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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: SUAREZ, VIRGIL Matches Found: 281 Suarez, Virgil Poet's Biography 281 poems available by this author 1965 DODGE DART First Line: My father paid $500 for it in 1974 Last Line: So many countless & uncertain roads ADIOS, ADIOS, ADIOS First Line: You can hear it, the clock %its intricate whir of parts Last Line: Hold onto your hat %lots of rough air ahead ADOLESCENCIA Poem Text First Line: My father's work friends, all men Last Line: Sweeping all ominous thoiughts away Subject(s): Havana, Cuba; Childhood Memories AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY First Line: There, by the silos, see the tractor Last Line: A myth in the watery eyes of memory AFTER CACHAO'S First Line: The hands of the tumba player are doves, dark and melodic Last Line: Cachao, bassist king, close your eyes and take us back, suena, suena AFTER KCHO'S LA COLUMNA INFINITA INSPIRED BY CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI'S... First Line: Toda madera se unde...Soaks up water Last Line: A broken oar, floating free in this liquid world AGUACERO First Line: These downpours of my cuban childhood Last Line: A possibility dripping from his fingertips %then the song of the bullfrogs calling home the night ALBA FOR DONATILA First Line: In her clapboard house with hard-packed dirt floors Last Line: My grandmother's coffee rises heavenward like spirits ALVARO'S GARAGE First Line: The place on gage in los angeles, california Last Line: Rising out of the last sliver of grease and memory ANIMALIA First Line: As a child, the games to break boredom included a certain cruelty Last Line: & cruelty to animals. What would you think ARABESQUES First Line: Sunlight's knife slitted through banana plant fronds Last Line: The room, out the door into the darkness, toward light ARRHYTHMIA First Line: A sunfish's tug on a fishing line, slight Last Line: A sail catching a southerly wind, a flap, listen ARROZ First Line: Comes to el volcan, the corner bodega Last Line: Which carries so many so far Subject(s): Rice ARTHUR BRYANT'S, KANSAS CITY, MO- OR, CUBAN POET GORGES HIMSELF.... First Line: Entropy is the daily topic here, how sauces ooze off plastic trays Subject(s): Hispanic Americans; Restaurants; Food & Eating; Kansas City, Missoufri; Latinos AT THE LOCAL ECKERD DRUGSTORE, BASHO STANDS NEXT TO THE ORGANIC... First Line: Right there by the echinacea %and ginkgo biloba, the kava kava Last Line: A hibiscus aflame %with fortitude AT THE WAILING WALL: LA PROMESA DE LAS PAGINAS BLANCAS First Line: We stand here, eyes to the clutter of cracks Last Line: Song of mourning fall all that passes by forgotten AT THE WALL First Line: What brings us back is not the onyx shine Last Line: Remembers. There is no need to embellish ATMOSPHERIC First Line: Every night I go to bed here in austin Last Line: Awake in austin, night, heart sings its rapture Subject(s): Austin, Texas; Death ATMOSPHERIC First Line: Every night I go to bed here in austin Last Line: Awake in austin, night, a heart sings its rapture AUTUMN POETRY First Line: There are mornings here in tallahassee Last Line: A rock plummeting to a dark, dark depth BAILE DE TROMPOS/ TOP DANCE First Line: We spent the summers of our childhoods in havana erecting clay-made villages Last Line: Among the ruins, desperately trying not to think of war, or its impending call BARTOLO'S PLANTAIN ORCHARD First Line: After the revolution when my father's friend Last Line: Of their youth, mine, this lugar of crazy laughter BENEDICTION FOR A CARIBBEAN MOON First Line: Once, just once, the sky breaks open and the birds spill Last Line: Enough desire to burn their silhouettes against moon %light BETWEEN FURIES AND REGRET First Line: Suddenly she sits up on the grassy slope Last Line: All things broken, all things ravaged, taken BEYOND A STREET CORNER IN LITTLE HAVANA First Line: Waiting for you might be a mallet, a blow Last Line: Stay put, say greetings, this is your life blown BIRD NATIONAL ANTHEM First Line: Pigeons flock on the rafters Last Line: A thousand more journeys BISCAYNE BOULEVARD, MIAMI, 1974 First Line: Freshly arrived from madrid, staying at my uncle's house Last Line: As our manhood at the corner of 65th & biscayne BITTERNESS First Line: My father brings home the blood of horses on his hands Last Line: Much horse meat it takes to appease the hunger of a single lion Variant Title(s): La Amargura / Bitternes BLACK CALLIGRAPHY, OR CALIBAN PONDERS OMENS First Line: The way his fingers callous after carrying so much wood Last Line: Like black snow upon the land, spelling out the way BLISTERS Poem Text First Line: My father had them on his hands Last Line: His blessed offerings to hard work Subject(s): Fathers; Labor & Laborers BLUE CRABS First Line: The cubans on key biscayne %know them as jaivas, these blue Last Line: Their own water crossings %have never been this easy BORGES IN THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS First Line: Glowing helixes cast shadows in your eyes Last Line: To the earth where they speak of secrets, truths BREAK First Line: How much longer, father, %until the bays of your hairline Last Line: Has become balled-up fists %that still box my ears with truths CALIBAN AND THE SIRENS First Line: How does a spirit find its way back? To the castle's turrets