How Like Dreams Now the Days Too Fade, by pd Lyons. Re: Ethel Pollard Lyons Thanks to Donna J Snyder for telling me

Last night I had a dream about you.

Nothing major.

We just met face to face.

You were telling me about my grandmother.

We were outside in the sand.

I was surprised you knew her.

I  never knew she went to Mexico.

It was hot.

We sat down at a rough grey whiskery  table.

Yes, you said and she rode very well.

A bright grey horse among the caballeros.
“And tequila ?” I leaned towards you tete-a-tete  ” What about  the tequila…?”

But the scraping sound of speeding traffic brought me into this morning.

And I wondered Why Mexico?

I was always a bit afraid of Mexico –

Suddenly Last Summer

We don’t need no stinking badges,

Maryse Holder Give Sorrow words,

Comacheros,

Decapitations decorating the highways…

But when I was a kid –

Zorro.

Bands of silver trumpeters.

Hat dancing.

Cielito Lindo.

raw silver jewellery, grumpy looking straw cowboys, hand bags made of alligator,

those souvenirs sent to my mother from her favorite uncle, 

United States Army Air Forces navigator.

And why you?

I had called you Jan.

You had written to me about my own work.

I had admired yours, especially the Creation Myths,

Hoped someday you’d do an audio version.

How like dreams now,
the days too
fade.

 

Re: Ethel Pollard Lyons Thanks to Donna J Snyder for telling me

 

three poems from An Invitation to Poetry

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=5695

Maggie Dietz (Editor), Robert Pinsky (Editor, Boston University)

Willimantic, Connecticut

---

Ay, Ay, Ay de la Grifa Negra

by Julia De Burgos

Ay, ay, ay, that am kinky-haired and pure black
kinks in my hair, Kafir in my lips;
and my flat nose Mozambiques.Black of pure tint, I cry and laugh
the vibration of being a black statue;
a chunk of night, in which my white
teeth are lightning;
and to be a black vine
which entwines in the black
and curves the black nest
in which the raven lies.
Black chunk of black in which I sculpt myself,
ay, ay, ay, my statue is all black.

They tell me that my grandfather was the slave
for whom the master paid thirty coins.
Ay, ay, ay, that the slave was my grandfather
is my sadness, is my sadness.
If he had been the master
it would be my shame:
that in men, as in nations,
if being the slave is having no rights
being the master is having no conscience.

Ay, ay, ay wash the sins of the white King
in forgiveness black Queen.

Ay, ay, ay, the race escapes me
and buzzes and flies toward the white race,
to sink in its clear water;
or perhaps the white will be shadowed in the black.

Ay, ay, ay my black race flees
and with the white runs to become bronzed;
to be one for the future,
fraternity of America!

Julia de Burgos, “Ay, Ay, Ay, of the Kinky-Haired Negress,” tr. by Jack Agüeros from Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos. Copyright ©1996 by Jack Agüeros. Used by permission of Curbstone Press.

---

Dawn

by Octavio Paz

Cold rapid hands
draw back one by one
the bandages of dark
I open my eyes
still
I am living
at the center
of a wound still fresh

Translated from the Spanish by Charles Tomlinson

---

WITH HIS VENOM

by Sappho

 

With his venom

irrestible

and bittersweet

that loosener of limbs, Love

reptile-like

strikes me down

 

( trans from the Greek by Mary Barnard}

---

poet bios

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_de_Burgos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavio_Paz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho 

How like dreams now the days too fade, dream poem by pd lyons

Last night I had a dream about you.

Nothing major.

We just met face to face.

You were telling me about my grandmother.

We were outside in the sand.

I was surprised you knew her.

I  never knew she went to Mexico.

It was hot.

We sat down at a rough grey whiskery  table.

Yes, you said and she rode very well.

A bright grey horse among the caballeros.
“And tequila ?” I leaned towards you tete-a-tete  ” What about  the tequila…?”

 

But the scraping sound of speeding traffic brought me into this morning.

 

And I wondered Why Mexico?

I was always a bit afraid of Mexico –

Suddenly Last Summer

We don’t need no stinking badges,

Maryse Holder Give Sorrow words,

Comacheros,

Decapitations decorating the highways…

 

But when I was a kid –

Zorro.

Bands of silver trumpeters.

Hat dancing.

Cielito lindo.

raw silver jewelery, grumpy looking straw cowboys, hand bags made of alligator,

those souvenirs sent to my mother from her favorite uncle, 

United States Army Air Forces navigator.

 

And why you?

I had called you Jan.

You had written to me about my own work.

I had admired yours, especially the Creation Myths,

Hoped someday you’d do an audio version.

 

How like dreams now,
the days too
fade.

 

Re: Ethel Pollard Lyons

Thanks to Donna J Snyder for telling me