Robin Mookerjee

Spanish Fly

Suddenly they stop the Fandango.

Froze like poisoned hooks stuck in the ground

between the enemy’s camp. And yours.

One time they yelled, “Fascismo!”

Words: so useful and pleasant.

Not Ibiza, or Mallorca. No more.

The bars and the clubs like flies on a steel mesh tropical window.

And all the while

I’m looking for Spain. Post-Franco Spain.

Let me know when you see it.

Let me know if you find it.

Oh, Spanish Doll, currency inflation,

Sovereign debt, falling birth rate,

doesn’t get me up.

You are not so imperial now.

If I walk through a wooded path, lose my way,

not the dingy countryside of Europe, but Vermont, Virginia, Maine:

and come to a clearing, a perfect circle.

Would that be Spain?

To which I fly.

To buy cocaine.

Because it’s sensual. Political.

And they sleep during the day.

Do you know the way?

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Cyrillic Diary

Haven’t slept since Inverness

Lapping and narcotic shores, ways to fall

Tor I hadn’t seen in a while

Next to our finger-dances, sublime--

I no longer recall.

Kindly I sprinkled water on you again

You slept like a child with belly fever

Brown-eyed moons shone in the reservoir

Anchored  me to the sky--

Made of me a believer.

Maps smoothed out on my library table

Lost you with the invention of the steam engine

Riadh through to South Korea

Every port a new bed--

A dream each destination.

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