Trey's Days No. 18

"Little Ashes" is a tale of two men of Spain, Frederico Garcia Lorca and Salvidor Dali, once lovers. Dali goes to Paris to join Picasso, to marry a woman, to become famous and to love money and America. Lorca stays in Madrid and joins the Revolution, plays the piano, drinks with men and women, dances the new dances and smokes, writes revolutionary treatises and gets shot in the head by fascist thugs. Lying in a field, his chin quivering, a little white blossom wobbles in the wind as the blood of genius soaks the earth. Fascism is like that.

Swimming in the moonlight, drops of water dripping off their fingers glow like stars; they kiss. Lovers in a land where love between men is forbidden, they dare, beg forgiveness, fight themselves, love again, run away. Forbidden love is like that. Lying on pillows, reciting poetry, wearing turbans, their forbidden love makes the dormitory gay. My heart hurts.

Stalking Lorca, Dali finds himself. Loving Dali, Lorca scares Dali and he runs off to Paris. Lorca is left to fight Franco all by himself. Loving Lorca, his girlfriend knows. All Spain knows. The bloody thuggish regime knows. The bulls in the ring know. The blood of babies in the streets knows. Love will not be silenced, not by guns, not by smothering thugs. Neither time nor death can kill it. Love is like that.

Lorca and Dali live, their love lives, their art, their poetry live. Their story is told and retold. Hear it? Tell it. Love is like that. My heart hurts. Arise and tell the story, oh you of blood, of poetry, of art and music, of drops of stars in the moonlight, swimming, dancing, glowing. Live on sweet Lorca, strange Dali, your men, your women, your guns, your blood, your swimming dancing glowing moonlight. Death cannot kill it; love is like that.