I’ve eaten at Hemingways in Faro
sipping my beer
& wondering how much
ole Ernie would have loved
the purple bougainvillea
framing the door
the blue jacarandas in the square
placed a red bandanna
around his statue’d neck
at the start of San Fermin feria
in homage to the man
the battle of the moors
before running before the bulls
gaining my own Pamplona scars
living to tell the tales
Hem’ came from the first world
defined by modernism
yet seeking in our ancient ways
its own elegant sophisticated
third world ways where
we cannot be modern
his own home truths
wars, women, eternal life
defining himself
by not being us
taking what he felt
he best of the old world
into the new
neilbenbow 