Beneath the Spanish

by Victor Hernandez Cruz

  Soda pop one hand

  pizza the other.

  Mulberry Street my foot,

  I walk around

  make sure buildings don’t

  fall upon head,

  edifices built for the

  Workers old and tired,

  big families no fit,

  antiquity of bricks, cement

  talking Yiddish, slant Irish,

  Eyetalian.

  steps, stoops, hard

  Buttock observatory

  street drama.

  Tenement stairs groan

  step marble a cold

  Mineral moan,

  iron wrought banister design,

  meaning lost.

  Beauty at first,

  When I saw the building

  first days of my own migration

  into the metropolis

  long view tunnel upward

  there skylight dispersed silver light,

  top roof floor a room,

  Down through the marble stairs,

  hallway little tile squares,

  Brass door entrance handle knob

  along with the brass mailboxes

  shining still then

  Sight beauty in my youth,

  bonito shiny glaze

  stare eye see veneer art delight.

  close my eyes now it all comes

  back.

  Eternal.

  The super, Charly, this Russian

  Jewish old-timer

  Told me

  “was lotta gambling round here

  Gambling sonabitches no good

  Irish sonabitches no good

  German sonabitches no good

  Jewish sonabitches no good”

  Like what he told me of

  the Old lowlife,

  Poricans he called

  The Spanish

  “sonabitches no good”

  For Charly everybody sonabitches

  no good.

  Deep Lower East Side

  now Chinatown

  parts of Italy petite

  brushing up against what

  Municipal courts and business districts

  were in times past

  the Five Points slum ghetto,

  pretty Molly McCollum

  blue eyes in desire

  want of attention,

  She can shake her buns,

  a beer or two,

  the Tavern of forgetfulness.

  Eerie gutter Street,

  cut faces of red dark yellow

  eyes, men on the conner,

  staring stabs of knives from start

  jump no salute

  working slave class squirm

  spit insults stacked like layers

  of hate against the heart.

  America apart from me this cáliz

  cup of foul occupation.

  It is better to be slapped in the

  face

  than to have the humanity of

  Five Points shellacking you ass

  with fire tongues on blast.

  Al Capone sharpened his wits

  upon its gutters,

  Gambling holes

  who protected them.

  Italian, Irish cojones,

  closest thing to a smile

  was a smirk from a frown face,

  Mope glances.

  Today you worry about the South of Bronx

  That is Mickey Mouse cartoon,

  Bomb out burned down,

  The Five Points looked that way

  Every day,

  After the Draft Riots Five Points

  looked like Hiroshima

  after the atom bomb.

  It had nothing else to do

  except disappear.

  Pockets of Irish families

  were amongst the Puerto Ricans

  Of my instance,

  On 11th Street that beautiful girl

  Arlene, her sister Katherine,

  mother, uncle with red beer face,

  drank with the PoRicans,

  the girls fell in with Rican guys

  all Catholics,

  Irish-Rican kids running around.

  Freckles sprinkled upon brown skin.

  The Lower East Side,

  el culo de Manhattan,

  saw myself in a sway hammock

  reading Henry Roth’s

  Call It Sleep

  the Avon books paperback

  With the photo of fire escapes

  clotheslines backyards

  Such reality to my dreams

  Recurrence of.

  Tenements like painting hues

  Corner streets of red brick blues.

  I was awake within the

  Nightmare.

  (A sangre fría)

  That too.

  New Orleans y Todo Ese Jazz

  Jazz is a criollo music from the Latin Caribbean. New Orleans is a Caribbean City Latin American, aligned to the Caribe islands, Latin America, France, Spain, and the rest of the world more so than any Protestant northern region. Close to Mexico, Latin-African Criollo mix like the Caribbean islands, what wonder jazz fusion is but this melt. The Cabildos, African religious organizations in Cuba, maintained authentic African rhythms and culture alive in Cuban society to an extent not heard of in the northern African slave centers, the only northern place that Afros were able to keep their drums was New Orleans, Louisiana. Another factor which made the Caribbean accommodating to African cultures was the proximity in climatic realities between el Caribe and parts of Africa like Nigeria and the Congo, the similarities in tropical flora; the Tainos were still about during the early stages of African slavery and the wise made correspondence. The dance in the Areyto round, the Africans joined right in. The invocation of spirit began to blend, melt, as the popular people talked to each other, and Spanish has never been the same, it became something more open to vocabulary of new fruits and cuisines. A timing, a tempo out of the fusion. When the port city of New Orleans was under Spanish rule we were all under the same umbrella, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the same Spaniards, as such the Spaniards exchanged military marching bands, musicians, way back before the Jazz Age. Jazz is Blues and Gospel. Homegrown by African slaves, a blues and gospel that came right along with the bursting of the chains. A nativity in place. Could an aspect of its rhythmic pulse have been within the whisperings of the Danzón, the Habanera rhythms of Cuba, the Danzón spread like fire to Mexico’s Yucatán, Vera Cruz region, eventually to New Orleans. Many Mexican musicians could be found among the bands that were marching in the Saints. Afro-Latin dancing a cadence a sensual movement hold your partner the fan tight in her hands, her white dress flowing, in the Danzón sway, bodies pressed tight. Great Afro-Latin musicians are still making people swing in dance halls, as some jazz innovations have moved toward the concert hall, leaving dance to the rhythm and blues folks. France ruled in New Orleans simul taneous with Haiti, slaves interchanged rhythms, Haiti was a fervent musical center, the French Contredanse jumped over to Cuba as eventually the Cuban habanera flowed into New Orleans. Remember that Jelly Roll Morton called it “The Spanish tinge,” what Spanish tinge? Was it the Cuban tinge, what Cuban tinge? He meant the African tinge, which is what the Caribbean has preserved and transmits. New Orleans format (formation) of Jazz.

