Spanish Brass Quartet

1
Tubas, trombones, and trumpets clang like swords and cheering men.
I see their heads behind the pairs of pairs of double doors,
quietly watching.
Out here, seventy light bulbs glisten to the air conditioner.
A door opens, then another, then another.
The sky conceals its lips, and they applaud.

2
How do you get such a tangerine blazing
on a sleeping lavender lake?
And how much water do you use,
which direction do you lean?
How do you smear the yellow black so that
we remember your poplars are only paint?

3
Like eyes, water hangs beneath the wooden beams.
From the marble column, reacquainted stains slide down like snails.
Steam rises from the plate of a ground lamp,
a thousand fish scattering together.
And as they rise, drops of eyes like meteorites fall through lights.
Rain is less water than light, and water still roars down ramps below,
still smokes up in starry flight.

4
Pyuh! Pyuh!
The round mouth at the foot of the building spits dirty water.
Pyuh! Pyuh!,
which foams in spreading trails down sidewalk cracks.
Pyuh! Pyuh!
The building drinks, the building spits.
It does not sing, it does not play the flute or blow the horn;
It does not teach, preach, or profess;
It eats no food, and nothing less.

Pyuh! Pyuh!