Last Line: To swim ashore. In the distance he hears them sing. Listen now CANCIONERO DEL BANYAN Poem Text First Line: The wind freustratzes itself held Subject(s): Banyan Trees; Florida; Cuban Americans CANDILEJAS NIGHT CLUB First Line: At the corner of marbrisa and florence Last Line: Been following that man home since CARBON MONOXIDE MEDITATIONS First Line: In line at the emissions control center on miami's bird road & 40th, Last Line: Induced thoughts going up into the thin air of memory, stuck, saying %this is the last time CARP First Line: This time last year, late october, Last Line: Catching a flash of light in the cool bottom CARTERISTA / PICKPOCKET Poem Text First Line: After he got caught & sentenced to the sugar Last Line: Wallets too afraid to open, like his mouth, his life Subject(s): Pickpockets CARTERISTA / PICKPOCKET First Line: After he got caught & sentenced to the sugar Last Line: Wallets he's too afraid to open his mouth, his life Subject(s): Pickpockets CHALK/ TIZA First Line: The white of the world etched %on a blackboard, moths hidden Last Line: The world fills us with desire CHINESE KITE MAKERS OF OLD HAVANA First Line: Their lives became paper, thin bamboo, the way string Last Line: Burning, the way their closed mouths hold silence CHUPACABRAS First Line: When we moved to tallahassee, Last Line: Ready to believe in most things CHURCH OF THE AMERICAN OPEN ROAD First Line: You can stop and eat all the dirt you want Last Line: Light. That light that welcomes %your shadow CLOTHESLINES Poem Text First Line: The day my mother stood in the kitchen Last Line: Kicked upo into my own eyes Subject(s): Family Life; Childhood Memories; Cuba CLOTHESPINS/LOS PALITOS DE TENDEDERAS First Line: In sunday school we used them to make crucifixes Last Line: A glow so bright I believed the sun has swallowed us both COCHINO First Line: Was what they called us, %the children of dissidents, %the gusanos: pigs, swine Last Line: All the meanings in the flesh %of this beast called cochino COELACANTH First Line: Prehistoric fish, %thought to be extinct, Last Line: The eyes for another %thousand years CONNIVANCE First Line: In the havana summers %out of school, out of uniform Last Line: & we ran, ran to spare ourselves %these limitations in our lives CORPUS CHRISTI First Line: My father and his friends always spoke Last Line: Or walk? Image of that boy haunting us all these years CRUZA FRONTERAS First Line: As a child he cut lines onto the sand Last Line: With the currents of homeward longing CRYPTOGRAPHY First Line: The great poet said: %'by the time I die I want Last Line: Like a bug zapper's %blue electric zzz' CUBAN AMERICAN GOTHIC First Line: My father stands next to my mother, %both in the simple stained work clothes Last Line: Against the ravages of time and hard work CUBAN LANDSCAPE First Line: The train cars that ferry cut sugar cane Last Line: Years of stillness %and deep spiritual drought CUBANITO ALL-STARS First Line: Our pee-wee baseball %league team. Our fathers Last Line: In front of our faces: hey, batter! %another gasp to loss of innocence CUFFS First Line: My mother calls me to say my father left Last Line: And walking about so startled, naked, ready CUYS First Line: A man from the andes moved to a new york Last Line: A huge rat who stopped her to ask for directions DAGUERREOTYPE OF A HOUSE IN SNOWED COUNTRY First Line: A hue of yellow light %over a snow-logged %field of crab grass Last Line: Mirror of our days in heaven DAVID HOCKNEY EXPLAINS SILENCE BY THE SWIMMING POOL First Line: With a polaroid camera you can shoot pictures Last Line: Scream. His mouth fills with the sounds of so much living DEAR PROF. SUAREZ First Line: My name is henry trotsky. %I am in your 9:05 class Last Line: -henry %ps-I hope this poem counts as a workshop credit DIASPORA First Line: To tell the truth %I used to think the word Last Line: The sting of these subtle twists of definitions DIRT EATERS First Line: Whenever we grew tired and bored of curb ball Last Line: What doesn't kill you makes you fat and stronger DONA INEZ & HER CURE FOR HOMESICKNESS First Line: Stare into the vortex of a hibiscus Last Line: Right there at your feet will be answers DONA INEZ BUILDS AN ALTAR TO LA LUPE, QUEEN OF SALSA First Line: A bolero is the type of song that burrows deep Last Line: When the rooster crows, la lupe's spirit arrives home DONA INEZ IN EL JARDIN DE LAS ORQUIDEAS DEL OLVIDO First Line: Our across-the-street neighbor in havana Last Line: Orchid garden, right there where our dreams surged DONATILA'S VICTORY ORCHARD First Line: My grandmother keeps order in her garden Last Line: It is 1968. We wait for something to happen DOWRY First Line: Something bestowed, something taken Last Line: Like the straw trampled on the house floor DR. HUBBLE First Line: His eyes shone %with bright light %when he walked Last Line: Characters await their next turn DREAM OF THE DUENDE First Line: In the torrential downpours, lorca arrives one night at our house Last Line: Love, crystal, stone, you vanish down the rivers of the earth to the sea Variant Title(s): Duend EARTH ART, OR CRYSTO'S LURE OF DIRT First Line: Madman or shaman, astral artist, what language Last Line: Mirrors broken on the surface of their passing EL DESESPERO First Line: My father said he always checked Last Line: Like an overcoat, at the door EL EXILIO First