The poems in this series each parasitise a corresponding poem from Antonio Machado’s collection Campos de Castilla. They are written by overlaying the original Spanish poems with English words that have the same number of syllables, such that Machado’s poems act as a formal constraint on the English, but not semantically, as they might in a conventional translation. There is little relation between parasite poem and host poem in terms of content, although traces of Machado’s verses do slip through in places, as does the original punctuation. Picture the zombie-ant fungus, where fragments of the ant remain even once a new organism has grown out from its body. The content of the poems explores the idea of parasitism, mirroring their form.
—Robin Munby
Machado Version 5 [El hospicio]
Blue worm untethered, free segment unconstrained biospheric,
lithe entity primordial soup organfloatingloop unwound
blue spindle thread suspended inferring its habitat
in fluid of the poet’s eye fixingon the lightofyou.
Blue worm writhing light Sotrue, milky white eye andwormsoblue,
oh suspended machinations, whose enfolding osmoticskin
can activate feelings may invoke atenderness,
may spark turquoise from shadow eternal. Oh thatlight ohthisblue!
Blueworm white ring eye unravelled there oncesight now purerapture,
once worldly base mechanic tissue just signal sensor,
no more thanhospicefor fallenlight, orb boundinflesh a compass,
algebra photon orifice, whatuseisthis to seraphim,
what useisthis to poet biosphere of eye unwormed;
blue, blue like skyof heavens, mywormed eyenot wasted norpaled,
filling blue nowits snowy surface sees only segment,
segment slime loopcool washof that blueworm thatlightthisblue! . . .
