Andre Segura Mexican scholar of the indigenous said it direct straight during a San Francisco State College lecture, the Maya/Aztecas came from another planet, they floated here, vaporized through space arriving like desire, ask the Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, the Dogon peoples of Mali West Africa. They all sing the same song. The construct of human body non earth humane or godly natura engineering by fish figurines Sea out jump. Is there a star specific to chocolate? The god Quetzalcoatl gave the secrets of chocolate to the people, other divinities became angry with him, reprimanded him, but he wise knew it was proper in time and space. Puebla people are made of chocolate, the mole a piquant chocolate sauce they make is a taste celestial divine full of spicy crunchy nuts, canela, chiles. It is a golden chocolate melt. Mornings in the future when I recall estancias in Fresno, California, circa the 70s band of poets and actors Festival of Teatro Campesino mornings of fruits and cups of chocolate or café con canela. Forever now those Chicano encounters are melted chocolate and canela in the cabinet of my memoirs, it was the birth of some of my poems, feeling those days and nights sunken in a dimension of an invisible Nahuatl ether oozing through reality. I cannot describe the sensation now in this English sprinkled with Spanish. Forgive my shortcomings; the tongue can taste what the lengua of sound cannot pronounce. Flavor there in indigenous time-atmosphere Feathered Serpent. The Fresno Valley immense earth is the food source of North America. The fruit, vegetables, pinto beans, corn as tortillas, food growing earth foot walking momentarily we are high above the fields soaring in flight, holding on to the eagle’s neck, la Guadalupe standing hovering near all the doors protecting homes. Blue orange walls. Copal and vanilla, tamales fragrance begging nose open. Califlorica mornings of hazelnut skin breezes, chocolate paste cream between the teeth, taste glands upwards sizzling electric, has to be this divine Olmec heritage, afloat through the valley caressing white dresses flying hanging upon hazelnut color mestizas shining into the cosmos. Chocolate is another orgasm. Alive nascent bean enclosed-hidden within white creamy scum.
Choco-Arte
What if it wasn’t what it is
color is not the setting
it comes in white
simulcast
Flavor supreme reality
taste does not suffer.
Montezuma drank
choco out of a cleaned
skull that used to be his enemy,
the wives of the skull
are thrown
back on jade posted beds
waiting silky for Montezuma.
Fairy tales of the
conquerors who stole the
gold of the Incas,
here we had the choco
and the contrast of vanilla,
the gold and the silver
feather panties separating
for night flight
spherical time the dance
Areyto rhythms,
Conch flute still salty
from the seawater,
why couldn’t everything be squares
spinning must be shape in shape,
an intelligent origin choreography best
Shape that that of
leave it up to me.
Picture rectangular buttocks,
Geometric stalemate.
Flash flesh beauty,
natura guidance,
Atom baile rotate be it,
the word “round” is the symbol “O”
determination of itself, not it
as another unseen taste was
intent
but what’s the matter
in the way,
an instant of twilight summer
emerges chocolate hint,
view mountain angle
firmament orange curve
sunken coastal fish colorete.
A shade of chocolate,
comes to imagine
night is actually a dark shady gray,
Whence
milky way enters mouth
no speech just awe opened
part salute part fright,
twinkle twinkle little star,
inside Cacao not too far,
equatorial belt
the waist of the planet
the sun a fertile woman
rays down to the Cacao fields,
kissing each night her husband
the moon.
Dance out of the Tropicana foliage
Tangle of vines
Somehow Articulate Chocolate:
Canta Lengua.
