NO WHERE COOL

If you blossom tall

Like the palm

Your branches they will cut

Because of its juicy fruits

If you are at reach too

Your tenderness

Will they parade

In pieces on Sunday

And we only look on

And we only look on

As if we never saw it

As he looked up

And slowly

As he crawled away

And we only look on

His hands lifted up

And never a coin

In his palm to drop

As they pass away

Thought it wise to do

Exactly what her thoughts were

So her accusations will not fall rightly

On my head as

She hit the hammer.

BE CAREFUL

Faces that tell of the inside

Wear not around them that crucify you

And reveal the wetness

Hidden in your tear glands;

That picture you fallen when standing

Mock not with them

Not even for a while

When all is well

Be mindful what you say

Be careful what you do

This place is not your home

For soon you will leave

Attitudes and manners

You leave behind

Even when departed;

Disregard them not.

Only like branches in the wind those words of ignorance blow

And return you wherever they took you.

Instructions and reproof

May appear to harm

Yet will give off smell so pleasing

An incense to the undying soul.

Those eyes that saw you

Will never forget your deeds, all.

For and against, which they record

Will they recall.

Opportunities lost are never returned

When time and chance

Are spent not on gold.

Like a tale to a child I have said it:

Be mindful what you say

Be careful what you do

This place is not your home

For soon you’ll leave.

Again in this world or next

Shall we meet

Lesser or greater we’ll be.

Those, will be remembered of you

This ear will resound it again

Pleasant or foul your deeds

Written in ink indelible.

Be mindful, what you’ve said

Be careful, what you’ve done

In this place which is not your home;

Then you’ll be gone. 

struggling for humanity

And I can hear the waters

Falling down slowly into each barrel

Fading strength intensifying gradually

And yet she struggles for humanity

two friends

Two

       Friends in their trade

One

       Violently assaulting

One

       Calmly amending

One’s

       Wrath with their encounter

       In a bus

Two male friends

One in hair logs

       His ears pierced

One in a well cut hair

       Beside the other seated

A bible

One has, the other not

       As it drove away

Two, together to their church 

fallen vegetables

Fallen vegetables

They go in a quick haste

A hasty departure from the stall

Fallen vegetables all lying on the floor

Hard on clients the day before

Denying selling less their fair

Fallen vegetables

Sundays will lie rotten

No one, there to sell

To someone if even will buy

CUBA: la maravilla

Who will tell of your wonder?

And the twisting and turning

Of your body and feet

As the hands roll it all

On the cleanest shores

With only sugarcane

From the overgrown fields

Who will tell of your wonder?

Of self satisfaction of contentment

That all must be respected

Not because of black or white

But traditions which are valued

And tied with culture to preserve

To remain green as ever, oh wonderful.

Who will tell of your wonder

O land of beautiful people

The sun will not stop setting

on your clean beaches

and keeping the sleeping night awake

in joy on the streets

oh wonderful like Patio Alberto Cecilia Julia

Beautiful Havana wonderful Havana

Which will make you wonder and marvel

O wonderful people our friends

Having love in their hearts

And true smile on their bright faces

unlike those who took away

their canes from their fields,

let not the sun stop shinning

on their beaches o Havana

Beautiful Havana wonderful Havana

Where our minds were shaped

Fidel’s Havana Marti’s Havana

In envy they sought to destroy

The twisting and turning

Of your body and feet

Which the hand rolls all along

In wonder to watch from afar

Beautiful Havana wonderful Havana

Wonderful people with love in their hearts

True smiles which faded not

In winter like in summer

Of her twisting and turning

I have watched from afar

In wonder, I would learn to be like her

i will not bow

Even in the most turbulent blowing winds

I will not bow but raise my head high

Into the sky where there is no one but reliable friends

Even when my eyes blurred by darkness

His star through the long night will guide

My skin no more the heat to sweat

My eyes no more its lids to flap

M y ears no more the waves to grab

Yet in the desert I’ll find solitude

And nourishers of my soul like dew

He will need not my speech to commune

Yet would discern from the depths and heights

To throw the search on me among the myriads of worlds

Me, he formed of dust and to return

Into a worm then dust

The secret

Secretly they loved each other
Then he thought she didn’t
Now she knows she hid it
May be her pride
Or her scare of another ride
Before long the winds gave her ride
And they parted like strangers
Not a word or a hand shake
Nor a hug let alone a kiss
But suppressed emotions from one
As if never cared, the other
If she will know it was the truth
And he continue in his truth
Their secret
Clear like the falling rain
Will be.

