THE ENVOY The official newsletter of the
Canada Cuba Literary Alliance I.S.S.N. – 1911‐0693
August, 2019 Issue 090 www.CanadaCubaLiteraryAlliance.org
AUGUST 2019 ENVOY-090 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
About Authors & Poems II by CCLA Cuban President and THE ENVOY Assistant or Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias This THE ENVOY 90 brings you again 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 wave came in The Envoy 89, now we feature the second group of six poets whose names are more familiar in the CCLA latest publications. Individuality continues to be the key signature in this second warm wave. However, styles flow in a cohesive texture that allows internal consistency and forges an evident link with the previous poets. From Miriam to Miguel we sense lyricism, passion, faith, optimism and detailed observation of what surrounds them. Enjoy and wait for the ebook, which will soon be in your hands!
Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado Flood Me Flood me, my Lord You, who can do anything…, Flood me with Peace and Tranquility Don´t let other people’s poison Reach me Let Sidereal Light Make me new. Flood me, my Lord… I want Dreams!
Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández Don´t Forget Me Your words are not vain nor have ever been I zealously listen to them. To ears other than mine Your words have no meaning, Your accents do not drift in the air Nor do they settle on boughs like birds, They come to me in subtle tenderness No stops, Your phrases reach me Your loving thoughts are not hidden They reach into my ears Just to tell me “Don´t forget me” Belkis Andrea Mendez Rodríguez
The Light Shadow of a Hair On this bed where you surrender to the bodies´ unquenched thirst. On this bed that recognizes you by your aroma of fire and turmoil there is a hair. Telltale angel of your presence. A melody willing to open to the memory. On this bed in which you are all of life, sheets, scents do not forget you, nor the light shadow of a hair.
AUGUST 2019 ENVOY-090 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Ernesto Galbán Peramo Attempt Don´t stop looking into the distance even if in hard times those far dots chip your mirrors. Fly high before incredulous eyes if the world offers you its full width, and grow from your past failures because after many late-night hours dawn will break sooner for you. Wency Rosales Winter It’s a solitary morning, white mist dims the distance, and a Polar breeze lashes against the trees moistened by the tears of the wee hours. Birds are quiet in their nests huddling against each other or looking after their fledglings. Roses lose their snuggling petals and afternoon falls. Sadness envelopes the clouds’ shadows, and here I remain, waiting for winter to go to have again the happiness of your steps. Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias
Four Haiku Watchmaker clock stutters – through lit window blind moon winds it up
Snapshot
The moment: a still photo. Donna Allard Birds in soft flight. Sarah Richardson
birds dot the clouds wings flapping on skyline a snapshot Love sea kissing shore groaning softly they make love Kiss tree branch leans on murmuring stream rippled kiss
AUGUST 2019 ENVOY-090 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
DOCTOR CODY IS RETIRING by Colin Morton Doctor Cody, who saw all your children into the world, who relieved you of your flaming appendix and eased your mother’s passing into the realm she had been dreaming of for years, Doctor Cody, who has poked and peered and listened to you almost all your life, is retiring, and the young one, Doctor Cody Junior, doesn’t care the same way and never will. Some other young doctors will look inside you but will never know you as Doctor Cody did, and for that, for once, you can be thankful, because you are not the same person Doctor Cody knew and you don’t know that you want anyone to know this new, old you that well. Doctor Cody is retiring and your old body goes on, but you know there will never again be a Doctor Cody, and when you stop to think, you know, you never knew him.
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.
AUGUST 2019 ENVOY-090 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
DOVES By Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández Active route of migrating birds nesting in ancient houses with oval-shaped roof tiles and gutters, with their non-stop singing they bring joy and life to Villa Blanca´s dawn. Latte colors and black breasts make the male, not the female, elegant and majestic. They carry dry grass and leaves, artisans of the heights, they feed their baby birds from sunup to sundown covering their weak and naked bodies with their warm wings keeping them there in dark tumult until they come out for the longed dream of taking flight and exploring unknown territories.
PALOMAS Fecunda zona de aves migratorias establecidas en las arcaicas casas de ovaladas tejas y canales, que con sus continuos cantos alegran y animan el amanecer de la Villa Blanca. Colores café con leche y negros pechos tornan al macho elegante y majestuoso, a diferencia de la hembra. Transportan hierbas secas y hojarascas, artesanos de las alturas, nutren sus crías desde el primer saludo del alba hasta el ocaso cubren sus débiles y desnudos cuerpos bajo sus cálidas alas en oscuro tumulto los mantienen hasta que salen al anhelado sueño de levantar el vuelo y explorar desconocidos horizontes.
WE CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHICH STRENGTHEN US
AUGUST 2019 ENVOY-090 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
HOW TO LIVE WITHOUT YOU By Raúl Vera Delgado The wee hours are the most difficult moment, when I stretch my arm and I can’t find you It’s like if suddenly time had stopped and there were no more mornings. like if the sun, ashamed of so much dryness, didn’t want to rise. In the middle of my sorrow and full of God, I lift my hand to the heights suddenly, it disappeared amidst a soft mist. Surprised I brought it back to me… Where had it gone? I observed it carefully and… Oh divine magic! on the back of the hand lost before, shone the track of a kiss. Then I knew we would meet again, that even though you left, God had saved you for me in some place, there, in the unknown… Then, I could fall asleep.
AUGUST 2019 ENVOY-090 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Cold Storage Beach
Haiku by John Hamley Fog horns we saw the lighthouse behind
by Bruce Meyer The image of a jetty outlined by clouds at the moment of the sun’s best colour; or a gull, grey against the bright gold and reflected in the pale blue shadows deepening with stippled navy in the waves that edge over the smooth sand shimmering beneath a chain of alto cumulus crescendoing into the eastern darkness drawing on their blood; a looking-glass incapable of being fickle, a retina that photographs and stores outlines and instants that are selected from others like an anthology of bon mots for the good eye; the pen on paper retains what the sea cannot. A dogfish surfacing in ballooning rings and heaving a bubble up to replace the sun; or a sandpiper picking at a sand hopper; or dune-grass stroked like a good beard is here, set down, for later use, put in cold storage, preserved, memorized, catalogued and shelved. In a city not far away there is a warehouse full of theatrical props, a clown mask, swords, unfinished rooms, doors that lead nowhere, tables, chairs, pictures that say home sweet home for houses of no fixed address and the inventory goes on like a list of cherished necessities that house one when they are absent. Words worth stood on a hillside above Tintern Abbey and recorded the Welsh valley tree by tree for later use
. Such is the purpose of Cold Storage Beach, named, accidentally, for an old warehouse which stood at the mouth of Jesuit Harbour and vanished, timelessly, into nowhere but a word written down, part of a memory, but otherwise lost.
AUGUST 2019 ENVOY-090 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Gibara is endlessly photogenic! After traveling 35 km north from Holguín, you reach the pleasingly somnolent fishing port stretching from a calm and sparkling bay and seeping into the surrounding rugged hillside. Gibara is a place to spend not only few hours, you need at least a few days to enjoy the tranquil views as an urbane and bountiful fishing town.
CCLA
Emails: joyph@nauta.cu joyphccla@gmail.com
CCLA
FROM THE EDITOR: IN OUR UPCOMING ISSUES, WE WOULD LIKE SUBMISSIONS FROM EVERY CCLA MEMBER SO WE ARE NURTURED BY YOU! IF YOU HAVE BOOKS COMING OUT, A POETRY EVENT, PHOTOGRAPHY OR JUST NEWS ABOUT YOU, LET US KNOW!!!!!