Barcelona,
oh City of Bones
laying hot and dry in the sun
beating down on streets, on tombs
and tiles so red over white and so hot
and shimmering radiant still,
oh ye bones!
Barcelona, City of Bones
Baking before the gates of the Sun,
I sacrificed my purity for thee, such as it might be
(my purity, not my sacrifice)

Purity…
of thought,
of mind,
of heart and soul,
purity of
song and deed
and strong intention.

Barcelona, my sacrifice
so droll, so dirty is actually
sterility masquerading
as purity and thus is merely

the absence of jazz,
the absence of spice,
the absence of that
jagged noise of exultation
and thus there is no
purity and nothing
quite acceptable
enough.

Gladly do I lay it there
(my sacrifice, not my purity)
on the bony altar of your burning eyes
hung there above the freezing flames
of your sharp haughty sniff and thus
do I seek sanctuary in the fires of
your hunger, games appeased and satiated.
 And these words I leave
(my longing words so red, so sharp)
along the edge of your wet teeth,
hard teeth so white and glistening,
and there, blurred,

there they mingle
with your breath,
with the liquid you
and thus become
inflammable and ready
to leap up like the Phoenix
to take their ease in air and be
us, there, us there
be us there in the air.

And this city here,
right in plain sight and swaying
in the salty breeze blowing in stiff
off the racing aching blue seas,
this City of Bones dancing on air

with my words
there in air
like banners in the wind,
like thirsty golden kerchiefs
flying midst meteors, comets,
midst stars in the night

flapping in the solar flares
and furies of the sun and lapping
up the finest purest beams
of silver, argent grey moonlight

And those fires
(of the night)
my words those silver fires
streaking, shooting across
the vast expanse of velvet
black thick nothing, silver flames
curling, licking at the bones
of the City hanging
in the deep dark void
 And the music rounding there amidst
those handy banners sounds like owls
talking soft and hooty in the wind-torn branches
and our hearts are slender limber flexing long flagpoles
and we fly our flags of love like maidens flying
tokens for our champions…Together we all

(words and banners and bones)

shine upon your battlements

Barcelona
City of Bones