“Ghazal of Dark Death” is my translation of “Gacela de la Muerte Oscura,” a poem from Federico García Lorca’s Diván del Tamarit. In the last verse of “Ghazal of Dark Death,” the narrator declares that he wants “to live with the that dark child,” perhaps a bastard son by a dark woman.
My ghazal “American Boy” samples lines from “Ghazal of Dark Death” and other gacelas from Diván. Agha Shahid Ali, the Kashmiri-American poet who taught English-language poets the traditional ghazal form, introduced this technique. In one of his ghazals, he used it to sample lines from Emily Dickinson. Sampling honors a poet who influenced and inspired the ghazal poet. Though I only knew him through his writing, Federico García Lorca was for me what Dickinson called a “friend of the bookshelf.”
“Ghazal of Dark Death,” an English Translation of “Gacela de la Muerte Oscura”
I want to sleep the dream of apples,
to escape the riot of cemeteries.
I want to sleep the dream of that child
who wished to cut out his own heart on the high sea.
I don’t want to hear that the dead don’t spill their blood;
that the rotting mouth is still begging for water.
I don’t want to hear about the agonies of the grass
or of the snake-mouthed moon
at work before sunrise.
I want to sleep a little,
a little, a minute, a century;
but all should know that I am not dead;
that there is a golden stable on my lips;
that I am the little friend of the West Wind;
that I am the looming shadow of my tears.
Cover me in the Dawn with a shroud,
because she will hurl clumps of ants at me,
and soak my shoes with hard water
so that I might slip her scorpion sting.
Because I want to sleep the dream of apples
to learn weeping that will cleanse me of the land;
because I want to live with that dark child
who wished to cut out his own heart on the high sea.
by Federico García Lorca,
From Diván del Tamarit (1934)
Translated by E.A. Melino
Back to “American Boy”
Selections from Lorca’s Diván del Tamarit
“Gacela de la Muerte Oscura,” Spanish Original of “Ghazal of Dark Death”
Quiero dormir el sueño de las manzanas,
alejarme del tumulto de los cementerios.
Quiero dormir el sueño de aquel niño
que quería cortarse el corazón en alta mar
No quiero que me repitan que los muertos
no pierden las sangre;
que la boca podrida sigue pidiendo agua.
No quiero enterarme de los martirios que de la hierba,
ni de la luna con boca de serpiente
que trabaja antes del amanecer.
Quiero dormir un rato,
un rato, un minuto, un siglo;
pero que todos sepan que no he muerto;
que hay un establo de oro en mis labios;
que soy el pequeño amigo del viento Oeste;
que soy la sombra inmensa de mis lágrimas.
Cúbreme por la aurora con un velo,
porque me arrojará puñados de hormigas,
y moja con agua dura mis zapatos
para que resbale la pinza de su alacrán.
Porque quiero dormir el sueño de las manzanas
para aprender un llanto que me limpie de tierra;
porque quiero vivir con aquel niño oscuro
que quería cortarse el corazón en alta mar.
by Federico García Lorca,
From Diván del Tamarit (1934)
Back to “American Boy”
Selections from Lorca’s Diván del Tamarit
Image: “Federico García Lorca: From a mural on a barn in his birthplace, Fuente Vaqueros, Andalucía, Spain.” Photos by Spencer Means. Used under CC BY-SA 2.0 License.
To see the mural and its detail images as well as more photos from Andalucía, Provence and other places in Europe and the U.S., visit Spencer’s Flickr Page.
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