I am far from Egypt sitting in a North African Moroccan living room, from some neighboring window pours chaabi music within another stream I hear the gimba bass guitar of gnawa music, mixing with the shriek of kids playing cora (soccer) out on the street. I’ve always wanted to go see the pyramids ever since I had knowledge of them; I have had to imagine them instead. In the Giza Plateau stands these pyramids, no one knows when they were constructed or even who did them and for what, why? Tombs for Pharaohs? No mummies found there. The pyramids must be instruments for the ether to play, funnels to create a sound, something invisible divisible flowing from way high beyond the moon beaming onto the earth, penetrating humans, deep organs and glands tickle nerves darkest interiors of creature bodies. Egypt was Africa’s Mediterranean port, brown, yellow-white ginger tans, and a base of chocolate skin population. Nubians, Sudanese, the Middle East must’ve poured into Egypt the same way Latinos of Central America rain into North America today. The Yemens, Greeks, Turks, the hodgepodge of Middle East all in reach gravitated toward Egypt. Why not? The women in Egypt were beautiful. The beer was good. The social civic lifestyle more organized; employment, more security. Sounds familiar. History is like the Clave of Afro-Cuban music, infinite repetition; the clave originates in sub-Saharan African traditional music and dance. It is a time pattern, there are variations on the patterns, the most popular is the son montuno clave 3-2, it is the basis of today’s Salsa music. All of Africa had influence from this root civilization of mankind: Egypt. The Dogon of Mali were founded by Egyptian priests, they carried with them the knowledge of science and cosmology. We could say religion was science, based on the practicality of natural forces. The position of stars and the certainty that everything is in rotation, is the heart pumping or is the blood rotating. Rivers flowing. The Astro Beings came out of the water, the Sumerians same boogaloo, the Incas speak of Viracocha jumping out of Lake Titicaca. The Egyptians were in tune with the glands and joints, what they call in India the Chakras. In certain Afrocentric circles there is concern about the color of the flesh of the ancient Egyptians, supposing them wearing skin as we know it, or were early on still ethereal, humid, vapor, or as the maestros that jumped out of the water half fish to bring them the light of knowledge. Maybe their skin was gray with fish scales. Did the Sumerians create writing first and it moved quickly through the Mediterranean? Humanity is so many questions without answers. Africans they were no matter the color they had. With chimes, flutes, cymbals, drums they danced, as people do the whole globe. Africa supposedly Latin/Portuguese word, the Bantus had another name, whoever the Bantu were, if not from Africa Whence? Kemo/Kemet exploded in the center and broadcast the Bantu, Bushmen scattering, those that pushed north became the Berbers, so many eons of years that passed all human types developed. But were the Iberians the Berbers and the Spanish peninsula or the Middle East part of Africa? Did it include elements of Celtic-Iberian? Thus the Gaelic Irish whom/what language spoke them. Some scholars have confirmed that when the Celts got to Ireland they found Berber North Africans there, or Spanish Iberians? Or blue people, Turquoise blond, black Tuareg people all invented by the Mother of the Tomatoes. The beauty of art, the jewelry, the clothing of the Egyptians cannot be denied, anyone with an ounce of aesthetic sense can see the advance culture that developed in North Africa. What was in that instance that we feel is not in any now contemporary moment, we are within the same ether, our glands and organs, body parts alike, are we not the same of that then here within this now. Pull ourselves back and bring them toward our nose, our hands painting the ojo of Horus with deep blue brush strokes. These were Africans the most essential truth. That is sufficient. White Berbers in Egypt were also Pharaohs. Color is irrelevant. What matters is the culture, the rhythm, the psychology, that is what the Caribbean continues to manifest, variety, wave after wave of our coasts. Such I feel was Egypt. It must’ve been a Santurce type of mestizaje. Yet the thought of Egypt disappears, breaks the frame of the mind. Where could we put the vanished time when the thought of space crumbles out: Stars.
Sopdet
The star is Sirius in the sky
night so bright
behind the sun
another sun,
a moon pebble weighs
more than the universe
a dance of couples
listen flute sound
Caracol
swaying, her lapis lazuli skirt earth
Hazelnut flesh in bright
light night.
Wrapped around
the scarf of my mother,
My father’s word wind,
the philosophy of his proverbs,
planning direction of migration,
consulting the Bible,
It was the same everywhere
else space between rotating planets,
Babies born red with that
bluish stain above the splits
of the therma.
Traveling must’ve been
Dream body sunken in water
through eons of air,
Pasted somewhere
like you yucca starch
finalmente slam into stone,
clay scriptures caligrafic curves,
Horizon above sand continent
breath of mammals
approximates the limestone cave
electric swifts
Sound hints at matter,
formation blue rhythms
hear orange the sun falling,
listen to the twinkle bells
metal castanets
necklace of the sun
dancing around her ankle,
her face absorbed within
the black liquid of the night.
The pyramids are instruments
A penmanship upon limestone
trumpets, flutes of
medicine sound
curatives of colors,
seeing the turquoise stone
in the eyes of Isis.
