AT THE NIGHT CAFE IN SAN MIGUEL by Anthony S. Maulucci

Candles on the tables light joyous faces,

so much to enjoy in this city of feasting and fiestas

that the night revelers seem about to burst open with pleasure

like greenhouse flowers aching to bloom in the moonlight.

The beauty of the stars is there overhead

for those who wish to find some dark corner for gazing up at them.

But the sparkling lights here below are enough,

they obviate the stars almost,

and the Parroquia, that baroque church in the plaza principal,

spires up into flames,

too adoringly majestic to be endured.

Nearly everyone wants to be on display in the night café,

as if this were a rich and eternal tableau,

long bufandas wound like spangled serpents,

silk and cotton clinging caressingly to breasts,

bare arms slender or sinewy,

eyes shining, voices raucous or tender,

the camaraderie gushes like a rio.

The sleek young men peacock preen and strut,

the ripening young women glide by like so many cleopatras

out for a midnight stroll and content

to torture the cabrones who dare to ignore them. 

The gringos glut their senses on the pageantry of young love

and toss back another shot of tequila.

Someone strums a guitar and sings

a ballad of the pain and beauty of love.

Bright peals of laughter ring out,

love is a goddess and we are all her fools

the laughter seems to say,

and the night whispers estoy de acuerdo.

(From the book Land of Sun and Stone, Poems About Mexico)

FRIDA by Anthony S. Maulucci

She suffered greatly,

there is no doubt,

and out of this suffering

came her art.

Much of it gruesome,

some of it grotesque,

but in the best,

a beauty of a brutal kind.

Perhaps we’ll find no word for it

except to say she endured.

Somehow, making portraits of herself

helped her soul grow wings.

Painting with blood knit her spirit,

nurtured it like a tree,

and gave her a handhold

as she crawled through days of pain.

In her pictures we can hear a voice that sings,

not like an angel but a wounded child,

a voice that often cracks, gasps, croaks

with agony but never wails or whines,

endures each hammer stroke

with head held high.

Her soul is tremulous like a violin,

and each brush stroke plays a note

with dignity and with terrible force

as if suffering were the natural course

for every woman

who still has the keeping of her heart.

Nothing strangled in her jangled pain,

nothing tangled, nothing mangled,

it is simple pain, pure and plain,

splattered with grace upon a canvas

for all who have the courage

to look upon her nakedness

without shame.

(From the book Land of Sun and Stone, Poems About Mexico)

What Is This Blog About?

This blog will publish selected poetry in English for the discerning reader written by residents of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.