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:You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs? |
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:and the poppy-petalled metaphysics? |
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:and the rain repeatedly spattering |
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:its words and drilling them full |
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:of apertures and birds? |
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:I'll tell you all the news. |
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:I lived in a suburb, |
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:a suburb of Madrid, with bells, |
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:and clocks, and trees. |
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:From there you could look out |
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:over Castille's dry face: |
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:a leather ocean. |
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:My house was called |
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:the house of flowers, because in every cranny |
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:geraniums burst: it was |
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:a good-looking house |
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:with its dogs and children. |
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:Remember, Raul? |
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:Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember |
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:from under the ground |
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:my balconies on which |
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:the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth? |
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:Brother, my brother! |
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:Everything |
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:loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises, |
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:pile-ups of palpitating bread, |
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:the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue |
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:like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake: |
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:oil flowed into spoons, |
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:a deep baying |
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:of feet and hands swelled in the streets, |
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:metres, litres, the sharp |
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:measure of life, |
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:stacked-up fish, |
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:the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which |
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:the weather vane falters, |
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:the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes, |
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:wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea. |
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:And one morning all that was burning, |
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:one morning the bonfires |
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:leapt out of the earth |
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:devouring human beings — |
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:and from then on fire, |
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:gunpowder from then on, |
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:and from then on blood. |
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:Bandits with planes and Moors, |
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:bandits with finger-rings and duchesses, |
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:bandits with black friars spattering blessings |
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:came through the sky to kill children |
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:and the blood of children ran through the streets |
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:without fuss, like children's blood. |
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:Jackals that the jackals would despise, |
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:stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out, |
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:vipers that the vipers would abominate! |
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:Face to face with you I have seen the blood |
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:of Spain tower like a tide |
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:to drown you in one wave |
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:of pride and knives! |
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:Treacherous |
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:generals: |
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:see my dead house, |
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:look at broken Spain: |
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:from every house burning metal flows |
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:instead of flowers, |
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:from every socket of Spain |
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:Spain emerges |
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:and from every dead child a rifle with eyes, |
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:and from every crime bullets are born |
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:which will one day find |
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:the bull's eye of your hearts. |
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:And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry |
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:speak of dreams and leaves |
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:and the great volcanoes of his native land? |
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:Come and see the blood in the streets. |
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:Come and see |
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:The blood in the streets. |
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:Come and see the blood |
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:In the streets! |
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:—I Explain A Few Things, ] |
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