Black Woman (Mujer Negra) // Nancy Morejón

Still I smell the foam of the sea which they made me cross.  The night, I cannot remember it.  Not even the ocean itself could remember it.  But I do not forget the first gannet I made out.  High, the clouds, like innocent eyewitnesses.  Perhaps I have not forgotten either my lost coast, or my ancestral tongue.  They left me here and here I have lived.  And because I worked like a beast, here I was born again, And I sought to rely on epic story of the Mandinga after epic story.

                                     I rebelled.

His Honour bought me in a square,  I embroidered His Honour’s coat and gave birth to a son for him.  My son had no name  And His Honour, he died at the hands of an impeccable English lord.

                                  I walked.

This is the land in which I suffered beatings and floggings.  I rowed the length of all its rivers.  Under its sun I sowed, I reaped and I did not eat the harvests.  For a house I had a shack.  I myself brought stones to build it, but I sang to the natural beat of the national birds.

                                 I rose up.

In this same land I touched the humid blood  and the rotted bones of many others,  brought to it, or not, the same as I.  By then I did not imagine the way to Guinea any more.  Was it to Guinea? To Benin? Was it to Madagascar? Or to Cape Verde?

                               I worked much harder.

I laid better foundations for my millennial song and my hope. Here I built my world.

                               I went off to the mountains.

My real independence was the Palenque and I rode among the troops of Maceo. Only a century later,  together with my descendants,  from a blue mountain,  I came down from the Sierra. to put an end to capitalists and usurers,  to generals and the bourgeoisie.  Now I am: Only today do we have and create.  Nothing is outside our reach.  Ours the land.  Ours the sea and the sky.  Ours magic and the chimera.  My equals, here I watch them dance  around the tree we planted for communism.  Its prodigious wood already resounds.

(translated from the Spanish by Jean Andrews)

A Bridge, a Remarkable Bridge

In between waters frozen or boiling, a bridge, a remarkable bridge that’s hidden, but it spans over its own handwritten manuscript, over its own suspicion of its ability to pilfer parasols from pregnant women, with pregnancy of a question conveyed on the back of a mule impelled to accomplish the mission that is to elongate or alter gardens into alcoves where children lend their curls to waves, because waves are as mannered as God’s yawning, like the games of gods, like the nautilus covering a village with its dice-thrown, half-scored inflection, and of animals crossing the bridge with the latest Edison safety bulb. The lightbulb, happily, blows out, and onto the other side of the worker’s face, I entertain myself by placing pins, for he was one of my loveliest friends and I secretly envied him. A bridge, a remarkable bridge that’s hidden, bridge that was a byway for drunks who claimed they required a diet of cement, while, lion-hearted, the poor cement surrendered its riches as depicted by a miniaturist because, mind you, on Thursdays, bridges busy themselves as crossings for deposed kings unable to forget the last chess game played between a whippet whose microcephalia is reiterated and a great wall that crumbles like a cow’s skeleton seen through a skylight, geometrical and Mediterranean. Led by astronomical numbers of ants and by a camel made of smoke, a great silver shark must now cross the bridge, in point of fact it’s only three million ants that in a momentous hernia-producing buoy lift the silver shark at midnight across the bridge as if it were another ousted king. A bridge, a remarkable bridge, hence it’s hidden, honey-colored armature, maybe it’s the Sicilian vespers painted on a small poster painted also with a great crash of water when it all ends in the saline silver we have to cross despite the silent swollen armies that have laid siege to the city without silence because they know I’m there and I saunter and I see my wounded head and the immutable squadrons exclaim: It’s a beating drum, We lost my fiancée’s favorite flag, I’d like tonight to drift into sleep poking holes in my sheets. Remarkable bridge, my mind’s matter, and the drumrolls nearing closer to home, thereafter I don’t know what happened, but it’s midnight now, and I’m crossing what my heart feels is a remarkable bridge. But the back of the remarkable bridge can’t hear what I’m saying: that I was never able to feel hunger for since I was blinded I’ve placed in the middle of my bedroom a great silver shark from which, meticulously, I break off pieces I roll into the shape of a flute that the rain amuses, defines, and congregates. But my nostalgia is endless, because such nourishment endures a stern eternity, and it’s likely hunger and jealousy can only replace the great silver shark I’ve set at the center of my room. But no hunger, no jealousy, not this animal, a favorite of Lautréamont, ought to cross alone and conceited over the remarkable bridge, because the goats of noble Hellenic descent displayed their flute collection at the last international exhibit, of which today an echo lingers in the nostalgic morning prone to pilgrimage, when the sea’s torso gives way to a small green bedspread and verifies its cabinet of pipes, where so many bats have been set aflame. Carolingian roses burgeoned on the edge of a crooked rod. In the fourth quarter of midnight, a cone of water formed by mules sepulchered in my garden reveals that the bridge wants to fashion such exquisite belongings. Little hands of ancient idols, absinthe infused with the rapture of high-soaring birds that mollify the part of the bridge supported over squashy cement, almost jellyfish-like. But now to salvage my head it’s time for metallic tools to be stunned mirroring the danger of drool now shaped into shellfish glazed by the acid of unpardonable kisses the morning tucks into a new change purse. Does the bridge, turning, only envelop the mistletoe and its olive-colored tenderness, or around the hump and scratched violin that grates the side of the leaking bridge? And morning’s campana can’t even transform the pink flesh of the unforgetting mollusk into dental notches of the glazed shellfish Remarkable bridge, unbridled bridge that nuzzles boiling waters, and sleep an onslaught to the flesh until it’s rendered soft and the edge of unexpected moons resounds to the end with mermaids oozing their latest seaside proclivity. A bridge, a remarkable bridge, it’s hidden, waters boiling, frozen, surging against the last defensive wall to ravish the mind, the single voice crosses the bridge again, like the blind king who, unbeknownst to him, has been deposed, and he dies mended tenderly to the allegiance of night. —José Lezama Lima, from Enemigo rumor (1941), trans. Roberto Tejada