San Juan Bautista
Uncle José Antonio (Noño) has interned himself within the plaster of Paris Indian head that now Guane keeps in her old age, still talking to it, giving it fruits and fire. House in 40s was all wood Tina abuela cooking bacalaitos with green bananas was it a cent or two in that economy of bare obligation, no matter the situation we are all slaves of necessity. Mother got her labor pains fine tropical hot winter morning, not yet 7 a.m. by causality the comadrona-midwife Doña Lola was gracefully walking toward morning mass at the church adjacent the plaza, father called her over and explained the situation, she stayed and didn’t leave till she gave me a slap and heard my crying. In dreams, see myself in the arms of my grandmother. Is it real reality or elusive imagination? Focus it, there it is! Abuela swaying me upon the hammock singing songs swapping at chance mosquitoes and flies with a rag. My mother took after her with the singing, it was a genetic disease. Rosa mother flower continued her song, sang to me even in the propeller plane which carried us to New York, fluffs of clouds looking solid like you could go out and walk upon them. Materializing in Manhattan we moved in time, the dream sleep changes air, what apparition have we entered, unexpected the snow, we were thrown like homeless Gypsies on the run from disfigured medieval painting of green mountains, vanished, we time machined into a new age; yet home is where the red beans boil so we made existence through the bricks, the language our Latin inheritance broadcasting through the walls cement bricks and steel, we made good strong café. San Juan Bautista was the original name of the island, it was renamed Puerto Rico way before my parents were born. Americans for a while boasted that we were the Showcase for Democracy, reality made all that propaganda obsolete. We went direct from Spain to the Americans, some Paris Treaty 1898 signed by no Puerto Ricans. History is outside of us, thus we pretend, are we trying to get in. Once I heard the independentista Carlos Gallisá speaking to Lehman College students, one of the students asked him if Puerto Rico could survive without the United States and he shot back that the real question is will we survive with the United States. In this epoch of the imminent collapse of the island the question has been answered. Manifested. Now we are in such deep mush mud that we must recuperate our Caribbean being, proclaim our varied ethnic cultural possibilities, and wear all our colors. We are layers of civilizations thrown like blankets one on top of the other, or we polish that up or vanish. Taino/Spanish/African stew that we are we can sing dance, cuisine eat it, munch. Island natural beauty now as the island depopulates, last one out shuts the lights off. Coquís, toads, and lizards will be the last occupants, cold blood reptiles the figures registered in the final census. Sangre Fría. Many of my dear friends are clamoring for independence of the island, to be a republic, that we are just another Caribbean Latin American country. How historical so truth. Yet the actual reality of the world is that there is no such thing as an “independent” country, that all so-called free republics are intertwined, interrelated one to the other, such is the case of the United States, France and England, China, Japan, India, Russia, etc., they all thrive and exist through trade, partnerships, economic industrial and cultural exchanges. The best economies are those that mix systems, within somewhat socialist ideas. Recent developments in the situation of Tibet and its relationship with China are encouraging, the Dalai Lama has sat down to negotiations with the Chinese government, the Tibetan government in exile has agreed to certain Chinese demands, explicitly that Tibet is an integral part of Ch
inese history. Many other issues still have to be worked out. Why can’t the Independence people of Puerto Rico approach the United States government in an analogous manner as the Tibetans have done? Thus we will behold if the U.S. will even allow the protocol of dialogue. The Independence movement of the island does not constitute a separate government, there is an Independence Party led for decades by Rubén Berríos, and some organizations which struggle for an independent state.
Can they grow to demand that Puerto Rico become part of the interdependency of the world negotiate with the Americans in the various proportions, economics, language, and culture, geopolitics, environment to achieve this? Look at the United States and see what it is really. And realize what Puerto Rico actually is, the proportions, the topicality. The nature of nature. Thus I would desire the same destiny for my island nation, to become politically an interdependent country as is the reality of the actual world. Those clamoring for “independencia” are taking a retroactive position that would place us in an isolated frame within an island which has no natural resources. A minor workforce. Que viva la Inter-dependencia the actual future of now. This is the way the world is. We want to be world. Y Cosmos.
Puerto Rico
Born on a turf
a medieval remnant
Owned by the United States,
it was almost water
So minute the earthen formation,
barely rock,
a swift of natura intention
geologic lift forgot the mud load
as the rising slow, eruption
popped
peep there it is piedra Caribe,
world mapmakers save
on the ink,
what minuscule elaboration
bays, lakes,
hidden caves
landscape, chains of mountains
opening blue neck of sky
mounted glued
alongside other Hispano-Caribbean isles
Santo Domingo/embracing Haiti
Cuba bird snake long,
Spanish-African movement.
the Federation which
Betances the doctor clambered for
the Antillas Españolas,
intellectual political Independence.
Some letter bestowing Puerto Rico
sovereignty
from the Spanish Crown
the United States no desire
to open that envelope.
Betances visionary mestizo
Paris his doctor’s foot.
The epoch of gold
when on the island with my son
we made home,
in the neighborhood of
the tobacconists
Aguas Buenas
on a street called Antorcha
a socialist flame
of the independentistas,
workers barrio of chinchales.
My family there Generations.
The mornings waking my son
for school,
watching him become a man,
awakening sense to life,
his first girl kisses
that pretty brown girl
primer girlfriend
I spotted them once
wrapped round each other,
like two bacalaito fritters
tangled,
later my mother cooked
Red beans and plantain tostones
along with yellow rice sparked with corn,
The island was this sofrito flavor for me,
bolero music of my mother
she grew sadness with the lyrics
wondering of all the lost loves,
memories illusions making
efforts to materialize,
see them almost
like bridges hanging out
from her eyes.
Days were
found her in tears
lonely in her room
Fragrance of Florida water
circulating blue colcha,
picture of her mother
and father above bed,
nothing was ever coming,
the only future was the end.
