THE ENVOY The official newsletter of the
Canada Cuba Literary Alliance I.S.S.N. – 1911‐0693
November, 2020 Issue 104 www.CanadaCubaLiteraryAlliance.org
photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto
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NOVEMBER 2020 ENVOY-104 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
A WORD ABOUT… The Movies Flicks that Make us Tick by MSc Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias Assistant Editor of The Envoy CCLA Cuban President Author, Reviewer, Editor
It has become customary to talk about fine Canadian poets and their poetry in our pages. Today we continue that tradition by presenting a poem by Antony Di Nardo. There´s an interesting story behind this poem. In a moment of nostalgia and inspiration, I wrote an article about movies and their presence in my life that I had been meaning to write for months. I shared it with Antony. I asked him if he would contribute his side so we could publish it together. Days later, his reply came but not in article form. A poet from head to toe, Antony confessed that what came out was a poem, not prose. He said he was sorry for sending me “American Cinema Begins with Ben-Hur.” When I read his poem, I realized that he had been able to voice poetically what I was capable of doing only in prose! His piece is a jewel of remembrances, emotion and a heart-on-sleeve journey down memory lane. It is a lesson of culture and family interconnection. It is a walk back through the poet´s indelible involvement with the movies as an art and movies as a product, adhering to his young mind, nurtured by his parents´ influence. Eloquent parts from Antony´s poem come to me repeatedly, “…a story of flesh and blood flashed across the screen in celluloid and light, its tale of purpose bigger than life…” “A movie like Ben-Hur comes once in a lifetime—like the salmon, too, come once in a lifetime, come swimming up against the current…” “Me and my mother. In a theatre.” “Rock of ages. BEN-HUR. Like nothing I had seen before.” “It was imperative that I see it. My mother agreed. We took my father to pay for the tickets. The three of us walked to Cinéma Crémazie on St. Denis, crossing at the corner of breathless and anticipation.” “We lined up with the rest of Montreal, the giant posters like pillars on either side of the cinema doors, a glimpse of what was yet to come…” The Envoy 104
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Antony´s is an epic poem, as epic as the unforgettable 1959 film that flashed into his eyes and heart. A film he would never forget. An 11-times Academy Award (out of 12 nominations) sweeping winner in 1960, a record that still stands, only matched by 1997’s Titanic and 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. My quotes from the poem speak of evocative contexts, heightened feelings, experiences that were lived by the poet and he now passes them on to us in this poem that will make many readers sigh and recall, find and watch once more the flick that made them tick thanks to Antony. Herein are the poem and my humble article. There are obvious points of coincidence but the poetry outshines the prose on all accounts!
American Cinema Begins with Ben-Hur by Antony Di Nardo Words are flowing out Like endless rain into a paper cup They slither while they pass They slip away across the universe Those words by Lennon came later in 1969, the Beatles singing themselves to the top of the charts, announcing to the future, nothing’s gonna change my world, but something did ten years earlier when Ben-Hur, a story of flesh and blood flashed across the screen in celluloid and light, its tale of purpose bigger than life, made of columns and pillars, shields and spears, temples and gods, chariots on fire The Envoy 104
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and giant movie posters that in 1959 re-invented the past which for me, at the age of ten, was just beginning. A movie like Ben-Hur comes once in a lifetime—like the salmon, too, come once in a lifetime, come swimming up against the current ramming up against all odds to leave its spawn behind. By 1959 Ben-Hur had weaponized wheels, sped up the moving picture, colonized the wide-screen epic, propagated gospel truths, magnified the violence of sitting in your seat like some innocent bystander. It gave us innovative hubris. Bigotry and protest. Ideas bigger than the screen could hold. Celluloid and light, purpose and columns
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upon columns, pillars and chariots, posters plastered even unto the walls of the cave inside our heads, its origins on the page, a big fish on the stage swimming against the current of the spawn. We were the spawn. An audience in the seats. Weaponized and turning wheels, faith rewarded with sticks and stones and God on earth. Ben-Hur, by some accounts, one of the top ten films representing the foundations of American life. It was the first film I saw on the silver screen in a cinema with more seats than I could count. In 1959. Years before the Beatles. With movie popcorn, snacks, and soda fountain
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Movie posters. Movie gossip. Movie tabloids.
