more to take in

And take in I did: a copper-coated olive tree

and the metallic sculpted plates of your hymnal,

symbols of your urbanized story, donde el presente

es el pasado en el futuro siempre: a common door,

a leaf from the lung that keeps your people

breathing, a flower to brighten their day,

gun, cable, nut and bolt, book, battery, mobile,

the shell of prehistoric sea that covered

the sum of what you are, your blush and pride

beneath an abandoned umbrella in the rain,

the gutters clogged with debris as we scurried

to our next port of call in this metropolis.

So many ports and havens to berth for awhile:

an inconspicuous garden of romance to mull

over family heirlooms of a lost age, paintings

by El Greco, Murillo, Ribera and Zurbarán

in Ceralbo's town house with its aguamanil

and transparent clock to keep the Marques

refreshed and consoled by his concept of time.

In another garden a shade under the oldest

tree in your demesne going back to 1633

and used by Napoleonic troops to make

an embrasure for a cannon from its branches,

a message carved by an anarchist.

Messages from the past in a Moorish

watchtower and fortification, visible today

but otherwise found underground to where

mediocrity seems content to consign

the unpalatable or replace with more grandiose

banalities for a measure of wheat in a wall -

si le grain ne meurt, a mall for a cinema, an ice

cream parlor for a house of ill repute! I jest,

of course, but I am no longer a stranger

and wear my scars with pride, especially

those of the mind, forever in my thoughts,

you are like fire and water on my spine.

Fire and water you will always be no matter

what devastation mammon inflicts, forever

to endure because of a sign that reads

REFUGEES WELCOME like Lady Liberty's

Give Me Your Poor, even if they ring hollow.

Fire and water will persist in your capacity

to absorb incompetent legislators, attempted

coups, the proliferation of the corrupt

and the intolerance of those who have yet

to learn the rhythms of your glorietas, paseos,

puentes and rondas, your mountain views,

the soul in those elements that gave life.

A life gifted to me here, lived amongst you

as an Irish-European, with your poets,

songsters, painters and travel writers,

the gamut of opinion, a neighbour's child

with an incurable illness, festivals and funerals,

life-blood of students who taught me to teach,

extended families and strangers who left

impressions, visitors who never overstayed,

the man who always bought three sardines,

the old lady who folded her paper napkin

as though it were linen, the knife point

of near death at the hole in the wall.

At my dying you will be in my bones,

your songs and your poems, along with those

of the western isle and will you read me then

as I go into your hard ground or a softer earth

in Donogmore or Tiorabhain, finitely quenched?

But enough of that morbidity while I can still

drink the Arab girl of the chufa, seek out

the residue to draw a smile from your soul,

cheer on my mattress makers, walk your arteries

at evening with my love to tease you and stop

at a tavern to raise a glass to an inexhaustible

generosity that is Madrid, Madrid, Madrid.

Conocedor ya de tus peculiaridades,

marché por donde cae la s ombra del estío y bebí

horchata, esa áurea niña árabe de la chufa,

para descubrir el todo de tu alma, una búsqueda

remota en la barra de mármol de un bar del Rastro

donde una mujer maltrecha daba cabezadas

en un taburete alto, zapato de tacón que pendía

de la transeúnte nocturna, sus piernas desnudas objeto

de obstinados ojos antes de que un repentino batacazo

la despertase de golpe, sin un príncipe que acudiese a su rescate,

mientras se calzaba parsimoniosa y abandonaba la clientela

con una sonrisa fatigosa, para contemplar los despojos.

Tanto despojo del pasado a plena vista:

la historia de un país encerrada en estatuas.

Escalera real de dinastías monárquicas, bustos

romanos y griegos, artistas, filósofos, poetas,

padres fundadores de una República aplastada, compositores

y doctores de posguerra, colonizadores de nuevas

tierras habitadas por indígenas, nombres de calles

irlandeses, ingleses, alemanes, los primeros colonos

de barriadas judías y moriscas, los conquistados y los derrotados -

me acompañaron todos en mis titubeantes expediciones

por el laberinto emparrado de Répide, abriéndome paso

sin un mapa que molestase a mi mirada.

Sin un mapa que distrajese a mi ojo errante, me dejé maravillar

por los tejados de Chicarro, la ruralidad más terrenal

en la bóveda de la ciudad, pues España entera dormita aquí

con sus costumbres, habla y acento, comida y música,

entes primitivos su canto y su lenguaje, sus argumentos

más altivos de lo que significa ser español

en Castilla, un nacionalismo que se agranda en estadios

de fútbol, el orgullo del lugar más sentido

en los barrios de la Capital donde Cibeles contiende

con Neptuno y ninguno alcanza la victoria,

como un vikingo que se empala en su espada, un fabricante

de colchones que yace solo en una cama de piedras.

Solo pero no solitario, anduve por tus arterias

observando lo ordinario y lo fenomenal

en ese singular pulso tuyo y olor subterráneo -

saberes necesarios en el arsenal de un hombre ciego;

cada paso una revelación a las puertas

de las bodegas, herbolarios y mercados municipales

donde se vende pescado capturado en la costa de mi niñez -

forzosas conexiones a las que agarrarme hasta que di

con un ritmo para tu ruido y entresijos y me acostumbré

aunque no sin indiferencia a tus refugios

de cartón en plazas y pasos a nivel, a tus arroyos de orina

que serpentean entre los arcos y parapetos.