  In the 1940s and 50s cha cha cha, mambo hit New York direct from Cuba, what eventually would be known as Salsa, a music derivative of African sacred rhythms of the Yorubas, Congalese, the Bantu, Mandingo peoples. The Cabildos and the Abakuá Society of African Cubans were essential in preserving rhythms, culture, religions, and the people held on to African cuisine, spiritual systems intact as in the Yoruba Lucumi Santería de Cuba or Candomblé of Brazil. Chano Pozo the conguero that worked with Dizzy Gillespie was an Abakuá Society member. The Voodoo of Haiti, in the eyes and hands of Marie Laveau dragging the giant snake Damballah through New Orleans the French Quarter which is Spanish architecture. Her Creole light skin of immense Africanía. The tinge is s
pirit stains, perfume, scent, psychological state, a walk, cake it if you want. It is possession of cool wind breeze, stance, gravity, holding the jumping horse, guiding it into paso fino tempo, sitting on your tongue that speeches poetry, sings as in language African words phrases, concepts intact in Cubano circles. What more cool than the Danzón? It predates the origins of jazz. Or like Ismael Rivera said in Puerto Rico “guembe mama quembe, habla quembe na mah” calling in his Africanized Spanish widespread through Loíza Aldea, a Puerto Rican community established by free Africans, perhaps among the first communities as such in the Western Hemisphere. Walk, camínalo, biscocho walk. Cake Walk, Andalusia guitar, Qué sabor, it is measure, power smoked into skins of drums, balance, a spirit which later funked into jazz. Proceed into Ragtime Jelly Roll and who more Rican/Cuban looking than Jelly Roll Morton, true criollo hitting the cinquillo note of the habanera, that lilt, motion snake horse swishing through the floor.

  Jazz is not becoming Latin, that Africanía sway has always been an original essential ingredient since its origins. Jazz is like a Paella, everything can go into it. Thus jazz was a mixture and fusion of peoples of all ethnicities and colors. At the principio Sicilian Nick LaRocca Italian olive oil was founder of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Creole with Jewish blood from Anglo-London Papa, did he not stop into Puerto Rico, composed “Marches des jíbaros.” Luis “Pepa” Tio, Mexicano and Creole, Danzón órale pues scoping the Mississippi which was clearer in this epoch. A migration to this Louisiana of Canary Islanders, bringing the décima poetic tradition with them, did they décima the blues. Islas Canarias, Spain in Africa. The “Mardi Gras Mambo” New Orleans where anything can happen, half the sea came into town, Katrina. Crime there like in all the other Caribbean localities, vicious with equality for all, rich or poor, blanco or moreno, if you looking for trouble you came to the right place, a vicious Manteca walking. The Caribbean a region of great oppressive policies by conquering Spaniards and subsequently other European powers, the total genocide against the Taino people who were exterminated in about two generations, the Caribbean today contains one of the poorest nations in the world, as in the nature of Haiti, one of the last colonial possessions in the world as is the situation of Puerto Rico with the United States, the only Communist/Socialist regime in the West as in Cuba. We are a region of extremes, yet a people’s mestizaje and culture has arisen with a courage of survival, cultural triumph against all odds.

  The great Jazz pianist of New York Rican descent Hilton Ruiz, who had been in New Orleans promoting an album which he participated in to raise funds for victims of Katrina, was assassinated on a visit to this northern edge of the Caribbean; thus indirectly Hilton was another casualty of Katrina. Mi hermano I will miss you for my whole ever. Lo and behold he went to New Orleans to share in musical goodwill, where jazz gave birth, with gospel, blues, and Latin Afro Caribbean elements, and he found his death. His Newyorican soul went marching out with the Saints, to dance rhythm with the Orishas.

  Motion in the Silence

  To the memory of Hilton Ruiz

  A man puts Griffin on his white shoes

  white guayabera hangs upon door hook

  Bahía Matanzas not far, a salty powder

  in the wind. Dance tonight above the plaza,

  an ex cockfighting ring

  converted into club

  Now the roosters are men

  the dance is the fight,

  coquet the night conqueror,

  the handkerchiefs wrapped around

  the fans, the dresses so white

  Milk next to them would appear

  dark

  Against skin warm moisture air.

  going to town Pedro hoping

  to see his desire flower

  Teresa to be there, two days

  back at the Mercado squeezing

  Avocados she whispered to

  him that she would, to find her

  with her dress of white hilo,

  holding her hand-painted

  Sevilla fan,

  He had seen her that afternoon

  Moisture cheeks upon,

  golden ruby skin sabrosa mulatta.