Me and my mother. In a theatre. Directed by William Wyler. Produced by Sam Zimbalist. A screenplay with contributions from Gore Vidal and a little-known poet and playwright named Christopher Fry. My first on a silver screen. By some accounts, one of the top ten films of American cinema. It was 1959, I was ten, an expert on TV channels (there were only two), my mother followed the stars and I knew the names of Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas, Ginette Reno, Aznavour, Marlon Brando. I knew the ones I needed to know. I knew what fame was. I knew their faces. I knew Hollywood, radio, TV Guide, le Journal de Montréal. I knew them in English and French. Ben-Hur among the stacks, on the covers, The Envoy 104
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in the public imagination. Reality projected in biblical proportions. Stills and action stills.
The chariot race. The crowds in the coliseum. In the Forum. In the head of Charlton Heston. Crowds between Roman columns rising with ultimate power. Absolute power and authority, monuments of might and oh! the glory that was Rome upon the set. And oh! the great big 3-D letters announcing the film in solid blocks of stone. Rock of ages. BEN-HUR. Like nothing I had seen before. It was imperative that I see it. My mother agreed. We took my father to pay for the tickets. The three of us walked to Cinéma Crémazie on St. Denis, crossing at the corner of breathless and anticipation. The Envoy 104
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My father ahead, his hands on his wallet. We lined up with the rest of Montreal, the giant posters like pillars on either side of the cinema doors, a glimpse of what was yet to come, the searing heat of Palestine, the promise of an epic, a picture of the Middle East. Jerusalem. Calvary. Nazareth. The fearsome power. Of Roman rule. The action figure. The chariot race. The hero on a panoramic screen, skies above my head and utterly exaggerated, the size of a universe seen from the second row, the stunning, jawdropping sets of the Zimbalist production looming larger than life. Ben-Hur loomed larger than life. Like Hercules determined. Prometheus unchained. I had stepped back two thousand years and there I was, in each of the scenes. The Envoy 104
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An extra. In a cast of thousands. Of millions. The beardless barefoot boy in a belted toga. That was me in 1959. The witness about to face (without knowing it then) the Sixties, flower power, America on fire, violence, hatred, fear, repression, God on the right, Heston and the NRA, peace and justice on the left.
photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto The Envoy 104
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The Way We and Movies Were by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias The year 1895 is the landmark in the history of filmmaking. The Lumière brothers opened the era of cinematography revolutionizing technical and artistic conceptions that would touch, turn around and enrich the lives of millions of people. From that year on, thousands of films have been produced worldwide. The movie industry has hugely grown and spread its fascinating halo, which started with just motion pictures accompanied by overlapping short dialogues to be read by spectators and displayed on separate frames, and also by live piano music specially written to heighten the scenes´ dramatic effect. Innovation and creation brought built-in sound (music and dialogue) to the films. An example of the transition from silent movies to sound movies (also known as “talkies”) was Charles Chaplin’s legacy to this fast track emerging art. The movie industry is called “the seventh art” as it took from existing artistic manifestations, painting, music, theater, drawing, sculpting, literature and dance, either adapting or reflecting them according to its own demands and aspirations thus becoming a highly integrative new form of art. The definition of movies as “a form of entertainment that enacts a story by a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement” (Taken from digital Merriam-Webster Collegiate® Thesaurus) is true but has taken on a crescendo of immensely richer hues. The colossal influence of the movie phenomenon, and its “byproducts”: movie stardom, promotion, job-generating options, technology (photography, recording, visual and audio effects and so on), infrastructure, revenues, art and composition, film-making icons, fashion trends, fan clubs, etc., on people’s world-view, attitudes and behavior during the past onehundred and twenty-five years still remains to be, endlessly and fortunately, entirely approached, measured, defined or exposed. Let’s leave that to economists, analysts and scholars. Cuba was not an exception to the great-big movie fever in terms of both offering the public access to universal movies and also inaugurating and developing its national cinema. As commented above, it affected people everywhere and of every age, race, sex, belief. There were socio-psychological implications derived from the film business as an aim, a process and a result. The mental impact of the enticing combination of sight, motion and sound being The Envoy 104
