So let's put that light on.
Do we have some time?
I will read from a new manuscript
and now I have some poems of this collection,
called Of Dark Love, De Amor Oscuro.
And this collection is a collection of love poems.
And again, a friend of mine, Francisco Aragón,
who has translated some of the poems--
he was in Spain for 10 years, and he's a translator.
And he'd did, actually, two books with me--
Body in Flames, that came out, and Don't Hold the Gate for Us.
And when he was in Spain, he came across with a manuscript
written by Federico García Lorca.
And this collection of poems was never
published until about 10 years ago.
And he was involved in translating this collection,
because it's a collection of homoerotic poems.
Here, you have a poet that was killed in 1935 at the beginning
of a Civil War in Spain, at the beginning of the Nazis
taking over Europe.
And the reason why he was killed, I believe--
many people believe it's because he was a homosexual.
And I was writing a collection of poems in California,
but 60 years later.
And my poems were homoerotic, too.
And I came out with the name Of Dark Love.
His collection was called Sonetos de amor oscuro.
Well, I did not know that he was doing this, 1935.
And here I am, how many years later--
60 years later-- dealing with the same shit
he was dealing with.
At first, I said, well, let me change the title because I
think the book is really--
somebody else had the name.
But then I said, no.
There's a reason why the name.
I'm going to read some poems.
Number one-- they're sonnets--
14 lines, 11 syllables in Spanish.
Francisco Aragón did the translations in English.
Number one.
"Para este amor nunca ha habido sol, como loca flor,
en lo oscuro brota, es a la vez corona de espinas y guirnalda
de primavera en la sien.
Fuego, herida y amiguísimo fruto,
pero también brisa y manantial, una mordida al alma,
tu aliento.
Un tronco en la corriente, tu pecho.
Hazme caminar sobre el agua turbia,
sé el hacha que rompa ese candado,
el rocío que haga llorar los árboles.
Sin mudo quedo al besar tus muslos,
es que mi corazón con afán busca, entre tu carne,
un nuevo amanecer."
Number one.
There has never been sunlight for this love.
Like a crazed flower, it buds in the dark,
is, at once, a crown of thorns, but spring garden
around the temples.
A fire, a wound, the most bitter fruit, but a breeze as well.
A source of water.
Your breath abide to the soul.
Your chest a tree trunk in the current.
Make me walk over through waters.
Be the ax that breaks this log, the dew the whips from trees.
If I become mute kissing your thighs,
it's that my heart eagerly searches your flesh
for a new dawn.