BULL   FIGHTING
(WITH A CLASSICAL TOUCH)
                  * By Raj Nandy*
(I)
The Minoan Civilization of ancient Greece,
Was well centered in the Aegean island of Crete;
And around 1600 BC this civilization had peaked!
Seeing their frescoes, and paintings on potteries
and vase,
Scholars concluded that ‘bull-jumping’ was
perfected as a gallant art!
Those jumpers grabbed the bull’s horns, -
And receiving momentum from its violent
head-****,
Vaulted over its back in a somersault,
To land on both feet to break their fall!
I was spell bound by Minoans courage and agility,
Their acrobatic feats performed with such
dexterity!
Those bulls were not killed and no blood was shed,
Some acrobats might have been injured instead!
What a shame for our bull fighters of date!

(II)
Today bull fighting has become a popular sport,
Where the bull gets slaughtered amidst loud applaud!
I recall those Roman amphitheaters that remained
jam-packed,
When the Gladiators performed their fatal acts!
But even those Gladiators had a chance to survive,
Our cornered bull has no place to hide!
Friends, to see blood is an age old thrill,
But none would like to see their own blood spilled!

(III)
Our Matador today is like a popular Rock Star,
While the bull becomes a martyr in the pit by far!
The bull’s mighty horns are sharp and strong,
Can lift up a man like a rag doll!
But when the Picador lances the bull’s ****,
The bull never gets a fair deal and jumps!
Next the Matador waves his ‘muleta’- a red cape,
The bull makes a final charge but cannot escape!
I wonder if the bull sees red!?
The Matador then amidst much pomp and applaud,
Spikes the neck severing the bull’s spinal cord!
He is greeted by flowers and cheers of ‘Ole’! ‘Ole’!
Let us learn from those Ancient Minoans, -
That's all I have got to say!
                           - by Raj Nandy

A man dressed in red and gold,
in front of the bull with fears, all sold;
as the mighty bull enters the ring,
yellow and magenta cape starts to swing.

Trumpet sounds; he throws a spear at the bulls back,
with the hopes so high, he never lack(s);
at another trumpet he removes his hat,
and makes a bow dedicating the bull’s death.

He dances with the bull,
and the audience there cheers and adore;
he keeps playing on and on,
like a true hero -the Matador.

He waves a muleta, daring the bull to charge,
both keep eyes locked at each other, open so large;
now he stands at ten feets from the bull,
holding espada to stab at bull’s back to null.

The bull falls and dies,
staring the bull-fighter’s eyes;
and audience cheers the victory of the man,
waving white handkerchiefs at the end of the game.

He is awarded dead bull’s tail or hoof or ears,
people there lift him as he reached the stadium door;
he holds a trophy saying victory against his fears;
like a true hero -the Matador.

*I have been reading about the Matador since a week, and it has become an obsession now to know more about the Matador.

© Shreya ♥

Venido a menos víking, de poeta
(¡y en el Trópico!) estoy. Cuando cavilo:
¿será mi estilo, (por llamarle estilo)
-de ése mi estilo (estilo a la jineta)
yo mismo en veces (pocas) me horripilo-,
barroco estilo, ni motor de escándalos, 1
por descender (si criollo hasta la zeta)
de Renanos, Iberos, Godos, Vándalos?

De Iberos, (no español de pandereta),
de Renanos (si no bajo del tilo
romanticoide y menos soto el filo 2
guadañador: el Führer non me peta),
de Godos (pero zurdo: y nunca enfilo),
de Vándalos (¿por miedo al diablo mándalos
el Vulgo?) vengo (y vándalo un asceta?):
de Renanos, Iberos, Godos, Vándalos.

De inconexo y sin orden, soy veleta.
(Llévame el viento -como brizna- en vilo).
Ácrata soy, de buen humor tranquilo.
Jamás sóbrame duro ni peseta.
La Noche es techo de mi sólo asilo.
Grandes recorta, mínimos agrándalos,
fechos, mi móvil Yo: ¿síntesis? ¿meta?
de Renanos, Iberos, Godos, Vándalos.

