Ode to Salvador Dali F. G. Lorca - translation

You dream of garden roses and a cog
that follows pure syntax of sharp steel,
gray balustrades, a bare, stripped of fog
of old impressionism, naked hill.

The modern painters in their white workshops
clip flowers sprouting from the square roots.
A marble iceberg in Seine waters pops
to chill the windows, scatter ivy shoots.

Men treading firmly on the cobbled street,
the crystals hiding light in tiny pores,
machines perpetuating even beat
and Government that closed perfume stores.

An absence of the forests, main theme
among the ancient roofs subdued and drugged.
The air - polished prism above the sea,
horizon rising like an aqueduct.

The soldiers, shadowy, a sober band
behead the sirens on the seas of lead,
and night, black Prudence holding in her hand
the moon, a round mirror gently lit.
   
Our wish for forms and limits overwhelms,
here is the man who sees with yellow metre,
his Venus is the master of realms,
the butterfly collectors he leaves bitter.
 
* * *

Cadaques, at the pivot of water and hill
lifts up escalators and hides pearly shells,
and small wooden flutes play to keep air still,
a wild old god gives the children glass bells.

The fishermen sleep, dreamless sleep on the sand,
their compass, a rose in high seas, spells typhoon.
The virgin horizon of wounded land
links glassy blue fish with the glass of the moon.

A hard coronet of the white brigantines
crowns bitter foreheads and the hair of stone,   
the sirens who do not suggest but convince
come fast if a glass of fresh water is shown.
 
                * * *

Oh, Salvador Dali with olive-coloured voice!
I do not praise your skill, your adolescent brush,
nor pigments of your time, your flirting choice,
but the eternity with which you crush.   

Oh sanitary soul, you live upon new lands,
you run from jungles of cureless forms,
your fantasy obeys your shaping hands
and you enjoy the sonnets of the storms.

The world is dull half-shadows and disorder
in the foreground where men are torpid,
but stars that hide landscape and know no border
reveal the schema of the perfect orbit.

The current that is time pools in concord
of numbered moulds, through centuries and eras,
and Death itself is trembling, weak and conquered
in the embrace of present, locked in mirrors.
   
From your palette, a rupture in its wing,
the olive trees are brought to life by light,
Minerva comes, the goddess comes to bring
the wisdom and the silence of the night

You call the light that rests on brows and shines
but doesn’t descent to lips or hearts of men,
the light most feared by the loving vines,
chaotic force with which curved waters ran. 

You do it well, you put your warnings often
to mark the night, the limits of dark shrouds,
and you refuse to let landscapes be softened
by cotton of the unexpected clouds.       

The birds in cages, fish behind glass screens,
not in the air, or the sea that foams.
You copy, you stylise once you have seen,
with honest eyes, their small agile forms.

You love exactness, details, you can trap sand   
on which toadstools and their components choke,
your architecture builds on what is absent,
admitting flags as only a joke.

Your compass tells its short elastic verse,
new islands rise where spheres are overturned,
straight lines struggle with an upward course
and crystals sing geometry they learned.

               * * *

But also roses, gardens that could match you,
always a rose, our north, our south coast!
Cool, concentrated like a blind statue,
so ignorant of struggles that it caused.

A pure rose, clean of the art of sketches,
with slender wings, with smiles that remain
(pinned butterfly, a flight it dreams and snatches),
a rose of calm, no self-inflicted pain,
always the rose!

* * *

Oh, Salvador Dali with olive voice, so lush!
I speak of you, I speak of what you tell us,
I do not praise your adolescent brush,   
I sing the steady aim of your arrows.

I sing your fair fight for light and art,
your love to clear things that you attend,
your astronomical, your tender heart,
French, never-wounded deck of cards at hand.

I sing your restless longing for new styles,
your spite of crowds swelled with bitter quarrels,
a small sea siren sings to you and smiles,
riding her bike of conches and of corals.

I sing your depth, I sing the common thoughts
that join us in dark and golden weather.
The light of Art is not, but the crossed swords
of love and friendship bind us together. 

It isn’t the picture that you slowly make
but the Theresa’s breasts, her sleepless skin,
Mathilda’s curls, the curls of brown snake,
it’s our friendship, real and serene. 

May fingerprints of burning blood on gold
mark Catalonia, the eternal hours
commence their flow from brushes that you hold,
you paint and your life breaks into flowers.

Don’t watch the clock with its membrane wings,
beware hard allegory that could fail us,
undress you brush and hear the singing strings
before the sea, the brine of ships and sailors.