I would never tie you down, not even with garlands of roses. I don't want anything from you that doesn't come from your own impulse, like water from the springs.

Dulce María Loynaz, tr. James O’Connor, Absolute Solitude: Selected Poems; “XLVI”

“LISTA” the alternate dance video with some-never-before seen footage OUT NOW! 💃🏻🕺🏻

Artist: Me! 👋🏼 (Nikki Lorenzo)

Directed by Bianca Poletti

Choreography by Matilda Sakamoto

Edited by Nina Sacharow

Translations never do justice especially in forms like poetry, but Merwin's translation of the Cuban poet's work is considered one of the best as far as translations count and good lord they hit the spot, but I still wonder how it would feel listening to the same in its original composition. Probably divine!!

What it means to be "Americano"

White privilege like I can trace my mother's grandfather's line down to Captain James Cook but don't speak a lick of Tagalog

White privilege like I speak English fluently, with minimal accent

White privilege that meant jack shit to my schoolyard bullies

Your eyes look Chinese! Whatever Julio Mongolio, you're just a know-it-all

Brown skin I hid from the sun because I was ashamed

Morena like I spoke spanish as an adult and un nina muy pequena pero no permiso hablar con nadie porque

"You're in America now, Speak English! None of that beaner talk!"

Morena like aprender una lengua primero but being buried alive under spelling bees and failed attempts at fitting in

Julie of the Wolves! Why do you blurt everything out? You're so annoying!

Cubana as in, I haven't held my Abuelita in my arms ever in my whole twenty-seven years

veinte-siete años y no veo mi familia en la isla porque no estas permisos

My father, tells me half truths as un abogado y mi mama, spills lies from her mouth like water from a fountain

Mestiza as in I don't speak Tagalog outside of Mahal kita Lolo

and it gets blended with mi español porque my mouth is this

plane hopping, floatation device riding, Ellis Island

full of trauma, words I never learned

supposedly to protect me from hate crimes,

and cultures I never got to claim

Oh but don't worry.

Being American comes with all this baggage and more.

Why did my ancestors leave the islands? I may never know,

but it hurts worse to know that if they all had a ghost party,

I could never speak to them in our collective mother tongues.

