Granada Rhymes: The Rest

Rise Up
You can get hash or arrested on Elvira tonight,
Drop juggling pins, your pants too tight,
You can grow dead dreds as a farm for your food
Or go digging through the trash in a fancy mood.
You can lead a pack of dogs, lie with ‘em all day,
If you rise, philosophize, (didja hear what Franklin say?)
You can show your palm to tourists,
Piss in your bed,
On your cobblestones, I mean,
And you can seal off your head
‘Cause books are too heavy for the life you do--
But for a week can I be a trustifarian, too?


Free Cocktail
Pick up a drink ticket, get a drink,
Stick it in your face, help to fuel the race
Of relaciónes públicas here in Granada,
Nights like it no hay nada
Whether tapas or tequila’s your thing.
Bring a backup liver, quaff a bottle by the river,
Cupid’s here and totin’ full quiver.
Won’t be hard to find your smile
When you shake it Spanish style,
Doesn’t matter where you’re from or what’s next.
‘Cause next to nothing beats las noches
In the good life living showcase
Called Granada when your heart’s in effect.


Overstocked
Hanging from the ceiling, ham, Serrano ham,
On the backs of playing cards, under the dresses of shrunken widows
Clogging sidewalks, trailing mothball perfume,
The fake friendlies with tickets in hand,
Bubbling by fountains, bouncing group to group,
Bouncers pounding eyes into people in line
Who put on special shoes, blew this week’s pay just
By strolling in with a debit card,
German beach behavior, Albayzin real estate scams,
Police four-deep in a minivan, blue light special, ham.


An illegal job quenches appetites
So long as your tastes are lean:
No cannolis, discoteca drinks
Or magazines obscene.


Twins
Ice cream is helado, hope you eat
A hell lot of it, hit Los Italianos,
Put banana and chocolate
On a cone, within a cup if you fear
Dropping your investment or a
Jacket smear, ‘cause a cone’s known
To drip while a cup’s conservative;
A cone’s got wild crunchy style,
A cup what you paidforgives.


In a Sexy Way
If she makes your eyes pop, yell guapa!
If she makes your heart stop, yell guapa!
If she makes you bust a grin, yell guapa!
If it looks like a sin, yell guapa!
If she’s got fishnets and a frilly skirt, she’ll hurt
If you don’t yell guapa!
A messy eater and her friends will never look your way again
If you walk by and don’t yell guapas!
If she’s headed home at dawn on a muscleman’s arm,
You better honk the horn and yell guapa!
If she’s 80 and can dance and you lack romance,
Might as well take a chance and yell guapa!


Never Satisfied, Always Satisfying
The mirador sky gets bored with blue
And clouded specks of white
And yellow rays of typical shine
And black blue-black of night,
So it puts on skins of salmon pink,
Shades of belt-laid welts,
Plays with the red of cut kings’ heads,
Purple of puddles of popsicle melt.
Grey of a Viking sage’s gaze
Cut with golden idol fire,
Magenta of a Manhattan punker
Twisting in bed with a Baptist choir.
The snotgreen of an omphalos-seen sea,
The orange of Cheez-Wiz carrot puke
Drained from the pipes of an Irish plumber
In the Dome after ‘Cuse beat Duke.


The Offering
Our graffiti, I’ve never seen ‘em
Throwing it up, bubble letters,
Angry locked scrawls too,
What discos lack in hip hop’s
Where the walls come through
Big like Jeter, never seen it sweeter
Than Niño de las Pinturas,
Aerosol can depleter,
Reunites color and stone, fresh air and art,
Thought loops with the new,
Surroundings play a part,
The city the frame, cans can’t drain
Like this without God’s hand
Twisting the wrist.
(Check it out here)


Breaking Bread
How much bread can you eat in a day?
Go broke, you’ll have the answer in 24 hours,
A swollen doughboy gut, sweat stinking of flour,
A crusty cracked grin, pair of crusty drawers,
Trust me, breaking bread stores’ doors is
For the poor, Jean Val Jean style, keep
Your hands to yourself, your crummy
Slice swiping guile fails to fool,
You can’t trick a baker, butter him up,
He drives a hard-rollin’ bargain, he’s a sour
Dough-box guarding miser, your local yeast riser
Goes whole weeks without a scheizer.
Think you can cut him out of half what’s in his profit chest?
He’ll crumble half of you in soup, soak up the rest with what’s left.


Teamwork
I live with four Italians, they know how to live,
Serving coffee on trays, prepping beds to give
The ladies a frame shaking overnight visit,
U2 on repeat, wonder what is it
Making them run around in black briefs—
Black briefs alone—
When the females are gone, only hombres home,
Or what sends ‘em to Zara for pre-party clothes,
What makes them show off their craps, calling, pinching the nose.
They watch porn in a group, forget about the oven
But it always comes out perfect, screw American curmudgeons.


And of course, the obligatory limericks:

In Granada, fine pleasures abound
You’ll relax if you look underground
Every ice cream shop doubles
As what gets men in trouble
When their wives get to scooping around.

In Café Fútbol at the end of the verse
Pierre begged coins from a woman with girth:
"A coin please, madam?"
“Not today, sorry, I am,
But I’ll let you fill up my purse.”

Johnny Alhambra worked with a hammer
But his true gift was Arab-king scammer:
Built the best door of the land
For Princess, hid key in hand
And promised no one would ram ‘er.

At the beach I don’t know where to look
My eyes won’t stay tied to my book
So I pull on my shades
Hide my wide sweeping gaze
‘Cause you have to watch ham while it cooks.

Have you checked out the tube after 12?
It’s worse than my uncle’s top shelf
They don’t hide a thing
Except maybe a ring
And a shred of respect for the self.


