Sugar Mule #15Cover Photograph by Pedro Portal:
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Lourdes GilYou Spoke With BlakeYou spoke to Blake not as poet to poet but rather as someone who understood the storms raging in the soul someone who never reached the places that he loved. You said to him the twentieth century could not be contained in his engravings. That the battle between the devil and the archangel was now a dead tongue - as mythic as Achilles and his chariot and the walls of Troy had been to Blake. For a very long time I believed this along with you. Through endless vigils we stared at the false gods of our century prophets unbound by anger disguised as blazing heroes under a thousand masks strings of silver beads gushing from their mouths. We stared together wondered talked held on. We heard so many voices chants the ancient hymns of Greece traversing time like rolling ocean waves. We saw or thought we saw the wooden horse of Troy transform into the faceless crowd that tore the Berlin wall hammering it blow by blow. But where was Blake we asked. He had not been with you in Moscow during the Missile Crisis the fatal days and nights when you began to doubt his words the wisdom of his drawings. And then the void the archetypal schism. And when the healing season would not come will never come we knew that Blake's devils and angels were living inside us. José KozerAgua SedientaAgua sedienta de inquietud se remansa, inconexa. Yo la apago, reposa en la taza de té. Reincido: soy el pez del estanque zigzagueando entre arañas de agua (luz) lotos. El agua desprovista de declive, rezuma: indivisa, la vierto. ¿Adónde? Bebo su venero, bebo espuertas de agua, me sacio de sus calcinaciones: prolongo su recorrido, me apresuro a mirar los reflejos: pinedas, floración, res retenida entre unas espadañas. El vaso; el cáliz labrado; y tras la oblea sacramental el rumor, el estruendo, la configuración de la inexistencia de la sed del agua por inexistencia del agua. Éste Es El Libro De Los Salmos Que Hizo Danzar A Mi Madre Éste es el libro de los salmos que hizo danzar a mi madre, éste es el libro de las horas que me dio mi madre, éste es el libro recto de los preceptos. Yo me presento colérico y arrollador ante este libro anguloso, yo me presento como un rabino a bailar una polca soberana, y me presento en el apogeo de la gloria a danzar ceremonioso un minué, brazo con brazo clandestino de la muerte, yo me presento paso de ganso a bailar fumando, soy un rabino que se alzó la bata por las estepas rusas, soy un rabino que un Zar enorme hace danzar ante los bastiones de la muerte, soy el abuelo Leizer que bailó ceñido ceremoniosamente al talle de la abuela Sara, yo soy una doncella que llega toda lúbrica a dilatar las fronteras de esta danza, yo soy una doncella dilatada por un súbito desconcierto de los tobillos, pero la muerte me impone un desarreglo, y hay un búcaro que cae en los grandes estantes de mi cuarto, y hay un paso lustroso de farándula que han dado en falso, y son mis pies como un bramido grande de cuatro generaciones de muertos. Ricardo Pau-LlosaCREAMY CRACKED CONCH CHOWDER WITH SAFFRON, TOASTED COCONUT, STAR ANISE, ORANGES, AT NORMAN'S, CORAL GABLESFrom the bowl's edge balcony, skirted by parsley, a lip of flayed orange - fourth of a kiss, half a bilabial stop, partner in stammer - pretends to be the author of its poise, though given away by the resonations of kin sent into boil to find self and joy. And what it finds is a way to melt while keeping the code without which there is no name. What it finds as well is the breast of context. What a skin is echo, the stage prop and the cypress by the road, the tasseled lamp and the crumpled pillow are our ingredient language, transferences that compass leap the merits of being singular. The orange on its pearl white rim, knowing itself a portion but searching the anise fragrances and the toasted coconut arcs, probing the supple, panko-breaded conch strands and the shellfish stock for its originating sign will do more than seek comfort in finding itself in this ochre chorus, the faded gold of that honey which flesh aspires to. Sieve the light from the flame and you will see this mirror, though not its orange task. Cheap survival. The fragment's joy is the builder's fate. VIEW FROM A HIGHER ELEVATION OF A CONCRETE ROOF OVER A WALKWAY BETWEEN BUILDINGS ON A COLLEGE CAMPUS The leaves choke, the twigs sweep by will of drainage into the sunken corridors that do gutter's work between the bright raised slabs of concrete. A poinciana colonizes the roof with a clumpy rust of leaves, ant thorough, and the wrinklings of flowers once. A calligraphic branch prongs an upward swing like a bow unstrung, parabola as odalisque. The issue is range and the hopscotch of clarities, the random as message. Were these fallen bits a voice calling from the last mercies of a torn sea, would the cry reach the lifeguard? Were this a letter recovering the compass of love or clinching a furtive deal, would it sway or scare? Or would it let a judgment pass - ignored, quotidian - like a life between words? Sara Rosellfrom Poemas del exilio/Poems of the ExileI Con el ombligo abierto el mar descubre sus demonios las naves olvidadas el ojo del náufrago los huesos almidonados por los siglos el mástil de un barco sin bandera Un mundo escondido a flor de agua Toda la plenitud de los sentidos en el centro perdidas las orillas para siempre en el manto azul de la memoria * * * With open navel the sea dicovers its demons forgotten vessels the shipwrecked seafarer's eye bones starched by centuries mast of a ship with no flag A world hidden on the water's surface The fullness of the senses in the center shores forever lost in the blue mantle of memory (translated by Steven F. White)* * * II Yo sueño que regreso un día cualquiera to the pleasure of letting la tierra correr entre mis dedos Yo vivo en permanente exilio cuando sueño I can only speak in the tongue of desire Yo sólo puedo hablar la lengua del deseo When I dream your stretched body is my island esperándome Yo puedo perderme en las prominencias de tu cuerpo in the sugar cane flavor of your tongue in the dark cinnamon color of your gaze Yo puedo perderme rozando tus riberas like a wave get lost inside of you Yo sólo sueño que regreso I can only speak in the tongue of desire in exile from your body * * * (italicized lines originally written in English)I dream that I'm returningsomeday to the pleasure of letting the earth slip through my fingers I live in permanent exile when I dream I can only speak in the tongue of desire when I dream your stretched body is my island awaiting me I can lose myself in the rolling landscape of your body in the sugar cane flavor of your tongue in the dark cinnamon color of your gaze I get lost when I gently touch your shores like a wave get lost inside of you I only dream that I'm returning I can only speak in the tongue of desire in exile from your body (translated by Steven F. White)* * * III Llevo noches de siglos navegando la marea que crece con la espuma lentamente desaparece el rito del adios se hace presencia Miro alrededor abierta la pupila en dos un lado viéndose en el otro bordeando el abismo del recuerdo Qué soledad de verse acompañada tantas noches de siglos repetida * * * I have been navigating the tide for night-filled centuries and as it rises the rite of good-bye slowly disappears becomes presence I look around me my split pupil open one side seeing itself in the other skirting the abyss of memory The utter loneliness over night-filled centuries of watching the repeating companion (translated by Steven F. White)Francisco MoránEn medio del camino de la vidaUn poco más a la derecha . . . no, a la izquierda . . . allí . . . debajo de aquellos anaqueles. En esa bolsa gris, ligeramente pesada, están las cenizas de Dante. Ellas y nosotros en el destierro que siempre suponen las bibliotecas. Como en nichos, los libros más célebres descansan muy cerca del murmullo de los periódicos, y se mezclan con los estertores de las crónicas sensacionalistas, con el sopor de la guillotina y con la siniestra igualdad de las revoluciones. Algún curioso se acercará a interrogarlos, y los dejará luego sobre la mesa hasta que el empleado de turno los devuelva a su lugar. Hallar, pues, cenizas entre los libros, es, cuando menos, una tautología. Las de Dante, recién descubiertas en la Biblioteca Central de Florencia, ¿a qué parte de la anatomía del poeta corresponden? ¿Son acaso las de la mirada, intentando coser los descosidos de la geografía para que los vinos de Rávena tuvieran el sabor de las aguas del Arno? ¿Son las de la voz, defenestrada una y otra vez por la pugna de güelfos y gibelinos? ¿Serán quizá las de los genitales impolutos que nunca rozaron el texto de Beatriz, ni mancharon con una gota de tinta su vestido? ¿O serán las de la eternidad - encontradas, en un precioso simbolismo aleccionador, por unos empleados sin voz - , o las del destierro? Esas son las cenizas del Paraíso. Y contemplo con envidia - y con cierta nostalgia - el limbo de los libros en que hallaron sosiego por tanto tiempo. Sobre todo ahora, cuando un bando acaba de ordenarme que abandone Florencia, y me hallo a mí mismo, perdido en selva oscura. In the Middle of the Path of Life A few steps more to the right . . . no, to the left . . . right there . . . below those shelves. In that slightly heavy, gray bag, Dante's ashes remain. They and we in the exile that libraries always imply. Like in niches, the most celebrated books rest very close to the whisper of newspapers, and mix themselves with the death rattles of sensationalistic reports, with the sleepiness of the guillotine and the sinister equality of revolutions. Some curious person will approach to question them, and will then abandon them on a table, until the employee on duty returns them to their place. Therefore, finding ashes among books is, at least, tautological. Those of Dante, recently discovered in the Central Library of Florence, to which parts of Dante's anatomy do they belong? Are they perhaps, those of his gaze trying to mend the