The Day of the Dead, Hope Street

(for Philip Jones Griffiths and his photographs)

silence in Hope Street
silence in stony places
after the agony in St. Luke’s Gardens
silence

‘Ladies and Gentlemen
Senors y Senoras
for one night only
The Simultaneous and Historical Faces of
Death!’

fade in F.X. laughter
faint boxy sound of cheap guitars
songs torn from dried-up larynxes

they dance
ignoring double yellow lines
around crimson traffic signs
ROAD CLOSED
noseless faces laugh elated
clattering pasodobles
echo from the walls of the Philharmonic Hall
GRAN VERBENA DE CALAVERAS
stretched across the street
before the Cathedral's crowned nosecone
pink   turquoise   ice blue
sequinned skirts whirl
faster and faster farandoles
a lone black cat
picks her way between the dancers
heaped marigolds scream orange defiance

the Consul white suit crumpled
lounges in the doorway of the Philharmonic Pub
tequila in hand
bloodred tropical sunset
reflected in his eyes

Trauermusik:

above the rattle of firecrackers
raucous chords scrawled
by bony fingers
above high strings
the pure clear sound of a viola

a tall, black-bearded Irishman
a short-haired girl in black ski-pants
scarlet tin-soldier jacket
peer through the crowd
as white elbows snap
doff their sombreros
dance round their hats
skeleton senoras
elegant in pink-and-white boas
watch stately
their pinstriped husbands
tap silverheaded cans to the rhythm

confetti hurled in the air
hot breath
the smell mescal   enchiladas
pink   white   yellow
cellophaned flowers forgotten underfoot
a black-and-white sheepdog
sniffs our flesh round rotting bones
lifts its leg against traffic cones
calaveras    calaveras    calaveras
prance castanets click
quicken the rhythm of the dance

at dusk
the carnival departs
hands yellow with the dust of mimosa
hair braided with crimson carnations
a trail of bright red petals
trodden beneath her limping feet
echoing distant laughter
along the empty street

from Selected and Unpublished, Poems 1965-2000. Published by Liverpool University Press 2007.