Line: After his accident in hialeah where he worked Last Line: To his life, to this life of sitting and waiting EL PERRO AZTECA HAIRLESS DE FRIDA KAHLO, SENOR XOLOTL First Line: Between her window and the moon, his shadow kept Last Line: Skyward, an angel's azure wingfeather-she sighs, xolotl barks Variant Title(s): Frida's Favorite Aztec Hairless Dog, Senor Xolot EL REFUGIO/ FREEDOM TOWER, MIAMI, FLORIDA First Line: My father, a proud man, boasted that our family never needed it Last Line: The fire of longing raging deep in the heart EL SANTO NINO CHUPATINTAS First Line: We went to school together, shared Last Line: This tunnel so many enter and never see light EN EL JARDIN DE LOS ESPEJOS QUEBRADOS, CALIBAN CATCHES A GLIMPSE... First Line: To call a man a beast, one must see into his heart Last Line: So red, so blue, to call this man a beast you must bow EPIDEMIC First Line: During my last havana summer, %an epidemic broke out all over the island Last Line: Some torch of resentment, blackness %of remembrance that refuses to be doused EROS AND THE LAWS OF THERMAL DYNAMICS First Line: My first girlfriend in high school taught me how Last Line: How memory, in the pure-hot of abandon, still catches fire EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK OF HOLLOWS First Line: One summer in my cuban childhood %my paternal grandfather took me Last Line: To the charmed calling of such dark depths EXEGESIS, OR ROBERT PENN WARREN'S 'POULTRY' DAYS IN BATON ROUGE..... First Line: I once took a southern literature class at lsu Last Line: There he goes, there goes jesus, exiting EXILE SPEAKS First Line: Of a red tongue, black words Last Line: Teeth sing of all those about to drown FACE OF JESUS IN CAMPBELL'S ABC TOMATO SOUP First Line: While our daily soup simmers on the stove Last Line: Held in prayer to this christ of soup and its crimson words FAKE MARIPOSA First Line: My mother arrived %in our new house, Last Line: With the secret soil %of the next FATAL HOUR GOSPELS First Line: This rock is heavier than your hand Last Line: I wait for countdowns; %then my turn FIREWALKERS SAY OUCH IN ARAMAIC First Line: At first it is hard, and it does burn some, no joke Last Line: Heat and flame on the surface, feet like chisels dig FIREWATER/AGUARDIENTE First Line: Friends, when we speak of hands, we speak Last Line: Of my mouth in one flash-yank for saying this now FOR ELIAN GONAZALEZ First Line: What you will not remember is the land Last Line: Quiets so finally like the sound of one wave calling another FREE First Line: When we first arrived in the united states Last Line: More, the free: these simple things she knows %have kept us going all these exiled years FUEL First Line: Once when I was seven %and we lived in cuba Last Line: To cross the dark %together FULANO/A, OR PERSONA NON GRATA, CUBAN STYLE First Line: My parents always used the word when they referred Last Line: That to a stranger, any stranger, all folks were 'fulanos/as' GALAN DE NOCHE First Line: My mother fills her garden %with their bulbs because Last Line: To return her home nightly GALLOS FINOS First Line: My father longed for the wild days of cockfighting Last Line: Those days of cockfighting in the glitter of his youth GARABATO First Line: In los angeles, at the public schools, I drew Last Line: I say this: this poem is my garabato. Con safos GARMENT DISTRICT-LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA First Line: Today a red-throated sparrow %landed on the edge of the deck Last Line: How they're come this far, such blue songs GASOLINE DREAMS First Line: You move between low riders, the chevies & impalas Last Line: As they show you the long way home Subject(s): Dreams; Gasoline GOOD SHIP JESUS & THE ARK OF BONES First Line: We can say the obvious here: we are a ship Last Line: Delivering us finally into this amalgam of purity Subject(s): Art And Artists; Sculpture And Sculptors; Ships And Shipping GRAZAL OF THE FOOL, OR TO THOSE WHO EASILY STEP OFF CLIFFS First Line: Behind him a bright sun, golden sky, a white rose Last Line: Of a white rose, a dog, a perfectly good day for plummeting GREAT CHINESE POETS EXCHANGE TWO WORDS: 1 First Line: Aqui: spanish for here, the here and now. Last Line: Our course, vague and uncertain. Your friend or foe. GREAT CHINESE POETS EXCHANGE TWO WORDS: 2 First Line: Alla: spanish for over there, in the unattainable distance. Last Line: Here. Aqui. Alla. Two words to bridge the gap GREAT CHINESE POETS VISIT HAVANA First Line: Imagine tu fu and li po, for they have come Last Line: To speak this cryptic language of absence and longing GREAT DISSIDENT CUBAN POET DIES IN EXILE AT AUBURN UNIVERSITY First Line: What was it about the oak shadows cast against the walls Last Line: Themselves in memory of your return, of your gentle, quiet passing GREEN JEANS First Line: In cuba I used to pretend I ran in packs of boys after school Last Line: And then comes a strong wind and erases everything, erases so %absolutely GRUNION First Line: One saturday night the moon Last Line: So few, of nights like this one %captured, released HATCHERY First Line: Once in havana as school children we took a field trip Last Line: The barren and ravaged fields we now call our childhoods Variant Title(s): At The Hatcher Subject(s): Children; Memory; Schools HO CHI MINH IN HAVANA First Line: Plastered on walls by the sides of buildings