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Donall Dempsey Jan 2019
KEY OF HEAVEN

Here amongst Milton's
Lycidas...a cowslip's

skeleton
pressed between its pages

blossomed back in 1922
its ghost haunting the book

its head bent over the line
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil."

staining the word "Fame"
with its own lost shadow

the unknown woman in
the photographs laughs

at my discovering her
dressed in black and white in black and white

hands stuck in pockets
defiantly staring back at me

she more real
than me

the only other photo
she has removed her hands

from her pockets
producing them like a magic trick

they lay on her lap
like limpid rabbits

curiously alive
somehow

a sheen of sunlight
catches her Marcel wave

Petrella
the photograph names her

in writing as elegant
as she

early spring
1922.

*

Key of Heaven is only one of the names for the common cowslip( Primula Veris ). It travels under other names such as cuy lippe, herb peter, paigle, peggle, key flower, fairy cups, petty mulleins, crewel, buckles, palsywort, plumrocks and tittypines.

There was also a recipe for a delicious sparkling cowslip wine. Alas the book was too expensive for my means and I was more interested in the cowslip dying between Milton's lines and the woman who was Petrella back in the days of the year 19 and 22!

I no longer remember how to make cowslip wine and I never did.
¡Mecánica sincera y peruanísima
la del cerro colorado!
¡Suelo teórico y práctico!
¡Surcos inteligentes; ejemplo: el monolito y su cortejo!
¡Papales, cebadales, alfalfares, cosa buena!
¡Cultivos que integra una asombrosa jerarquía de
útiles
y que integran con viento los mujidos,
las aguas con su sorda antigüedad!
¡Cuaternarios maíces, de opuestos natalicios,
los oigo por los pies cómo se alejan,
los huelo retomar cuando la tierra
tropieza con la técnica del cielo!
¡Molécula exabrupto! ¡Atomo terso!
¡Oh campos humanos!
¡Solar y nutricia ausencia de la mar,
y sentimiento oceánico de todo!
¡Oh climas encontrados dentro del oro, listos!
¡Oh campo intelectual de cordillera,
con religión, con campo, con patitos!
¡Paquidermos en prosa cuando pasan
y en verso cuando páranse!
¡Roedores que miran con sentimiento judicial en torno!
¡Oh patrióticos asnos de mi vida!
¡Vicuña, descendiente
nacional y graciosa de mi mono!
¡Oh luz que dista apenas un espejo de la sombra,
que es vida con el punto y, con la línea, polvo
y que por eso acato, subiendo por la idea a mi osamenta!
¡Siega en época del dilatado molle,
del farol que colgaron de la sien
y del que descolgaron de la barreta espléndida!
¡Angeles de corral,
aves por un descuido de la cresta!
¡Cuya o cuy para comerlos fritos
con el bravo rocoto de los temples!
(¿Cóndores? ¡Me friegan los cóndores!)
¡Leños cristianos en gracia
al tronco feliz y al tallo competente!
¡Familia de los líquenes,
especies en formación basáltica que yo
respeto
desde este modestísimo papel!
¡Cuatro operaciones, os sustraigo
para salvar al roble y hundirlo en buena ley!
¡Cuestas in infraganti!
¡Auquénidos llorosos, almas mías!
¡Sierra de mi Perú, Perú del mundo,
y Perú al pie del orbe; yo me adhiero!
¡Estrellas matutinas si os aromo
quemando hojas de coca en este cráneo,
y cenitales, si destapo,
de un solo sombrerazo, mis diez templos!
¡Brazo de siembra, bájate, y a pie!
¡Lluvia a base del mediodía,
bajo el techo de tejas donde muerde
la infatigable altura
y la tórtola corta en tres su trino!
¡Rotación de tardes modernas
y finas madrugadas arqueológicas!
¡Indio después del hombre y antes de él!
¡Lo entiendo todo en dos flautas
y me doy a entender en una quena!
¡Y lo demás, me las pelan!...
Today you are in my ears, in my eyes and a pice of you still in my soul
remembering the love you used to tell me, the love you used to sing ...
your poisoned love, that fake love surrounded by lies  and compulsive control

this is the last letter, the last words for you, this is my good bye
i will stop wondering how is your world, i will stop worrying about your mental health, about your quietness, i will forget and forgive finally.... cause that is something that will not let me go, that keeps me listening to your songs and checking your updates rarely

i will forget everything about you, my heart will beat quietly to hear something about you, your culture, maps, cuy, pearl jam, with that world we create that faded away ... in the end, will finally end, buried, and will rest quiet this heart to give way to loneliness

good bye
KEY OF HEAVEN

Here amongst Milton's
Lycidas...a cowslip's

skeleton
pressed between its pages

blossomed back in 1923
its ghost haunting the book

its head bent over the line
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil."

staining the word "Fame"
with its own lost shadow

the unknown woman in
the photographs laughs

at my discovering her
dressed in black and white in black and white

hands stuck in pockets
defiantly staring back at me

she more real
than me

the only other photo
she has removed her hands

from her pockets
producing them like a magic trick

they lay on her lap
like limpid rabbits

curiously alive
somehow

a sheen of sunlight
catches her Marcel wave

Petrella
the photograph names her

in writing as elegant
as she

early spring
1923.

*

Key of Heaven is only one of the names for the common cowslip( Primula Veris ). It travels under other names such as cuy lippe, herb peter, paigle, peggle, key flower, fairy cups, petty mulleins, crewel, buckles, palsywort, plumrocks and tittypines.

There was also a recipe for a delicious sparkling cowslip wine. Alas the book was too expensive for my means and I was more interested in the cowslip dying between Milton's lines and the woman who was Petrella back in the days of the year 19 and 23!

I no longer remember how to make cowslip wine and I never did.

A book I didn't buy in the Oxfam Bookshop Guildford but did inspire me in a completely different way. One never knows what one will find at any one time in my favourite bookshop.

— The End —