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![190
But dusty roadware, glassy gadgets waiting--
three sign-bound piggies bearing olives
at the border of Seville serve up forgetfulness
of killer tusks and bristly hides;
[*used in an early poem, “Beyond the Clearing”, p.331*]
three desk-borne, tiny monkeys
joined for paperweight, in blotter,
are all we dare of King Kong raging in his pain;
[*road signs in Span and elsewhere*]
and everywhere the dragon selling gasoline,
his black and yellow tongue bereft of sting
(Oh, Toro, Toro
who shrank you down
and drank your blood?).
[*Reference to my abhorrence of viragoes who are also like Dame Van Winkle.*]
Was it lovely Eve, the bullring lady at home the shrew,
who hid her widowed eyes when knives dug at your hearth?
Was it the pinch-faced Leather Duke
who fled the gang fight, left his befriender bleeding,
and ghoulish grew to curse the backs of strangers?
[*See autobiog “A Force in the Field” for this bothersome confrontation with fascist law and courts in Spain of the early 1970’s.*]
Was it the Algeciras judge who held his cigarette like a torch
and stumble-followed it from room to room
holding his court? More likely, then, his tribe of tribers?
those gunhipped, grim-beaked motorcyclists
prick-eared and powered by hornhats aping El Toro?
Or was it the ones who snipped his mighty tail
or lopped his signal ears
or beat the horses to drag his body across the sand?
[Oh, Toro, Toro](https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/manifold-cuny-api-store/store/resource/4/5/7/457a0bf0-c34a-4b01-9947-25acf5c60efe/attachment/17573d9ac26b0cfaa27cac1e8a78331f.jpg)
![191
why so hard to pull into the light
a drinker of blood?)...
[*large social implication intended*]
No matter. Your ghost will stomp back up in the hills,
seed phantoms need the roads, the high spots
where the crown is hid.
And when mosquito prancers ride in pairs, in scores,
and force you down into their trumpety, their ring of sand,
[*Main theme again*]
stay terrible; feel only their glutting fair--
lest the burn of your blowing saliva,
the scald of your nosebleed fan,
the bloomful silence of your impossible fall
teach
nothing.
1978
1980
Tomorrow [*Perhaps the second poem I ever published (in a college anthology, America Sings). It did not take long for me to desert this kind of diction.*]
This day makes sport of my desire
And laughter echoes my lament.
My joy is ransomed by tomorrow,
To whose embrace my toil is bent.
Tomorrow will descent a queen
From this day’s own pure atmosphere,
Diademmed and royal gowned,](https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/manifold-cuny-api-store/store/resource/4/2/0/420c9776-c4b8-48d8-9fe0-40ebe7adde44/attachment/af526d6b2e7f2811eb75bf55bbf13a53.jpg)
![188
in flicking his cape, turning his back to bow
(Oh, Toro, Toro,
who has heard you fall?”
[*I did not like this toy at all.*]
I heard him lying twitching on the street,
or fancied Toro sound could come from such a toy,
a fist-sized bullock, cuddly black,
with bandalero-figured winding pin sewed into his back,
vulnerable to any childish thumb
or eager vendor like this one of left Café Colón,
unslung his ragged cardboard box
and loosed his hopping ware down to the stones
(Oh, Toro, Toro
what have they done to you?_
Yet, even Andalusian hills, spike-fruited, thorned,
had worn the course of the bravest always run:
Sierra Nevada access, high testing-ground where weakest fail;
Granada, the middle prize where beauty stays;
the climb and glide to Córdoba,
ancient Roman praise, still wise in Arab skill;
and then Seville,
from clever Santa Cruz to deep-eyed beggars on the squares
a capital worthy to fix a crown, command the river
that ties the see to hills El Toro roams,
and give him king-spot, eminence](https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/manifold-cuny-api-store/store/resource/6/5/8/658adb16-5dcb-4198-b128-952e433e31a2/attachment/3b9f879880c862fdf4ecbe347a3f797c.jpg)
![189
above the cypress, bamboo, orange,
and palms he surveys wild
(Oh, Toro, Toro,
who cut you down
into a toy?).
Stay wild and black; [*main theme of poem, of course*]
burn my eyes like weird-streaked sunset
where I drove into your heartbeats
poured like pellets whipping through the hillside trees,
my knuckles wheeling slow into those twilight spears
your devil-snorting horns flashed out;
gore from my mind each clinging phantom fact
those close-up ghosts near Andalusian roads thrust up
as I incredulous drove nearer, saw heroic blood
that minutes before had blazoned all your side
dull down to “Osborne Sherry & Brandy,” pink words for sale;
and I stiffened stupefied to glimpse you pointed at my side,
your frightful, glossy bulk reduced to tin-lid frailty:
[*My first view of roadside signs using a whole-bull image — a surprise and disappointment.*]
a momentary, nail-thin, signpost creature
breeze-blown and slapped askew
if not for humping metal stays and dingy studs
and rusty little props
(Oh, Toro, Toro
what have they done to you?)
Some silent ones could answer: not only Andalusian toys,](https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/manifold-cuny-api-store/store/resource/e/e/6/ee6d4f3c-13d4-4453-881a-2e3386c57596/attachment/da9cd2a48a280b263447a6adc5466855.jpg)