THE ENVOY The official newsletter of the
Canada Cuba Literary Alliance I.S.S.N. – 1911‐0693
March, 2022 Issue 119 www.CanadaCubaLiteraryAlliance.org
Photo by Jorge Alberto 1
Hope For The Future? Lisa Makarchuk- February 6, 2022 The ragged edge of dark splices nightmares into my dreams its sharpness shears off nurturing ideas yearning to be freed their sputtering sparks in erratic darting and unfurling flash into flights of fancy enlightening and also hopeful that 2022 may bring offerings of a ceasefire between a struggling earth and its descent into an apocalypse of viral attacks of constant drumbeats for war time will tell if we shall survive or shall we descend into darkness and fear? Lisa Makarchuk- revised version - February 6, 2022
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MAY 2022 ENVOY-119 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Mitología: por Víctor Manuel El ave en la jaula siente el hambre del zorro de los bosques. Un viento agorero, híbrido del mar y las estepas, sopla la oración del mundo en la boca del cuerno. Toda ave tiene su prehistoria de crímenes, un pedigrí depredador de antiguas mega faunas, de nobles civilizaciones herbívoras. El ave fue alguna vez, como el zorro, un bellísimo asesino nocturno. Aquí, donde parece llover siempre, la lluvia fluye en grandes turgencias oceánicas del agua que flota milagrosamente sobre nuestras cabezas animales. Ya viene el rojísimo alarido del zorro, y se hunde, desmenuzando las nubes, en la frase que el viento sonsacó a su cuello mitológico de pájaro. Mythology: by Víctor Manuel The caged bird feels as hungry as the forest fox. An ominous wind, hybrid of the sea and the steppes, blows the world´s prayer into the horn´s mouth. Every bird has a prehistory of crimes, a predator´s lineage of ancient mega-faunas, of noble grass-eating civilizations. The bird was once, like the fox, a splendid nocturnal killer. Here, where it never stops raining, rain flows in huge oceanic turgidities of the water that floats miraculously over our animal heads. There comes the fox´s extreme red howl, and it sinks, tearing clouds apart, in the phrase the wind wheedled out of its mythological bird neck. Painting by Victor Manuel
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April is knocking at our door and here we are celebrating poetry. April is National Poetry Month in Canada and a group of fine poets honour it -- actually Canadian poets do this all year round! -- with promotions, readings and lots of spirit. May we always celebrate poetry! May better times come so we can gather together to share, read, and enjoy the never-ending power of our poems!
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MAY 2022 ENVOY-119 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
The Meaning of Easter By John B. Lee
my mother’s concession to art at Eastertime was nothing like the decorative pysanka of Ukrainian women teaching their daughters to adorn the blown shells of hollowed out ova nor nothing like the empirical Fabergé of Alexandra the Russian courtly result of the bejeweling golden hen of Paris yet, at Easter she would begin with the hardboiled chuckle of a dozen free range layers rumbling on the blue flame of the kitchen burner often timed to the scorching forgetfulness of evaporate water the underside bruised to a delicate brown like windfall fruit but mostly it was chortling like stones in the shallows as the heat slowed and then with a long cooling she would drop them four to a set in stained liquid so they were monochromatic blue or pink or green seeming exotica like what’s in the nest of tropical fowl that magic morning of divine resurrection
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when the shell came away to expose the slightest hint when the fractured blush shattered on the palm where there -- the edible albumin bloomed the most delicate blue or pastel pink or primavera green so the tongue of the child in me might almost taste what the eye revealed as it is with words there in the cusp between the writing and the saying that briefest lacuna exchanging the flavour between the eye and the mouth and the ear and the naming of the creatures of an ancient garden before sinning and in the saucer under the frangible execution of the palm that rolls and the thumb that peels the ruptured remains as though the egg tooth of a fledgling lay evident with the desire to be born into vanishing a transfiguration of ghostly conception all memory, all dream all lost imaginings like ice in sunlight and glass in frost at dawn I am here in this line and lingering in the language of silence and sighing like a breath taken in and a breath exhaled
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MAY 2022 ENVOY-119 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Photo by Hector Silva Photo by Hector Silva
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Soar Beyond a Rainbow
By Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias
… let me know that it´s not all in my mind. Taylor Swift I have you come to me in my most secret fantasies, I remove your skin and leave your soul exposed. You smile, silence is the aptest word when we approach and gently kindle each other´s desire. You have me come to you you unlock your reality showing me a passage to where summer rain kisses the sun as you interpret their love for me. I tremble, savour your silence on my lips and we soar beyond a rainbow in the making.
Time dances on our clocks
By Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias
Old age strikes all in an instant. James Deahl … a red sea of time… Norma West Linder … and time comes aching like a shadow on the stony sky. John B. Lee Time dances on our clocks irreversibly ticking, deleting days, weeks, months, years from our calendars. We notice—or pretend we don´t— and strive on in our daily journey. Now and then time smiles, condescending, yet strict about the protocol of life that must be honored. And we, creatures of mortality, follow the rhythms of the universe, the cycles that chart our course winding up our clocks once we are conceived winding them down as we age and depart.
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MAY 2022 ENVOY-119 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Silvery Light By Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias Watch the fullness of the moon tonight take it all in through your eyes reach out, hold it but for a moment let its mystery wrap you to become its silvery light.
