thewhisperbook

City of doors and churches, exhaust fumes and artists
An old castilian beauty, a little rough and wan where the
Plaster cracks, and paint peels back to a thousand
Lifetimes long since past.

To the soft places an old sun touched
Where long dead street dogs sniffed and rooted,
Scratching and tearing at the scraps and the dregs.
Heaped up garbage lying in gutters and spilling out into the
Cobblestone roads, releasing sweet sticky juices to the flies

Here on this exposed bone of stone and plaster
A thousand moons rose and fell and rose again forgotten.
Years have fallen like autumn leaves and still
Small brown eyed children sit out on shop stoops watching
Their younger siblings play at marbles in the street.

The beauty of balconies, forged ironwork railings,
Wooden doors carved out with roses and angels
Ornate moulded archways where we stand and kiss,
A sky red roofed and pillared, fronted with marble
And towering columns with floral plasterwork detail.

City of hawkers, selling ceviche, lottery tickets or toothpick
Pineapples from rattling, ramshackle carts.
Setting up shop on Cuenca’s foot worn steps, under her
Arched doorways and on the skirts of her manicured squares.

Shoe merchants sit bent, strangers feet between their thighs
Under carved marble arches furiously polishing, buffing
And shining, rags a flying, their price of asking-
Twenty-five cents.

Trailing plants wind and cascade down from high balcony
Windows, thirty feet, a foot a year, in places.
Long, twisting stems with feathery leaves whisper and sigh
For the breeze that blows through dry, dusty streets,
Under black Spanish beams and porticos shaded from
The hot noon sun, men stand out and chat

Cuenca my love your secrets wait in side streets,
In hidden studios where artists work in silence
Tapping with tiny hammers at metal set in tar.
Silver plated humming birds come to life and mosaics
Are carefully chipped from rainbows of precious stones.
Shabby walls hung with oversized paintings of jungle orchids
And outside on the blank spaces, newspaper heads and
Figures painted and pasted with glue to blank walls.

Orange street lights illuminate the foam of the river
The footsteps of Peruvian herb sellers in alpaca ponchos
And bright pleated skirts echo and distort within the narrow
Streets.

In leather workshops filled with shoes and bags,
Stuffed calves heads gaze blindly from windows.
Blue painted church towers, the halls and museums
All the great buildings are lit up like stars in the night.
A thousand tiny shop fronts line the crumbling footpaths
Caged in with wire grills, little stooped over ladies
Stand guard watched over by ice cream poodles

Tonight a hundred little steel barbecues roll out,
Onto the footpaths, dripping meat on skewers,
Fried plantains piled by crispy, sweet corn pancakes.
Torn cardboard bellows fan the flames, and the taste of
Charcoaled meat cooks upon the air, the seductive aroma
Drawing crowds.