Sunday, September 28, 2008

Tribute to The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World

I've been reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez lately, and it's impossible not to be inspired and in love with his stories. Here is my interpretation of his short story "The Handsomest Drowned Man"

Entangled in Seaweed
Somehow, in the course of their normal days
without anyone realizing, they lost their
dreams. They were simply tossed
over the cliffs
with all the other loved and spent objects.
It was so uneventful. They didn't even know it.
They slept hard sleep, awakening to remember
only what was not done.
The women lost their softness,
while the men packed away their strengths
like wool blankets found in June.
Their bodies blurred into continuous days.
When the dreams happened to wash onto the shore,
the children did not know how to greet them,
as they had never been introduced.
Though the dreams lay entangled in scales and seaweed,
everyone took a risk to welcome an Unknown,
but possibly familiar.

They revived embers that barely glowed
and gave them a place to nestle, breathing into the fire.
A light of brilliance,
of all things enormous, wondrous and lustrous,
shone upon them. They wallowed
and followed in a sensuous and ethereal world,
that promised a Tomorrow.

They held their new found dreams above their heads,
allowing themselves to be lifted.
Their feet no longer touched the ground.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I never read anything by him, but I like what you wrote.

Anonymous said...

Thanks! Definitely read his short stories if you can.

Here's a link to my other post on Love in the Time of Cholera