unstitched geography, so the wines of Ravena may taste like the waters of the Arno? Are they those of his voice, defenestrated once and again by the struggle of Guelfs and Ghibellines? Would they be those of the untainted genitals that never touched Beatrice's text, or stained her dress with a single drop of ink? Or would they be those of eternity - found by some voiceless employees in a precious exemplary symbolism - or perhaps those of exile? Those are the ashes of Paradise. And I behold with envy - and with nostalgia - the limbo of books where they found peace for so long. Particularly now, when an edict has just ordered me to live Florence and I find myself lost in the dark forest. Luis Cernuda The exorcists will come, not to free me from my demons, but to fight me over them. Farewell The profound absence filling the hours, the closed balconies. No longer to touch the rose, or to name it. To surrender its pure marble To the slaughter of oblivion and distance. To turn it into exile and obscurity. And desire - its reduced ember - to worms of remorse. Jorge Guitartfrom Free and Opaque to the PublicIT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU Grace under pressure confessed to having betrayed her own name by being a disgrace. Her room at night was realistic but night was mediocre. I certify to having been morbid about morbidity. Fantasy has a lot to do with lips that have stopped being parched. So eulogy is an adornment. I see a cornucopia and I shudder. Life with death can be repetitious. PETIT SLAM 1. Have you had the experience of writing your own ticket not knowing what it was for or what were the fundamental postulates of the elementary theory of rows and seats? 2. They say that life is choices. I think it's also invoices. But I am quite basic, meaning alkaline, and I want all alligators to have human shoes. 3. Death is relational so I will not say anything else about it. 4. I remember that the music was pious and people were in transports - in military transports, and I thought that something sidereal might be instructing my memory cells to come back as parts of bile ducts. 5. Reality is trivial if mold surrounds it. Why be a dude if you don't have a ranch? 6. I am not a bete noire, pal, I am a bete beige. I am not the one who said that people broadcast the enigma of their unimportance, but I am the one who thought it. It was because I was not being warmed up by the glow of the frozen steppes. 7. I saw a buoy lying on shore, no longer buoyant, and I was grateful that none of the zombies had touched a universal nerve, only local ones. 8. I saw the world's famous chaotic surface and then went on to do methodical things with a methodist or a facsimile of one. 9. If you are not ready for a shock, don't wear those there electrodes. 10. Breasts changed venues, traveling with bodies to which they belonged. TRACT I was quite able to forget the cry of the peacocks and I need no help with the silence of the red flamingoes. And I say unto you: only salmon will relate to salmon, only locusts will relate to locusts, only the skinny will be thinly disguised, only the obese will be immensely human, only masochists will be fit to be tied. Pablo MedinaCinco Misterios1. Viernes de lluvia, mar atormentado. En el horizonte un velero casi vuela. Entre nosotros la noche y el espacio. 2. Es como si fuera una palabra este pensar en ti: caracol de sombra, y esa sombra reflejo (de lluvia o sol) y ese espejo (colmado) el mar. 3. Nostalgia de no sé qué, el día verde como guayaba, la noche (pez en el mar de tus ojos) sombra de almendro, tu vientre húmedo, pozo (caimito), jardín de mis labios. 4. Siete veces (esta noche) te he pensado. En mi corazón la lluvia cae. Por fuera crecen las espinas. La desolación acecha: escampa, soledad, escampa. 5. Entre las gotas de la lluvia hay una intemperie, entre los palmos de la distancia, ama de flor y monte (contagiosa) sonrisa del horizonte, apareces tú. Carlota CaulfieldOf Aerodynamic Shapes and Navigators' MirrorsA good traveler has neither precise plans nor any fixed destination. - Lao Tsu "I dreamt that a vulture came flying towards me." You don't try to make your ideas come true, You just try to overcome the air's resistance. You're busy imitating the birds in flight and you live in a house that has wrought iron grilles, and a latch on the door, and a foyer. Like so many houses in your coastal city, mine, little by little, is being buried under lava and ashes of an erupting tyranny. I read the Compendium of All the World's Islands by Alonso de Santa Cruz, head cosmographer to King Charles I of Spain, and I think of solutions for resolving doubts and unknowns. "Yes, and it opened my mouth and brushed its feathers across it several times." Daedalus fled from the island of Crete to escape the death penalty. The reek of decomposing bodies. Air that melts any kind of wax. Metamorphosis of the potter who from such want lives in fear and falls into the vacuum of his own nothingness. You combine your skills as a great painter with those of builder and mechanic. Your