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Wind
By Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández
Wind… fickle wind! It either coos gently or roars enraged. It knows how to be a breeze to caress sensually and how to become a hurricane to lash out ruthlessly . Today, whimsical wind, I have followed your course, far from the channeled prose of my banal street. I have seen you gracefully comb the jet black hair of a girl who jealously beholds the golden locks of an ocean that imbibes the sun’s dazzle in a blue dawn. And I have seen you beguile that little one crazily tangling up her long hair. I have seen you playfully tickle the soil´s fodder and the poplar leaves complacently casting a shade over the bronzed farmer´s decaying home. But I have also seen you ragingly ravish anything standing in your path. Friendly wind or hostile wind, which will blow into my turbulent life? Will it be the one auspiciously pushing my feeble little boat to the longed-for port? Or will it be the tempest-driven one making my boat flounder? Wind… fickle wind!
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MAY 2022 ENVOY-119 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Maharstrain Bride. By Er Vijay Richhiya
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Anniversary
To my parents, in memoriam (November 22, 2021, for November 22, 1958)
By Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias
My parents are not here to celebrate their 63rd anniversary as a married couple. Mom passed away 17 years ago, Dad left us just 5 months ago. But I am here. I am bringing back memories of their relationship, which marked my sister and me in so many wondrous ways. I remember joy, respect, a mutuality of love and support that is rare these days. I remember my father coming home with guitar players to sing to my mother, and I distinctly recall my mother´s lit-up face, her hands overflowing with flowers and gifts. Theirs was a thing of beauty, a lesson of faithfulness, commitment, understanding, unconditional surrendering. My parents are not here today yet their beacon brightens our lives past beyond the test of 63 years.
El otro invierno
DIANA LUCÍA BRUZÓN
Todos los días hablo de ti que si el norte ahora es sur si la noche es blanca y si la hierba huele a bolero en fin ya no hablo de los barcos de papel ni del vecino sin lentes y menos de la casa con las ventanas al revés. Hablo de cuando te fuiste mientras tejo otro poema sin nombre con la tercera parte del último beso que nos robamos en la esquina. The Envoy 119
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MAY 2022 ENVOY-119 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Mientras, tu olor sigue alzando los silencios delante de mis secretos favoritos y cuando bailamos una canción de estreno muy cerca de la otra selva. Ahora ya no tengo más puentes para unir este adiós tan largo que me he inventado. Tu en tu isla y yo en mi continente.
The Other Winter (translation by Miguel Olivé) I talk about you every day about north being south now about night being white and grass smelling like a bolero at last I don´t talk about paper boats nor about the neighbor with no lenses much less about the house with upside-down windows. I talk about when you left while I knit another nameless poem with a third of the last kiss we stole at the corner. Meanwhile, your scent lifts silence in front of my favorite secrets and when we dance to a just-released song very close to that other jungle. Now I have no more bridges to join this long adieu that I´ve resorted to. You on your island and I on my shore.
Brujo
DIANA LUCÍA BRUZÓN
!Oh brujo de la noche! He oído una voz dónde se sueña y se deshacen las formas aparentes de la conciencia. He puesto los enigmas de aquellos que pudieron descifrarme sobre punto y coma. Tu fuego somete el mío The Envoy 119
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abriendo ocultos laberintos, piedras sobre el aire. Me rodean los extraños sonidos de una vieja melodía y el error de no verte. !Oh! Noche de pasión y... Descalza caminaré, la lluvia me acompaña y le pongo alas a mis sueños... !Oh! Juventud que resbala por mi cuello.
Sorcerer
(translation by Miguel Olivé)
Oh sorcerer of the night! I have heard a voice where dreams happen and the deceptive shapes of consciousness are undone. I have placed the secrets of those who could see through me on a semicolon. Your fire subsumes mine opening hidden labyrinths, rocks floating in the air. Strange sounds surround me of an ancient melody and the fault of not seeing you. Oh! Night of passion and… I will walk barefoot, With the rain as I give wings to my dreams… Oh! Youth slipping away through passages.
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MAY 2022 ENVOY-119 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
MY MUSICAL DOCTOR
By Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado
Last night my doctor came Along with his guitar… He played for us and sang With joy And a happy heart. I sang with him And felt rejoiced My heart and soul renewed… A spell of notes sailed through My veins… Last night… All my pains were relieved.
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…
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Indian Bride. Er Vijay Richhiya
Indian Bride. By Er Vijay Richhiya
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MAY 2022 ENVOY-119 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández, CCLA Ambassador as editor Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias, Cuban President as Assistant editor Adonay Pérez Luengo, Cuban vp as reviewing editor Lisa Makarchuk, Canadian vp as reviewing editor Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado, CCLA Cuban poet laureate as reviewing editor Wency Rosales, Cuban Photography Curator
Editor´s emails: joyph@nauta.cu joyphccla@gmail.com jorgealbertoph@infomed.sld.cu
FROM THE EDITOR: IN OUR UPCOMING ISSUES, WE WOULD LIKE SUBMISSIONS FROM EVERY CCLA MEMBER SO THAT WE ARE NURTURED BY YOU! IF YOU HAVE BOOKS COMING OUT, A POETRY EVENT, JUST LET US KNOW!
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