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virtually thrown at viewers fixed to their seats, or jumping in excitement, enclosed in a dark, acoustically-enhanced space sitting with over a hundred cinema buffs, their eyes and minds entranced by plot, stars, music, voices, colors and a myriad of fantasies screened on a giant, dominating canvas the size of the front wall, must have had repercussions demanding to be delved into further. As a manifold event, there was another related side to the social and psychological impressions left on movie watchers. The movies, like any other human expression, are part and parcel of a larger mosaic, culture. The advent of movie making and movie going stemmed from and in turn was carved deeper into every nation’s cultural mosaic. I want to share two experience-based interpretations drawn from a period when movie going was almost a need, one distinctive signature of city circulation and glamour. As I look back, childhood and teenage years (when I most devotedly went to the movies) revisit me. I distinctly remember the long, really long lines that extended up and down blocks or around the cinema building, of fans noisily, anxiously waiting to buy their tickets then moving to a second line to enter. A constituent of the two movie lines was a parallel ice-cream parlor line. Near to the movie building, the parlor enjoyed unending feedback from, and in grateful retribution, contributed to the viewers-to-be line. Simultaneously, they were both connected to potential customers who idled and chatted in the park across from the movies, Bayamo’s (my hometown) Central Park. That is how an active ebb-and-flow crisscrossing of purposes, lives and occurrences were on the making and decorated the panorama. This external side “remodeled” for good the cityscape of many towns like my own, chiefly during weekends and afternoon-evening hours. Premiere time was a celebration with blockbuster films like Disney’s all-time favorites (Cinderella, Snow White, Aladdin, Bambi, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland…); 1969 Coppola’s The Godfather; 1975 Spielberg’s Jaws, his 1982 E.T.; Pollack’s 1982 Tootsie with Jessica Lange and Dustin Hoffman (or this actor’s 1967 The Graduate and his 1988 Rain Man, also starring Tom Cruise), and Lucas´ milestone sci-fi saga, Star Wars. We daydreamed with mouth-watering Meryl Streep (Ah, Pakula’s heart-rending Sophie’s Choice in 1982!), Barbra Streisand (costarring in The Way We Were with Robert Redford in 1973), Sharon Stone, Jodie Foster, Demi Moore or Jessica
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Lange. We wanted to ride with Robert De Niro, Nicholas Cage, Anthony Hopkins, John Travolta, Redford, Paul Newman, Donald Sutherland, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Morgan Freeman, or laughed with/envied the follies/exploits of French actors like Pierre Richard, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Louis de Funès and Jean Marais (I was a loyal fan of the 1964-1967 Fantômas collection with these two latter actors)… I must acknowledge and appreciate the fact that despite the mostly-Americanfilm presence in our lives, a generous part of my affective memory when it comes to movies is connected to Russian films, the Soviet era, which were popular at the time. They covered most of my childhood and teenage years. Some of the titles I fondly remember (English translation is mine) are ChelovekAmfibiya (Amphibian Man) (1962); Неуловимые мстители (The Uncatchable Avengers) (1967); Korona Rossiyskoy Imperii (The Crown of the Russian Empire) (1970); A Zori Zdes Tikhie (Dawns are Peaceful Here) (1972) and The Commander of the Fortunate Submarine (1974), whose original title in Russian I have not been able to retrieve. The whole family could not avoid the thrill of lining up, of spending hours (precious ticket in parents´ proud hands) waiting for the first projection round to end, its fans to come out so we could shuffle in to find our seats guided by the usher. When the film finished, lights were turned on, the room was emptied and a rotation crowd waiting outside entered. The objective of this relay system was to allow as many people as possible to see the film. It was a sui generis, a representative slice of society, with a meaningful family component. I inherited movie going from my parents, who passed on to me their passion for films like 1939 Gone with the Wind, 1943 Casablanca or 1952 Singin’ in the Rain; for legends like four-time Academy-Award winner, Katharine Hepburn, purplish-blue-eyed Elizabeth Taylor, sensual Marilyn Monroe and beautiful Rita Hayworth, for stars like Richard Burton, Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis; for Hitchcock’s troubling suspense films; Japanese classics like Kurosawa’s 1954 Seven Samurai (七人の侍, Shichinin no samurai) and for many Mexican movies starring singer Jorge Negrete and comedian Cantinflas (Mario Moreno’s stage name). They also saw our Cuban productions, among them the 1966 Gutierrez Alea’s La Muerte de un Burócrata, (Death of a Bureaucrat), 1977 Cortázar’s El Brigadista; 1989 Pineda’s La Bella del Alhambra; Caravana, a 1990 film directed by Rogelio París; or 1993 Tabio-Gutierrez’ Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate). The Envoy 104
