Expenduria Poetica, Barcelona

You stop at the Poetry Dispensary/Pharmacy at 8, Career dels coroners in Barcelona, a stone's throw from the Picasso Museum and this is what you get for your one or two euro donation from Barcelona Take Away Poetry: the chance to pick three words from the stamp board, queue for a little and have a unique poem crafted for you by two poets.

Ok, so it's a bit of a gimmick and I don't read Spanish well enough to judge whether the poem is any good, but it met the brief of using the three chosen words, which in my case were body, future and believe,  and it was a novel hour with a free band playing in the back room (not that I suppose they have one every Saturday). I'm not entirely sure about the whole poet-hostesses in uniform thing, but the desk accessories were fun, even if the first typewriter broke when it was my turn.

And the poem - a little hard to decipher due to ribbon issues, but I've translated it with help from the Spanish boy and then made this rather shorter English version:

Body/Belief

My body a dark country
of secrets, spirit
heaven and hell
bleeds poppies of passion.

A sea stormed
with the lost
will have me believing
in monsters and angels.

One day I'll believe in you.