  Grandfather from Galicia

  mother hazelnut people probably

  Senegal or the Congo deep,

  a line of

  Kongo mambo feet,

  the maternal grandmother

  high of Taino cheek

  slant almond Asian eyes,

  Tell me muses, oh tell me

  what was Pedro looking at,

  “Let the infinity stay without its stars,

  But do not take from me her cinnamon”

  Kisses,

  thank you Bobby Capó

  from Coamo on the Caribbean Sea

  way across is Colombia,

  “You are the one I care about

  and only, only you”

  “tú, tú, tú y tú no más

  ojos negros, piel canela”

  Mas Coamo composer where the girl

  of society in the song “El Bardo”

  fell in love with a poet,

  absent the bard, the mountains cried.

  all the rhythms were dressed as white birds,

  clothes of the Caribbean to filter heat

  the more luminosity flesh

  covered as within Gardenia pétalos.

  When his mother and father

  took a steamship

  cross the Caribbean

  Mother eyes tear,

  looking back on Saint-Dominigue

  it was going to be a forever trip

  father had a brother

  wrote

  to him about a job.

  Now in New Orleans

  some neighbors spoke French

  some spoke Spanish

  many already this new English

  sound,

  Nuevo dwelling not far

  rounds the Mississippi flow,

  they heard familiar drums in

  Congo Square

  walking begins day sunny

  windy maybe rain

  Afternoon,

  he saw a girl reminded him of Teresa,

  popped out hologram upon

  the air sweet of colores,

  A creole girl same Tere somewhere

  else, else this same somewhere

  is the where the equivalent again

  becomes everywhere

  moves duplicate rhythms

  martillo between bongo

  güiro y maraca

  travel as to the drums

  her eyes pierce

  diamond arrows,

  Orleans is the home of now

  it matters not the local

  But the drum,

  the Caribbean a circle,

  Bays and coasts

  vanishing rivers,

  the sway cadence like feet dancing

  out of the water,

  up, now down, to the side

  brush

  how it interferes with silence,

  “Silencio the flowers are dreaming

  I do not want them to hear me crying”

  thus wrote Rafael Hernandez,

  on the Caribbean coast of 116th St.

  In Spanish Harlem,

  the Savoy Ballroom not too far

  Swing the Charleston, jump the Lindy Hop

  Lindo, Swing, Jitterbug,

  yo diddy-bops of old,

  your bones aching with memories,

  I recall Avenue D projects 10th Street

  summer days walking along the rim

  of the tenements

  rose colored project bricks

  adjacent brownish reddish gray

  tenement brick montage, walking

  My father’s head above me as in the

  sky like a cloud hanging

  broadcasting his warnings, talking about

  be careful, everything that shines

  isn’t gold, the consequences of your

  actions, slowl
y you pay, Dios es el

  que proporciona, it is God that

  Proportions flesh on earth,

  mix that with the sayings

  of my Spiritual Grandfather

  Don Arturo

  “Sex” he explained with his shiny

  white hair “is the most dangerous thing

  in life, thus be careful,”

  he was from Cuba and played guitar

  music was his family.

  One time slight snow upon street

  walking this D Avenue

  Going to club

  80 Clinton, had my white shoes

  inside the rubber boots

  pressing white fluff snow.

  Once there, salute the material

  and search for the rhythmic spirit

  of the Clave,

  once found: mount

  like a wave of the Caribbean going

  toward the sand, not far Ponce

  Where French last names circulate

  tagged upon mulatos in barrio

  Near the Sea

  mix it up continue, sprinklings

  Haitian French made it

  Rico here as well,

  to bomba explosions of Plena,

  some song titles in French,

  I am gliding like a Garza

  wings white of guayabera shirt,

  dancing with Teresa Morales.

  Found her again,

  Jersey City

  black dress now, for winter clime.

  Los marineros had seen Teresa

  from the ships los marineros

  immense white sails,

  no name for her but Lola,

  Aylelolelola,

  The night improv begins

  the Andalus said she waved,

  later she dropped her handkerchief,

  José continues, he almost died

  wrapped in an embrace.

  Golf of Mexico Portero New Orleans,

  the Afro-Latin metropolis,

  taking turns with French and Spanish,

  was it further south Habana, Ana

  Banana O Ana na nah, no mah

  near Ponce arrebatah,

  sandunguera, swaying dancing,

  flowing with the saints,

  when they came marching in.

  A cleansing,

  water rushing toward the drums,

  I want to be in that number

  when the Orishas come marching in.

  with all that water alelujah, to bathe,

  clean, Wash the head of Música

  —Cabio Sile Shango

  Egypt