for Paul McCartney and John Lennon

I decided to eat flowers,
and ate flowers in Piccadilly Circus;
I´m going to die—I told myself—
buds, bouquets of dahlias from every season,
what can I say!
I dressed up like a Dutch musician at the Round House.
I was Hamlin´s flautist
and attended the resurrection;
I arrived, better late than never,
and they put flowers in my hair,
on my wrists, one flower in my ass, one in my foreskin,
and I was covered from east to west by Japanese daisies
and blackened sunflowers,
crowned with a flower on my forehead.
I dressed up like a pirate, like a gladiator in Roman arenas,
loving the power of flowers for fifteen minutes,
falling hopelessly in love with birds in the distance.
Incense and the twilight
were confused in my eyes
and kinetic art said they were to blame.
Gently I entered winter,
terrestrial waves, high seas moving against the current.
I also built a bonfire at Piccadilly,
and rose silently
holding Henry VIII´s sword in my hand.
I loved the bricks of London, the concentric circles,
the order and the disorder.
I was an atomic pumpkin, a melon
with two Turkish medallions in my eyes.
I entered softly, strangely, into sudden winter,
something I had never known.
I sang loudly before the Celtic ruins at Salisbury
and drank Guinness through my elbows.
For fifteen minutes I was the Tropical Angel,
the sewers at Oxford, a Cobra, a Roaring Lion.
For fifteen, maybe twenty minutes,
I loved flower power,
loose and profound,
and I said to you: love, we could stay here,
you and I,
like two dark rabbits,
forever.

Miguel Barnet is a narrator, novelist, poet, and anthropologist who was born in Havana, Cuba in 1940. He is the current president of the UNEAC (National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists) and a prolific author with more than twenty published books. Barnet’s fiction titles include Biografía de un cimarrón; Canción de Rachel; Gallego; and La vida real. La piedra fina y el pavorreal; La sagrada familia; and Carta de noche are among his poetic works. His honorable mentions include the 1994 National Literature Prize; 2005 International Trieste-Poetry Prize; as well as the Short Story Juan Rulfo Prize and Camaiore International Award, both in 2006. Barnet won the 2008 José Donoso Award from Talca University for his life work; the 2011 Eminescu Academy Poetry Award from Romania; and the 2011 Cavalieri Award from the Italian Republic. He holds honorary doctorates from the Sapienza University in Rome, Italy and Craiova University in Romania. Barnet has also published ethnographic studies on Afro-Cuban religious practices and Cuban fables.

Charles Hatfield is an associate professor in literature at the University of Texas, Dallas. He is also a faculty associate with The Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History; the Center for Translation Studies; and the Center for U.S.-Latin America Initiatives. Hatfield specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin American literature, intellectual history, and visual art; critical theory; and translation studies. His recent publications include The Limits of Identity: Politics and Poetics in Latin America; "Nuestroamericanism;" “Silence Is Meaningful” (with Ilan Stavans); “The Memory Turn in Latin America;” and "From Posthegemony to Pierre Menard;" "Translation and Politics Revisited;" and "The Limits of 'Nuestra América'.”