New poems from Rob Hindle

I’m really pleased to be able to share a couple of poems by Sheffield poet, Rob Hindle. These two poems are from Yoke and Arrows, a poem sequence about the killing of Lorca in the early weeks of the Spanish Civil War, to be published by Smokestack Books in 2014. Luis Rosales was Lorca’s friend in whose house he hid until his arrest.

Rob’s other books include

Some Histories of the Sheffield Flood 1864 (Templar, 2006) - pamphlet
Neurosurgery in Iraq (Templar, 2008) - collection
The Purging of Spence Broughton, a Highwayman (Longbarrow, 2009) – pamphlet

And you can read more about his work and ideas on his excellent blog, http://robhindle.wordpress.com/about/

Song for Luis Rosales

When we are the old dead

we will sit in a boat on the river

at midnight, singing.

We will make a candle

with the yellow moon,

a heart with a guitar

and we will sing up a wind

to make the olives’ silver leaves

crackle and the orange flowers

fall like snow in the squares.

We will sail to the sea,

all the towns like bonfires

and in your eyes the night

of Andalucía with all its stars.

From a Window in Calle Angulo

He came out and the street was full of cops,

the black cars in Plaza de la Trinidad

with their engines running

like he was an ambassador or a king.

Everyone remembers the shirt he wore –

white, symbolic. Certainly, with his tie loose,

his jacket hanging lifeless on his arm,

there was something cinematic in his going.

But after he had gone, the cars’ noise

lost among the din of the city, I stood

in the window looking at the still street;

nothing I could tell was different.