The Envoy 089 - the newsletter of the Canada Cuba Literary Alliance

The ENVOY The official newsletter of the

Canada Cuba Literary Alliance I.S.S.N. – 1911‐0693

July, 2019 Issue 089 www.CanadaCubaLiteraryAlliance.org

¡Presente!

A Tribute to James Cockcroft’s …long life of endless wonder and some excerpts from his poetry.

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

James Cockcroft, member of the CCLA, author of over 40 books, indefatigable friend and defender of Cuba, the Caribbean and Latin America died 16 April, 2019, after a long battle with bladder cancer. His first book of poetry Why Porque Pourquoi was published by Hidden Brook Press in 2009, the same year his early Cuban experiences, Cuba en mi sangre was launched in Havana.

Life-long human rights activist, proud grandfather and passionate swimmer, gardener, and cook, Cockcroft and his books were totally engaged in love and resistance. A plumb line in his poetry is Presente, that concept that understands the thin line between love and grief; where there is no death because the absent are present; where we are linked in mutual responsibility and struggle in the spiral of Pacha Mama and the Great Mystery. After all, we experience great love and great grief in the same body. Who hasn’t felt, when anticipating the beloved, or confronted with their loss, that assault in the hollow beneath the ribs where life, love and death live tumbled together?

He was also one of those who, knowing what we know, would still go with Ché to Bolivia…. understanding with Martí, Ché, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, that we must act, that we only truly live if we care about something enough to die for it.

In “Forty years of wonder (for Eric on his 40th birthday, from Dad)” he wishes his son a “long life of endless wonder,” which for we who know Cockcroft is what he lived. Bravo, friend and comrade, you regaled us; somewhere let there be dances yet to unfurl…

Katharine Beeman

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

On Curving Roads by the Fire (...)Three or four roads actually, their own history, ours.

I, with Susan now, returning home from Montreal, loved and loving, in my splashy new used car, each curvaceous turn starkly clear in my head….

I caressed the first or second of those serpentine curves(…), (…)The next curves brought back a more vivid memory: your ambulance crawling the crisp curves in scorched sun after my surrender of you to Emergency Squad medics, your choking sigh of “Let them take me now.”

Let’s Dance! Jane Carolina Canning, presente... (in memoriam, Jane Carolina Canning) (…)Let’s defend human rights, Jane, against Shah-like tyrant puppets, and Latin America’s Somoza-Pinocchios, and the true monsters, IMF, World Bank, WTO, presente ...

Let’s open our homes, Jane, to all the young and fleeing, so that they may have a safe haven, to gather their strength, presente ...

Let’s work, Jane, the life veins to be tapped, the books to be written, the dances to unfurl, the loves to fulfill,

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

The Female and Male Coquís of Christmas We coquís don’t sing Jingle Bells, hidden in trees we sing about abysses where the rich want to throw us.

But with our beautiful blows and bittersweet songs, we will conquer the ugly rich.

We are proud coquís, Brave, Full of love…

So, without a doubt, we’ll win!

- from Why porque pourquoi (…)

19 April, 2019 James' mojito awaits, on the terrace of Holguín's Hotel Pernik, where he stayed so many times during The International Colloquiums for Freeing the 5 Heroes and Against Terrorism.

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

To the Andean flamenco Rock and Roll Band Toronto “Centro Cultural Latinoamericano”, 20 septiembre, 2018 for Jim, my comrade in arms

Bailo Bailo Bailo Bailo Bailo Bailo Bailo, yo* And comrade, you were.

Many thought you asleep in your Montreal bed But I saw you at this fiesta festival, dancing when no one else dared yet to enter the floor I saw you, do you come here often, you bad boy, master of two places at once?

A bit shadowy from energy transformed, stooped to your partner hand on her imagined waist hands clasping shoulder high Your flirtive eye and giant grin I saw, your Quijote sway and twirl and spin.

* I dance, from a song sung by black women Columbian Poets from the Pacific Coast, on a bus during the 2018 Havana International Poetry Festival

Katharine Beeman

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

by CCLA Cuban President and The Envoy Assistant Editor Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias The Envoys 89 and 90 bring poems written by twelve Holguín poets. We will offer a brief poetry premiere from These Voices Beating in our Hearts: Poems from the Valley, the in-the-pipeline ebook by SandCrab Books we promoted in our The Envoy 88. This first warm wave features six poets who have excelled in other fields, yet their poetry is less familiar to our readership.

From Adonay to Adislenis we tread gently on intimate ground. Love  unavoidable and all embracing, nature, sensuousness, life, family and hope hover softly and frankly, inviting us to sit and bask in their truth. Individuality defines these poets, but their styles kiss each other´s frontiers in the rendering of themes and treatment of imagery. The Envoy 90 will come with the second and last wave of the other six authors, whose names are more familiar!

Enjoy as much as I have!

Adonay Bárbara Pérez Luengo You Are Only you have hands to search for me, the child´s innocence, the alpha male´s hunger.

Your dark-brown mouth, fragile.

Your ears are the decoy you forgot.

The way we love, the flawless conjunction.

Even there, in the most intimate intimacy, you are a rare beauty.

Manuel de Jesús Velázquez Leon Your Soul Is a Lake Your soul is a solitary lake, a gray-blue lake under the moon, among silent woods a shadow among shadows.

I come to your shore, I dissolve in the sad music of your waters.

Diana Lucía Bruzón Sánchez Wherever You Are Your tongue does not know my hiding places, it does not come for my wine, the wine you steal from my skin.

