Thursday Doors gifts: Spain & a door poem

Door gifts never stop giving. Today’s photos were taken by my travelling uncle who was in more than three towns in northern Spain this April, just that the doors are only from three.

But first, my first piece for Dan’s Third Annual Thursday Doors Writing Challenge which runs by the end of May. The door photo I chose among the many fabulous doors on offer in the TD Writing Challenge gallery is by Susan Rushton. Two more poems to two more doors will be coming up on two following Thursdays.

Photo: Susan Rushton

Who’s who

It clearly says above this door: “A. Division. Police Station”, see? It’s not amusing when police divides and doors bear witness, is it? Look: even those lions pull and tear apart that coat-of-arms, what gives? No respect, no fear – this door stands here and watches mob pass by with paints. They stop, they paint, lions’ heads are punched in anger or in jest; they run. Divided police peek through their holes, embarrassed, seeing, not knowing. They never asked, nobody told them – how could they know? – so then: who’s Ku?

This poetic form is called American paragraph and is made of American sentences. I didn’t know before this April that American sentence was a thing, no matter how much Allen Ginsberg I used to read as a youth. But apparently a 17-syllable sentence is supposed to work better for Americans than a classic 5/7/5 haiku. I’m neither an American nor a haiku enthusiast, but I thought I’d try out this form.

The American paragraph was invented by David Bogomolny who blogs at The Skeptic’s Kaddish. I learned of it at NPM Scavenger Hunt, this is why I share this poem on both sites as well.

But this is nothing, look what Dan wrote to my green door! Astonishing! Mr. Andrej Lesjak needs to be told. And K. tackled the same door from other angles.

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Next, I’m grateful to my uncle and all who have eyes for doors, and then click, and then even send me the photos.

Before we go to Spain, let’s make a quick stop in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and of former Yugoslavia which was by a giant miracle the united country of Slovenians, Croats, Serbians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Montenegrin, Kosovars, Macedonians and I’m sure more could be found (Vojvodina people!). And it was Marshall Josip Broz Tito who kept us all in check. My travelling mother (my uncle’s sister) and her witch friends (which is how they call themselves!) stopped by his grave. This is history in the making.

Photo: The 5th witch. Belgrade, Serbia.

On to Spain now and its three towns, as I said before. Don’t know about Jaca and Lumbier, but Pamplona is definitely a city. The first five photos in the gallery below are from Jaca, the next seven from Lumbier, and the rest from Pamplona, including happy uncle among his beloved cervezas, which is Spanish for beer.

And finally, with so much Europe covered I can only wish you much fun with the Eurovision Song Contest tonight and on Saturday. I don’t have a favourite this year but trust me – weird things are going on. Oh, the Czech ladies are cool. And I can’t get that cha-cha-cha out of my head after listening to the Finn. 😀 As for Slovenia… let’s see if it’s time for a surprise Joker Out.

All photos by uncle Matic, northern Spain, April 2023

For Thursday Doors challenge hosted by Dan at No Facilities