De Enano hace Gigante, y -David- reta
verdadero Goliat, que vé pupilo
mi fantasía, y aunque corte un hilo
su mandoble: y sin honda, ardid ni treta...
Y, ante casos minúsculos, vacilo:
(casos que un soplo blándulo desbándalos...)
Tan vario humor, ¿es zumo que secreta
de Renanos, Iberos, Godos, Vándalos?

De loco no aprovecho, y la chaveta
perdí hace siglos, -y, si despabilo, 3
cuerdo ya soy: de la cordura silo!:
más cuerdo que el mejor anacoreta.
¿Cuerdo? ¡Qué vá! Con menos me obnubilo;
a Juicio y a Folía, Humor comándalos:
¿heredé Humor, Esplín -y la Pirueta-,
de Renanos, Iberos, Godos, Vándalos?

De ambas soy cojo, y ando sin muleta.
Sordo, y oigo el silencio. Y en sigilo
-ciego- oteante el ***** mar vigilo
de la cofa. Sin Fe, ni Amor, ni lieta
Bienandanza, Ambición, ni Afán, destilo
miel -si hiérenme- a ejemplo de los sándalos
(y acíbar además...) ¿Suma -incompleta-
de Renanos, Iberos, Godos, Vándalos?
Príncipe: ¿quién mis trucos interpreta?
¿quién cargará con la que en torre apilo
-¿de Babel?- ¿tonterías? ¿Quién no veta
balumba tal -inundación del Nilo?-
Malos caminos, muy más rápidos ándalos:
es decir, rasga ya la Baladeta 4
de Renanos, Iberos, Godos, Vándalos.

A muleta drapes over my chest
the ripples pass through with the wind
while we dance around this dusty plaza de toros
eyes fixated
thinking you can gore mon coeur
ptui
I only give you the illusion of control
but in the end
it will be my estoc tongue that
pierces your flesh
between the shoulders
with crimson words
I am no novillero
cornada's in the past only strengthen the future
a porta gayola posed and ready
awaiting that ferocious charge

Wrath is an ugly, chaotic beast we often refuse to unleash

It wreaks havoc underneath the devilish horns,
No one could tame it, nor a muleta in the owner's hands

From the depths of ourselves, where it quietly resides in the darkness
It often feeds on the dismantled version of our emotions,
on the distortions love caused about to our hearts,
on the insecurities and bigotries of this cruel world

Wrath chooses who tames it, who soothes its chaos down
It could be the devil's love who brings him back to his senses,
or the undeniable satisfaction of having caused destruction and loss and irrevocable regrets,
We often refuse to unleash the beast, because it often does what cannot be undone.

IA

Son los trasfondos otros de la in extremis médium
que es la noche al entreabrir los huesos
las mitoformas otras
aliardidas presencias semimorfas
sotopausas sosoplos
de la enllagada líbido posesa
que es la noche sin vendas
son las grislumbres otras tras esmeriles párpados videntes
los atónitos yesos de lo inmóvil ante el refluido herido interrogante
que es la noche ya lívida
son las cribadas voces
las suburbanas sangres de la ausencia de remansos omóplatos
las agrinsomnes dragas hambrientas del ahora con su limo de nada
los idos pasos otros de la incorpórea ubicua también
otra escarbando lo incierto
que puede ser la muerte con su demente célibe muleta
y es la noche
                                                y deserta

it feels like I’m burning by a campfire
sitting in a rib cage.
only there instead of flames
there are tongues
of electromagnetic undulations
flashing forth
and then subsiding
into eternally rotating patterns of
flickering irregularities
of frequency
and bandwidth.

it’s been steadily raining for three days
and three nights.
one hundred million drops
of all the rivers
and the creeks
and the streams
and the clam beds -
one hundred million times ten.
tiny droplets of living libraries
every tear a sphere
of liquid memory and living Light -
Kalachakra crystals
cataloging every deed
of every angel
and devil alike.
  
I live inside a giant foot print
where a giant leather shoe once stood -
footwear for some ancient
Leviathan with legs.
giant leather dance steps
trailing on behind its
giant leather earthing moccasins
dancing in his
wide giant strides.
the shoes were skinned
and tanned
and cobbled off the heavy flanks
of the earthen hyde of Taurus -
that must have been an epic bull fight.
he waved a red muleta
wide enough to cover up the sun
and red enough to hide the blood stains
from his matador’s sword
stabbing up the bulls’s sides.

the house of consciousness is a castle
perched upon a cliff
like some lonely Himalayan monastery
or a high prairie stable
full of Bodhisattvas,
dragging rakes
across rock gardens
as placidly as Hindu cows.
this high up in the stratus,
the thunder claps louder
than the Leviathan laughs
activating all the chakras in my hands.