Last Line: Image, like this one of a tiger turning into mist HOMEWARD First Line: A look %askance, %the scent %of guayaba Last Line: Right %where %the eyes %water HOW CUBANS CAME TO KNOW THEIR BICYCLES OR THE MYTH OF LAS PALOMAS First Line: In 1994 with the oil crisis in cuba Last Line: In hopes that maybe they get there faster IN THE HOUSE OF WHITE LIGHT First Line: When my grandmother left the house %to live with my aunts, my grandfather Last Line: Act of snatching lightning out of heavy air %plucking lightning like flowers from a hillside IN THE LAND OF EARTHQUAKES First Line: When my parents and I first arrived in los angeles Last Line: Next time for sure,' my mother said and held me tight Variant Title(s): Terremotos: In The Land Of The Earthquake IN THE PAVILION OF WHITE MUMMIES First Line: Catacomb logic? The way bones peek Last Line: Will crumble-one sneeze, it all goes to hell IZQUIERDO First Line: The phlegmy coughs resounded and echoed Last Line: To understand what he had meant. Jingle bells JAPANESE MAGNOLIA First Line: Its crimson lips open to blush this pure Last Line: Creature to another, of all things ravished JESUS BIRDS First Line: In wakulla springs on the glass bottom boat Last Line: In the distance, a miracle of buoyancy everywhere JFK FOR A DAY: THE TOUR First Line: For $25 bucks, you can sit in the back Subject(s): Death; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (1917-1963); Memory; Dead, The JFK FOR A DAY: THE TOUR First Line: For $25 bucks, you can sit in the back Last Line: A little extra, for the sake of verisimilitude Subject(s): Death; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (1917-1963); Memory JICOTEA/TURTLE First Line: They arrived in yute sacks Last Line: The sacrifice of thirty jicoteas JUDA'S ABECEDARY First Line: Apple of his eyes %rot & rust his temple Last Line: Zealot or not, he's got your number KALEIDOSCOPIC NATURE OF IRASCIBLE PALMS, OR CALIBAN PONDERS LOVE First Line: On cooler nights he builds a fogata, sits by it and nods off to dream Last Line: To madness, this purgatory he's inherited from the living and the ravaged KAYAK First Line: Here in this onyx water world Last Line: Another sign that speaks %of our humanly passing LA CONDUCTORA DEL DESEO/CONDUIT Poem Text First Line: The woman, la conductora, at number 51, corner Subject(s): Hispanic Americans; Women; Latinos LA FLORIDA First Line: Lugubrious days pass with the amplitude of manatees Last Line: Nobody's there to witness it, but it happens again and again LA ISLA DE LOS MONSTROS First Line: In los angeles I grew up watching the three stooges Last Line: A crocodile-like creature rising again, eating us so completely LA MALANGUITA First Line: Not like the american crew cut Last Line: In our ears, the hair now blown back by the wind LA NOCHE First Line: Walking the dog in the dusk hours, Last Line: To find my way back to my own house LA TEMPESTAD DE LAS PALABRAS BLANCAS First Line: In this island, the saying goes, cuando llueve Last Line: En las tinieblas de la noche, el corazon se espanta LA VIDA NUEVA, HOW PROSPERO SPENDS HIS DAYS WITH DANTE First Line: In the garden lies proof of bats' nocturnal diving Last Line: Him so, his mind emptying like his hands. So blue LA YAYA'S SECRET RECIPE FOR MAKING ANIS First Line: Enraptured in the vapors %of boiling kettles, la yaya Last Line: Anis for the living; anis for the dead LAND OF PLENTY First Line: Ten men living in the fourth-floor Last Line: Lost on the waters, a useless map %of stars, galaxies, of no way home LANDSCAPE WITH HAWKS First Line: In the acre yard of our new home, a pair of hawks Last Line: On our property finds survival in the safety of numbers LANGSTON HUGHES IN HAVANA First Line: Past the malecon where the waves Last Line: Wave of sorrow, don't drown us now LAS MALAS LENGUAS First Line: Was what my parents called gossip, %these ill-founded rumors Last Line: Las malas lenguas here, there, everywhere LAS TENDEDERAS/ CLOTHESLINES First Line: The day my mother stood in the kitchen Last Line: About how much debris time & distance %have kicked up into my eyes Variant Title(s): Clothesline Subject(s): Animals; Clothing And Dress; Family Life; Slaughterhouses LEAVING First Line: We all leave our countries with empty pockets Last Line: For all those about to leave, cross into emptiness LENIN'S PARK, HAVANA First Line: Built for tourism, mainly to show %how the revolution had triumphed Last Line: History, and the true meaning of what yearns to be free Variant Title(s): Lenin's Park, Havana, 196 LEO First Line: Owner of the kiosk in arroyo naranjo Last Line: Going back to leo's kiosk LILY First Line: Was our next-door neighbor on palm street Last Line: The condensation of my breath %like some screen against something cruel LIMINALITY First Line: The summer of the great floods %when my father worked as a gravedigger Last Line: Nobody wanting to let go [or, nobody wanted to let go of each other] LITTLE CAMBODIA, LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA, CIRCA 1984 First Line: Where I painted the outside of tenements Last Line: Still rising, blending the sweet aroma of the lost LUZ & BALMASEDA STREET CORNER GAMES First Line: There was quimbumbia where we placed one stick Last Line: For an only child, what better way to learn the meaning of fickle? Variant Title(s): Balmaseda & Luz Street Corner Game MALAISE First