Ballad Of The Rose

In this blog I am publishing my project "Ballad of the Rose" as a whole.

This project consists of an album with seven piano tracks

and a poem with twenty illustrations
which you can read below this intro.

I've illustrated and designed the art cover of this project too. 

You can listen the whole album in the following player
(or in my bandcamp where you can download it in High Audio quality too)

my official art page:
http://alvarobarcala.blogspot.com

BALLAD OF THE ROSE

I

You are not

but that Word

which burns in the shadow

of a nonexistent rose bunch

The one that was cut down        

with a single stroke

by the invisible axe

of my autumn days

You are not

but a child

who shivers 

by the warmth 

of an imaginary sun

A flower

by a God incognito

cultivated

in order to deceive me                  

to believe

in his sublime presence

Such is the power of your unwonted fragrance

Is it not your existence

that omniscient absence of you

that Nothingness which makes of this world

your corporeal and aching reverse?

Are not those dried petals

softly left behind your trail

the luminescent trace

of an extinct species?

From the magic and enigmatic doe 

only remains 

the golden silhouette

The brightness of a halo

which fades leisurely                

while stealthy into the forest

ventures

II

Go open in two

the sea that separates us

Make of my words

a bare flesh stigma

so that I can breath 

of your Heaven

through the bleeding

wound

Make one of those

your gestures

biblical and facetious:

Announce yourself

in the aching smile

of some transvestite

Show yourself

in the pubic hair

of the young candidate

or in the inebriate tear

of the cabin boy

Incarnate your presence

in some livre maudit 

that our reading redeems

and doing so

making it Be

Announce at last your sign

in the fart

Announce yourself

in the faeces 

of some dirty lover

or in any other

of your beautiful creations

Announce yourself in the angel

Announce yourself in the shadow

Announce yourself wherever you wish

But announce yourself

III

I show you my worn veins

of fine and poisonous flow

for you to inject 

with the incandescent needle 

of your Verb

the incendiary nectar 

of the prodigious flowers

Make the unbelievable happen:

the thunder of a beat

in the heart of a corpse

Make of me the astonished Virgin

the rose illuminated by the angel

the enslaved flower of your Word

Make of me your announced beauty

or simply

make of me

IV

Pale

on the sea mirror

a child floats

The spectral breath

his mouth exhales

swings the rose

embroidered

in the shroud

that veils his face

V

The shipwrecked rose

thrown by the tide 

on the shore

glows

right before

being dragged

back to the sea

by the undertow

Your name 

remains

written on the sand

covered by a shroud

VI

From the strange night

that arrives to the ports

a cabin boy disembarks

wearing wind in his feet

His soul staggers

still rocked

by the funereal caress

of the ghost sea

that roars in his body

recently tattooed

on his chest

the rose bleeds

His spectral existence

directed 

towards everything

that of you 

remains

The swallow takes flight

over the end of the world

and vanishes there

where your look 

begins 

VII

The dame blade

cuts the nocturnal lace

with which the lament

ornaments itself

There is nothing

in this funeral parlour:

the empty coffin

of a corpse

who fled away

enraged

having pulled

before

all the terrible jewels 

out of eternity

VIII

Star pollen

covers the waters

of the labyrinth sea

that around you

spins

The birds discern

the sweet sparkles

of the old treasure

sunken there

The absence of a body

appears

over your waters

walking

His feet

amputated

are those of a saint

I’ve wanted to listen

his reliquary voice

paying attention to his words

which shine

unfleshed to the bone

discern the calm

inherent to the storm

A hundred ghosts shape his presence

solemn fragrance of a funeral

moan of an angelus

echoing

in the cathedral of the Verb

Place, Paul,

your hands on my head

and cure my leprous eyes

in the name of God

IX

It is here

in the dawn of the limits

that I catch a miracle

almost by mistake:

