Author: Bev Tappan

GOING IN STYLE

The boys in Mexican glassworks

Swing their blowpipes in parabolas

Like gauchos twirling riatas,

Eliciting form from incandescence.

Precise as ballet dancers,

They make their moves at intersecting

Routes, aware but casual,

Nothing between the flesh and the flame.

The boys in Mexican bullrings

Entice the dark charger with magenta capes

Like women flirting with handkerchiefs.

Their suggestive invitations

Invite a close encounter:

Nothing between the hip and the horn,

They dance a tango with destiny,

Teasing entropy into art.

EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

(THE DAY OF THE DEAD)

The skull is an old preoccupation.

Hamlet spoke to Yorick,  and

Pre-Columbian burials yield

These tiny tokens, mementi mori,

And aboriginal poets lamented,

With Ecclesiastes, the briefness of flowers:

They knew that man is born to die.

All their funerary postures –

Bodies flat or flexed, singular or

 Communal, came to the same conclusion.

Children today make sugar skulls

For dolls they dress in pastel papers,

White hands protruding from sleeves.

They set out candy for the dead,

Sweet imitations of bread and fruit,

Refreshments for the long journey,

And visit skeletons in the crypts,

Dusty bonnets on infant skulls,

Holding reunions with family bones.

DETACHMENT

Like gods in ancient Greece, tourists

Survey the scene from points of vantage:

They sit on balconies, peer into courtyards,

Photograph wedding parties in archways.

Darker skins and liquid syllables

Charm them, but eyes do not exchange

Signals.  They risk nothing.  Soon enough,

They will be winging back to Olympus.

NO TRESPASSING

In San Miguel the walls

Are thick and high and topped

With shards of broken glass:

Translucent, they glint in the sun.

Above us on the hillside,

Ranks of towering cacti

Guard their fruit with poisoned

Darts ready to fire.

Although young boys can climb

The organ pipes, unscratched,

To pick their small berries,

They do not scale the walls.

INCONGRUITY

The grackles that chimed like a thousand cuckoos

At six o’clock have retired, but one

Splatters his hand as he sits on the bench

Under the box-shaped tree in the park.

A mariachi band tunes up for a wedding

In the cathedral across the street.

Balloon vendors bounce their punching-bag faces.

Strolling teenagers banter and laugh.

Then an American hard rock group,

The Misguided Youth, begin to check

Their mikes.  The woman drums a roll.

He leaves ahead of the opening absurdity.

TWO VIEWS FROM A BALCONY

(1)

A Thornton Burgess old lady, toad in a shawl,

She leans forward to peel the cactus pears:

Three quick cuts and canvas flaps unfold

From the beet-red fruit, tasteless and seedy.

Church bells clang the quarter hour.  Iron

Shoes clink on cobblestones.  Unhurried

By smacking stick or placid curse, burros

Shoulder sacks of mesquite from the hills.

(2)

The artists of the Revolution

Painted workers massive across

The back , with Popeye arms and hands.

Carved in stone, their heads were bowed.

This crew constructing reservoirs

On the roof across the street are whistling.

Onto their slender shoulders they lift

The tins of cement as light as  ballerinas.

EVENING BALLET

Foot-lighted by fluorescent

Jacarandas more purple than amethysts,

Against a backdrop of sunset

And mountains, the egrets

Perform in black pines:

Backflap for landings, soar

With tightly curled necks, and

Like slim ebony carvings

Balance on tree tops.

Their roof-top audience

Of American writers,

Refueled with creative juices,

Applaud along with yawping nighthawks.

LA HIJA GRINGA

Annie helps the shoeshine boy.

They have long talks in the garden,

Where a boy she does not know

Hands her his heart on a string of beads.

She invites Amaro and Carlos to

Experiment with swimming in her pool.

They borrow trunks from her father.

Over an endless box of Ritz,  Amaro

Confides he sometimes feels left out.

So does she, Annie tells him.

They dance long hours at the disco:

Annie and C.C. with Mosco, Lechuga

And all the Jackals, who laugh

When they call her Arana (Spider).

Sometimes the boys urge the girls

To dress up.  Annie prefers jeans.

But at the Halloween party she wins

Second prize as Ana the Banana.

GOOD FRIDAY PARADE

After an hour on the curbstones,

Villagers in Sunday best,

Fathers tossing babies and buying

Ices licked by children, politely

Declined by tiny grandmothers,

See men in black suits issue

From the church portals:

Ten steps and a pause

For the bearer to rest.

Christ on His cross is a burden

To heavy to be borne by

Sidewalk poor, who may merely

Sprinkle herbs on paving stones.

Though among the Roman soldiers,

A small tough centenarian

Pipes wandering melodies

On an Indian flute.

Now tinseled, innocent

Child brides, excited

Virgins in white lace,

Carry small guilty symbols:

The cock and the dice.

And rows of black poppies:

Mothers in black mantillas,

Black hems high or low,

Totter on spike heels,

Platforms or thin-soled pumps.

How can they support these terrible

Angels wielding spikes

For their god’s feet?

Children again – choirboys

In purple collars, young

Heralds, announce the ponderous

Gold and glass casket.  Mary,

Joseph and Magdalene follow,

And last the empty cross is

Mourned by the holy-day crowd.

THREE VIGNETTES

(1)

It is uncouth to jolt

In a Ford LTD over

The cobblestones of

San Miguel de Allende.

Along such passageways,

The dusty sandal

Proceeds with more grace.

(2)

Vitamined and mineraled,

The gringo father and daughter

Stride in holy day processions

Behind black-manteled, ancient

Women so bowed by arthritis

Their eyes see only dust.

(3)

Playing maid on Estrella’s day off,

Hanging clothes in the garden,

Wary of an inquisitive grackle,

I step around rosemary, high

As spreading juniper, and admire

Lettuce – wavy red and knots

Of Boston green – next to

Flowerets of purple thyme.