On a back street in Mexico City meal sellers tend their stalls,
dark faced men feed from ceramic bowls,
menus are simple in black-board and chalk
everything is flavoured with chilli and
huddled shoulders reveal little small-talk.
Street lamps throw more shadow than light
and gas leaking from somewhere
feeds the air with an acrid scent.
I stop for a bowl of chilli-beans,
beside me and one over at the bar
a young man with matted hair and
heavy eyes unwraps a stained cloth,
takes a shard from a broken bottle and
neatly incises a small vein in his wrist.
He lets the blood drip evenly into a saucer
beside him and in the other hand holds what seems
to be a quill made from an eagle feather or some large winged bird.
Dipping the quill in the gathering blood he begins to write
in a leather bound book
on tawn-coloured hand made paper.
I watch every move. No-one seems
to care or notice that he does this.
He writes on and on, scratches a word,
dips again - the blood flows more slowly;
what has gathered seems sufficient,
he spits in the saucer takes a shot of clear liquid (probably tequilla) and adds it to the mixture,
I assume this is to stop it coagulating.
My meal and appetite have gone cold watching this process.
When the blood-ink is all but used
he folds the book away, wraps his wrist in a stained cloth and
walks into the street of shadow and meal sellers steam.
The stall holder notices me and approaches:
“Si signor this is Miguel the poet of the people.
He is coming many times to write this way.”
He smiles at me. I pay for the unfinished meal and he says,
“The poetry for the people is in his veins amigo,
is this not so in your country, are you also having such a poet?”
I leave him. Return to my hotel room.
Take out portable type writer and clean white paper
And begin to write
in blood blacker than ink.
MChallis © 2015
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 6:02 AM UTC
On a back street in Mexico City meal sellers tend their stalls,
dark faced men feed from ceramic bowls,
menus are simple in black-board and chalk
everything is flavoured with chilli and
huddled shoulders reveal little small-talk.
Street lamps throw more shadow than light
and gas leaking from somewhere
feeds the air with an acrid scent.
I stop for a bowl of chilli-beans,
beside me and one over at the bar
a young man with matted hair and
heavy eyes unwraps a stained cloth,
takes a shard from a broken bottle and
neatly incises a small vein in his wrist.
He lets the blood drip evenly into a saucer
beside him and in the other hand holds what seems
to be a quill made from an eagle feather or some large winged bird.
Dipping the quill in the gathering blood he begins to write
in a leather bound book
on tawn-coloured hand made paper.
I watch every move. No-one seems
to care or notice that he does this.
He writes on and on, scratches a word,
dips again - the blood flows more slowly;
what has gathered seems sufficient,
he spits in the saucer takes a shot of clear liquid (probably tequilla) and adds it to the mixture,
I assume this is to stop it coagulating.
My meal and appetite have gone cold watching this process.
When the blood-ink is all but used
he folds the book away, wraps his wrist in a stained cloth and
walks into the street of shadow and meal sellers steam.
The stall holder notices me and approaches:
“Si signor this is Miguel the poet of the people.
He is coming many times to write this way.”
He smiles at me. I pay for the unfinished meal and he says,
“The poetry for the people is in his veins amigo,
is this not so in your country, are you also having such a poet?”
I leave him. Return to my hotel room.
Take out portable type writer and clean white paper
And begin to write
in blood blacker than ink.
MChallis © 2015
Request permission to use this poem