Bulls Can't See Red
I.
Act one: the meat is fresh, uncut, and on the bone,
Released into clapping, music, and castanets,
Sprung on the seething, spoiling mob in a circle
Around a fight; and echoes of ancient Home
And unleased repossession and long blood-lets
Unbridle the beast of fable that lives with a moral.
That matador is a proud and preened tormentor
Bowing in 18th-century garb, a shameful shade
Of something historic, antique, and sincerely cruel,
Electrifying, with the blood-lust of the hunter.
Now let the tragedy begin indeed...
Short passes prime the cloak-and-dagger duel,.
But heads and horns don’t always follow the same
Swish of the fancy cape. ‘The enemy’ learns by pain
To dodge the beaten track, try something different,
To go for the man instead of the cloth next time.
His hunter tangoes with a horn at his groin,
Then kneels, vainglorious: ‘Toro, eh hey!’ he taunts.
II.
Act two: first thrust, first blood: a short blaze plays
In a burning wound that doesn’t seem to matter
To the pawing, snorting, charging fury; the black
Baddy who always misses, as films portray.
The flash cape glides behind the dancer. Olé!
In slower rhythm now, more matter-of-fact.
How the crowd love it! charged with an atmosphere
Of standing ovation, of universal orgasm,
Picasso-like monstrosities that leer
Out of an anti-bovine herd and the glare
Of heated passions, sadistically arousing.
Is it wine or blood? But it’s all one and the same!
That killer’s scars have healed, outliving
So many bleeding bulls for praise and money.
Another weapon finds its mark, another,
And yet another! Is that sport or a living,
Or the sweet life leaving its poisoned sting in the
honey?
I call it slow and articulated murder.
III.
Act three: the giant and meaty pin-cushion begins
To falter, snorting, and sneezing blood-clots, aiming
Wild blows at a hot haze of blurred faces with horns,
Till the dust feels as if the whole earth were rising,
Till all four knees are growing calf-weak again,
Falling for green, unbutchered and unmilked green.
Blood twists its red mouths round a gaping hole
In the black back where a picador buried his lance,
Missing the vital spinal cord. The bull
Goes through weak motions of pawing, tottering to heel
Like a whipped dog, as the matador bravely turns
His back on the ‘monster’, the target of Spanish ‘bull’.
Now the big star of the show comes in for the kill,
Eves, with a three-cornered sneer, rise over the cloak.
Sweating, he flaunts the last sword with an air
Of ritual slaughter. A hush falls thick and full,
For a change, over all beasts. He aims to strike,
Angular, poised, precise, with surgical savoir faire,
And drives the blade home deeply, like a butcher,
Deciding a choice cut of meat. The coup
De grâce is the only stroke of mercy, if
There’s room for morals among all that blood and litter.
The bull drops quickly; I choke on the Mithras cup
Of man’s own blood-guilt, if blood and soul are life.
- (Tiresias).
Page(s) 15-16
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