managing to see

the demented reflexion

of me

in the sky

Right here

in the unintelligible 

frontiers

of all of that

that is aware

of being eternal

X

Guillotining rose

with daybreak literature

you fall from the gallows

from which you were dragged 

by men

You shout to my hearing

a sublime hope

while they move 

your body away

turned into ashes

The executioner believes

extinct your Word

not knowing 

it is still shining

by the head of John

There, where the sign comes

giving aid to you,

the night palpitates

the night 

in which your heart

glows

Wearing those sandals

which have stepped on Death

you are reborn again

from the promise

in which you died

And with a strange gesture

of immense tenderness

you tuck me in silence

with a blanket of light

XI

You all have received the torch

from the hand of the angels

but you have not set fire to it

The night arrives

with its bramble of desires

The young lads go out

to the soulless streets

hiding from the furtive sun

that took shelter

in their houses

The nocturnal flowers howl

in the light of the sapphire

-that tear

crystallized

in the flow of the skies-

The poets sign their verses

with criminal gestures

Beauty turns pale

in the trembling vanity

of their words

It is said

Death neglects her work

because of those gloomy effects

of little rigour

But it is 

because of the loudness

of this vain ritual

that the nettles bloom

in the broken corners

of the heart

You observe the scene

from the shadows

it casts 

While the rats 

nibble the stars

Silence falls

softly

on the palm 

of your hand

Just like that

you pressure it

with all your Always

till transforming it

into a diamond

It is in this here 

that your fist bleeds

in the eternity

of this instant

XII

The swallow comes

to drink from the darkness

of the wound

There, where your body

opens

to the star-filled sky

There, where the miracle

sprouts

I sink my mouth

in the warm stigma

without any shyness

I behold your night

and I look away

dazzled

XIII

I have seen

your naked body

existing 

behind a nightly veil

making of its coffin

a cup of light

I see your naked body

happening in matter

mutating this world

in a prodigious scene

You don’t talk about

making the miracle

but seeing the miraculous

that beats in the atom

and between the pots

Give me a branch

and for you I will see

a branch

Give me a stone

and for you I will see

a stone

glowing

XIV

The idea of you

possesses the power of the metal

with which forcing the door

that goes to the marvelous

It is

in that glow

that I reencounter

the image of you

that is in me

projected on the sky

It is

in that unintelligible place

that beauty unfolds

and precipitates

as a salty rain

with bittersweet flavours

and hardened to life

XV

The Sun shines with the splendour of a radiant stigma

as if a roman soldier would have pierced the sky with his lance

and it would bleed bunches of light over our heads

Pain falls as a celestial hemorrhage

inflaming my heart with flashes of devotion

squeezing from my throat the thorny chant

of the rose bunch you planted on my chest

with golden seeds

XVI

Those ilegible longings

that isolate me from the world

get transformed over the years

in a strange contortion

A mortal somersault

executed in the weightless

dream

Bloody exhalation

of my wound’s reverse

Future adopts

the audacity of a skylight

through which the reflexions

of the marvelous

sneak in

The distance of you

does nothing 

but aggravating

the strange persistence

of your beauty

The light of your name

turns this muddy world
into a translucent picture

as if this creation would be

the beautiful stained glass

of a cathedral

through which

the Sun penetrates

heating the skin

that covers my face

with luminescent figures

that talk about you

XVII

You leave the death

men gave to you

to come back with the signs

of an eternal season

You come back 

with a breach in your look

as if that look would be 

a beautiful fresco

cracked by the time

as if that look would be 

the sky’s tapestry
shattered

by the lighting bolt

You come back

in the same way it has lived

the one who remembers you

and I remember you

covered by a scarlet mantle

as a forest 

of which nothing is visible

but the golden summit

You come back

with the rage

of an imprisoned animal

with the vigour of a cedar

or the power of a hammer 
hitting the sword

You come back

with the furious beauty

of a perennial rose

with the defiant majesty

of a blazing sceptre

and the idea of never 

ever
going away

again

XVIII

The Unhurriness

with which the prisoners

walk together

during their breaks

tracing circles

around an empty centre 

surrounding 

that translucent voidness

which lurking invisibility

shines

Far from there:

the Image

of a gang of monks

inhabiting the silence

in the heart

of a monastery

.

Both realities

are the mute echo

of a cyclical eternity

An echo that repeats

with a light and distant

insistence

some Thing

that has never

been said

XIX

It is said

mutism

is the feudal castle

that safeguards Beauty

Just like 

that glacial sweat

martyrs exude

in the hour of their torture.

Sweat that freezes

their aching gestures

turning them 

in hieratic statues

filled with a Faith

so intact

as incandescent

The kind of sweat

that safeguards Hope

Words, instead,

are the refuge of the desperate

The sheltering temple

of the ones condemned 

to create fantasies

around an ardid

spinning in turn

steadily

in another cyclical 

eternity

But an eternity

that repeats failures

in the emptiness

of everything

that has been said

Only you 

are able to cover

the two shores of that river

about which poets talk

and monks keep quiet

XX

It is during my diurnal words

that you instantly vanish

as if they were

the defective veil

that poorly covers 

the body

of a living corpse

which Is not yet

Whereas 
you always return

during my nocturnal vigils

offering yourself

in the cup of your hands

offering me

a shining mystery:

the luminescent seed

that gives to each word

its meaning

And it is during the dawn

right before opening

awakening

the eyes

that I manage

to recognize

your fragrance

still persistent

between the sheets

Every time I awake

Every time I imagine 
you

you appear

announcing yourself

in the Rose

that crucified 

on my chest 

glows

Álvaro Barcala ©