Line: Bad news knows no boundaries Last Line: From [or, for] which to survive such falls Subject(s): Survival; Winter MARIA TERESA First Line: Was a distant relative %in the family, who arrived Last Line: The idea of dying %her constant companion MATCH-MAKER First Line: Who can believe this hocus-pocus? Last Line: Fools all! How about that guy, the lonely one? MAZORRA Poem Text First Line: Before the days of shock treatment Subject(s): Havana, Cuba; Insanity; Madness; Mental Illness MERCADO-MADRID, 1972 First Line: Deep under the city, pass beggars Last Line: Who can forget the price of freedom? MIDDLE GROUND, OR EL CAMINO DEL MEDIO First Line: My father always spoke of what he had forgotten Last Line: Of middle, no in-between, no refuge, absence MISHIMA IN THE GARDEN OF DIURNAL DELIGHTS First Line: How sharp are the swords that cut the guitar? Last Line: Like a new razor-sharp language written on the skin MISTRANSLATION OF FIRE First Line: A cuban man, %fresh from the island, %lives with his mother Last Line: How good %he's done MONKEY STORY First Line: My father visited us in baton rouge one weekend, and while there, he told Last Line: Fall in havana, when my father was still young, young enough to live %through anything MR. WADE, TYPING TEACHER Poem Text First Line: At henry t. Gage junior high school Subject(s): Learning; Schools; Typewriters; Students MR. WADE, TYPING TEACHER First Line: At henry t. Gage junior high school Last Line: Each time wiser, stronger, ready for words to take flight Subject(s): Learning; Schools; Typewriters MUNCECA, HUNTINGTON PARK, NINETEEN EIGHTY SOMETHING First Line: It was during the summer olympics %in los angeles that my father met her Last Line: Not to let those seeds take root %in the darkness of my memory MY CUBAN PARENTS LEARN ENGLISH IN NIGHT SCHOOL First Line: To, two, too %there, their, they're Last Line: Crows the raven: %speak english MY PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER'S INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE WE LEFT CUBA First Line: If we flew, not to look at the clouds for too long, they spoke too Last Line: Gardenia flower, an open hand waving goodbye atop %her grave MYTH OF LAS FINCAS First Line: Whenever my father got together Last Line: Of my father's youth; that much was true MYTH OF THE FABULOUS SINKHOLE ISLAND First Line: The villagers speak of settlements on the hillsides Last Line: Like mercury, a flash of silver desire for all things drowned NEVER OUT OF ITS ASHES First Line: Here where kudzu chokes up in its own green bile Last Line: Taken down once and for all. Never allow this one fly again NEW TOOTHPASTE First Line: Showered, my wife stands at the sink %and brushes her teeth. I hear her Last Line: Reminds us all of how far we've traveled NIGHT TRAIN CALLED EL LECHERO First Line: My father rode it all over cuba when he foraged Last Line: Plead with the night's rain not to wash so much of their future away NOCTURNAL First Line: I tapped your window with a key. Last Line: So much longing, so much innocence NOSTALGIA First Line: Father's musky shirt %hung behind the bathroom door Last Line: And perhaps feel my breath against their faces, %against the ravages of forgetting OF COMETS, OF DREAM CATCHERS OF SHAPE-SHIFTING SHADOWS First Line: My father called a certain bright Last Line: Tugging at my hands, fingers, the way something you love pulls so ON THE ASSEMBLY LINE Poem Text First Line: Cousin irene worked in the cold of a warehouse Subject(s): Hands; Labor & Laborers; New Jersey; Work; Workers ON THE ASSEMBLY LINE First Line: Cousin irene worked in the cold of a warehouse Last Line: That have rooted her life to so much work and possibility Subject(s): Hands; Labor And Laborers; New Jersey ONEIDA First Line: My mother comes from the land of tropical fruit, %of red clay and the oxen cart Last Line: From the smoldering embers of this place, %in solitude, she's learned to call home PALM CROWS First Line: In hialeah where my mother lives her life Last Line: In this new home where palm crows rise again PAPALOTES/ KITES First Line: Next door to el volcan bodega %run by el chino chan, my father Last Line: Of chan's brother %and his wonderful kites PAPERMAKING RECIPE Poem Text First Line: When making the paper, never talk, good paper is made Last Line: When they reach the clouds the paper is done Subject(s): Paper PARABLE OF STONES First Line: Once the rock struck %between the eyes- I saw Last Line: Too heavy for both of us %to carry our entire lives PAUL VERLAINE VISITS LENIN'S PARK IN HAVANA, CUBA First Line: O great poet, if only your longing could conjure Last Line: Pomp and show. Indigo colors your dying days PENUMBRA First Line: The woman stands in front of the lime walls Last Line: In the waiting posture, lost, in a swollen hate %the chance of a re-encounter about to happen PIEDAD First Line: She named her only son, her only blood link Last Line: This life taken, a woman who cannot settle for much less PINKIES First Line: What they call baby mice or rats Last Line: 911 or shout encore POEM AFTER A SCENE FROM THE MOVIE SANTA SANGRE First Line: How the frantic and scared elephant plunges Last Line: A burst of ocher-mud-dust blooming ahead POEM AFTER FRANCIS BACON'S STUDY AFTER POPE INNOCENT X BY .... First Line: He sits there to ponder what he has just been told will be Last Line: He sits there turning