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This is the first poem in the
book that I introduce the poet

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Lorca, the beautiful Federico
García Lorca from Southern

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Spain.

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A little bit more on him
later, but here he is.

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Incidentally, the idiot in the
first line, that would be me.

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"What idiot sits
in a metal chair

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by a tin fence when
the storm commences?

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The mountains disappear
in a cloud of clouds.

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The monsters reappear.

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The result is a remarkably
diverse array of desert life.

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Yellow rain lilies,
for one example.

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Like all pleasures, sleep
has become a passion

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of my father's.

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I remember we would
live for these rains.

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Years ago in Spain, we'd walk
into Alayor in a downpour.

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The old women under the shades
in dresses and black scarves

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would not lift one dark
eyebrow from their lacework.

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Not so much as a lisp
of Catalonian greeting.

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And why be obliged with Franco
not yet dead long enough?

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There was plenty of talk
of how he'd murdered Lorca,

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among many others,
by ordering soldiers

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to shoot point-blank at their
enemy on a back road at dawn

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in the presence of their Lord.

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And the enemies, many of
them servants of culture,

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set off more or less
on a fool's journey.

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Inside the storm is
like a long train ride.

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Unable to afford a better
class, you sit awake all night

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in a chair.

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Time to time you make
your way to the club car,

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then back to your dream.

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On, on, the train plunges.

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Maybe you hear music.

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The train would be headed for
a beach town or the signature

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nightmare of your people,
a shower of darkness.

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These are extraordinary times.

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The Inquisition is a
clusterfuck of the inner ear.

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One should not stand-in
for someone else

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unless the choice is clear."

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