hundred and sixty scrawled pages choose sites for the construction of helicopters and parachutes, to soar into flight, beyond touch. Pure imagination on the part of his Majesty's Cosmographer who, because he is Jewish, and the son of conversos in the Balearic Islands, fears attracting the furies of the Church. "Yes, as though wishing to insinuate that I'd talk about wings throughout my entire life." Open your mouth again, and if a wing pokes out, try to fly. Any fantasy will serve to discover a city with palaces of noble stone, its churches, its rectangular plazas filled with leafy trees and flowers, and its streets, alleys and avenues beaten by sea breezes. You size up the air resistance, and the aerodynamic shape convinces you. "My little Leonardo is bright and talented. Yesterday he built a flying machine with goose feathers tied on with cords." I can see the cords that attach the artificial wings to the feet that will propel them. If I set loose the demons onto your body, they will turn into crumbs of bread. Icarus seems to want to alert the daring child to the danger of his enterprise. The unpronounceable word: escape The coveted word: escape The accursed word: escape The Greek legend tells of etched stones, of a ball of thread, of an all-controlling passion, and of a special water of feathers. Without hand-saw or wheel, the potter bleeds into a manuscript page filled with drawings of several griffins tied to Alexander's throne. And the next morning, the boy tells of reading a succinct message brought to him by a bird: "Ignorance of the one who dares to gravitate." Of all the legends of long gone times, the one about the daring flight, that celebrates the desired person, and awards no commemorative medal, is the one which announces that life continues, that innumerable stories have been told about men who have risen into the air, that the ability to fly is an attribute of devils or of heretics. The boy writes the word curbstone in his notebook, Then adds the word sphere, then spits on the page and the ink spreads into a bat beneath fingers that lack skills, but are filled with insinuations. The dripping water that destroys our house has carved out the outline of a sailing ship that encourages aerial navigation. The etching crosses seas of clouds, and attempts to amuse us, thanks to the inventors' utopias. (translated by Mary Berg in collaboration with the author)Jesús J. BarquetTasting Heaven, siguiendo a Blywhen we see her at fifteen walking among falling leaves - Robert Bly Sólo unas raras veces he saboreado el cielo: cuando el espeso joven bulto de un atrevido rufián de tez oscura y sincopado andar, se mueve entre las hojas secas de mi otoño que él vuelve primavera, e invita con su mano cóncava a comunión muy dentro en la espesura. Sólo esas raras veces - me lo dice el instinto de lo eterno, la lluvia mensajera acallando cómplice el chasquido de nuestros pasos en busca del placer - sabemos que se puede paladear el cielo en este mundo, pero también sabemos - porque de nada serviría dudarlo - que esos manjares saboreados aquí son sólo sobras, restos, migajas caídas por descuido - o sabe Dios qué azar o qué sabia crueldad - de un banquete todavía mayor al que esperamos alguna vez ser invitados. AFUERA Afuera, donde la lluvia arrecia y el viento arrasa las fronteras, donde la sal y el fuego abrasan y escarpelan. La luz, solamente la luz, y la adúltera brisa marina que a través del desierto nos llega, me convidan afuera. OUTDOORS Outdoors, where rain hardens and wind devastates all borders, where fire and salt burn and peel. Light - just light and the adulterous ocean breeze that reaches through the desert - lures me outdoors. (translated by the author)Virgil SuárezMercado - Madrid, 1972Deep under the city, pass beggars and their dirty children, pass the blind loteria vendor with clouds for eyes - deeper still, the market: all the fruit, vegetables, tubers, legumbres, cold cuts, and shops, all you-can-eat for pesetas. Carcasses of rabbits and goats upside down like shirts dangled to dry on clotheslines, the lure of mussels and clams, the pink of shaved pigskin, feet and offal, rainbow shimmer of light against the mackerel, sardine, and smelt scales, scales like confetti speckled on the wet black floors. Bonbons made at the chocolate shops, liqueur filled, the smell of dried cod, Serrano ham hung from the rafters, everywhere wine, grapes, shiny olives . . . Tight, my mother holds my hand as we walk through and though we don't have much to spend, every few shops or so she says, See all that? That's abundance, freedom. This is why we left Cuba. A fruit vendor hands me a shiny apple. I bite into it, taste its juices, this world of sweetness for the first time; who can forget the price of freedom? Paul Klee Visits Santiago de Cuba after "The Light and so Much Else" Beyond the "flying cities," the crosses, stripes, these crop of dots hidden in the horizon, you can count them and find your way back anywhere, if you ask the sidewalk cracks, they'll show you the way, these little