Granada, Spain, Andalucia, Albayzin, Poems, Limerick

Overload

I can't do this one-by-one posting thing, no matter how hard I try. To save everyone time and effort, I'm dumping the rest of the Granada poems here in one big, sloppy splat of a post. Plus, I'm leaving the country in four days. That's where my focus is, or at least where I want it to be.

Swollen

Granada doesn’t want your automobile,
She wants your feet to feel
The rocks, the cobblestones,
Your heels to wobble, your ankle bones
To groan as you ascend the Albayzin,
Your knees to realize what it means
To be a city bursting seams
With poets’ dreams and myster-schemes.

Granada, Spain, Andalucia, Albayzin, Walking, Mirador, Rocks

Calling All Wallets

Economics in Granada revolve around the phone booth,
Paste a poster on the glass, hope business cuts loose,
Unreported antics putting Tyco to shame
‘Cause shafting the state is the law in Spain.
Rip a tab with a number, the classes begin:
German, English or Italian,
Arab tongue twisters, harmonica, too
Cheapo ceramics, Spanish for prudes,
(Did we mention apartments, houses, closets to rent?)
Basketweaving with a dude and his trusty scent.
You can learn to dance flamenco,
I’m sure the teacher’s fair,
Grab a Turkish bath discount,
No comment on the hair.
So if you want skills or just people to screw
Slap your ad inside a phonebooth, make scam dreams true.


Granada, Spain, Andalucia, Apartment, Spanish, Economics, Law

Back On Top

Each day I get more serious about my hairdo,
I gel through twice, afternoon and night,
I want ripe spikes to swipe an eyesocket clean,
A mullet by fall, greasecurl waterfall,
Ooze dripping down the back of my shirt.
The stuff stiffens, my posture can’t give in,
Why not toss in a highlight or ten, then
Trim the neck well (stay away from that rat tail)
And angle my bangs till they tango with my unibrow.
Leave my burns buzzed low so when I wobble to and fro
Home, on sight they end threats of a fight.


Granada, Spain, Andalucia, hairdo, Mullet, Gel, Unibrow

About Time

Every clock in Granada is always wrong,
Every half-hour walk is a minute long,
What’s planned for tomorrow gets done in a week,
A siesta’s not siesta when springs don’t squeak.
Either way—a couple hours a day
Set aside for play or a tapa tray,
Sun, drink, a cig to think
Of anything but something,
You ask, “What is this?”
Blink.

Scene From a Balcony

Enriqueta Lozano—a teeny tiny street,
Look outside the window, blank wall treat
But a tree climbs higher, it’s over the wall,
You can touch it from the balcony, spring-scents call
You out, you see people couple meters below,
Ancient crooked backbone shufflers, mopeds swerving to pass,
A greaser with his girlfriend and his hand on her ass,
Dogs barking like they’re boiling, they never were trained,
Last night’s liters of Alhambra, rolling, clinking, drained.

---
Cafe Futbol in Plaza de Mariana Pineda (home to the above-mentioned street) serves the biggest ice cream cones in town, especially if you go right before they close, when it's time to unload excess inventory. I know because I used to live above the place. (From Puerta Real, follow the Ganivet portico until it opens into P. Mariana Pineda.)

Granada, Spain, Andalucia, Enriqueta Lozano, Ice Cream, Alhambra, Café Futbol

May Snow

Sierra Nevada’s got a cocaine problem for sure,
Sierra Nevada’s downtown with a lady in fur,
Sierra Nevada’s on the telephone, wants you to pay,
Sierra Nevada, dirty baby, why you talk that way?
The frozen cold south Spain moon scratching pimp,
No complaints, chilling like the Goodyear blimp
Over Super Bowls, he’s there every time
You look for eyes to look in, toasting wine.
He don’t care if you’re sleeping and it’s half past late,
Won’t pinch the best pincho off your tapa plate,
In the locker room he puts Alhambra to shame,
He scratches moons and pimps it, Sierra Rick James.

---

Find an overlooked mirador. (There are enough to go around.)

Granada, Spain, Andalucia, Sierra Nevada, Alhambra, Tapas, Mirador

Beach Bus

Who unwrapped the ham sandwich on the bus?
I smell that ham, stinking ham,
Ham with a rainbow on it, glazed,
Mayoed onions makes a billy goat vomit.
Bite, bite—little squirts out the end,
Bite, bite, juice squirts again,
Soaking in your pants front,
A questionable stain, explain?
You already ruined the family name.

---

Choice Alpujarras ham and all sorts of other tasty dead things can be found in the Mercado Municipal, Plaza de San Agustin, north of the cathedral.

Granada, Spain, Andalucia, Ham, Jamon, Alpujarras

Granada Welcomes You

Spring is here, Semana Santa starts tomorrow and you're headed to Granada. Or maybe you're already there. Over the next few days I'm going to be posting stuff to supplement even the most obnoxiously thick guidebook. And if you're somewhere besides Granada, I'm sure it's pretty nice there, too.

Thanks

The longer I go without posting anything, the harder it is to post. Like working out, or whatever hurdles in your life get you stuck. Even as I write this, the urge to close the browser and walk back to the orange cut and half-eaten on the counter behind me is overwhelming. All I have pushing me forward is a heart-torquing note received from someone I should talk to more frequently. From now until when my will breaks down and I need to be found again is for you.

Chris Ward - Tenor Sax

Ever since he hijacked my bari, played "Midnight Hour" and cracked the foundation of the Berklee dorm with his volume, I've known Chris Ward (aka The Warden) is a beast. Check out four of his new studio tracks below.

Lockdown: www.myspace.com/chriswardjazz