In the courtyard renaissance gardens
we plant rows of ivory footstools
for the Deity’s Feet.
in the courtyard’s spring house
we milk the ivory spitshine
with our teeth.
the magma flames from our ghost dance
couldn’t be extinguished by the rains
but the winds of change
have been known
to suddenly erupt
like a surprise Kiowa buffalo hunt
over the slowly rolling
western nebraska plains
now it’s raining white bison
over the valley below
our fortunes rise to greet our smile
but even sometimes they fail -
and even so…

The Eye of Taurus blinks not
above the Heavens
even with all the matador’s swords
stuck and sunken in Its flanks -
and poking out Its spine
like the sharp tails
of all the scorpions
hiding in the evening sky.
and even so…
we gather ‘round the glowing embers
of eternity’s campfire
so as to let our demons speak their mind.
the howling salts of the hissing desert winds
or the spider fang nettles of the whipping derecho rains
cannot extinguish this flame.
we’ve said our prayers
we’ve made our oblations
we’ve tied scarlet quantum threads around our wrists
we keep feeding fuel to the fire:
…the south poles of car batteries
…the northern ends of bullet train magnets
… even a sonar dome
hoisted off a fast attack submarine
and 100 pounds of copper wire.

now the fire-flames are flashing forth
in plasmatic rainbows -
gypsum prisms of green
and white
and blue
colors,
never before seen in Heaven,
or on Earth
or even in the Bardo.

Luperco grita al verme: Tu epigrama, poeta,
El último, es muy bueno, y de latín galano.
A tu casa, mañana, pienso mandar temprano,
Pues quiero que me prestes la obra tuya completa.

-No. Tu esclavo es asmático, viejo y usa muleta,
Mi escalera es pendiente, y mi hogar muy lejano.
¿El tuyo al Palatino no queda muy cercano?
Atrecto, mi librero, habita en la Argileta.

En un rincón del Foro tiene su librería;
Volúmenes de muertos y de autores del día
Vende en ella, Virgilio, Terencio, Plinio o Fedro;

Allí, no en alto estante, según la gente cuenta,
Envuelto en roja púrpura, entre un cajón de cedro,
Y por cinco denarios, Marcial está de venta.

Born that way angry antithetical
mailer daemon when...
all of Christendom bows their collective
talking heads in supplication,
a temporary truce and reprieve
against bigotry, deviltry, idolatry (nah),  
et cetera across the nation.

Yuletide pageant merry doth go round
where credo, ethos, and
faith no more jinxes webbed, wide world,
nevertheless soul asylum limned courtesy
peace on earth and goodwill
toward all men sentiment
sacrilegious to bully,
fully sully mankind's divine holiness,
and present disgrace to human race
in the dolled guise of heretic

quasi analogous to a matador ramrod ready
to Catch Bull at Four in a China shop
gored when muleta waved -
courtesy matador incited Bos Taurus
both fuming, fretting, foaming, et cetera
even the spectators
frothing at the mouth with lather
while smartphones captured tableau
frozen in time photo touched up
stripping bare every ******

last vestige of cruelty
toward a gregarious animal
exclusively a domestic species
males genetic propensity
culled, goaded, likened as fearsome beast,
synonymous when anonymous nasty brute
fomented enormous disaster
monetarily eviscerated yours truly
an online scamming  assault,
the repercussions I still forced to wage

depredations living hand to mouth
quaffing caustic acidic ale,
a cunning prankster did stage
comparable to kindle figurative
ringed fire of rage
within my still smoldering belly –
coalescence fuels tinder
while financial security riven
and rent asunder
severely dislocating, hobbling,

paralyzing vertebrae constituting
gray and white matter, appearing
in a cross-section as H-shaped gray matter
surrounded by white matter,
whereat the gray matter consists
of the cell bodies of motor
and sensory neurons,
interneurons, and neuropils
(neuroglia cells and mostly
unmyelinated axons).