DANIEL DE CULLA

 

Pendulum Can I Eat This?

 

Tell me where you come from, brunette

Tell me where you come from, salty.

She's my aunt Guadalupe

That I saw yesterday

When she came from visiting

A healer from Cuellar (Segovia).

Before, due to her stomach illness

(Indigestion, acidity, ulcer, gastritis)

She had visited

A healer from Valencia

Another from San Juan de Luz, in France

And another from Padua, Italy

Watching from the trains

That took her to these places

How the fields and houses danced

Near the tracks as they passed

And the sun playing

In the shine of the rocky ground

Next to the rivers of the mountains.

She believed in the magic of healers.

That's why she went from one healer to another

Telling her troubles to the cows

That she saw grazing in the first poplar grove

Next to the healers' house

Chewing, chewing

Next to the flutes of a grassland

Low, swampy ground

Covered with wild straw and other species

Typical of humid places.

Among them

The healer of Cuellar

Was the one who, for her, did the greatest good

Because he gave her a precious pendulum

To which, held with the same hand

With which we write

Between the thumb and index finger

We must ask it

Placing it on top

Of the three daily meals

(Lunch, snack, dinner):

-Pendulum, can I eat this?

If the pendulum turns to the left, it's no.

If it turns to the right, it's yes.

So, my aunt Guadalupe

Enlivening the teapot, the pot and the plates

Going on and on with the pendulum

Began to tear up

All the diets she had on paper

And meal plans

To take them, later, to the dumpster

Forgetting all her sorrows

Even though her stomach hurt

Like that cow of the Galician lady

From Xermade, in Lugo

Who only said to her

When she went to visit her: Moo.

-Daniel de Culla

 

Prehistoric Men Are Not Men

And Not Animals

 

The boy went out with his maternal grandparents

To visit the Atapuerca Theme Park

In the province of Burgos.

The visit began.

Separating from the group

He went into a hut

Followed by his grandfather

And his other younger brother.

This hut looked like a bottomless pit.

Closing his eyes, the boy

Thinking and saying:

-There is nothing like Prehistory

Coming back from his thoughts

He came to his grandfather and said:

-Grandfather, prehistoric men are not men

And prehistoric animals

Are not real animals either.

Men were brutes and animals.

They made stone soups in cauldrons

And painted the walls of caves with blood.

In this Theme Park, a chicharral

I wanted to see the Tyrannosaurus rex walking

As the Cave Lion

The Mammoth, the Dodo

The Alligator Turtle, the Frilled Shark

The Pelican

But we only saw a Rhinoceros

A fake cardboard.

The cultural facilitator who guides the group

After the visit

Called Grandpa's attention

For separating us from them

And going our own way.

The Grandpa, without any anger

Smiling, answered:

-I would like to be a prehistoric man

To grab you by the hair

Drag you to Honey's hut

And mend with them

Your bag for my bread.

Grandpa is funny.

I don't know what he said

But he made me laugh as much

As the cultural facilitator.

-Daniel de Culla

 

Riding A Ram

 

Riding a Count of Monterrey’s ram

Or a Segundo Caracarton of Pedro Davila’ s house

A bull from Guisando, in Ávila

The children Kylian and Eder say that :

They are going hunting

Lizards, shoemakers and earwigs

To the lands of grandmother Rita, in Moradillo de Roa

Or to the garden of grandparents Bernardino and Ana

In the San Juan Bautista neighborhood

Before they come down from the sky

Flying through the clouds

The raptor kite or the high-flying thieving goshawk

With the wings of a caravan hobby

Arriving from Rita's empty dovecote

Where they all had lunch

A beautiful dove from a dovecote in Campillo

Fuentenebro or Aldehorno, in Burgos.

The two of them, Kylian and Eder

Two beautiful children

“A la jineta” (in the saddle)

Ride through this public square

Showing off their finery and charm.

But they don’t go to Moradillo or to the Barriada

But to the Centro Cívico Rio Vena

Where in their Little Room

They will play with animals and juggle

Wanting what belongs to each other

Like what happens with the Komodo Dragon

A kind of lizard of exceptional size

With which they both want to play alone

That’s why there are fights between them.

-Pretty children, stop fighting over an animal.

If a caretaker from the Center hears you

She will throw the three of us out of the place.

Leave the Komodo lizard

In its box of various animals.

Leave the animals alone.

The grandfather tells them kindly.

Daniel de Culla

 

DANIEL DE CULLA

 

DANIEL DE CULLA: Writer, poet, painter and photographer. Member of the Collegiate Association of Spanish Writers, Earthly Writers International Caucus, Poets of the World, (IA) International Authors, Surrealism Art, Friends of The Blake Society, Nietzsche Circle and others. Director of Gallo Tricolor Review and Robespierre Review. He has participated in numerous Poetry and Theater Festivals, has collaborated and collaborates with various magazines and newspapers such as: Otoliths; The Stray Branch, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Allien Buddha Zine, The Poet Magazine, Uppagus, ReSite, GloMag, Fleas on the Dog, LAROLA, RAL'M, Misery Tourism, Leavings, The Creative Zine, Terror House Press; and other national ones: Pluma y Tintero, Letras de Parnaso, Revista Azahar, Cultura de Veracruz; Vericuetos,  Sol Cultural Center, etc.