A prose translation in the style of Jack Spicer of Federico García Lorca’s “Reyerta,” part of a larger project I’m working on, but felt appropriate to share now:
In the fray: Deep in the trenches, the switchblades made in Albacete shine like fish, beautiful in the other side’s blood. A hard, playing-card light cuts through the acrid green, the frenzied horses and their riders’ silhouettes. Two old women cry into an olive-wood cup. The fighting bull climbs the walls. Black angels bring handkerchiefs and melted snow: angels with huge wings feathered with switchblades made in Albacete. Juan Antonio, the one from Montilla, rolls dead down the slope, his body full of lilies and pomegranates at his temples. Now he climbs the fire-cross and sets out down the highway of death. Now the judge approaches through the olive grove, National Guardsmen accompanying him. Spilt blood screams a muted serpent-song. Here, officers! The same thing has happened as always and four Romans and five Carthaginians are dead. An afternoon of crazy fig-trees and hot rumors falls on the wounded legs of the cavalry. And black angels fly through the air following the setting sun: angels with long braids and olive-oil hearts.
