I patch your wounds
you kiss my hands
I scream
you laugh
the Spinner threads our life
the Archer shoots the moon
sanctified
our house grows in trees
your hands and mine
founders of love
a church bell tolls
I steer the boat
you raise the sail
serenities of underwater stars
another brick
another tear
another year
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image: ArtEver; Shutterstock, [link]
Rage darkened Miguel’s green eyes. His blood was boiling. Bible in one hand, sword in the other, breathing heavily, determined not to let his Spanish Armada be sunk the second time.
Ha! And by whom? By a Frenchman?!
Wasn’t Jacques supposed to spend his entire life alluring the other sex?
Oh, how wrong all of us were to judge Jacques like that!
And how dearly we were to pay for that juvenile judgement of ours.
Steely blue eyes, coat of arms engraved on his shield, Jacques was fighting to conquer only one heart: the heart of the woman who Miguel loved.
*
Both of them reduced me to a war trophy.
In the old, beautifully tiled hacienda, darkness broke loose.
Excerpt from the manuscript Glass Lovers
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image: ELORDUY; Shuttershock; [link]
I would rather worship the silence of empty walls than your barren heart that you hold so dear; that heart that has never learned how to give.
You thrived in mud like a spring flower, yet by dawn you did not bloom. An infernal amalgam of erudition and sexuality eats your soul like worms eat dead plants. You became one of them: a decomposer par excellence.
I seek purification.
Therefore, forever forgotten – I hope – I return and kneel inside “The Wisdom of the Sands.”*
In the distance patheticism licks your self-inflicted wounds.
*reference to Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Wisdom of the Sands
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“Angelo, are you telling me that last night instead of ending up in the room of your most beloved 18-year-old nun to indulge her virginity, so to speak, you ended up in a small decrepit chapel?”
He was furious. His voice was raspy; his dark curly hair disheveled; his shirt open. Nesting on his chest that gold cross of his which he never took off. I pulled the white sheet to my neck and retreated toward the head of the bed.
“Oh, no, Clara, I am telling you that somebody changed the room number that she gave me with another number.”
“How?”
He raised his voice.
“Precisely the point. You did not ask ‘why’ you asked ‘how’. You tell me how, Clara.”
“Are you implying …”
Miguel entered the bedroom.
“What on earth…”
The whole scene must have looked ridiculous: Angelo in the middle of the room gesticulating, his eyes rotating in his head like those of a mad man or like those of a prophet – ah, that city in which the difference between mad men and prophets was blatantly blurred – and I, under the bed sheet, knees to my chin, trying not to laugh.
*
Through the open window the morning wind brought the sweet earthy smell of the dark olive groves, which for years have lain on right side of the mansion.
Excerpt from the manuscript “Glass Lovers”/draft
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you, quest of lovers without love
your unrelenting islands beaten by the wind-blown sand
the sea
extends its waves beyond the singularity of night
the silk of clouds is looking for the sky
scales of reeds chime songs,
cries of those whose loves have sunk
I bathe in the aromatic rose of the moonlight
the night bathes in the foam of the blue waters
a bed sighs
the silhouettes of three carnations gossip on the floor
alienation
empty hearts expecting to be slaughtered
the sand receives me
in the distance a mast decides to flicker
the quest of lovers without love
on a wicker chair
a lonely glove
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image: KHIUS; Shutterstock; [link]
Dear Readers,
I am thankful to Kevin for conducting this interview with me.
“I am honoured to post the below interview with Gabriela M, a writer I greatly admire, and I’m extremely grateful to Gabriela for her kind words regarding my own work. You can find Gabriela M online here, https://shortprose.blog/
1. What is the first book you remember having read?
Kevin, before I answer your questions allow me to thank you for this interview. I greatly admire your poetry. I am honored to be your guest.
The first book I remember reading apart from Snow White and other children’s books is Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. I was fascinated by it.
2. In relation to question 1, What impression did the book make on you?
It had quite an effect on my life. I was very young when I read it. After reading it I got this idea that I must travel to see the world. The desire to see the world caused me to attempt to run away from home.
My parents loved me very much. I had a happy childhood. Can you imagine my parents’ shock when I first ran away from home? I was a little girl walking the streets by myself, talking to myself, and marveling at every new thing I saw….”
You can continue to read the entire interview here
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My poem “marry me” published by KashmirPen Newspaper.
midnight suspends itself on a rock wall
the Hands of Fatima knit shades of blue over the valley
sounds, chirps of migratory birds
flutter of old keys hidden in lonely drawers
run with me and let’s get married
the forest speaks…
Continue reading here
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I am the voice of your past loves
resounding in your wildest fantasies
dressed in roses at the altar of your dreams
I am the one you’ve never had
my soul flows from the tears of the Nile
from the hands of children who still beg
through ruins, darkness, and deep pain
through wars which they will never understand
I am the last who will be saved
for I have sinned under the shadow of your cross
when Spanish fountains cry in the sunset
I am the Desdemona who you’ve never met
today Granada’s just the place
in which García Lorca once was killed
I am the feather of a gold macaw bird
and in the city where bells toll
I am the one whose cries you’ve never heard.
first published in STRAW #zine, London, October 2018
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image: By Anna Ismagilova; Shutterstock; [link]