slightly toward such dank, dark secrets POEM FOR JACK RIDL First Line: Toward the end of september Last Line: The breeze's rapture caught among pines POEM FOR MY UNCLE EMILIO, THE LAST HORSESHOW BLACKSMITH ..... First Line: Between the hammer and the anvil %and his hands, a crow with gnarled claws Last Line: This land behind his back, rising, greening Variant Title(s): Blacksmit POEM TO ELIADES OCHOA AND CUARTETO PATRIA'S RENDITION OF SALUDO... First Line: The oxen cart driven to the sugar cane fields Last Line: Tell you of how to find your way back now POP-UP REVOLUTION [OR, LA REVOLUCION Y LOS GUERILLEROS] First Line: On his boat granma, young and bearded, wearing his guerrillero Last Line: On the trigger, our eyes grew used to the dark, and we waited for %something to leap at us PORNOSOPHICAL First Line: Sure, the lure of flesh, %how it glistens here %in caribbean heat Last Line: They pick up a cowrie %or conch, hear screams POUND ENDS HIS WAY IN THE GARDEN OF ST. ELIZABETH'S ASYLUM First Line: He spent his mornings reciting the latin names Last Line: A blue mist befallen upon the singing of a solitary cricket POX First Line: The neighbors called it viruela, %for chicken pox. La china Last Line: The rubric of memory, %lexicon of pockmarked skin PRAYER First Line: My mother stands next to my father's bed Last Line: Like innocence, sees us through daily life PROFILING First Line: We keep an eye open, even in sleep Last Line: Burning, sinking into forgetful waters PROSPERO IN HAVANA First Line: Given to bouts of melancholia, the tempest-raiser Last Line: To be possessed, this alchemy of desire so far, so neat PROXIMITY First Line: Every november 21, I take my mother to the cemetery Last Line: Song of my father rising up through my mother's feet PSALM FOR THE BOY CARTOGRAPHER First Line: What is the secret of buoyancy? Lines? He craves Last Line: Like welcoming tentacles to guide her boy home PSALM OF ANDREI CODRESCU'S CLEANSING IN HAVANA First Line: Up on the roof of the solares, you remove your shirt Last Line: A harsh sun upon your skin, this white-flash of your arrival PSALM OF THE BITTER MAN First Line: You are eight. This is 1970. A world Last Line: I call it love for these lives we consume in exile QUATRAINS First Line: Most light fractures through the slats Last Line: Coiled on the leaf, a silhouetted question mark RECITATIVE AFTER REMBRANDT'S THE ANATOMY LESSON OF DR. TULP First Line: How the whiteness of flesh beckons the doctor's eyes averted Last Line: Hand, is too late; science has failed him, my father, as science fails us all RED CUBAN First Line: I once sat next to a colleague Last Line: Leaves a trail of red cloud, red words RED FLAGS OF MY EYES WHEN WILL YOU SURRENDER? First Line: It has been a month of wakes & funerals Last Line: And I feel myself let go, rise, plummet, rise again REHAB First Line: All skin & bones %my father is too thin Last Line: Hard to convince a man who's lost %his spirit to hang in there RELIC LEFT OVER FROM THE AFTERMATH OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION First Line: Or why communism didn't work, %it is plain, writes a cousin Last Line: To go, but look at our legs, %we are the envy of the world RICE HARVEST SONG First Line: So the story goes that the great chinese poet Last Line: Home again, each time a simpler task, a sad song RING First Line: My friend's father %liked his wedding Last Line: On oxen to make %them haul cane- %heavy carts, %en route to the mill RIVER FABLE Poem Text First Line: This is about a cuban boy who cuoldn't follow Last Line: About a cuban boy who can never go home Subject(s): Cuban Americans; Homesickness RURAL DEMOGRAPHY First Line: A young man and woman %came up the walk today Last Line: Then shouted: 'I had to do the same' SAIGON First Line: The morning we woke up in havana Last Line: One sigh and all could be blown to smithereens SAN LAZARO'S PROCESSION First Line: It started at dusk or early that morning Last Line: As a gift in the shrine of such yearning SAN LUIS, GARDENER OF MINIATURE ROSES First Line: God knows I've tried %to grow some here %in tallahassee, like yours Last Line: A love for the simple pleasures %we try desperately %to grow. Nourish SEAMSTRESS First Line: When she thinks of what is the one constant Last Line: Of a child about to be born in 1938, san pablo, cuba SELF PORTRAIT WITH CROSS First Line: What traces %does wood Last Line: Now, %right there %pulsing SHIRTS & SKINS First Line: In the school days of my childhood %the world seemed divided into these Last Line: & skins, those with power, those without %voiceless, not even memory could save us SIMPLY MONGO First Line: Hands of fire Last Line: Of your instruments%forever SKIFFS First Line: In the azure haze of old havana %harbor, on this side of regla, like teeth Last Line: In fitful sleep, billowed under netting, %castaways, buoyed like their past lives SLEET First Line: What was it like before the doctor got here? Last Line: No mother, no ring of saturn to catch as it floats SOAK First Line: My wife brings back a pound of lavender Last Line: Foolish phoenixes of ourselves, from suds to fire SONG FOR THE CUCUYO Poem Text First Line: Caught them at sundown in the tall grass Variant Title(s): Song To The Cucuyo Subject(s): Insects; Singing & Singers; Bugs SONG FOR THE CUCUYO First Line: Caught them at sundown in the tall grass Last