Tight Ropes for Beginners

So I woke up this morning knowing which poems I'll show you next.  They were written quite a long time apart, but they are about the same person. 

The first one was an experiment in synesthesia.  Daughter Number 1 and I were on holiday in southern Spain and had moved onto the beautiful hill top village/town of Arcos de la Frontera.  We had been on a mission to find out more about sherry and had taken in several bodegas in Jerez and San Lucar.  In truth, we'd had enough of sherry tasting and were happy to take time out to do a bit of travelling into central Andalucia.  Ian and Matthew, well travelled friends, had recommended we try the Parador and I have to admit I hadn't heard of Paradors until the conversation in the pub months before.  Paradors are state run hotels in places of interest, with the aim of preserving local foods and decor of the area, and the one in Arcos was a splendid place to stay.  Arcos is at the top of a steep hill, with the Parador perched on the edge of a cliff dropping away, giving views for miles around.  We had one of the cheap rooms, a large comfortable twin room with a vast bathroom, overlooking the square at the top of the village, rather than waking up to the view.  When  we checked in we were told apologetically we could not park in the square as there was to be a flamenco festival over the next few evenings, which the receptionist excitedly told us was to include the top flamenco singers in Spain.  After our supper on the patio inside the parador DN1 and I ambled out to see what the festival was about.  Rows and rows of plastic chairs were slowly filling up with people of all ages, and it appeared all of them Spanish.  We went to bar at the back of the square and found of the drinks on offer manzanilla sherry and tinto de verrano were popular with the audience.  So we decided to immerse ourselves in the local culture and bought a half bottle of manzanilla and found a couple of chairs to perch on. The performers were singers, not dancers, with guitar accompanists.  Even not understanding a single word, the stories and emotions filled the square, but in time the plastic chairs took their toll and we decided to go up to our room.  This didn't allow us to opt out because the music reverberated and filled our room so we opened our shutters giving us the most amazing view of the proceedings.  DN1 sat on one of the window ledges, I drew a chair up to the other window.  Flamenco is extraordinary music, the emotion possesses you and I can quite understand why the spanish are so enthusiastic about it.  It set me thinking about the emotions that swirled inside me at that time, so I tried to write about the pictures that formed in my head in that white town on the hill on hot summer evening. 

Flamenco

Why should I miss your touch
Deftly worked upon my skin
To give you what you want
But can take or leave,
You tell me.
To walk into your web
And know what addictions
You feed me.
What spines so smooth on entry
Pull at the flesh
As I withdraw
To my safe space.
To sweat the longing out
And staunch the wound
I gave myself
As punishment for addictions
I maybe fed to you?

Arcos de la Frontera
12.47am
4th August 2010

And the second is very different, but again the pictures were firm in my head.  Written at home in England,

Circus

I have been so very careful.

I gulped your sweet air,
Longed for your merry eyes
To pause at me,
And smile.

But I am not a Clown.
Sometimes.
The feral cannot be tamed.
Grasped
It starts away,
Leaving just air,
Gulped by another
Who told herself
She was Master to your ring.

Still I breathe,
Steady now,
Upon my rope
High above,
Where prowls the thing
That holds my gaze. 

14/02/2011