Poem of the Week: Bull Ring

When I close my eyes
I can hear the hot wind in the olive groves
like Spanish guitars
sad and full of hope

I am in a poem
Lorca is beside me
we are both afraid of the death that is coming
certain, yet stalled

in the silent abatement of the eternal.

Only now do you feel the full power of the sun
the heaviness of words
and lines like shadows in the corners of the bull ring.

There is an aching pain in everything
the scorched high grass
like dried brown blood
dying around our pitiful boots

the sudden shudder of a farm lorry
the smell of cigarettes.

We love when everything is already lost
the still water in the jug on the windowsill
the shout in the warm wind

the black bull that runs strong, yet afraid
into the dusty back streets of the mind.

Gary Allen has published 19 collections, most recently, Bonfire Night. A selected, and a new collection, 'Wing Walking,' will be published next year. He is also the author of three novels and a collection of short stories.