Line: From havana to tallahassee, to light %the children's way home Variant Title(s): Song To The Cucuy Subject(s): Insects; Singing And Singers SONG FOR THE ROYAL PALMS OF MIAMI Poem Text First Line: Everywhere they stand, slightly bent Subject(s): Change; Memory; Trees; Wind SONG FOR THE SAGUARO First Line: Impressions tumble-weed -- first & always desrt Last Line: You can shoot all you want -- but I won't surrender Subject(s): Towns; West (u.s.) SONG IN PRAISE OF XANAX First Line: What inevitably begins as a tickle on the bottoms Last Line: This perilous journey home through darkness, storm, fire SONG ON THE END OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION First Line: On the day castro dies or flees %the zun zun hovers Last Line: There will be no better change in the world SONG TO CRYONICS First Line: ...Here the fingers, nails soft as moonglow, Last Line: Beacons to bring the memories of living home SONG TO MY DAUGHTERS First Line: Alex says she wants to go to san francisco: Last Line: Swallow the night with a yawn of silence SONG TO OXTAIL STEW First Line: My mother's mother, donatila, Last Line: Clanking against the sides of the black pot SONG TO THE BANYAN First Line: The wind frustrates itself, held Last Line: Any dirt it can call its own SONG TO THE BROKEN-DOWN TRACTOR First Line: For years it sat up on cinder blocks in the shade Last Line: Nothing could have stopped me SONG TO THE CARACOLES First Line: In the mornings of my cuban childhood, Last Line: A multitude in exodus, pleading their return home SONG TO THE COLOR ORANGE DREAMT BY THE ROYAL POINCIANA First Line: If you say 'sun' its buds unfold their leopard Last Line: Longs for deeper roots, this flash of setting sun SONG TO THE LIZARD First Line: Master of obfuscation Last Line: Traveler in this land of lost causes SONG TO THE MANGO First Line: For years while he lived in los angeles, Last Line: Avoidance, how even fruit too spoils %in foreign countries SONG TO THE OLD OAK First Line: Fine ants build colonies Last Line: Graceful in surrender %complete SONG TO THE PAPAYA First Line: They grew like giants in our backyard Last Line: At last, after years of absence and bitterness SONG TO THE PASSION FRUIT First Line: Every day at noon, when the noise Last Line: Gives up its life for the sake of the magical SONG TO THE SKINK First Line: For several seasons now since we've owned Last Line: Seems intent on giving all of us another chance SONG TO THE SUGAR CANE First Line: At publix today with my daughters %I spotted the green stalks of sugar cane Last Line: To love what you can't have all the time Variant Title(s): Song To The Sugarcan SPIRITUAL/ ESPIRITU First Line: I am reading the lines from a james dickey Last Line: Of all the great forest spirits here taking flight STAYER First Line: Simply, my uncle chicho stayed Last Line: Fills the emptiness with the meaning of stay STILL LIFE WITH MY FATHER'S KNIVES First Line: For all the years he worked as a pattern cutter Last Line: Thrower, a professional cutter too, a slicer of memories STUDY IN SHADOW First Line: In sepia, the stilted shadow of my father Last Line: Bent on the grass, greener with possibility SUNDAY OF SLAUGHTER First Line: I will never forget the veins on the goat's Last Line: Swirling in white and red drips SYMBIOTIC First Line: How does a deer go into the dark? %moving in the stillness of a foggy night Last Line: Of those roads in this land so many strangers, %after difficult crossings, have learned to call home TALLAHASSEE First Line: The cube is the cuban who learns to live Last Line: And his heart is the hollow gourd he fills daily with the memories %of fruit, trees, rivers-constant TEA LEAVES, CARACOLES, COFFEE BEANS First Line: My mother, who in those havana days believed in divination Last Line: Through life with a lightness of feet, spirit, a vapor-aura that could be read or %sung TELENOVELAS First Line: My mother's life in the united states %consists of watching the spanish soap Last Line: Present, she'd claim no past, no life here TEN VIEWS OF MY DAUGHTERS SWIMMING IN KEY BISCAYNE First Line: De agua soy, hacia el agua voy Last Line: Poseidon's proud daughters TERMITES First Line: My father brought their hives Last Line: Out of sacks by my father in havana TESTIMONIAL DEL AGUA First Line: Escucha the rush of water, like rain Last Line: Maker, she, I, the believer of broken rules THE ARK OF BONES Poem Text First Line: We can say the obvious here: we are a ship THE CUBAN IN VIETNAM Poem Text First Line: He sits in the dark of trees, hunched Subject(s): Cuba; Vietnam; War THE GREAT CHINESE POETS Poem Text First Line: Imagine tu fu and li po as they have come Last Line: Sucked down in its liquid mouth. Subject(s): Tu Fu (712-770); Li Po (701-762); Havana, Cuba THE HATCHERY Poem Text First Line: Once in havana as school children we took a field trip Variant Title(s): At The Hatchery Subject(s): Children; Memory; Schools; Childhood; Students THE MONKEY STORY Poem Text First Line: My father visited us in baton rouge one weekend Last Line: Young enough to live through anything Subject(s): Cuban Americans; Cuba; Monkeys THE SOVIET CIRCUS VISITS HAVANA, 1969 Poem Text First Line: They pitched tents on the grounds of lenin's park Last Line: Of those russian elephants, the lost rumbling of a man, his son Subject(s): Circus; Cuba; Russia; Soviet Union; Russians