My lovely charm

Mine, my lovely charm

I’ll call you

For all the gem

More precious than gold

You lay at my door

Freely

Just when needed

Though refused it

Like an anklet

Around the ankle

But yes! For a bigger car

Bigger than your cute body

droppings of showers

It grew tall and stout striking to sight

The sun shone on its muscular boughs

Sparkling all, its gold unending

The merry birds around danced

Not to touch nor their speech to be heard

Only their dropping showers

Which soaked the faithful tiny greens

At their expense at all times

To grow fresh and green. 

the gown, ring and book

In these moments

Wrapped up in a quest

I must not fail

With bone and blood

To form blood then bone

Smiles like infections

Will pull me along

My stern look

On a worn apparel

Designed to fit even in style

In these moments I recall

Merry not sad did I record

Warm thoughts expressed

By those carved calabash before her chin

Pleasing and possessing to behold

In there, he will swear

In front of all

But will run

Forgetting all

The gown, the ring and book

Think no more

When around you are

And you’ve seen her

There is no way out

Endure if you can’t enjoy to the end

Twisting this twenty

Twisting this twenty

Countless coffee cups

Will we willfully wine

This thy true

God given gift.

The line in her hair

In between the black

The shining long hair

She combs even now

Until in between it

The only line is formed

That line drawn not

With ink nor colour

Brings forth her beauty

On her curved cara

Deserted heroes

The silent tombs

The silent night

Meets in silence

Before the morn wakes

Lights not above

Their gentle glowing wings

Hover around the grasses to see

Eyes without bodies

Sounds within their abodes

And on the streets

The least step unclear

The silent trees

The silent night

Meets to whisper

Into time indefinite

Its leaves stay behind

Unwritten tales

Unsaid ballads

Of the great celebrated heroes

All to tell

Who alone

In their silent and icy graves

Will soon wish the morn to wake

Statues in front of tombs

Full of tears overflowing

Tears that speak not to dead souls

But resurrected souls

Even from afar

Decorated tombs

Engraved black star in gold

The pleasant greens and their fragrance

On the reddish floor

Which the far and near

Praised and hailed

Yet they stand here

With the silent tombs alone

The silent night

Under the watching sky

Full of the breezes

To meet in silence

Before the morn wakes.

Nothing like chance

I have believed nothing comes by chance

And knowing you have buttressed it richly

The unthinkable, what society has caused

And now must fight it with the unthinkable.

Little by little like flies on a sore

I deepen my painful wound

When all I have to do is to scatter them all.

As I review and ponder

Why all this from your question

Why I feel what I feel

Why I do what I do,

There was no answer;

Save a deafening silence.

Born on the streets

I was born on the streets

I feel not shy there

Surrounded by the noise

My loneliness not to awake

But cheer; the passing glances

The passing cars as if different

From another planet

I was born on the streets

With the blue sky my roof

Seeing the bats drop the remains of their booty

By my bed; wet by their fall

The dew, the moist cool breeze

Showing visibly on me like sweat on my forehead

I was born on the streets

I walk among the empty cans

The mountain containers full

Of rubbish: hiding the clear

View of the sun; our food

 Its odor the flies kiss

And surrounds us like they do with mangoes

I was born on the streets

Chasing the cars for a sale

My dad; ice water

Plantain chips on her head

My mother; I learnt

To snatch their purses

Because I must survive.

I was not born but grew on the streets

Because of a shadow of a passing cloud

Which left not on my path

Its acid rain which fell burning

But on my royal gown of gold

My brothers me forsook as I grew here

I was born on the streets

To feel not the cold in winter

Nor the sun my heart to melt

Walk by it in the day my food to search

Like the vulture

Where no one else will

I was born on the streets

Like an outcast

They saw me ; my life

They bothered not until time for elections

When they come near to convince me

Walking among the cans with me

I was born with a golden  chest

On the streets my key to this chest

I found not; because my

Mind though ready and fertile

To embark on whatever

Journey, long or short; had not

The directions but to grope in this dark

I was born on the streets

I grew up and earned my bread there

I once slept there but not anymore

They will sleep in my house

If time and tide pass me by

Not to suffer like I did, on the streets.