How can one evade the memories
that music evokes
when one loves the music
but the memories torment,
albeit in bittersweet tones?

Wouldn’t the ideal woman
prefer a single rose to a dozen,
savoring it with her soul
as well as her physical senses?
Making it truly her own.

The one I idealized,
unfortunately, might have
preferred the thorns.
“But” I ask myself,
“Why would that be wrong?”

Flamenco stirs my soul,
it seems symphonic,
a novel writ in rhythms
and melodies
highlit with bass undertones.

Modern variants
mixed with new elements
but recalling Arab roots in dessert tents,
exported to Iberia
and there bloomed.

Long, dark undulating hair;
dark eyes and red lips,
slender body but generous breasts,
flashing white teeth
embodied in a guitar’s virulent voice.

The “she” I thought I knew
but have never met
taunting me
in illusory memories
bleaching in

from an undefinable future,
one of millions
of possible threads
in an unwoven tapestry,
each one essential.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2019; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia although he has primarily lived in the United States of America (of which he is a citizen). Until recently he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.