of spain and bulls

Off to Spain for two weeks tomorrow morning…can’t wait. Above is an Osborne bull or "toro de osborn"—a 14-meter-high silhouetted image of a bull and the unofficial national symbol of Spain. In honor of my trip and of the legacy of the Spanish bull forced to die like a beast in a ring, I leave you with this Bukowski poem.

side of the sun the bulls are grand as the side of the sun and although they kill them for the stale crowds, it is the bull that burns the fire, and although there are cowardly bulls as there are cowardly matadors and cowardly men, generally the bull stands pure and dies pure untouched by symbols or cliques or false loves, and when they drag him out nothing has died something has passed and the eventual stench is the world.