rivers, or the ramifications on the walls. He came here because he'd heard about a particular hue of blue he'd wanted to see with his own eyes, this light-filled space, a liquid prism on the mirrored surface of the water, cloudy, but a blue missing from his palette, luminous, a tincture of bled indigo, lapis lazuli, bird wings, a straight line so blue it draws breath from the on-lookers, call it a sigh of melancholia, those gathered on the shore to look out beyond at the distant flickering lights of another country, a boy's dream blue, the one about a raft taken by the currents to the open sea, a depth so deep when you speak, the words mouthed drown immediately, this constant immersion of light in water, a man bent against the slopes of a city, counts his dots, lines, squares, where points converge, pigment and spectral colors: harmony. Luna RubiaAnheloQuiero la paz y hasta quiero que no lata el corazón atropellado, que no haya latidos en las venas: que sólo viva el amor. (La Habana, 1977) Revivir Amanece . . . Justamente: amanece. Sin retorno, sin remedio. El sol ha dado un giro para alumbrar los caminos de acá. De repente tu mano ha comenzado a abrir mi puerta. Beso a beso se van desoxidando las ventanas. Una brisa joven comienza a refrescar la habitación. (La Habana, 76) Ramón RubioUntitledCuando el amor se olvida es como un perecer, una caída inmensa, una canción que nunca fue. Con la belleza ida también se fue el camino: sólo te queda el tiempo y el espacio, ¿dónde encontrarla pues? Vivo entre hojas multiverdes y ocres, sobre las cuales la luz plateada del sol salta como si fuera lluvia. En ella mis ojos se deshabitúan, pierden la pereza del no ver. Es un agua donde puedo lavar mis manos, y que no toco para que sea este mundo que ayer no conocí. (La Habana, 1976) Iraida IturraldeA Fragile HeritageNot alone, at birth when the upthrust of the sun claimed the eyelids and I burst, tongue unfolding, from the shade and then another and another, tufts of fallen vowels ripe and open claimed the sea edge - one long gentle earth and the lips, tanned, half-open spoke and swallowed and spoke and swallowed consonants tinged amber by the sun (perched, like dove or antelope on the forehead) Yet you hardly met that child now straying homeward like a chimney her cheeks, two wailing shells sallow from moonlight Such countenance was plain The world below these waters had shed reeds and behind their trail of silence came a still and lonelier trail - a new language (lips cracked-open) unbraided the strange fabric of snow: a run of painful, wily syllables swerving seamless, like marbles, in the cold Then I turned, my brow dawning by another river: your alien smell nursing old wounds from memory. Over a Baroque Portal: The Meow of the Offspring She sat demurely, chiseled in gold as if to say, my smile is like a vestige the memory of a land where palms sway gently to the ocean's rippling blue. The other, a sunlit fresco imposing her marveled gaze upon the planet as if to say, I bow to the ultimate splendor. Our children belie you. The Man Who Saved the Fish The flood-tide pours in with a jolting swirl, the waves leaping easily above his head. Above this man's head, a clean absence of seaweed. And above his eyes, the fish do somersaults in the misty space, above this man's eyes, with the drowning smell of a certain death. Upon his palms, a sensuous flutter and the man cups them into a potter's urn, saving, by instinct, his tropical fish. The children loved him on the sand for in his splendid chivalry this thin enamored man looked so unlike the infidel. Aimée G. BolañosAllíHe perdido el centro. Los mapas interiores están rotos. Solo en el caos, la escritura me regresa a la intuición pura. Allí me espera la palabra sin forma, signo del ser deshecho. Allí voy al encuentro de la palabra que no existe, de la palabra muda suspendida ante el abismo. Letanía La palabra es silencio. Voz de lo inaudible. Omisiones, elocuencia. Viaje al interior, exhibición jubilosa. Un deseo tenaz de la Forma. Y del Olvido. éxtasis inteligente, ignorancia definitiva. Vuelcos, imperceptibles movimientos. Medio de lo inacabado, fin de los espacios infinitos. Furia que medita. Olga KarmanAhoy the IndiesI retrace my steps, the long walks on the streets of Barcelona past herbalists' shops in the dark Gothic Quarter, past caged canaries singing from ancient walls. I am a wanderer pacing the surface of a madre patria I cannot recognize. Columbus towers over the harbor. His index finger points at the Indies, at my grandmother left behind in Cuba on her empty porch. He points at the red hibiscus, petals on fire, tells her again: "This is the most beautiful land human eyes have ever seen." She looks at the white garden wall. She sees my shadow dressed in taffeta, her great-grandchildren in New York snow living out the last leg of the Admiral's voyage. Aller's Farm, Iowa Longing for the island of Cuba wears thin here in Iowa where cornfields are real and there's a hickory tree with a rope swing you can sit on and fly over barns and silos that look