THOREAU'S GRAPHITE MAGIC First Line: Henry david invented the dust separator Last Line: With the power to turn graphite to dust TINOSA First Line: Blackbirds, scavengers, they existed in cuba Last Line: As if I'm holding on for dear life TIO HIPOLITO First Line: My mother's great uncle %who arrives from cuba Last Line: He's seen, for the miles his shoes %have traveled, grand beneath them TO THE CROW PICKING MUD SNAILS IN A RICE PADDY First Line: Like lead-darkened words Last Line: On its iridescent feathers TO THE ORDER OF NUNS WHO TRAVEL WITH THE CIRCUS First Line: My wife told me %about them Last Line: To dream of a red flower's bloom TOWARD THE RIVER First Line: A blast of trumpet Last Line: Of music, air, water-suena! TRACKS First Line: We didn't know when %the train passed %and left the sack Last Line: In people who waved %goodbye with both hands TRAIN RIDE FROM EL PASO TO LOS ANGELES First Line: Here where the snake coils itself %into the ground by the warm water Last Line: Through on its own ancient, petrified bones TRANSISTOR RADIO First Line: Far down the beach %the roller coaster rippled in the heat haze Last Line: In the tree fall waving %while the girls beside them shrieked the whole way down TROUBLE WITH FROGS First Line: It's irrational, I know, like the fear of flying %or high places Last Line: Like the past, %calling out, beckoning for the mind to leap TURBULENCE OF AERODYNAMICS First Line: Like a dog out in the yard, wet nose Last Line: It's all or nothing the wind says; I choose all TWO GREAT CHINESE POETS EXCHANGE TWO WORDS: 1. AQUI: SPANISH FOR HERE First Line: If tu fu were cuban, lived in exile in miami Last Line: Our course, vague and uncertain.' your friend or foe TWO GREAT CHINESE POETS EXCHANGE TWO WORDS: 2. ALLA, SPANISH FOR OVER First Line: Li po quotes from cuba's martyr jose marti Last Line: Here. Aqui. Alla. Two words to bridge the gap UNCLE ISIDORO First Line: Not really my uncle %but my mother's second cousin Last Line: Stirred awake & called out %isidoro's name UPON A DREAMY HOT NIGHT IN TALLAHASSEE I GET UP FOR A COLD GLASS First Line: In all the finality of autumn %you gather the hems of your Last Line: How they spell out a way home, %through exile's fires, through love UPON SEEING SIR LAURENCE OLIVER'S HAMLET, DONA INEZ HAS A ....... First Line: The way he wears his tights, walks across the stage Last Line: A middle-aged woman in love with such tragedy URCHINS First Line: In the havana of my childhood, when I was six Last Line: Burn because I understand what it means to be away from water VERTICAL OR HOW HALVED GOURDS GLAZED WITH RAIN WATER REFLECT ATOMIC... Poem Text First Line: It's one of those blistering desert days Subject(s): Nuclear War; Soldiers; War; Atomic Bomb; Hydrogen Bomb VIEW FROM A COURTYARD WINDOW, CALABAZAR, HAVANA First Line: The guayaba tree grew gnarled, remembering the way Last Line: Black memories, like golden dust, settling now after a long rain VIEWS OF A BROKEN MAXIMUM LEADER, OR NO ABSOLUTION IN HISTORY First Line: Looks down the barrel of a soviet-made rifle Last Line: No way for history to absolve you? No way WAKE First Line: The day somebody died in the neighborhood Last Line: Into a bright and beautiful rose which contained %all this nervous adult laughter of the living WAREHOUSE WORK Poem Text First Line: When I turned fourteen, my father said Last Line: Work means will carry me through, us, them Subject(s): Fathers & Sons; Labor & Laborers WATER TESTIMONIAL First Line: Salt stings the back of the throat Last Line: In its wake, surges on, ebbs, pulls WHAT IS THE POET LEFT? First Line: God? The river? Last Line: All that came after, %swallowed WHAT LI PO WOULD HAVE SAID OF JACKIE CHAN MOVIES First Line: He moves lotus-flower smooth, a silken flash Last Line: Of swift kicks. A smile like a blue setting sun WHAT MAKES THE HOSPITAL CUBAN First Line: The patients are tired Last Line: Of patients longing %for what cannot be Subject(s): Hospitals WHAT WE TOOK First Line: When we left havana %in december of 1970 Last Line: Of our difficult, dark passage %like badges of our exiled lives WHEN THE GREAT CHINESE PAPERMAKERS CAME TO CUBA, GREAT POETS FOLLOWED Poem Text First Line: Because of the great stillness, a silence so deep it made the pink carp Last Line: Surfaces, this heavenly paperupon which to write a firest, lasting word Subject(s): China; Cuba; Paper; Poetry & Poets WHILE WATCHING IRON CHEFS FROM JAPAN ON THE FOOD NETWORK, I THINK .. First Line: The way these incredibly fast chefs chop Last Line: Rises in the throat like an impeding river flood WHITE WALL First Line: Somehow the crow snuck in, its caws echo Last Line: A white wall--not merely enough suffices in the end WIND CHIME First Line: Because my bones will not be bitter Last Line: They will turn toward moonlight and sing WIND RUSTLES First Line: The dead leaves %cross the lawn Last Line: Sifts anew %everything WRIGLEY'S First Line: Inside letters %to me, papito, %from my aunt Last Line: Like a new %promise %from america YES, CUBANS FOUGHT ON BOTH SIDES OF THE VIETNAM WAR Poem Text First Line: From the post-revolution island (as military Subject(s): Cuba; Soldiers ZAPPER First Line: To spare our daughter any emotional %damage or hardship, my wife and I Last Line: A mound of insects sacrificed %during the wake of our re-union |
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