MERCHANDISE<\/p>\n
This is not the Spain I knew
\nas a wide-open-eyed boy
\nof fifteen English summers
\nhitting the Costa Brava
\nwith grandpa and family
\nin a fifties Citroen.<\/p>\n
That was the Spain of Franco
\nand the Guardia Civil
\nin their ridiculous hats,
\nbut I was too young to know
\nwho had murdered my uncle
\nin distant Talavera.<\/p>\n
I was too young to know why
\nConchita Casizares
\n(a name I’ll never forget)
\ncaptured my innocent heart
\nwith her red Sevillan dress
\nand black hair for dreaming of.<\/p>\n
I remember dusty streets
\nthrough nondescript villages
\nwhere tough old men led donkeys
\nwith heavy loads on their backs,
\nareas where the church was
\nthe most impressive building.<\/p>\n
Conchita’s nearly eighty.
\nChurches are less important.
\nCommercial developments
\nscar the modernized landscape
\nwhere motor cars hurry from
\nroundabout to roundabout.<\/p>\n
In shopping centres the size
\nof two Olympic stadiums
\nwe paddle on polished floors
\ntwixt racks that sell everything
\never invented by man
\nto appeal to woman’s taste.<\/p>\n
Every possible gadget,
\nshiny, plastic, second hand,
\ngoes for a song in Chinese
\nmegamarkets or grim dumps
\nthat skim off the unwanted stuff
\nof money-minded Snowbirds.<\/p>\n
Perhaps we’ll pay a visit
\nto Miguel Hernandez’ house
\nand learn about a poet
\nwho undershadowed Lorca
\nin poems about a land
\nsome say is falling apart.<\/p>\n
This little piece of Belgium
\noverlooking the forest
\nhouses my sister-in-law
\nfor five or six months a year,
\nguaranteeing temperatures
\nabove the seasonal average.<\/p>\n
Here I read about water
\nin Emoto’s well-known book
\npraising its true qualities,
\nbronzed by eternal sunshine
\nand listening to a fountain
\nthat splashes all day and night.<\/p>\n
Namo Amida Butsu
\nmixed with love and gratitude
\ngushes from my thirsty lips.
\nAfter this warm week in Spain
\nI long for the local shop
\nand the comfort of my bed.<\/p>\n
Orihuela, November 2014<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MERCHANDISE This is not the Spain I knew as a wide-open-eyed boy of fifteen English summers hitting the Costa Brava […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}