LAMENT FOR IGNACIO SANCHEZ MEJIAS
To my dear friend,
Encarnacion Lopez Julvez

1. The Goring and the Death

At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
A boy brought the white sheet
at five in the afternoon.
A basketful of lime in readiness
at five in the afternoon.
Beyond that, death and death alone
at five in the afternoon.

The wind carried off wisps of cotton
at five in the afternoon.
And oxide dispersed glass and nickel
at five in the afternoon.
Dove locked in struggle with leopard
at five in the afternoon.
A thigh with a horn of desolation
at five in the afternoon.
The bass strings began to throb
at five in the afternoon.
The bells of arsenic, the smoke
at five in the afternoon.
At street corners silence clustering
at five in the afternoon.
Only the bull with upbeat heart
at five in the afternoon.
When snow-cold sweat began to form
at five in the afternoon.
when iodine had overspread the ring
at five in the afternoon.
death laid eggs in the wound
at five in the afternoon.
At exactly five in the afternoon.

A coffin on wheels is the bed
at five in the afternoon.
Bones and flutes resound in his ear
at five in the afternoon.
The bull was bellowing in his face
at five in the afternoon.
Death pangs turned the room iridescent
at five in the afternoon.
In the distance gangrene on the way
at five in the afternoon.
Lily-trumpet in the verdant groin
at five in the afternoon.
When wounds burned with the heat of suns
at five in the afternoon.
and the throng burst through the windows
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
Horrifying five in the afternoon
the stroke of give on every clock.
The dark of five in the afternoon

Weeping,
I go down the street
Grotesque, without solution
With the sadness of Cyrano
And Quixote.

Redeeming
Infinite impossiblities
With the rhythm of the clock.

-Frederico Garcia Lorca