like pictures on a glossy calendar. Crossing Huck Finn's river late last night I was a boy on a raft. Silver possum crossed Route 64 in a silver possum dream, and insects cracked like eggs against my windshield. Now I have crossed the Mississippi how pale the other rivers I carry in my head like a snail its home. Names memorized in a fifth grade class: Cabrera, Yariguá Chaparra, Mayarí Moa, Toa Duaba, Miel rivers blurred like the photographs of my dead family holding squirming dogs in their arms, riding small horses, smoking, laughing as if their world would never end. Here at Aller's farm just east of Cedar Rapids I can see radiant asparagus beds and touch the tips of the green fingers that point to heaven. There is music to the names here: Tiffin Lone Tree Oskalooksa Coon Rapids Little Turkey Second Home Spring after spring just a few miles east of Buffalo, New York, Canada geese return to stubbled fields of wintered corn. Their sloppy landing on wet furrows patched with unmelted snow, their calls announcing paradise regained awaken a longing for my faded Havana streets. This April my friend Mary saddled the bay and the dappled mare, and we rode out into fields of stubble and wintered corn, disturbed a flock of geese who took flight over our heads, and our horses shied. We broke into gallop and laughter, yelled our war cries, full speed the horses, each stride drumming the word Home, home perhaps, perhaps home at last. Eliana Riverofrom Five Cubana Trips3- London Latino High Street in fashionable Kensington and there it is: tri-colored flag lone star five stripes in white and blue, a sign that reads CUBA CAFÉ. Menu under glass in the window with picadillo, dancing to salsa until 1 am. A young man I meet inside shakes my hand, gives me some match books with the logo. I marvel at the places I find. Later in Soho Park I hear the Hare Krishnas chanting, they give me healthy cookies as a sample of vegetarian wares. Again some gypsies try to pick my pockets, like in Italy. I wish I could tell them the truth: I'm one of them, dark haired and superstitious, gitana to the core, Latina, Cubana with no moorings. I roam the world. 4 - More Journeys: Gibraltar I feel so at home in this borderland place: neither an island nor a nation, six square miles of rocky tunnels, remnants of Arab culture and Allied intelligence for World War II. Our guide is a "janito," a native Gibraltarian who was born on this cliff. He's a British colonial with Andalusian accents who tells me his life story. I listen while I look at the white coast of Africa. Later we go into a bar with loud and very modern music. There are monkeys everywhere on the high boulders, shop after shop of video cameras and Moroccan carpets. I wonder if I would be able to fly home in one of them, like Aladdin, taking with me a piece of this great rock. 5- Finally El Yunque, Puerto Rico Rain forests, mountains covered with orchids: the ocean was so close we heard the surf outside the kitchen. Our guests engaged in games, played dominoes until one could not see the white tiles in their eyes. We went touristing around and landed in the town of Loíza, where we saw the processions: an endless stream of figures, papier maché was buzzing in their heads and arms were raised as if to offer light. Our acquaintance with African rituals was secured. In the mountains we got drenched in the drizzle, the dew from all those bromeliaceas:, purple and pink and slightly blue their blossoms. I ate the sweetest pineapple by the side of the road. Sugar cane fields extended in the distance. For a moment, I thought I was reborn in that other island. Elías Miguel MuñozPoem Against MyselfExorcising a demon by way of a poem is the task of a fool. Like hoping to be pardoned through confession. Pray twenty Hail Marys and you're safe, saved from your sin or your crime or your guilt. I used to tell my friends who were in crisis: Write about it. You'll have the writing to show for all the pain. Why couldn't I see that writing would be salt in an open wound? There are demons a poem could never kill. Nor should it. And there are angels who demand to be made literary. People you've known and who've turned into memory, in spite of the crowds in your mind. Demons or angels, they're all the same. Your head can't tell them apart. Your heart, the quintessential beggar, cannot be a chooser. You'll take whatever guise they wear and seek definitions, words, the perfect turn of phrase to infuse them with blood. With literature. And so the poem awakens. Not the conception that follows pleasurable sex. Conceived in pain, from the embers of tears and remorse. Born like a thorn that breaks the skin and multiplies, roots like a million knives that cut and tear, a benevolent virus (if such a thing exists), a quiet parasite that builds a house deep within you. Patient and persistent, it'll wait a lifetime for you to listen; for you to acknowledge its right to have a home. The two of you are bound together, linked by a fortuitous experience: the day you saw a certain face, when a certain image