THE GUITAR: Bangkok’s Chinatown, Lorca’s Poem of the Deep Song, & what to do when the songs are on your back
The cry of the guitar / begins. / The wineglasses of dawn / are broken. / The cry of the guitar / begins.
“La Guitarra” from Poem of the Deep Song, in its intuitive translation from the Spanish by Ralph Angel: “Cante jondo. Deep Song. A poem meant to be sung, not with a pretty voice but with a cry. A rustic form of flamenco. A poem by Federico García Lorca written in 1921 when he was only twenty-three and had but fifteen years left to live before the Franco regime murdered him in the hills of Granada.”
The world has prose enough. What we need is poetry, which, as Lorca averred, is cante jondo. Last week I picked up a guitar for the first time. As I fumbled through my new cords–G, C, D, and F–I discovered that through song I could find what I have been missing since I moved to Bangkok: equipoise. The stillness of a Confucian portrait, the momentary captivity enforced by light rain and slow shutter speeds:
I have three more days at my current job. I have no idea what I will be doing next; what I do know is that writing ad copy for hoteliers has corroded my voice. Although my injuries are self-inflicted, I cannot allow them to progress. I have a voice that is meant to tell stories, and the songs are on my back.
It’s useless / to quiet it. / Impossible / to quiet it. / It cries on monotonously, / the way water cries, / the way wind / cries over a first snowfall.
It amazes me what a flash of light can bring to the foreground: The dustless space of Chinese brush paintings. Dragon red. Jade green in the form of a plastic leg. The clipped calligraphy of a man’s shoe.
It’s useless / to quiet it.
It cries / for the distance.
For the sand of the incendiary South / that begs for white camellias.
It cries for an arrow without a target, / an afternoon without a morning,
for the first bird / dead on the branch.
Oh guitar! / Heart sorely wounded / by five swords.
linen dress: tailor-made by the talented Pin-Pin (Hoi An, Vietnam); Cece suede ballet flats: J.Crew; wooden snake bracelet: vintage Indonesia; 1970s leather clutch: In Retrospect (Boise, Idaho); black-and-white cotton scarf: Russian Market (Phnom Penh, Cambodia); guitar: Yamaha F310 (Made in Indonesia)
Photos and bilingual advice on buying a guitar in Chinatown by Tetoro