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I honored, still do, this movie-watching tradition to the utmost. There was as well an internal side inlay to the movie-craze fabric. I mentioned earlier the “dark, acoustically-enhanced space sitting over a hundred cinema buffs, their eyes and minds entranced by plot, stars, music, voices, colors and a myriad fancies screened on a giant, domineering canvas the size of the front wall.” This unique in-room experience deserves some reminiscing. My parents eventually allowed me to go to the movies alone or with friends when I was older and they thought I was mature enough “to behave” and would return home early. I remember my father grounding me once for breaking curfew. He met me and my friends half-way from home, did not say a word, just looked at me with that 1970s-parent look and I followed him. I was the type of fan who would sit at the very front to absorb all of the action being cast into my eyes, a perhaps selfish or adolescent idea one harbors, that would make me frequently spring from my seat, as was the case when the shark in Jaws rocketed from the water to the boat, jaws open, sharp set of teeth ready to catch – and not release. God, I cannot forget that! But many times I would also sit at the middle row (never the rearmost section, I hated it) and that is when I could hear first-hand echoes of what was going on in the darkness of the place, dimly lit solely by the flickering screen. Couples would profit from their freedom away from adult supervision to prove their ardent, chuckling, context-oblivious love to each other; children would fidget in their seats after an hour, even if Pinocchio was hee-hawing from the screen fleeing from the bad guys. They would ask for water or food or have urgent toilet requirements, innocently forgetful of where they were. There were black-sheep incidents that spoiled the cultural-entertaining spirit I have described, involving a heavy-slap-in-the-face reaction of an outraged woman – or a worse response from her six-foot tall husband – who was touched by a pervert veiled in the darkness. We would be witnesses to drunks who had surprisingly sneaked in past the door attendant, who continually stood up, lurched penguin-like, swapping places and blocking the view, tripping over annoyed spectators´ feet and spitting garbled curses. These antisocial elements had to be escorted out, sometimes even by police officers who were called in, the movie had to be paused, lights turned on and peace restored. Finally, there were mischievous kids who would pull the hair of those sitting in front of them or sling paper balls at them... Another local practice during viewing was the following: back in those days, film rolls were inserted and played under careful inspection by the man in charge of handling the projector, as it overheated due to its old age and would burn the roll or pull it out of focus. The operator’s booth had a second projector so he had The Envoy 104
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to stop the movie, reload the second projector and go on. Were this the case, which then of course took time, people in the public would start calling the operator names, even booing him. One phrase that stuck with me was “¡Suelta la botella!” meaning “Give up the bottle!” It was a contemptuous reference to the operator’s drinking habit. People assumed he was drunk or drinking while playing the movie, a supposition I never heard of anyone ever clarifying with the manager. But it was there, and given the projector’s condition it became customary to yell at the man every time the film was out of focus or sound was distorted or whatever. “Give up the bottle” was rapidly accepted in people’s vernacular and used beyond movie walls with extended meanings. One last note is the unforgettable moment when there was a power outage. A mini-hell would break loose there and then, which included howling, objects (sometimes not too light) being hurled up in the air regardless of where or upon whom they would land, desperate people trying to exit fumbling across pitch darkness and toppling others along the way… Fortunately, it all came to be viewed as immature pranks and outbursts that never ended up in awful circumstances. Anecdotes could fill six more pages. My point in walking readers through these recollections covers two aspects with which I want to conclude my commentaries. Firstly is the fact that the movie industry did define the way people thought and lived. It even set trends in every field of life that remained firmly rooted for generations. It defined me in many ways, positively and negatively. I drew lessons from both. It also gifted me with illusions, hopes, happy hours and combined comprehensive learning and enjoyment that were not only personal but also collective by allowing for socialization, unprecedented but transcending too, and could be recreated and repeatedly recalled, as I do today. Secondly, movies are above all an act of culture. Their makers´ and men and women actors´ capacities to integrate humankind’s entire tangible and intangible heritage unto a large or a TV-sized screen is awesome. Movies are a creative digest of life that leaves an imprint. They subtly or openly give and request from us, they make us anticipate, laugh, cry, hope, live, think, accept or reject, construe and re-construe, love and become aware of the universe that surrounds us and the roles we play. How we play this role is what sep arates tacky, mediocre creation from fulfilled edification, from being truly and aesthetically-ethically ingenious. That is the way we and movies were back then in our 70s, 80s and 90s. Somehow, I miss lining up, the anticipation, the elation. I miss the white canvas taking The Envoy 104