Bajo los arcos de las siete puertas

fui testigo de tu lisiado paso: el tullido de una pierna

delgado como una rama, el mendigo que arrastra su cuerpo

por una acera, el carterista del autobús 61

y José Hierro, poco menos que ansioso, camino a La Princesa,

mientras el desolado poema de prisión de Marcos Ana gritaba

tras las pancartas y el macuto de Muelle

repleto de latas para una pared en ruinas pendiente

de un mural mientras te preparabas para las protestas

y toda esa pena patente en los ojos de una

joven tras una discusión, la lágrima desconsolada que empapa

el suelo y que solo tú puedes comprender.

Tanto que descifrar en los susurros del

Palacio de Linares, el significado de las orejas de murciélago,

bigotes de gato y dientes de conejo que coronan las columnas

tejidas a balas de la Puerta de Alcalá - preferencia

de paso para la trashumancia de ovejas, una cabeza decapitada

de amor no correspondido en calle del Soldado, Hemingway

dejando el Hotel Suecia y dos leones esclavizados

que arrastran a Cibeles hacia la Gran Vía, donde Fortuna

mató al toro de mi niñez, el propio estoque

del torero, mientras Pedro Chicote deambulaba por el bulevar

con Ava, Lana y Rita, de copas al Hilton

tras una puesta de sol de reflejos incandescentes.

En el espejo que todo lo ve vislumbré desde un banquete

en Lhardy hasta un estafador en la cárcel mientras viajé

al pasado, desde Serrano a Sol en carruaje,

cené con Paco el Perro en Café Fornos, amblé

con Galdós y Valle-Inclán, dejando atrás el tintineo

de los maniquís musicales de Goya que repican

para dos leones parlamentarios hechos de cañones fundidos -

el regalo de O'Donnell a un país en ciernes, una inscripción

que reza Nosce te ipsum, la cual viajó en mi cabeza

como un anhelo de tiempos pasados que sirvió para recordarme

que yo pisaba donde otros habían andado; almas

gemelas, artistas sufistas suspendidos en el fino aire.

¿Dónde andará el aire que enloquece a los gorriones

atrapados en la barriga del caballo de bronce de la Plaza

Mayor?, ¿ los huesos de Cervantes en un convento

en Lope de Vega lo mismo que otro O'Donnell

y Velázquez, enterrados, o eso dicen, bajo el asfalto?

Oh, Rey de las Plazas pequeñas, hermano de Napoleón,

ayúdame a desentrañar el misterio de la cabeza de un ternero

que gotea sangre bajo el abrigo del asesino,

autos de fé en las plazas de conventos, llenas

de viales sacros; mis huesos bajo cero en la calle

del afilador de cuchillos donde Luis Candelas, el bandido,

escogía entre sus presas y la casa de Calderón de la Barca

Salvada de la destrucción no muy lejos de donde pacientes

mujeres aun veneran a la virginal Paloma;

donde Galileo diseñó una estatua y los socialistas

se reunían en torno a mesas de mármol en un bar junto a Sol

para enderezar los errores de una derecha que ideó

su himno en la planta baja del Café León,

ahora el James Joyce, junto a mi bar a mitad de camino

en Alcalá, donde escuchaba a los frondosos árboles de Van

meciéndose en Cypress Avenue, y observaba

la Casa Árabe y las pinturas de los pescadores

de Matug Aborawi en su búsqueda

de una vida mejor en el fondo del mar.

A seiscientos metros sobre el nivel del mar,

me imaginé la marejada de las olas, la inmaculada

gaviota del acantilado, todo lo que había dejado atrás

por ti: un maestro ambulante que vendía

verbos en vez de dijes en las cercanías

de la estatua de Fleming, salvador de los corneados,

donde un gentío delirante lleva en hombros

al héroe hasta la puerta, donde el filantrópico

Duque me instó a una penúltima en Silma

antes de que la agradecida llave girase y de vuelta en casa

a dormir junto a la calidez de mi amor que me saludó

sin quejidos mientras me abandonaba al sueño.

En mis turbios sueños, el Manzanares,

'donde las ranas y mosquitos', dice

Quevedo, 'mueren de sed' pero un torrente

me arrastró por la colina de los traseros

resbaladizos y me paró los pies el gigante

de Extremadura, que por mi musitó una oración

a la Virgen Negra de la estación de tren de

Atocha, sitio de matanza, con su exótico jardín

y estanque para echar las tortugas, el río, mi trozito

de Shannon, me habló sobre Alexander Dumas

y el Marqués de Salamanca, quien perfectamente podría

haber sido su modelo para Montecristo.

Delicias fue mi estación de tren modelo,

donde el Dr. Zhivago pisó el resquebrajado mármol

de níveo tacto y las chocantes banderas rojas

se izaban en la España de Franco mientras en mi vigilia

viajé a lo indescifrable y en la Plaza me rendí

al descomunal dolmen de Dalí, que bromeaba

fálico con todo aquel que se paraba a ver

su tributo al descubrimiento de Gala y Newton -

agasajos de artista a alcalde,

además del bastón de Victor Hugo,

en recuerdo de uno que fue único.

