Speaking of Butterflies
(Blue Eyed Sailor)
written by: Emanuel Pope
We are RARE, BEAUTIFUL, MAJESTIC, WANDERING…
the bees for our sake make honey and die
we are unimaginably rare
something between bugs and sprites
with the fingers of
a single hand
we can tame like a harp
the deeply woven shadow of the
dozens of hidden souls
we are beautiful
we don’t beg
indescribably beautiful
we are like Frida and Diego
only you don’t have a moustache,
and I don’t feast on corpses
but even so… despite
these deficiencies
it seems that a whole world
divinizes us
and you, rejoice, rejoice Eva
of my sleepless nights
that so many believers wear our image
tattooed on their mother-of-pearl shells
we who have breathed that stale air
of Spanish arquebus gunpowder
in the vicinity of the god Montezuma in Tenochtitlan
and made love during the Mexican revolution,
ten years with the same passion,
when for two pesos
any gringo
could buy a horse, a Winchester,
a heavy bandolier of sins
and the souls of two hundred peasants
shadowed under
the sombrero of hunger…
Viva Zapata!
and we are majestic, you see,
since every morning
to stretch our rheumatic bones
we manage with our silhouettes
to lift the trunk of the sky
little by little
millimetre by millimetre
unveiling
the Lord’s feet
the hell of divine and his
lyrical anatomy!
more like a transparent embroidery
of blood and nerves with no escape
it’s not for nothing that they say
that out of concern for us
the cobalt of Sevres porcelain trembles under the glaze
in the service
of the Queen of England
yes, yes, you heard
right, it’s not a joke
like that, old and with a mind left among
the light rainbows
of the 18th century
it still denotes a
remarkable consciousness
(Proust was right when he spoke)
that’s why I told you
to seek lodging after death
in one of the great
collections of the world
we are wandering
and if we didn’t have such
a heavy heart
a single vowel could throw us
right to the edge of the universe
that’s how
light, vulnerable
and on the verge
of extinction we are!
but you don’t care
really, you don’t care
you laugh, you laugh and nonchalantly
you scatter through the dust of any road
and in the path of any traveller
the silver of your letters
they have all made stone necklaces
from the seconds of your time
even when I invite you to
bite
into the ice clouds
— watching your lust for life —
I’m afraid I’ll lose you
that’s how dear you are to me, crazy child
and that’s a worse feeling
than after the death of John Lennon
if you still remember that time.
and… yes,
the world began with us
and with us, it will pack its suitcase in a hurry
and the universe you
mentioned in a poem
will stop coughing
and will thin out starting from the base
and in only one summer
the earth will look deplorable
like a derailed train station
with its old body crippled among the tracks
Happy…
“People would rather
forgive us a crime
than…”
that’s why I tell you: “Let’s do it!”
(The suspense is exasperating me,
I’ve never had the patience
to watch a movie from beginning to end)
we can end now… in a festive way
with candles and silver cutlery
worn-out lung next to smoker’s lung
we will die back-to-back
here, on this dissection table of the poem
with a single and final breath
we will press, purring
the fast-forward
button all the way
…as from a miracle-working icon
from under the scalpel
from our chests
— yours
of white marble like the eternal snow of
the Salkantay mountain in Peru
— mine
of black marble like the conquered
pain of Makeba living far from Africa
only flights will gush forth… flights
Multiple, Perfect and Paired Flights
all the zealots will say: “Ooh! oh!”
and “Oh!” will be
called all their existential
understanding
from now on we will let them drink
we will no longer
say a word to them
calm and smiling
…WE WILL CLIMB ONTO
THE KNEES
OF OUR GRANDFATHERS.
again
you will be three years old,
I, six,
a well-chosen age
for the B-flats
of the songs
from the New House.
- Spotlight On Writers – Emanuel Pope - August 1, 2026
- Speaking of Butterflies - July 2, 2026
- And Then I Stepped Outside - April 20, 2026
