Monday, May 20, 2013

Poetry -- Cinquain

Poetry
Beautiful, complicated
Frustrating, illuminating, transcending
My beating heart's lasting song
Life

Lamentations 2:14 -- Derived


Lamentations 2:14

                         The visions of your prophets were false and worthless;
                     They did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity.
                                         The oracles they gave you were false and misleading

Siete días
Con siete noches

Listen
Echoes from barrels
Call my name
I see ghostly dark
Cane fields
In this solitude
Lost paths
Taking me                                                                        
To known places

Caminando
Y caminando

A dark
Solitary hallway                                             
Hanging from purple
Hallowed frames
Take me
To a lamenting
Choir        “Salamalekum”

Y no encuentro
Una limosna

Night and sky is
Transformed with sweat,
Tears and rum
Mix
Their skin
Into a black
Starlit veil

Para el viejo
Babalu Aye

And naked, cement bricks
Stained by rain
Raise invisible walls
Breathe out
Fragmented
Battle grounds
Worn out by
The tan-tan’s
Never-ending dance  

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Remembering the Old City -- Free Verse



Remembering the Old City
  
I am lost in this old city frozen in time where the shadows
Of miserable giants rise and fall on me with overwhelming misery I hear
Hearts breaking, the future escaping, conspiracies in the making
La Lucha! bass line rhythm of these streets   
Narrowing streets that suffocate the disillusioned
People that come and go with hopeless bags and empty hopes on
             “¡La revolución!   ¡La revolución!”

Eyes washed off from once beautiful now disfigured faces by
The hypnotizing rain now struck by the sun’s reality and
Dried eyes can’t see our hearts filled with burning
Hot air that cannot lift us to see our decaying body no
No Red blood in these veins that claimed     so much    crumbling
Stone lions chase me down Industria Street in my
sleep I am drowning in these gray streets lost
In Old Havana     still, frozen in time

Foward

To thine own self be true.
-Shakespeare

Preface

Poetry is music, life, death, us. 

Dedication


I would like to dedicate this blog to my daughter. 
You are my constant inspiration.