Deeply moved you light gardenias, sew honeysuckles while you rob kisses from time…

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Rubiceida Hernández Zaragoza The Countryside What would happen to me Without your morning freshness Without those creatures living in your meadows Without your beautiful flowers´ wild scent Those crystal waters That quench the walker´s thirst: Green field, dewed carpet.

Alina González Serrano Promise My life is a fight I have every day inspired by my granddaughter´s jingle bell laughter and my family´s support.

I come and go I cross spaces struggling against unforgiving time; all I ask for is love, a hug and a kiss as a silent promise we will be together all of us each new dawn.

Adislenis Castro Ruiz Before You And I came before you, tired, faded, dimmed.

And the breeze fondled my hair, and your waters renewed my spirit.

Then I let your mesmerizing, stirring magic captivate me, charming my body and soul.

And I lingered before you forever, shining, colorful, alive and I snuggled up in your lap.

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Writing To all our Canadian poet friends, on Canada Day!

by Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias

The sounds of silence Speak to poets Translating signs and semantics That blend into word-rhythms Showering stardust letters Onto the still sheets of paper.

The sounds of silence visit; above their muteness Ride the Muses of Poetry Deep-spurring the flanks of creation Weeping Giving birth To the never-ending joy of writing.

Let Morning Never Come

by Merle Amodeo

What bliss to wake beside you, your arms entwined in mine.

My lips still moist from yours, my ears attuned to your heartbeat.

Like Juliet, I fear the lark's song and softly hum to cover its tune.

If I knew a conjuring trick, I'd seal your lids to hide the garish sun that will divide us.

Bolt the doors to keep intruders out, Silence the voices calling us to day.

Hold you forever, in our hideaway.

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

CORALITA VELOZ (right) TAHIMÍ ALVARIÑO (left), a mother-daughter generation of great Cuban actresses They came to Gibara, north-east of Holguín Province, for the recent International Movie Festival They honored Jorge Pérez, The Envoy´s Editor, with a visit for exquisite coffee drinking at his B&B home, always open during the Festival for participating friends The Festival is held every year in the coastal town of Gibara. It was originally a low-budget movie festival promoted and developed by Humberto Solás, one of the all-time top Cuban cinema directors.

Today, the Festival is in Jorge Perugorría´s hands, another well-known Cuban actor and director, who published heart-felt words with his full commitment “to keep the event alive,” along with a huge hard-working, Gibara-loving team.

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

MY SEARCH

by Adela González-Longoria Escalona Dreams still incomplete dreams that flew away, i know they are out there somewhere, they wait for me; the brain is mere matter: it dies and vanishes.

The world around me, that is a certainty as long as it lives in our memories, I seek in space the image that unfolds the bitterness of what cannot be done, bleeding from the fortitude of my mind reflecting in every drop of blood the worn out urgency of my dreams.

The Melting

by Bruce Meyer Be still. Breathless. On your hat rests the individualization of art in nature, the innocent upstart of divinity made mortal by all that fails in us to see.

Dead cold begat perfection, the cold that shuns life, the icy, heavenly indifference rife with sad desire.

We know He sat upon the stars and made the Earth, rhymed it with whales, squirrels; know He loved resonances, the small mirth of making and remaking life to sow constancy in change and death in rebirth.

God’s sonnet is the melting snow.

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Paisaje de Mar Rigoberto Gómez Gómez Bate el perfume del mar del lejano océano azul, verde luce el abedul en el áspero manglar y el tren en su transitar saluda al bote en el río donde el sol en desafío de blanco, se torna rojo con las nubes siente enojo al darle la lluvia frío.

Seascape Rigoberto Gómez Gómez

The sea´s aroma wafts from the distant blue ocean, the birch looks green in the harsh mangrove and the passing train greets the boat in the river where a defiant sun turns from white to red in its anger at the clouds whose rain makes it be cold.

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

A BIRD AT MY WINDOW

by Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado A bird at my window, Fluttering wings; A bird at my window, It chirps and it sings.

Do you bring a message, Pretty, little friend?

Did you learn a verse Somebody has sent?

I don’t understand you, I don’t know what you say...

Do you live near here Or live far away?

A bird at my window, Maybe it’s Hope I can’t see; A bird at my window...

Maybe Love has found me!

IF I WERE

by Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado

If I were the Wind I would play with your hair And give a fresh breeze Wherever you were.

If I were the Sun I would brighten your face And enlighten the darkness For you in your place.

If I were a pigeon I would fly to your side And there I would feel Like if I were a Bride.

If I were a bird I could find you in a throng And early in the morning You would wake with my Song.

JULY 2019 ENVOY-089 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

A Simple Vista

by Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández

Ojos verdes, plácidos Si solo de tu blanda mirada Son adulados, ¿Por qué no miras con esa ambición a quien los goza cada día?

Brillantes como tierno aceitunado Inocentes, luminosos Vigilante estaré por ellos Solo con cautela Sin límites ni fin.

With the Naked Eyes Green eyes, placids If only of your soft sight they are flattered, Why you do not look with this ambition To the one who enjoy them every day?

They reflect light like tender green olive Innocents, luminous I´ll be watching them Only with care With no limits nor end.

FROM THE EDITOR: IN OUR UPCOMING ISSUES, WE WELCOME SUBS

FROM EVERY CCLA MEMBER: YOU NURTURE US! IF YOU HAVE BOOKS COMING OUT, A POETRY EVENT, PHOTOGRAPHY OR JUST NEWS, LET US KNOW!!!!!

e-mails: joyphccla@gmail.com joyph@nauta.cu