Ver "Silvio Rodriguez - La Maza" en YouTube

“I wish people could see Miami through me, pass through my imagination of my home…”

I sat and watched the child in you play amongst the jungle gym of memories that came to bid you a goodbye before your mind could offer up a prayer to Time. Even though your Indian food was getting cold, we were two dreamers hoping to drift away in the capital of shooting stars: New York City.

Throughout the day with you, I’m reminded of poetry, the capturing of a days light in-between your words - syllables full of a Cuban twist - on the life you’ve built for yourself. And as we ended the day in the church of moving pictures, a song performed itself for me anytime I caught a glimpse of your smile or how your laugh echoed in every corner. When these notes faded, I believed all I needed was to hold your hand to discover your reflection - the one that’s never ending, the one you shy away from showing fully, at times. Seeing you, I could smell and taste Miami. I felt like Picasso floating amid the Cuban coast to figure out the new wonderment the land could give him as tribute to its immortality. If only he met you…

I would’ve encountered you, and all your tales, through a portrait of the girl you were always meant to be - as if the eyes of the world were shut to what you truly can offer it. Miami, your home, and the land of your ancestors cries are beautiful because they birthed you.

chanchan is a captivating cuban song that unravels a beautiful love story. as young feminists inclined towards fairness and equality, let's embark on an exploration of this song. it is about love, resilience, memories, cultural identity, nature, and the beauty of everyday life.

chanchan teaches us that love is a powerful emotion that unites people. regardless of gender, love is about caring for one another and treating each other with kindness and respect. in this song, the characters chan chan and juanica exemplify a love that transcends societal expectations, emphasizing the importance of equal and respectful relationships.

Title: Supper By The Seashore II, Tel Aviv Israel, 2010.

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/166071919_israel-hasselblad-analogue-photography-print-by-cuban-artist-conrado-maleta

Color Medium Format Analogue Photography, Jewish Female Models, Mediterranean Landscape And Nature, Middle East Visual Poetry, Contemporary Conceptual Cuban Art, Vintage Hasselblad 500CM, Conrado Maleta. Limited Edition Signed Numbered Art Prints for Allure Auctioneers. Digital Film Scans. This is an original artwork. Measure is all paper print including a white band at borders.

Condition

Excellent condition. Custom made item by Artists Studio.

Dimensions

24 x 24 in

My Father In English // Richard Blanco

First half of his life lived in Spanish: the long syntax of las montañas that lined his village, the rhyme of sol with his soul—a Cuban alma—that swayed with las palmas, the sharp rhythm of his machete cutting through caña, the syllables of his canarios that sung into la brisa of the island home he left to spell out the second half of his life in English— the vernacular of New York City sleet, neon, glass— and the brick factory where he learned to polish steel twelve hours a day. Enough to save enough to buy a used Spanish-English dictionary he kept bedside like a bible—studied fifteen new words after his prayers each night, then practiced them on us the next day: Buenos días, indeed, my family. Indeed más coffee. Have a good day today, indeed— and again in the evening: Gracias to my bella wife, indeed, for dinner. Hicistes tu homework, indeed? La vida is indeed difícil. Indeed did indeed become his favorite word, which, like the rest of his new life, he never quite grasped: overused and misused often to my embarrassment. Yet the word I most learned to love and know him through: indeed, the exile who tried to master the language he chose to master him, indeed, the husband who refused to say I love you in English to my mother, the man who died without true translation. Indeed, meaning: in fact/en efecto, meaning: in reality/de hecho, meaning to say now what I always meant to tell him in both languages: thank you/gracias for surrendering the past tense of your life so that I might conjugate myself here in the present of this country, in truth/así es, indeed.

I ask myself what I will do here on earth with this worthless, defiant body. And I hear my body answer: —What will I do with this spark that believed itself the sun and this breath that believed itself the wind?

Dulce María Loynaz, tr. James O’Connor, Absolute Solitude: Selected Poems; “XXXII”

LISTA

– Margarita Engle, The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba's Greatest Abolitionist

Amor De Mis Amores

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