Cover Art: Pattern Design by Darlin & Co
Interior Art: Matthew Boyle
Cover & Interior Design: Alban Fischer
Paperback, 71 pages
June 15, 2018, ISBN 978-1-936919-54-3
about Reaper's Milonga
Lucian Mattison’s poetry collection, Reaper’s Milonga, is one that holds Lorca’s notion of duende at its core. The reader travels from places, both real and imagined, with the cloaked figure of Death as her guide. Poems range in subject matter, touching on politics, music, love, art, and cultural identity, all with vulnerability, mortality, and sensuality as the pistons driving the whole.
about Lucian Mattison
Argentinean-US poet and translator Lucian Mattison is the author of two books of poetry, Reaper’s Milonga (YesYes Books, 2018) and Peregrine Nation (Dynamo Verlag, 2017). His poetry, short fiction, and translations appear in numerous journals including Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hobart, Muzzle, Nano Fiction, The Nashville Review, The Offing, Puerto del Sol, Waxwing, and is featured on poets.org. He is based out of DC and edits poetry for Big Lucks.
Reaper's Milonga by Lucian Mattison (Digital)
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from Goring
Maybe you saw me in the Picasso Museum,
how I stood for an hour in front of Gored Horse
thinking about Plaza de Toros in Pamplona
praying to the toro lidiado, how banderillas
dripped a rosary of blood down its obsidian pelt.
Yes, the grandstand was full. No, women
did not beg for the bull’s ears when it finally stumbled.
The beast leaned against corrugated iron
catching its breath to the chagrin of spectators.
The torero was ushered off stage, tail tucked
between his legs. Birds glittering above, their little razor-
blade wings cut sheet music on cerulean dusk.
Nothing about it was torturous, indeterminate;
it was chaines turns and feather steps until the goring.
Nobody won.