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me on breathtaking travels, as in 1985 Streep and Redford’s Out of Africa, letting me step into the action or away from it as when the shark in Jaws charged ferociously, my adolescent heart leaping out of my chest. I miss the adventure and the hate-love ambivalence Jessica Lange made us feel in 1976 King Kong, my macho-man ego fighting back tears in Benton’s 1979 Kramer vs. Kramer as I sighed next to Hoffman for his son or identified with a Hoffman in love in Tootsie. I miss all that. Besides, I miss the “we”, the family – later the friends – united, hands held, entering a seemingly ordinary hall with a screen that would send us flying on the wings of exploration, amusement, sadness and make-believe, all of them natural human traits and urges, for approximately two hours. That is the way we and movies ought to always be; that is the way I proudly see the passion passing on to my daughter, who has followed in my parents´ and my footsteps. She is a passionate film buff and a series watcher, as well as being an avid reader, wisely shielded, as she so sensibly explains, in her fifteen-year-old argument, “I watch series and films, listen to music and read books as long as the narrative pleases me, it tells me something and makes me feel something.”
photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto
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Crafting Point by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias Hour before the dawn. Norma West Linder The quietest time. Kate Marshall Flaherty In crimson prayer. John B. Lee The day's remnants seek to slumber at the point where the sky meets the hills´ up-down sloping contours, a westering sun slow-glides igniting multi-hued afterglow reds. I pray the day goodbye wrap its last glints cast them on my crafting notepad and hope for words to wax in these yester-hours into quiet pre-dawn poetry.
Cycles of Life by Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias To Manuel and Jorge, in our shared losses… When our parents are laid to rest in their final place a curtain falls, a painful divide is wedged between our past and us. Somehow the cord that kept us tied to childhood days suffers, yesterscapes are blurred, full colors and joys dimmed as a feeling of helplessness and nonsense unsettles our hearts, never to leave. When our parents go a part inside us follows them in an attempt to defy death, rescue our roots watch over them as they watched over us, The Envoy 104
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while the other part necessarily heads towards tomorrow holding on to our beloved ones, those who across the endless cycles of life will safeguard too their memories of us. photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto
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All in the Day´s Eye by Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias … the beauty of another day. Sarah Richardson The sun sinks closing the day. Norma West Linder Warm late-afternoon breath upon the nearby cedars. They purr, knowing the wind recalls the gentility of their crowns how unbridled it can blow through leaves and branches translate its whistling as lovers' murmur spelt straight into the beauty of the day´s blinking eye. An elder sun departs from earth. One eagle soars undaunted, mistress of airspace scanning targets she might raid onto in the imminent shade gliding in the wind that quits the trees unwillingly anticipating her sustenance as soon as dusk whispers through the cedar grid and naive creatures crawl into the day's closed eye.
Crossing
by Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias and his banner over me is love. Song of Songs 2:4 folded forever at the centre of desire. John B. Lee I can show you incredible things. Taylor Swift
Along spiraling crests of lovemaking wild drums beat in her heart the universe flashes in her eyes her consciousness crosses dimensions through a portal that opens to her physicality. She rises into a burning, absorbing somewhere. Not once The Envoy 104
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does she hesitate. Not once: irresistible realms of desire claim her psyche. She surrenders. Fully. Stunningly. The portal beckons him; ´he follows her wake, helpless he crosses too, joyful…
THE POETS LAUREATE SECTION!!!! Here, Miriam and John, a Cuban lady, a Canadian gentleman, offering their captivating pieces to honor The Envoy! WE CAN MAKE IT BETTER by Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado If we share our bread, There will be less hunger; If we share our clothes, We will be less cold. If we share love, There will be less anger; If we share our soul, They will cling and grow. August/2008 SAVE MANKIND by Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado Knowledge is a treasure We must give to others; Where there is darkness We must make it bright. Nature gives us sources To fight thirst and hunger; Peace and Love can bring us The most needed Light. The Envoy 104
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THEY WON’T COME IN! by Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado They won’t come in! Is not only what we say, They won’t come in! Comes from deep inside our Soul; If the enemy would dare Attack our Motherland, They won’t come in! Will be our only goal. MY POETRY by Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado When sadness and yearning Were too much to bear; It turned into this What seems to be Some kind of poetry… Or maybe just… My poetry.
photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto The Envoy 104
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The Art of Making Vinegar by John B. Lee
for Jorge and Tai we were two men discussing the art of making vinegar how you must sugar the liquid elixir and set it on the shelf hooded in darkness to work its transformation turning the slow fermentation so it clouds and settles with the mother silting in a sedimentary circle like the slothful circumference of clarifying sand and you can of course use apples, but not necessarily apples in the pickling as it is with ancient appetites of fruit-spoil and that feminine fragrance of cider gone sour with divine desire arriving as though conjured in the humming halo of drosophila drawn to the bowl by an over-ripening that bruises the peel and softens the pulp and a man makes marmalade and a man makes wine and a bridegroom seduces the oven with a blooming of burn that scorches the pan as the worm turns into the moth that larval imago The Envoy 104
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wintering over in a window-ledge chrysalis like a dreamer dreaming of flight with a weightless awakening of wings
In the Last of the Light of the Day by John B. Lee
Yesterday afternoon walking my dog in this most peaceful neighbourhood I could hear the cry of death rising up and out of the rough ravine where a creature of prey was killing its meat and the wild raw panic of something dying curdled the air with red screams as though quickening the crimson remainder of winter sunlight like the claw-raked flesh of western heaven and this tin-torn racked to bleeding sky gone gory with the last of the light of the day the burning remnant of a squirrel voice went quiet as it is with the hushing of a murdered heart and in the morning as I write this in the blink of a raptor’s eye the hunger returns to the shivering hill and the sparrow haven of a privet hedge shaking with life The Envoy 104
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Original Sin
by John B. Lee
I was walking with my small dog along the breakwall at the green rim of the lake where the waves were washing the darkening plimsol of the shale-rock pier rising and falling in wet shadows like the sculpted tupping of an old grey-woolled ewe in the rain and it was May when the tall phlox flowers and the teeth of the lion bloom in the grass and go white with their loss in the wind so they stand like cloth buttons fixed on thin stems and there among thorns and thistles slithering out of the scree like a pulled lace loosening the earth where it fell open to thirst in dry clay and my dog gripping the smoke whipped it once and flung the snake where it fell yawning on death conceiving the darkness like slow knowledge at the coming on of night and in an hour it was dead as a rope The Envoy 104
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and I looked then for the tree on the hill where the black birds sang not for sorrow but for life
A WORD ABOUT… We include here poetry by two indispensable CCLA members, Tai and Kim. They keep the CCLA bridge open with operational fast-track lanes. Their poems are intimate, rewarding, a tinge of fun flitting about them. Above all, we read of the special love they profess to Cuba, the memories turned into words on these pages. Enjoy these samples taken from The Divinity of Blue, a Hidden Brook Press 2020 publication soon to come out, where many Cuban and Canadian friends´ poems tell us of their experiences during the 2020 CCLA visit to Cuba.
Richard Marvin Grove (Tai) February Crescent, Moon-Lit Night Jupiter perched on timeless horizon west over Los Caneyes. Twilight silver grey scanning the stars for the meaning of life. Reading Poetry in Cuba Owed to Laurence Reading with gentle Cubano music wafting in the background, with a gentle breeze, the flutter of palm fronds are all wonderful and preferable but there is nothing like reading with the crushing sound of ice grinding in the background.
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For Amphitrite’s Necklace I flung my only faintly-faded boyhood imagination with a fistful of contemporary Canadian coins into the Sargasso Sea as a replacement for the not so ancient Cuban coins I found washed up on the sand-soft seas of Guardalavaca beach. For years I have hidden not so valuable items in oddball places. A dollar bill placed in the frame behind a mirror, an inscription to the person that would finally take off the doorknob years from now, a stack of books, bagged and hidden in the wall after a renovation. Only the imagination will know what will happen to those coins hurled into the Atlantic waves of tomorrow’s fury. I am not sure that Poseidon will care much about a fistful of coins tossed into his salty treasure trove, though his Greek goddess wife, Amphitrite, might want them strung around her neck with alabaster shells. For this boy, strolling slowly into his seventies that fistful of treasure will feed me all the way to my ocean swelled demise and beyond.
