Download Federico Garcia Lorca

Federico Garcia Lorca
(Translator: Thomas P. Feeny)
Suicide
The young man had forgotten.
It was ten in the morning.
His heart was filling up
with broken wings and rag flowers.
He noticed that now there was left in
his mouth only a single word.
And upon removing his gloves, fine
ash fell from his hands.
From the balcony a tower was visible.
He felt himself become both tower and
balcony.
On the sofa of white silk, he
saw his shadow, languid and still.
And the young man, rigid, geometrical,
smashed the mirror with a hatchet.
As it shattered, a great spurt of shadow
flooded the imaginary bedroom.
Suicidio
El jovencillo se olvidaba.
Eran las diez de la mañana.
Su corazón se iba llenando
de alas rotas y flores de trapo.
Notó que ya no le quedaba
en lo boca más que una palabra.
Y al quitarse los quantes caía,
de sus manos, suave ceniza.
Por el balcón se veiá una torre.
El se sintió balcón y torre.
Vio, sin duda, cómo le miraba
el reloj detenido en su caja.
Vio su sombra tendida y quieta,
en el blanco divan de seda.
Y el joven rígido, geométrico,
con un hacha rompió el espejo.
Al romperlo, un gran chorro de sombra,
inundó la quimérica alcoba.
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Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), Spanish poet and
dramatist. He is best known for his lyrical poems and
the plays Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of
Bernarda Alba. He also wrote the collection Poet in
New York during a period he spent in the United States.
Thomas P. Feeny is a poet, translator, and teacher of
Romance languages at North Carolina State University.