Then the dancers moved to the Corso Club on 86th St. and over to the Colgate Gardens, that eventually became the Cheetah Club. Simultaneously with the Palladium, there was the old El Club Caborrojeño, the Happy Hills Casino, and the Park Palace in Spanish Harlem. But nothing compared with the nuclear adrenaline of the Palladium. In New York the Afro-American and Puerto Rican communities were one big dance party of the generations. It eventually continued with doo-wop and into Hip-Hop right out of the Afro-American-Rican Bronx. Afro Latino harvest dance of the imagination. With Ray Barretto I too sing, “¡Que Viva la Música!” Baila conmigo. Dance with me Mambo At:
La Pachanga
To the memory of Pedro “Cuban Pete” Aguilar
Fandango, Waltz, Contradense,
Mapeyé,
Was the mountain
Nothing was excluded
No one sat down.
Marineros naves
Anchors deep in the sand.
They practice vocabulary
And they taught nasty words
Within novo tropic nights,
While tongues filled
With succulent pineapple,
Calabaza bowl of stew iguana
Cassava bread
Trapped in back molars
Nothing left
But to precipice down throat
In the oven ferment into shit
New innovation compost
Intercontinental manure
Spilling original bowels.
Tonight is the “Jarana”
En casa de Juja
Por la carretera toward
The mamey trees.
After Caguitas
Rise levels of trees,
Of mountain goats,
Horses charros
Road of Yucatán
Potros arrive Jarana
And paso fino a la Waltz.
Mexicanao strut
Chili foot tongue
Heel-toe toe heel
Head side to side
Spin
Left right electric
Skirts circle waves
Chili of desire
What’s more Danzón than
Veracruz
Caramel draped in white gauze
Lobsters hidden under
The skirts
Yuca invites sea swells
The palm trees droop
As if bowing
Under the half moon,
Guitars corner of Dolores
Avenue of Pain,
Jump into the dance
Drums push you
What choice does one have?
Life is hunger, desire,
Licking verbs,
Somehow you heard the call of flesh,
Stomp away the Joropo,
Colombia y Venezuela
Joropo dancers leg scramble
Foot stomping as if
Shaking off roaches,
A pushing a shoving,
In the spin mozorbete
Hands all over the biscocho,
Mestizas of skinny legs
Carrying mountain buttocks,
Swishing
Mouths of sweet Chiclets,
Later zarapes thrown near
Guayaba bushels
Puzzling the saltine sweet sabor
Mexico
Birth of the nation
Forward Jarabe Tapatío
Guadalajara plazas of smoke
Asian eyes of la China Poblana
Sass of youth breast still pointed
Lift through the peasant blouse,
The fibers of the zarape
Fire might as well be.
Suffer the retina pain
Next day chopped up
Gathering splinters
Recuperate with goat soup
Tortillas maíz
Jalapeño awareness.
Gentleman in Puerto Rico
Wanting to be more Spanish
Than an olive
Swore Grandparents danced
La Jota,
Which fact is that it is of Moorish
Origin
Thus Jota on Jotos
The more you go
The more you come back.
Mapeyé-like a rush
Jíbaro mountains
People dance like chickens
And like guineas the chicken
Ave from Africa
It chirps squabbles and
Runs in a nervous jitter.
The Pachanga starts
At the first güiro scratch
And doesn’t stop till people faint
Marías Carmens Nildas
Of Nadias
Have been known to jump
Out of windows
Already dancing through
The infinite air of
Either ether or ether eit.
Gone. Scrambling
Towards la pachanga,
Towards la chingada
Se las llevo la fregada
The washing has taken them,
The clave put them in the whirlpool,
It don’t stop till there are children
Born
And it all repeats:
Tun tun tun tún
Tun tun tun tún
Tun tun tun tún.
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Also by Victor Hernández Cruz
In the Shadow of Al-Andalus
Maraca
The Mountain in the Sea
Panoramas
Red Beans
Beneath the Spanish was typeset by
Bookmobile Design & Digital Publisher Services.
Text is set in Sabon.