Kimberley Grove Haiku for my husband Most men sleep with women My husband sleeps with earplugs Cuba Is it the beauty of the countryside? The Envoy 104
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The spider-top palms, nature’s fireworks exploding everywhere in the landscape? Or the rugged faces turning to sweet smiles? Or maybe it is knowing that the sun is still alive? No, it is the kindness of the Cubans that calls me to return. The Mist The mist hovers over the lake Weighing heavier with its thickness Leaving behind an offering, A comforting quilt of smoke Over past agonies, past wounds, past scars, Seeping into the harsh lines Scraping out the Cruel childhood memories, Left in rocks at The altar of Lake Memphremagog.
The Halloween Celebration !!! Halloween is a celebration on the night of October 31. ... This covers the three days – October 31 (All-Hallows Eve or Hallowe'en), November 1 (All Saints) and November 2 (All Souls). All Hallows' Eve is a Christianized feast influencing Halloween as a holiday celebrated each year on October 31, and Halloween 2020 will occur on Saturday, October 31. The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints. Soon, All Saints Day incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows Eve, and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a day of activities like trick-or-treating, carving jack-olanterns, festive gatherings, donning costumes and eating treats. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort during the long, dark winter. The Envoy 104
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To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter. edited by Celtic harvest festivals, and pagan roots.
photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto The Envoy 104
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photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto
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Woman in Green
by Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández and Richard M. Grove
Look at this farmer woman, her red hair draped gently over her beautiful shawl of glorious green. See how happy she is in the middle of the meadow basking in the sun swaying in the breeze looking at the horizon to find a lover amidst so much dark verdancy.
La mujer vestida de verde
por Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández and Richard M. Grove
Miren a esa campesina su pelo drapeado gentilmente sobre su hermoso manto de espléndido verde. Miren que feliz está en el medio del campo tomando el sol
photo by Jorge Alberto
balanceándose con la brisa mirando al horizonte para encontrar pareja entre tanto verde oscuro.
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SHORT STORY SECTION This is a story that flowed without pause from my pen shortly after having watched the Terminator saga. My daughter said, “It is your best ever.” So did my Canadian friend Antony Di Nardo. A message of pain and hope; a warning penned with intentionally elaborate language reflecting the story´s atmosphere, it was my purpose to make Farewell alarming and eyeopening. I speak of “a race” that may well be our human race (hinted in the biblical allusion about sin and in the spin of reference to the couple being last in the present, first in a prospective tomorrow), or any race in the vast expanses of the universe. I expose with awe-inspiring wording the perils of ill-used technology and ambition, of war and prepotency; of values that vanish and no one is to be blamed but “the race.” Within the fatalistic context where my narration plays out, I open and end Farewell wrapping it in nostalgia and love, seeking salvation in the stars, with a mindprovoking faith in what the future holds. The author
FAREWELL
by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias
Judgement Day, the day the human race was nearly destroyed by the weapons they built to protect themselves… John Connor, in Terminator 3 From the hilltop she surveyed the land one last time. Minutes of reverential silence she wanted to breathe in, carry in her affective memory through the course they were about to chart into the unknown. The sun beamed timidly from the horizon´s womb streaming pollution-tainted light up in the air. Her long hair waved flag-like, her eyes blinked anticipating the multi-colored explosion about to happen, dawn kaleidoscoping upon the earth. She wanted to be an eye witness to perhaps one of the last sunrises on her dear planet. Her ancestors once rode over these meadows and hillocks. Free. They fought
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wars to stay free. They made love so they could prevail as a race, so as to endure in the assignment that had been given to them, life. Long were the days of feasting, drinking, celebrating victories, mourning the gone but for a while; and back to the cycle that would make them lick their wounds, heal, rise again against foe or invading stranger, attain power, loosen up in more revelry and conquer more lands, like this right below her frowned gaze. It had been theirs for eons, she had been told. She felt it so, nostalgic. As ancient as the seasons, it had given them shelter and livelihood. It had provided, and homed generation after generation. Her next of kin came from the unforgiving sieve where time was a labyrinth and place a challenge, where motion reeked of battle blood dripped on holy