overwhelmed you, when you cried or begged for oblivion. When you hated yourself for being selfish, cruel, blind to the suffering of a human being. Writing doesn't kill demons; it only tames them. So why tell a friend who's hurting to write about his pain? Listen to him, damn it! Give him your heart, not an empty promise. Writing never heals in the present. It takes years. So why bother, then? Time is a better cliché, the only one that lives up to its image, that delivers. Time is the true god, the only maker of a poem. Pass the so-called test of time and you're a survivor. Fail the test and give up access to history, insight into the myth of who you are, knowledge of mortality. Fail the test and you might as well die. I wish I'd failed the test. Damn the characters who live, my parasites! Damn the poem I write against myself. Hell, for now, is regret. Regretting what I did or didn't do once upon a time. The animals I tortured, the people I betrayed, the friends I forgot, the words that used my voice as a weapon. The punishments inflicted. The casualties. I must face the survivors: a kid in grade school who wet his pants when I threatened to beat him up, an old man I didn't save from a fall, a frail and dying body - my grandfather's - that I didn't help to clean. The street musicians in Veracruz who had to beg me for recognition (some money, applause, maybe a smile). Most of all the crippled old woman, a peddler who dragged herself in my direction, and whose eyes I didn't meet. The carcasses of time, decrepit runners. So many that I wouldn't know where to begin to count them. Nor where to end. Who deserves more than a passing mention? Which one will stab my heart until I scream? I'm not a fool. I know I'll never exorcise them. |
Uva de AragónCarta a mi madreMadre, si vieras como han crecido las izoras. El rosal tiene dos rosas. (A Nicolás le han salido los dientes y ya gatea.) También tiene luz el sol, anochece, llueve, escampa y los autos se detienen - casi siempre - en las luces rojas. Madre, llega correo a tu nombre y lo coloco en tu escritorio, nítidamente, como si fueras a regresar de unas vacaciones. Aún me salta el corazón si suena el teléfono de madrugada o si escucho en las calles la sirena de una ambulancia. Me apuro en las tardes para llegar a tiempo a la cena y hay tantas cosas que a cada rato te quisiera contar... Madre, la casa está llena de tus pasos y tu voz, y hasta el tintineo de aquellas medallas que prendías a tu ropón cuando yo era niña, hiere el silencio. La vida sigue y no estarás ya nunca más. Yo misma cerré tus ojos e hice que te vistieran bien elegante para el viaje final. Te vi en tu ataúd, serena y hermosa. Y llevo flores todos los sábados a la tumba donde descansas junto a mi padre y que tantas veces visitamos las dos. Todo es tan confuso, Madre. Sé que no volverás y todo te espera. Todo está dispuesto para tu regreso. Lavo con esmero las cazuelas para que las encuentres relucientes. Y riego las malangas y las arecas. Si vieras, Madre, como han crecido las izoras. Y el rosal tiene dos rosas. Cuando marcho me despido y le tiro besos a tu foto cuando llego, al igual que tú hacías con tus muertos, y yo me reía entonces tanto como ahora te comprendo. Todo es tan confuso, Madre. A veces me siento sola, perdida, huérfana, con el cordón umbilical cortado de tajo, sangrante y largo, al punto que me enreda; otras veces recuerdo tu último suspiro - el largo suspiro de la muerte - . Me pareció entonces, y ahora a veces aún me parece, que me tragabas, que me devolvías a tu útero a tu centro. Madre, la vida sigue. A Nicolás le han salido dos dientes. Ya se sabe parar y gatea. No sé si nos verás, Madre, parecemos unos náufragos sin barcos ni velas. Voy al trabajo, me levanto, me acuesto. como, bebo, escribo, hablo, rezo. También lloro, Madre. Es un llanto tonto y bueno. Por tantas cosas que quisiera decirte y no puedo, como, por ejemplo, lo hermosas que están las izoras y las rosas. Y que ya han cambiado la hora Y nadie ha encendido las luces cuando regreso a la casa oscura, y sola. de octubre de 1997 |
Néstor Díaz de VillegasTHE AFTERNOON OF GIANNI VERSACE1 The times were simply red and glowing with white hot aspirations, insurrections. You bought the pink hotel on the Riviera. O, what disgraceful sight, the beach! Palmeras in the comic-strip afternoon. O faun, your body disinterred and shipped from Capri to the Miamian shore. Who invented drapes to cover pianos? What flag will cover the coffin or the sepulcher-like refrigerator? Immense, picassoesque, the supermodels strolled Arcadian sands barefooted, prude. Old gentry, suave madonnas, cover- girls and insatiable machos. Was the sun wanting in this diurnal cave where you had painted with archaic strokes extreme symbols of permissive Fall? Or was all Nature just a fashion show? Undefeated fascist steed forever beautiful and tanning mares reclining by your pool. Copper and silver in ashtrays and cockrings. Bathtubs scribbled with intestine's ink. A fist, young Sardanapalus, ever the Cynic on the rope of doom, invaded your interiors, decorated with mortal anguish and some guilty haste. Those were the Times! One hundred mirrors, like so many sages, reflected on the fucking afternoon: they found, of course, devoid of any intelligence the cycling and recycling of the Ages. How could they otherwise, how could they not? There it was, for all to see, camouflaged in woe and flowing silk. The servants came and went, and Michelangelo lent His holy presence. Honey and milk flowed from the jewels. Those were the Times! No time to spend in masquerades where you wouldn't deign to show your face. Only those brimming with angst! Only those made for the orange crash! 