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On Poetry and Culture Shock

The Friday Cycle

A poem to order you to go out, have fun, and find love. I don't want to hear how many exams or papers you have to prepare.

1.
Dance with your eyes closed.
The smell, the music, the heat
Are all you need to see.
Baila con los ojos cerrados.
El olor, la música, el calor
son todo lo que necesitas ver.


2.
I like your blond skin
I want your blond smile.
I’m looking for some blonde fun.
Me gusta tu rubia piel
Me atrae tu rubia sonrisa
Quiero divertirme rubiamente.


3.
“How can we know the dancer from the dance?” (W. B. Yeats)
Do I dance better if you watch?
¿Cómo distinguir el baile de la bailarina?
¿Bailo mejor cuando me miras?


4.
Dawn sets the sky on fire.
Day comes to stop all parties.
Survivors crawl out.
El amanecer prende fuego al cielo.
El día llega para acabar con todas las fiestas.
Los supervivientes se van, arrastrándose.


I think that Aurora said once that she liked to be as inside as possible the creation process of other writers, so for her and anyone else who wants gossip this is the biographical note of these little babies. The only one of the four poems that didn't just come tome as a flash of inspiration was number 4. Numbers 2 and 4 came first chronologically; Number 2 I actually composed (that is, I made it up, but I wrote it down the morning after, of course) during an alcohol-soaked party and it does express the way I felt about the friend of a friend. The mutual friend, Virginia, helped the morning after with the translation, mostly with word order. Number 4 mixes the exhausted feeling after that party, which was in Limerick (Ireland), with a photograph of the sunset over Aberdeen (Scotland) and it is my attempt to turn Björk's song Pluto into a haiku. Number 1 I composed while I was dancing in a bar in Granada with my oldest friend, Irene francés; that one had been waiting to come out for ever and ever because I do dance with my eyes closed, at least when I'm really happy and relaxed. This happened a whole year after the original two party haikus, ad since I already had three I shuffled them a lot trying to compose a fourth to balance a party cycle. The answer came nearly a year afterwards, not at a party but at a Belly Dance class recital, the first time I ever danced for others to see. I composed the poem a few days afterward, and the "you" is the only friend of mine who came to see the recital. I didn't really steal the quote from Yeats, but from an analysis of him by the philosopher Paul de Man. After that it was only a question of arranging them in the order that nights out usually take: Dance, lust, dance and lust put together, home.

I first posted this haiku sequence in December. It is still called “The Friday Cycle”, a title I wasn’t too happy with. I’m still trying to get used to it. Any suggestions for a change?

1 comentario

Aurora -

Gracias por la mención y por la explicación :)