ground as seed for tomorrow. That is how her race pushed on, survival of the strongest, the future wrought with sword and spear and arrow then. Later, powder, guns, machineguns, aviation, the conquest of outer space… Later, laser raids, atom bombs, bio-weapons, nuclear warfare, modern, “peace-making” arsenals of destruction in the hands of the strongest, the soulless. Nowadays, rampant, hazardous deployment of nanotechnology and other “classified” forms of keeping domestic frontiers “safe”… Belligerent ideology in utter oblivion of common-sense essences needed to preserve the race, survival instincts and coexistence in a land as vast as the skies. Mother earth was forgotten by her sons and daughters. They had blindly fled from a vanishing past when the race depended on the land, when they acknowledged its worth and kindly, gratefully, returned with respect and care. The race broke away from natural root into over artificiality, the race conceived and built artifacts beyond imagination, stole from the land, sacrificed it, blew it up in the name of higher expectations. The race came to the point of obliterating deities, values, even life, worshipping nothing but themselves, lost in ambitious pursuits of invasion and supremacy… She looked at her land, heard the rumbling inside it. It was about to crumble. It was inevitable. Volcanoes would erupt and send their lava across the land´s skin, searing it and all on their death path. Seismic events would recur in endless aftershocks bringing ground instability and total collapse to infrastructure. Megatsunamis would follow up, cataclysmic demise... She shuddered at the vision. She wondered who had given the order, who had pushed the button – who had thrown the first stone – who, Who, WHO???!!! The hilltop on where she stood shook lightly. They had to leave. For good. Good sounded so bad in her brain. Farewell weighed so irreparably core-piercing on her spacesuit, on her whole being.
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Her eyes blinked again, wet with genuine emotion. Her gaze hardened for an instant: material legacy would be crushed in the days to come, palpable history blotted out in a sweep of havoc and lethality. Then it mellowed. She had a duty, she thought. She must keep the memory alive: intangible wealth, a planet´s culture, was stored in the computer and safely guarded in her mind and heart. It was the duty of bequeathal to a next generation that would blossom somewhere else up there in the bottomless universe. She lifted her chin, her eyes shone. An arm surrounded her shoulders. We are ready, he said in a low voice, almost a whisper. I know, she replied. I just wanted this view in my eyes one last time. I understand but, he warned, the tarmac is caving in. We must take off! She sighed and held his arm. They walked to the mother ship. It would transport them through the vast cosmos in temporary stasis relying on the spacecraft´s computer, which would find them a new planet to settle and populate. It´s farewell, you know, she commented. Farewell, he echoed. For good. We will survive. We must. We are the last of our… Don´t say it! She covered his mouth and added. Yes, it´s for good but good sounds so bad, so sad… He squeezed her hand, warmly. Let´s be optimistic instead, he hugged her. We will be the first of our kind wherever it is the ship takes us. Their eyes met. Their looks lingered for a carefree instant in each other´s pupils. She nodded and held her head high. They boarded the ship and spoke to the computer. Take off and chart course. Prep us for stasis. Explore for the next three light-years and wake us up when you find a suitable new star with viability parameters on its orbiting planets. Activate parsec speed in reconnaissance lapses. They entered their capsules, looked at each other with tenderness. He winked at her, she smiled. They reclined and closed their eyes. Their bodies gradually entered induced general stoppage of vital functions necessary for cryonic state. The ship flared, lifted the silvery body with its precious cargo and crossed the atmosphere. Behind it, a dying planet and a promising farewell wake signaling a voyage into obscure infinity that would harvest hopes of renewed life. Jorge in His Wide Brimmed Hat
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Jorge in his wide brimmed hat by Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández and Richard M. Grove Gibara Bay with Saddle Mountain foggy in the distance Isabel Maria bobs to the ancient rhythms of the sea that have been swaying fisherman's row boats for centuries upon centuries. Jorge in his wide brimmed hat fluttering sail, a ragged triangle made of Michelle's mother's table cloth that she had kept in the closet for years a rectangle of blue, a baby's blanket stitched over growing hole the weathered strip from father’s pants marks the history of the distance sailed.
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Waves of time flutter her single ragged sail out at night back in the morning gunnels sometimes brimming, sometimes empty always pushing into gossamer spider’s foam from bow to stern stitching through the sea of forever. photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto
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E- mails: joyph@nauta.cu joyphccla@gmail.com jorgealbertoph@infomed.sld.cu
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