The Caribbean is everywhere
lost within us,
trapped in kitsch glorious
rooms of plasticity jails,
so much grime ’tween
the beauty contra-la-danza,
René Marqués our writer
Belched out
“Condenao mar, tanta agua
Y no limpia nah”
Through the bullets
flying now in panoramic tropical
scenarios,
Mother kept singing,
as esperanza, gently vibrato
hope like a white
Garza landing upon a cadaver.
Humming
songs forever
soothing.
convinced
she would meet
everyone she knew
in heaven again.
Singing boleros
café con leche,
Pastelillos de Guayaba.
To the bad times
give a happy face,
place a red amapola
in your black dark hair.
Revive the mummies,
the dead,
burst the bodies
out of the coffins
let’s all walk to the plaza
this final time
paint with silver starlight
the ancient songs
in night sky,
Rain Again
What never commenced
Comes to a finale.
Borges y Nabokov
I have read Borges and Nabokov since the early 70s in places-cities that have erased themselves, forgotten me, and altered. It takes many readings and changes of geographies and as growing beings becoming to appreciation, comprehension. Reading is also mood connections with the writer, the sentence and the paragraph collide with the environment during my sunny bright days of Puerto Rico tropicality, with the dim winters of New York survival of snowstorms a book, words, ooze out of the urbanity of the contemporary toward voyages of timelessness. With books you have to live with them for duration of spaces, changes of geographies, and changes in women, moods, and attitude shifts all contribute to expansive horizons of awareness. First I spotted the Fictions in the library of Ms. Karen Kennerly who was the secretary of Herbert Kohl at the original Teachers and Writers Collaborative working with alternative education in New York City; she was fascinated with the Argentine writer and communicated the enthusiasm to my young waking mind. It was an English translation, at the time my Spanish was mostly oral, over the years the literate part of my Spanish awoke and I re-encountered Borges’s Ficciones; reading him in Spanish was like discovering a new Borges sense, even though Borges was close to the English language, his father and one of his grandmothers spoke to him in English as a growing child. Borges is the kind of writer that you have to read and reread over the years as your own comprehension evolves. Some Borges stories have a flavor of essays; it would be wise to be informed of some Greek and German Philosophers, Eastern-Arabian texts, and listen to some Tangos to get a better grasp of this Latino formation at work. There is a saying in Spanish to the effect that “the Mexicans descend from the Aztecs, the Peruvians from the Incas but the Argentinians descend from the boats” because of the large influx of European migrants into the southern cone of America Latina. Borges is old stock criollo and on occasion has mentioned that because he doesn’t have Italian blood he feels like a foreigner in his own country. Reading him has always been such an elevation of perception while at the same time he walks you through a macho bar of black mustache compadritos drinking throwing measure left and right, penetrating the black dresses of the women with eyes like razors slashes/slicing the material. The most important element of all art is the concentration, musicians, painters, writers; poets have a concentration like slow honey dripping in a planet with no law of gravity. I c
an feel that focus in these two pregnant writers, Borges taking his time writing about time, Nabokov exploring desire, writing a book about writing. Though we could say that Lolita is about sex—old man young girl, pretty universal—in the mechanics of the prose it has always been for me a book about artistic creation. Lolita is the muse flesh alive. Nabokov (Humbert his character) bathes her, takes her slow in all the angles, wonders at his own fascination, keeps a mirror on the adventure, inside of him the red fire, outside cool-coldness forecasting the distant society and what might those criminals think. They have such laws that restrain pleasure, movement, freedom, lucidity, adventure, Eros. Nabokov was also the eternal exile; Russia was a place he never returned to, St. Petersburg permanent melt like a fresco in the foreground of his thoughts, always present in all his writings, he had to recreate it, live off his memories. One of his prose works is called Speak, Memory. I have read the books of Borges y Nabokov in a Morocco of Mediterranean cool to cold winter times; the cold here reminds me of the cold of San Francisco, a humid coldness not cold sufficient for snow, but a bothersome insistence, it acts as an implosion seemingly getting into your bones and finally trying to break back out. Heat the chilly out, with mint tea or café during the natural light of day read Borges or dive into the bright careful prose of Nabokov read into the silence of the night as I have always done to get my eyes tired for sleep. Borges is always philosophy and Nabokov is moral politic, the human customs, underneath the colors painted hidden. Desire. History moves through the intrigues of both, a place a time, characters are nations, epochs, settings. Reality a crime to dissect as in Borges detective stories. Borges wrote some poems with English titles, but he remained faithful to the tongue of Cervantes, he spoke English well and some German. Nabokov abandoned his Russian even before coming to America he was already in English expression. These two writers have kept me company for decades, when I read them at first, not understanding, but as changes came to my own life awareness kept rising, their books open up with new meanings and vigor, geographies and moods change your perception of words-wor(l)ds, the same word a different world. It never settles down anywhere.
Beneath the Spanish Page 7