2 Any promise you'd wish to tear from me, you can now tear from me. You can make me surrender my Empire at your feet! You, body chiseled in coral, draped in angora, more of a demi-god than human sore to the eyes! Unblemished by profundities, all superficial mirror of my desire! You come from the underside of deep fetish dreams. Oh man, oh superman! To conquer the world you need me. To dress you for the stage, reversal of the pure and simple life. No more walks in the dark! I forbid the driving of stolen cars! Only luxury becomes a man guilty of the most hideous crimes! Let's play with daggers and revolvers, revolted at the sight of filthy palaces that wouldn't fit your arms. Let me dress you in palm shadows, in tight pants and see you naked through the lattice of my hands! 3 The assassin walked the boardwalk with sashay. Some Brutus! Some Charlotte Corday! Kiss, kiss. Bang, bang! Was Paradise cinema? Fifteen or 60 minutes show? Who knows? Only you could give an exact account of those amphibian moments winding and rewinding in the flesh. The lackeys went for ice to soothe the ayes and some fag cried hysterically on the steps. Like a Pompeian hut the Palace crumbled: in the canopic jar your heart tumbled. Who's playing salsa in the Latin Quarter? Is the Kiddush meant for you? The shinny temples are set ablaze for the last time while your hand holds yesterday's paper. These - too meticulous for a crime scene - steps that lead nowhere from here refuse to quench even your blood. Inside the faggots come and go comparing you with Michelangelo. Notes on the ContributorsUva de Aragón was born in Havana, Cuba; and she arrived in the United States in 1959. She currently resides in Miami, Florida. Jesús J. Barquet was born in Havana, Cuba. He left in 1980 via the port of Mariel and currently resides in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Aimée G. Bolaños was born in Cienfuegos, Cuba. She left the Island in 1997 and currently resides in Rio Grande, Brazil. Carlota Caulfield was born in Havana, Cuba. She left Cuba in 1981 and has lived in Dublín, Zürich, New York, New Orleans, Oakland, and most recently London. Lourdes Gil was born in Havana, Cuba and left the Island in 1961. She currently resides in Tenafly, New Jersey. Jorge Guitart was born in Havana, Cuba. He emigrated to the United States in 1962 and now resides in Buffalo, New York. Olga Karman was born in Havana, Cuba. She left the Island in 1960 and currently resides in Buffalo, New York. Andrea O'Reilly Herrera was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of a Cuban mother and Irish American father. She currently resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Iraida Iturralde was born in Havana, Cuba. She left the Island in 1962 and currently resides in West New York, New Jersey. José Kozer was born in Havana, Cuba. He came to the United States in 1960 and has lived in New York, Spain, and most recently Hallandale, Florida. Pablo Medina was born in Havana, Cuba. He left the Island in 1960 and now lives in New York City and Glen, New Hampshire. Francisco Morán was born in Havana, Cuba. He left the Island in 1994 and currently resides in Arlington, Virginia. Elías Miguel Muñoz was born in Ciego de Avila, Cuba; he came to the United States in 1969. He has lived in Kansas, Washington, D.C., New Mexico, and now resides in California. Ricardo Pau-Llosa was born in Havana, Cuba and left the Island in 1960. He currently resides in Coral Gables, Florida. Pedro Portal was born in Havana, Cuba. He arrived in the United States in 1988, and currently resides in West Miami, Florida. Eliana Rivero was born in Havana, Cuba. She immigrated permanently to the United States in 1961 and now resides in Tucson, Arizona. Sara Rosell was born in Banes, Cuba. She left the island in May 1980 as part of the Mariel Boatlift and now lives in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Ramón Rubio was born in Havana, Cuba. He left the Island in 1984 for Saint-Etienne, France and died in July of 2002. Luna Rubio was born in Havana, Cuba. She left the Island in 1984 and currently resides in Saint-Etienne, France. Virgil Suárez was born in Havana, Cuba. He left the Island in 1970. He has lived in Madrid and Los Angeles; and currently resides in Tallahassee, Florida. Néstor Díaz de Villegas was born in Cumanayagua, Cuba. He left the Island in 1979 and currently resides in Los Angeles, California. |