"...AS A WAY OF LIFE"

What intrigues me about the flamenco videos in my prior post are how they present open-ended narratives that inevitably become open-ended poetry due to their subject matter. I think even the order of the videos the way I posted them presents a hidden subtext that might not exist if one were, say, simply to view the third video by itself....

One can't discuss flamenco, of course, without the legendary Carmen Amaya. She didn't dance flamenco; she became flamenco:



No wonder she inspired such homages as:

From NOTA BENE EISWEIN:

Waves
tap out
the Morse Code

intricately
embroidered by
Carmen Amaya’s heels.

*

Carmen was “Gypsy
on four
sides.”

Blood is flamenco
is blood
is.

Carmen’s blood gave
her life
and

it also killed
her. She
possessed

“infantile kidneys,’ unable
to grow
larger

than a baby’s.
Carmen lived
as

long as she
did only
from

sweating so much
when she
danced.

At the end
of each
performance

her costumes were
drenched. You
could

pour sweat out
of her
shoes.

That was how
her body
cleansed

itself: the sweat
from a
dance.

Bailar o morir.
Dancing kept
her

alive. Ocean
mirrors ocean.
Poetry

as a way
of flesh-and-blood
living.

*

Documenting
the last
year of Carmen

reveals
the feral
lines of her

face
swollen with
fluid her infantile

kidneys
could not
eliminate. She sits

at
a rickety
table in a

dusty
neighborhood, like
her childhood slum.

She
taps the
table. One knock,

two.
Sufficient for
announcing the palo.

In
flamenco’s code
of rhythm, Carmen

rapped
the symphony
of a history

bleeding,
remembering all
the secrets her

tribe
kept from
outsiders. The secrets

translated
into rhythms
so bewilderingly beautiful

they
lured you
in like Midas-ed

drops
of nectar.
But you remained

hungry, could never
find your
way

back out again.
All you
wanted

was more burrowing
deep into
deepening

code. All you
wanted was
one

more secret of
the siren
Flamenco!