Wavewhite wedded words*

I haven’t shared many thoughts on my experience of reading Ulysses. This has been more out of sheer laziness than a lack of commentary. I will try to be more forthcoming in the future.

To get started, one of my favorite things about the book is that Joyce basically invents his own language. I don’t think Ulysses was written in English, really, it is written in Joycean, an ever changing, ever surprising mixture of different tones, colloquialisms, rhythms, and sounds. I truly loved his descriptions of the sea, especially as a poet.

The following poem doesn’t owe much to Joyce, especially as it is not particularly experimental as far as language is concerned, but it is my response to walking along the beach on a turbulent spring day.


Sea Green

We watch the waves crunch
like soft gears on the beach,
a mouth full of froth and sand.

The meek Mediterranean wants
to be an ocean today, beats
its chest with white fists,
eats the land with fury,
and howls deeply. The sky

is a flash and muffle, the sun
has come and gone, gold
mixes with grey reflections,
cold green, vague blue, the water
is pale and moody, the color
of the lip of a china tea cup.

‘Tis the hour, methinks, when the winejug, metaphorically speaking, is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry.*

So, what exactly am I doing in Barcelona? I realize that I have been very skimpy on the explanatory posts, especially in expounding the Santa Fe, New York, and Barcelona connections.

Well, as of right now, I am working at the front desk of a cute little boutique hostel started by two intrepid young American women. They opened the ten room hotel/hostel last year and I’ve been there nearly a year now. How time passes!

Aside from giving metro directions to travelers hailing from everywhere, I have been freelance writing. Hold your breath, I work for a client in New York writing internal corporate communications for enormous global corporations. Okay, the tough part is over.

I have been published a few times in a local glossy magazine here, The Barcelona Metropolitan, but the times have been particularly rough on them as they survive entirely on ad revenue. So, I am not sure they will continue to pay as well, or at all.

Otherwise, I spend my days procrastinating on learning Spanish, forcing myself to meet complete strangers to talk in a foreign language, writing poetry, cooking, researching other places to live, and lots of sleeping. Exciting ex-pat life!

I don’t make much money at all, but somehow, I have been scraping by. As I tell many people, I moved to a foreign country without a job, without knowing anyone, where they speak two languages I don’t know, and where my U.S. citizenship can be problematic…but it is STILL easier than living in New York.

We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for us is the death of the intellect and of the imagination.*

My research on the pigarrot proved rather fruitless. I unearthed a photo of a multi-colored pigeon shaking itself on Las Ramblas, but it didn’t really resemble my mythical creature. According to most of my sources (Google), it appears that pigeons and parrots cannot mate. Perhaps it was an incredibly selective mutation? Hmmmm.

I haven’t looked up the cause of the tree destruction yet, further report to follow.

Currently, I am participating in a poem a day challenge celebrating April as Poetry Month. A few of my poems might actually be pertinent for this blog, so you will see them in the coming days. Please remember these are more for fun and to burn the cobwebs in my brain with tiny, joking little fires.

I also have a surprise from Friday night to post soon, another random Barcelona moment that would NEVER happen in the US.

Here are a few of the poems I thought fitting for this space thus far. First, a tribute to the wonder of nature known as the parrgeon.


The Lovechild of a Parrot and a Pigeon

Perry saw Peggy fat on a rock one day
and knew he had to have her, no matter

the odds. Biology, the flock, her cock,
her indifferent orange eyes.

He swooped down and threw out his
RAAAARRRRRK eh RAAAAAKR!

She demurred, flitted her wings, and
said, coo roo-c’too-coo coolly.

(A quick snack ant distracted Perry)
(Peggy waddled into a dusty bush)

One Cloacal Kiss and several weeks later
a Parrgeon was born…or a pigarrot, you

name it what you please. But Perry
and Peggy called her Daffodil.


Then, a Brooklyn poem…


Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn

Long weeks looking for a home:
not the basement with dilapidated floors
and caving ceilings on the LES,
not the checkerboard tiled, bullet
hole doored, closet free abode
in the Village, not the seven
layered grime palace on Prospect,
not the slanted, ant inhabited
empty nest on Fourth Avenue.

We were more than discouraged,
it was the toothbreaker NYC special,
the empty grin kick, the nosebleed,
black eye, blistered feet, internal
hemorrhaging delight provided via
first last credit check deposit broker fee.

And Then! The setting sunlight
on Grand Army Plaza, and we forgot
it was a pale imitation of older
and grander victory arches, someone
beat someone and who cared because
all was bathed in red tea light and
we knew we would succeed.


And lastly, a haiku for learning Spanish….


Hablando Castellano

I live in my mouth
– bright room filled with dark feathers –
mangle your language.