The Fitzwilliam Museum
FROM Limerick City of Culture 2014’s anthology, ‘Dream of a City’, Marian O’Rourke is a writer from local parts who has featured in this Limerick Post series. She holds a Master’s in Creative Writing from Waterford Institute of Technology.
I have chosen ‘Dark Song in Granada’ as the mid term break beckons. Spain remains the perennial Irish favourite and south is where the sun will be. There is a grit and immediacy to O’Rourke’s detail, that heartstopping moment that takes another day out beyond the obvious and into mystery.
Dark Song in Granada
Where ocean blue sierras crest a Moor’s red palace/ tourists study maps and menus, their/ holiday scrawls ‘cross tipsy cards read:
Wish you were here -/ Alhambra undigested.
Guitars, accordions appear, the air slick/ with serenade – tango and fandango -/ by men who only play for money/ who rattle metal cups ’round shoulders/ that shrug off Granada,/ who don’t fall under your spell
until
a gypsy’s high serrated wail/ slices through all holiday chatter/ howling out his naked pain/ on a quarter tonal scale,/ like the Moor’s last lament/ as he said adios to Granada
