One evening in Spain

[Knot]

Hi mercedes,
similar reservations about commenting as rivernotch
(though lacking even more knowledge), but here goes...

Madrid in darkness
lit only by flashes from
Luftwaffe bombs.
No real sense of time or place, no 'there-ness'.
Even adding a date (to narrow it down from
two-and-a-half years) would help, I think.
Is 'flashes' right? Initial 'flash' would be
followed by fire, no? And what about the
moon, wouldn't it have been full?

On a downtown rooftop
refugees, poets, and painters
in fancy-dress
drink champagne, dance and sing
while around them
death rains.
'Downtown' seems rather out of place
(American not European phrasing).
'dance...rains' - rather flat and clichéd?
To what did they dance, what did they sing?
Where's the sound?
(Repetition of /I/ in drink/sing causes a slight
stumble, for me at least).
Agree with nibbed about a missing element
in L2.

What madness they share!
Pablo Neruda, César Vallejo,
Octavio Paz, even Siqueiros
the Mexican, in his shiny
cavalry boots.

What joy.
I think I like the ending, though as
all my readings of the line were 'negative',
perhaps I was more impressed by how much
was contained in just two words.


Best, Knot.