Spanish poet & playwright (1898-1936)
Devoutly the teachers point out huge fumigated domes;
but beneath the statues there's no love,
no love beneath the eyes set in crystal.
Love is there, in flesh ripped by thirst,
in the tiny hut struggling against the flood;
love is there, in ditches where snakes of hunger wrestle,
in the sad sea that rocks dead gulls,
and in the darkest stinging kiss under pillows.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
"Cry to Rome", A Poet in New York
All one's personality is embedded in gloves and hats after they've been good and used. Show me a glove and I'll tell you the character of its owner.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
letter to Ana Maria Dali, autumn 1925
What matters most has an ultimate metallic quality of death. The chasuble and the wagon wheel, the razor and the prickly beards of shepherds, the bare moon, a fly, humid cupboards, rubble piles, the images of saints covered in lace, quicklime, and the wounding edges of the rooflines and watchtowers.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
attributed, Only Mystery: Federico García Lorca's Poetry in Word and Image
To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
Blood Wedding
Let the skein never end
of I love you you love me, ever burnt
with decrepit sun and old moon;
for whatever you don't give me and I don't ask of you
will be for death, which does not leave
even a shadow on trembling flesh.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
"The Poet Tells the Truth"
To see you naked is to recall the Earth.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
"Casida de la Mujer Tendida"
Relish the fresh landscape of my wound,
break rushes and delicate rivulets,
drink blood poured on honeyed thigh.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
"Sonnet of the Garland of Roses"
There's no doubt that I really have a feeling for the theater. These past few days it has occurred to me to do a comedy whose chief characters are photographic enlargements. Those people we see in doorways. Newlyweds, sergeants, dead girls, an anonymous crowd full of mustaches and wrinkles. It should be terrible. If I focus it well, it will possess pathos without consolation. In the midst of those people I will place an authentic fairy.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
letter to Melchor Fernandez Almagro, February/March 1926
Oh, what grief not to have
grief, and to spend your life
on the colorless grass
of the undecided path!
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
"Crossroads"
I'm satisfied. I am progressively making my life and my name in the surest and purest manner. If I catch on in the theater, as I think I will, all the doors will gladly open wide for me.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
letter to his family, November 1924
Ever since I got married I've been thinking night and day about whose fault it was, and every time I think about it, out comes a new fault to eat up the old one; but always there's a fault left.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
Blood Wedding
Adam & Eve.
The serpent cracked
the mirror
in a thousand pieces,
& the apple
was his rock.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
"Initium"
The world is a shoulder of dark meat (black flesh of an old mule). And the light is on the other side.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
letter to Melchor Fernandez Almagro, autumn 1924
Everything's a fan.
Brother, open up your arms.
God is the pivot.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
"Rays"
The wounds were burning like suns
at five in the afternoon,
and the crowd broke the windows
At five in the afternoon.
Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon!
It was five by all the clocks!
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
"Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias"
Life is laughter amid a rosary of death.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
attributed, Only Mystery: Federico García Lorca's Poetry in Word and Image
My poetry is a game.
My life is a game.
But I am not a game.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
letter to Melchor Fernandez Almagro, autumn 1924
Moon
like a large stainedglass window
that breaks on the ocean.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
"A Game of Moons"
The still pool of your mouth
under a thicket of kisses.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
"Remansos: Variación", El Diván del Tamarit
Only mystery allows us to live, only mystery.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
attributed, Only Mystery: Federico García Lorca's Poetry in Word and Image