"toreador" poems
~
*Poor deluded brute
he waves his sword
in orchestration
to a ruthless symphony
played for miserable centuries:
the running of the bulls
"sketches of pain"
some monsters come
decked out in hat and cape
inside the arena of his pride
where he hears the chant
within the arts of
cowardice and cruelty
where he envisions
the feathered crown
Gala! Gala!
"how to see the toreador"
lost as San Fermín
pricked by hairpin
pierced by ragged horn
suerte de la muerte (luck of death)
foreshadowing Hemingway
turns into the troubled sun
and underneath his muleta
a deep red
blood alchemy
his fame spilling out
in drips and drabs
as the crowd sings
'Pobre de Mí (Poor Me)'
to the mystic stab of church bells*
~
Jan 12, 2022
Jan 12, 2022 at 11:46 AM UTC
Where the devil if not here
In the room with me.
Surprised
In the kitchen
I slide
The chef's knife
Far back on the counter
To hide
Lest she loose control lost
Again, else
Might become real, that image
Now swimming
In her own soup,
Of a chromium-vanadium blade
Gleaming, swinging
In glorious swoop
Home to this chest or head,
Imagining it dead,
Tainted crimson.
Not the first time
I could be a toreador
Fending off his bull
With nearby chair
To save flesh from the goring
Of its horns,
On the way to salvation
At the door.
Still, animal rage
Stands between instrument
And shields awaiting at table
As they are meant.
A lamb, I once used my hand
And it hurt
When steel first broke skin.
Tears weren't
First from pain, but shock
Life was so real and cruel.
Since then the whys
Have grown with our lives.
One or other medication
Will fail to stop the sensation.
Now, my life's exhaustion is
In pondering the question:
Can the coward present neck
As easy offering and end it,
Or continue cowardice,
Facing the goddess
Conspired to destroy
What once was me.
Oct 18, 2009
Oct 18, 2009 at 8:27 PM UTC
well it was the alternative to gregory isaac’s night nurse... but then the bouncer on the catwalk with flares... skidding up on a rhyme and cooling it with an edge of the appropriately cut fashion... chased it.
innit kamikaze (rap’s shortchange in shaken pears
for martini bond and chanced cockney slang in shakespeare,
all 90’s groove though)
lyric’o gangsters
in the mollusk slush
two’s up freed
with the sly sly s.o.s. sloth
chinning up to the chariots of nero’s double for portrait:
naa na na na na na na na na na na na na naa,
naa na na na na na na na na na na na na naa
(i miscounted... didn't i?) -
where kurt cobian’s yeah yeah yeah used to be
along with r.e.m.’s cowboy astronaut.
come mike jagger with me the liszt skeleton
of b & w’s worth of crescendos tipping lazy waitresses
with a toreador’s worth of breezy napkins folded, flapped and sneezed into -
i’ll be dumping my shadow into splits for extras to boot frying it in
the hiroshima of paparazzi’s blinking.
failures are worth other people’s success when playing the lyre to a burn out of capitals:
anyway, edinburgh is the ultimate cameo in the literary bloodline
begot by paris for the 20th century ultimatum of identity scripted.
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 8:38 PM UTC
Yes I did,
Once long ago
I wanted, I wished, I yearned
To be loved,
Saw red in all the eyes
Bleeding hearts
As I charged;
Like an enraged bull
But then I felt the stab
The shocking pain,
And I tried to understand
Where had I gone wrong?
But I was just rearing to go,
I just wanted to love
And I'd charge out again,
And once more
The searing hurt
Would lacerate
Through and through
The truth betrayed
By the laughing spectators
As I tried to stand,
And the warm embrace came
But not of my gift returned
But of my own pool of death
Holding me, until I came to;
Cold as the matador with his conquest,
Though the next time I would
Wield the sword as my own toreador
Even if it was only to plunge the blade
Deep into myself
If only to end this macabre show...
APAD13 - 142 © okpoet
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 12:33 AM UTC
Tonight you’re in costume, the grand toreador
Feeling pride in the getup, of bull fighters lore
You smile as you’re thinking, that you look quite fine
And hope that you’ll get, to the ball right on time
One last look in the mirror, you head for the door
You’ll never return, to this life as before
You run two by two, down the stairs to the street
And think of the party, and who you might meet
The cape that you carry, flows red in the breeze
Has just caught my eye, for one moment I freeze
Then lower my head, hooves scratching the ground
Come charging and snorting, as you whirl around
My eyes of a blue that do mesmerize you
Horns mighty and deadly and ready to do
What many brave fighters have done to my kind
I’ll gore you with pride, then I’ll leave you behind
Linda Pahl, 5/18/14
May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 at 10:10 PM UTC
The Matador
I was thinking of taken the bus Seville
But don't know what to do when getting there
Unless I run into a female Toreador
I once met in Seville she was good at killing things
She had once worked at an abattoir, alas, too many men
Surrounded her, she didn't see me
That was long ago she must be 70 years old now
And probably glad to see a man who remembers when
She cut the ear of the of her prey and held it aloft
And the spectators were ecstatic.
Perhaps she has turned away from this slaughter and
Become and protector of all animals.
Did I tell you I was in Seville ten years ago with
A drunken girlfriend?
In a bar, she got up pretending to be a matador,
This was embarrassing
I had to get her out and to the hotel
But, she was in a festive mood
and disappeared in the night.
There are idle moments when I wonder what happened to her.
May 21, 2017
May 21, 2017 at 3:52 AM UTC
Our Sweeney nurses his Falstaff,
Joining his hail-and-well-met fellows in mirth
This man of hearty life and laugh,
His fingernails rife with the stuff of earth and labor.
Outside, the moon’s reflection
In the sluggish and slatternly Canisteo
Is a portentous dot-and-dash thing,
Its light here-and-gone
As incongruous evening thunderheads,
Great wavy pompadours rolling off the big lake out west,
Growl sullenly as they move through;
Sweeney pays them no mind, as he has other fish to fry,
Regarding a frowzy pair from the sisterhood of round heels,
One of whom, catching his glance,
Crosses the room, mounting his lap and mussing his hair,
Purring ‘Jus wanna see how your lap feels, Hon.
At which she falls on the floor
(But softly, in the manner of an old campaigner)
Thereafter taking a moment to pull her skirt up just so
To adjust a stocking (black, with a run or two on display)
As her compatriot stands nearby,
Making calculations and considerations,
And with a barely noticeable nod to her co-conspirator
The pair head to the bar
While Sweeney, grinning the grin
Of a toreador expectant of victory and its spoils
Rises to join them and, just as suddenly, pauses,
Perhaps cognizant of the old poker saw
That if you look about the table
And can’t figure out who the mark is, it must be you,
Or perhaps it was the ringing of the bells on the hour
From Our Lady of the Valley
(Normally inaudible inside the tavern,
But the wind had made an odd swing to the southeast,
Allowing the chimes to occasionally outshine the jukebox)
Or perhaps something else intangible, inscrutable,
But in any case Sweeney bids his congregants
A hasty farewell as he saunters to the doorway,
Exiting into the humid, fecund evening,
And as he negotiates the sidewalk homeward,
He notes the odd evening singing of birds,
Their songs, even though he is part and parcel
Of this small city and its streets to his marrow,
Unfamiliar to the point of bafflement.
Nov 17, 2020
Nov 17, 2020 at 1:35 PM UTC