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Now available for preorder:
The San Francisco Panorama.
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Spanish Sestina.BY MIKE MCSHANE
Eating paella, and drinking red wine. Bar-crawling all night in the Puerta del Sol, And reading wisdom inscribed onto walls. My thinking was tempered by world-class art And the oils and fields full of olives. Midafternoon pan with the oil of olives Keeps food light so you can drink more sangria. As visions of the Prado's Spanish art Mingle gently with the sweet red wine And the tiles of my apartamento's walls Reflect the purity of the afternoon Sol. Amigos wander down the calle toward Sol And outdoor cafés offer tapas of olives, But the best come from holes in the walls. The light fare is complemented by more sangria, With a varied ratio of vermouth to wine. One can taste that Spanish food is art. Another day is spent with modern art, At the Reina Sofía, due west of Sol, Picasso's Guernica and rosé wine With more tapas of bread and black olives. Americans wonder if Pablo had too much sangria As the monolith consumes one of the walls. But oh the Prado, with Velázquezzed walls, Presents the pinnacle of Spanish art. Goya and Titian go down like sangria. This is the real Madrid, not the clubs of Sol. It's the difference between the oil of corn versus olives, Or fine Rioja versus boxed Franzia wine. But it always comes back to the wine, So much that it begins to spin the walls, And for the second time I see those black olives, But it definitely looks nothing like art. One too many bars in and around Sol And too much vermouth in the sangria. Spanish wine is fine as Spanish art. Fine, too, are the storied walls around the Puerta del Sol, But the finest are the olives, and my love, the sangria.
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