Pero había más de lo que nutrirse

Y bien que me nutrí: un olivo bañado en cobre

y las placas de metal forjado de tus himnarios,

símbolos de tu urbanita existencia, donde el presente

es el pasado en el futuro siempre: una puerta cualquiera,

una hoja del pulmón que infunde aire

a tus gentes, una flor para esclarecer sus días,

pistola, cable, pernos y tuercas, libro, batería, móvil,

el cascarón del prehistórico mar que envolvió

la suma de lo que hoy eres, tus vergüenzas y orgullos

bajo un paraguas náufrago en el aguacero,

las alcantarillas a rebosar de desechos mientras escapábamos

a nuestra próxima parada en esta metrópolis.

Tantas paradas y refugios donde echar amarras un rato:

un ignoto jardín de los romances donde meditar

sobre legados familiares de tiempos inmemoriales, cuadros

de El Greco, Murillo, Ribera y Zurbarán

en el palacete de Ceralbo, con su aguamanil

y reloj transparente para que el Marqués esté

fresco y reconfortado por su idea de tiempo.

En otro jardín, la sombra bajo el más pretérito

de los árboles de tu heredad, ahí desde 1633

cuando las tropas Napoleónicas de sus ramas se sirvieron

para fabricar una tronera para cañones,

el mensaje que un anarquista cinceló.

Mensajes del pasado en una atalaya

y alcazabas moriscas, visibles hoy,

mas búscalas si no bajo tierra donde

la mediocridad se presta alegre a dar puerta

a lo desagradable, o a sustituirlo con trivialidades

más ostentosas, y todo por un kilo de trigo en la pared -

si le grain ne meurt, de cine a centro comercial, ¡de

casa de lonocinio a heladería! Bromeo,

por supuesto, pero soy conocedor ya

y me engalano orgulloso con mis cicatrices, y más

las de la mente, siempre en mis pensamientos,

eres fuego y agua en mi columna vertebral.

Fuego y agua siempre serás sin importar

la devastación que la ostentación inflige, soportable

por siempre gracias a un letrero que reza

REFUGEES WELCOME, como el Dadme Vuestros Pobres

de la señora Libertad, incluso aunque no valgan un duro.

El fuego y el agua persistirán en tu afán

de absorber legisladores ineptos, intentos

de golpes de estado, la fecundidad de lo corrupto

y la intransigencia de esos que no armonizan

aun con los ritmos de tus glorietas, paseos,

puentes y rondas, tus paisajes montañosos,

el alma en esos elementos que infundieron vida.

Una vida que aquí me das, viviendo entre ti

como un hiberno-europeo, junto a tus poetas,

cantarines, pintores y escritores de viajes,

el espectro de la opinión, el niño de un vecino

con su enfermedad incurable, festivales y funerales,

un elixir de estudiantes que me enseñaron a enseñar,

parientes lejanos y extraños que me dejaron

impresiones, visitas que no se apalancaban,

el hombre que siempre traía tres sardinas,

la anciana que doblaba la servilleta

como si fuese lino, la afilada hoja

de la muerte aledaña en un cajero automático.

A mi muerte yacerás en mis huesos,

tú y tus canciones y poemas, junto con aquellos

de la isla occidental, ¿y me leerás entonces

en mi camino a tu duro suelo, o quizás bajo una tierra más suave

en Donogmore o Tiorabhain, por fin en calma?

Pero basta ya de morbosidad mientras todavía puedo

beberme a la niña árabe de la chufa, rebuscar

en los despojos para arrancarle una sonrisa a tu alma,

despedirme de mis fabricantes de colchones, tus arterias

andar en la noche con mi amor provocador y hacer escala

en una taberna para brindar por la inagotable

generosidad que es Madrid, Madrid, Madrid.

Notes

The writing of this poem was greatly helped by my reading of Hidden Madrid. A Walking Guide (2007), by Mark and Peter Besas, and Las calles de Madrid (1995), by Pedro de Répide.

Beatriz Villacañas is a poet, essayist and literary critic. She is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Universidad Complutense, Madrid. She is a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and History of Toledo. She has translated English and Irish poets such as William Shakespeare, W.B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Michael Hartnett and Brendan Kennelly. She has written numerous articles on Irish Literature and her book Literatura irlandesa (2007) is the first complete study on Irish Literature in the Spanish language.

German Asensio Peral obtained his bachelor's degree at the University of Almería (Spain) with an honorary distinction. He earned his Master's Degree in English Studies at the University of Almería. He is currently working on his Ph.D. dissertation on Irish writer Flann O'Brien and his journalistic production. His latest publication is "Myles na gCopaleen's Cruiskeen Lawn and the Politics of Revival." Nordic Irish Studies (2016).

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Copyright (c) 2017 by John Liddy, Beatriz Villacañas and Germán Asensio Peral. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided that the author and journal are properly cited and no fee is charged for access.