I understand they find dinosaur bones there in your backyard. Big ones. I've never been to your house or even close to that neighborhood, but ever since you've written me, I am completely intrigued. What you said about me, I think about you in an execrable Hemingway way, maybe as in his "Death In The Afternoon." All the goring. Faintheartedness is nothing to be carried by bullfighters or by bone hunters, I suppose. If there were a way of going back to days of nobler more romanticized slaughtering in bullrings, without the controversy, I'd have to say it is more evident in our modern day Jurassic Park flicks where nerdish paleontologists are transformed into  fiendishly handsome toreadors.

I know I'm not making much sense. Bullfights and dinosaur rustling, what's to compare? One being non-civilized though colorful and bathetic, the other fantastical but forgivable because the beasts bite back. Oh, if only I could explain these machismo machinations. What a ruse. How song and dance does intrigue. Please write me again from South Dakota. I'd like to book one of those dusty dinosaur tours before I go extinct.  Bone hunts, bullfights, same difference.

I thought the guy dressed up like a kingfisher
Didn’t really look like a kingfisher
His beak too long
His legs not yellow enough

But still he did a pretty good job of diving into the water
And coming up with a guy dressed up like a fish
Even though his fins looked a little too stiff to me
(No wonder the kingfisher caught him)

And the bull facing that matador
(who even had a pigtail like the one Hemingway kept mentioning --
Oh, I mean the real man not the man dressed as a bull)
He just looked too scared for a bull
Well that’s what I thought
And I’ve been to a lot of bullfights
Real bulls got more bravery than that
Sure they’re confused
But I’ve never seen one turn tail and run
Oh yeah -- and he forgot to put a tail on his bull suit

All in all it was a wash wasn’t it
Wetter than the guy in the kingfisher suit.
Still it was nice for us to dress up in animal costumes
To give the animals at least one day to have a day off

Maybe next year we’ll figure it out better
Both in our costuming and their cries

Intricately laid by a master mason centuries ago,
the cobbles have become shiny and worn through use.
If we listen closely at the  echoes contained within,
what would we hear? The din of old, the clatter of hooves,
the patois of tradesmen, the fisher wives bellows?
Or, just life as it was, moving along at a pace we today find slow?
The sun beats down on the Spanish stone, firing them hot and
languid, pace has slowed, need has slowed, greed has slowed.

Dusty cobbles leading to cool houses, siesta has called and all obey.
The midday sun beats down, only tourists looking for quaint shops
remain, decrying the heat, ready to swoon.
Sweat drips onto the dusty cobbles, and is soon boiled away.
Blood has dripped on these cobbles, human and beasts.
Only to be scrubbed by the crow black crones that sit and watch the day.
Afternoon lull, boats bobbing slowly up and down,
babies rocked by a quiet lullaby.

The sun lowers bathing the cobbles in a pink, orange glow,
quiet now, Spain is sleeping, forgetting her past, the Moors are long gone,
the Armada been and gone, bullfights are frowned upon,
their Kings and Dictator laid to rest, only foolish tourists throng the
dusty cobbles, oblivious to their history, looking for that awful gift.
Spain's pain is echoed in her cobbles, few hear it, but know this,
if you listen you'll hear the heat, the pain, civil war,
pride and flamenco feet*.

Pablo went to the circus
The lithographs give it away
Unless of course
He had the knack
Of producing a place from scratch
An imaginary circus

The positive and negative space
Silhouette circus
Of hoops and bears
Gymnasts on chairs
The blank faced audience


He also did ******* bullfights
In 1946
His blood splattered face leering
Over his lithography

His first novel was his finest:
American expatriates partying in Paris and Spain,
looking for a life of authenticity,
fighting for a life worth living.

Wine, women and writing fill
the hero's days, a doppelganger
for Hemingway, hobbling with
his World War I injury: emasculation.

The idea of progress died in the trenches.
The Lost Generation on the road
to nowhere and back. Travel of the soul.
Dark night of the soul, lightened by *****.

Bullfights encircle death, a ritualistic
killing of innocence, which had already
died for the travelers. Look away from
the horses, disemboweled for not being bulls.

The sun also rises on the saint and the sinner,
the writer and the boxer, a fresh clutch of trout.
There is no path to salvation, even for those
who pray, grasping for meaning in ancient practices.

Living and drinking prove enough. The room
spins; seek shelter on the hotel's hot bed.
Love lingers as a way out of this hedonism,
this nihilism, this petty life. Isn't it pretty to think so?

Thank you Hemingway
for putting the fun
back into my reading.
It been so long since
I had read for enjoyment
and not to study
some style,
some writer,
some time,
some setting.
The book was yellowing,
The Sun Also Rises,
bullfights, Spain, wine,
women, even writers,
all those things and more.
Last time it
was checked out
of that school library,
10 years ago,
**** long time.
I took it,
read it,
devoured it.
Brilliant!
Rough and honest.
That thing deserved
to be read and I'm glad
that it was by me.
Sometimes books just capture you,
make you wanna be in the middle
of the action with the characters,
live the story with them,
and I guess we do.
So in summary
and once again,
Thank you Mr H.

pass used in bullfights            
a female name and flower            
it's Veronica