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Alicante Lullaby

a poem by

Sylvia Plath

In Alicante they bowl the barrels

Bumblingly over the nubs of the cobbles

Past the yellow-paella eateries,

Below the ramshackle back-alley balconies,

While the cocks and hens

In the roofgardens

Scuttle repose with crowns and cackles.

Kumquat-colored trolleys ding as they trundle

Passengers under an indigo fizzle

Needling spumily down from the wires:

Alongside the sibliant narhor the lovers

Hear loudspeakers boom

From each neon-lit palm

Rumbas and sambas no ear-flaps can muffle.

O Cacophony, goddess of jazz and of quarrels,

Crack-throated mistress of bagpipes and cymbals,

Let be your con brios, your capricciosos,

Crescendos, cadenzas, prestos and pretissimos,

My head on the pillow

(Piano, pianissimo)

Lullayed by susurrous lyres and viols.