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| You are in: | | Front Page > Programmes > World Today > Euro Special |
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 | Listen to Manuel Rivas |
To coincide with the launch of the Single Currency across 12 members of the European Union, The World Today has commissioned seven short original works from leading European writers. The contribution from Spain is somewhat different, it's poem from the Spanish novelist and poet Manuel Rivas. | |
 Manuel Rivas: The Singer's Cap | |
| My cap, in the pavement, is the Bank of Europe.
Please, don't throw sadness in my cap. I don't ask for your pair of eyes. I am not a beggar. I dig in your pocket with my song. I sing like a miner without job, like a peasant catching the last European train looking for the Golden Fleece. My cap, my hat without wings, is my castle, my country, my mobile phone. Freedom for your hand! Show it out! Let your coin fly and dive like a cormorant. Give me, at least, the cost of a lost European call. Show me the metal of your soul. I know, I know where God is. God is in your pocket. Give Him a chance. The Lord will be happy in my European hat. I am making a phone call, I am making a phone call to my childhood. Children love money. I remember the smell of my first pay. We helped to gather potatoes. Felipe's father gave us a coin, silver's colour, one peso, five pesetas, shining in our dirty hands. That coin had the face of an ugly man but we bought cards of football players. Another day, an old woman, the fishmonger, called me: Little boy, please! Go to the shop and bring me here a bottle of wine, red wine, of course, and a big big piece of bread. I did the job of Jesus Christ in Cana.  The busty mermaid gave me a coin with the smell of the sea. But, under the scales, I found again the face of the ugly man, Franco was the name. At that time, I felt admiration for Casius Clay. I would like to mint my own coin with the face of the boxer or the face of Marisol, the girl I loved. Once, my grandad told me: Listen! Always always keep money in your pocket. Money is very important to poor people. Rich men never carry money in their pockets. He told the truth. He was not a euro-sceptic. He was a world-sceptical man but he had a scrap of hope in his cap. Once, he told me this ironic prophecy: The apocalypse will never happen. What a pity! My cap, in the pavement, is a merry-go-round. I know the price of the silence. The dreadful price of the silence. So I sing and sing and sing at the cold corner of Europe Street. | |
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Todays programmes More Essays | |
 | Colm Tóibín |
| | Michèle Roberts |
| | Carsten Jensen |
| | Nico Helminger |
| | Antoni Libera |
| | Peter Schneider |
| | Manuel Rivas |
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 Is time running out?  A currency's wild ride  Notes & coins guide |
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| Related Links: | |
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| Manuel Rivas interview (in Spanish) |
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| Butterfly's Tongue |
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| Carpenter's Pencil |
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