Seeing the night
Maria in the sky
like light of day
upon black ether shines
Origin Egyptians/Ethiopios
below
blackness Gray fish skin texture
out of the sea into the day
And back at night sea sleep,
the first pharaohs divine
of Astro origin, feminine
feline
as Maser-Africa
was in the stars, the constellations
First whiffs of consciousness
were steps ballet with Osiris
Dancing
now mammals, mamaos,
breath hard for the
aspiring lungs.
Where was before
before it became,
was it hence,
backwards not even for impulse
desire for copulation
toward, prior desire.
If there was no
patterns to follow
moving the vessel through
infinite uncharted oceans,
more Isis sky the night
star twinkle.
Discover the instrument,
the Sphinx a head
older than the wind,
the triangles
just sound,
jazz create.
Was it the after of
a previous before,
to know we must
discover the imagination
of a lizard,
Eyes the total skin
radar for light,
(in a mountain house
tropical Puerto Rico
I lived with two green lizards,
became one with them,
a wall I had painted a bright
yellow tinge of gold
they never cruised through this
surface, por qué, elesh, why,
some realization inside cold blood,
occasions I tried to interview them,
to saber
wanted one day to to
uch
one as in a caress and it stood
still in anticipation/till whisking
nervously away off.
Yet it almost happened
it jumped toward the plantain
plant, guineos hanging like
birthing fingers a second
an instant before)
Was there a dinosaur jinn breathing
moisture near the passion fruit
trees,
lengua scribbles distortions
too velocity to capture.
A book of Egyptian myths in
my other hand
as I failed at my reptilian caress,
Osiris was with me
Isis
Who went after his offspring
raised the babies
of his puto urges.
Orgasmus of who whats.
Who-are.
The sky is the skirt of Maria
covering the naguas
Of Magdalena,
such is what is the star Sirius
hiding the other star
behind it
Though Eyes see upside down
everything looks fine backwards,
ophthalmologist thus spoke
I am looking forward to knowing
nothing,
Time exploded is the thought
of Egypt Maser
If it is coming
through the northern Mediterranean
the beam of Osiris
is flooding my living room
my fingers dance
with the Mama drums tumba
the gnawa gimba bass guitar
shukran to Aknathan
Singular of creation
Único Dios
sunken in poly-rhythms
Can dance
To echoes
A memory I can future
It is light lit like a
Star, nishma upon
the sacred mood.
Luz, Image
The cave is translation of the mountain
The pouch within, outside in.
Limestone walls scattered into green bush.
Babel: Allah.
MÚCARO.
GATOS
Everything upside down
Hanging
Solar Vegetable.
Resign:
Swallow light.
Tobacco-Guayaba y Café
Tobacco was used ceremoniously and leisurely in moments of relaxation by our Taino ancestors. Swinging hammock vision toward guayaba bushels adjacent spread of pineapples ass upwards toward the breeze. The aroma of the smoke carried prayers to Yukiyú, the creator; a wave of tobacco smoke enhances the path of communication. I was born in a tobacco town into a family immersed in the leaf. My mother’s first job was accompanying Tina, her mother, to the big structure opposite the public plaza where the women took the large stem (palillo) off from the center of the leaf to create two halves, preparing the green leaf for the tobacconists. They called it despalillando tobacco. My mother’s father Julio El Bohemio was a tabaquero; he rolled the cigars which in many of the Caribbean countries had become a labor akin to an artisan. It was more contemplative work, relaxed compared to other occupations in agriculture such as coffee picking or cutting cane, which are physically demanding. The tabaqueros as such were more serene in their task and persona. More cultured. Perhaps for this reason they had a reader come to lecture to them the newspapers, certain novels of the Spanish Época de Oro if not to recite poetry while they worked. My other grandmother on my father’s side was Alejandrina, for short they would call her Lea, truly she had one of those Andalusian names which are abundant throughout Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo. Soriada (in Arabic Soraya) Rebecca, Sonia, on and on. Lila, Layla, Lily, Lillian. Abuela Lea smoked and chewed tobacco. It was the Tobacco Criollo, the same one that Columbus’s messengers saw the natives smoking in Cuba. I still have the memory of my abuela squatting smoking a cigar by a door in a place she had in Caguas. One of the last times we were together, she made me Goat Stew with white rice with a big slice of Avocado on top, the ones they say are like butter. I once tried some of her chewing tobacco while on an errand to pick some up at a local Aguas Buenas cafetín colmado, a drinking and dominoes hole known as Don Moncho’s Cafetín, before getting back to her I cut off a piece and chewed some, nasty first thought, then dizzy wow am I going to vomit—faint next realization, bumping against walls as I got back to her sister Chencha’s house where she was visiting. I drank water immediately she and Chencha chewed it all so smooth. My grandmother lived to be 86, another sister of hers called Chana lived to be 102, that clan lives long. They all smoked and chewed tobacco as the Taino spirit situation which they were in. They were frozen in that time frame.
My mother always made coffee at 3 p.m, it is an island ritual “el café de las tres”; she maintained this habit throughout our exile in New York, many years almost thirty. It was for me a great opportunity to sit with her and gossip. I would go down by the plaza to the panadería to get bread, some white cheese, or pastelillos de guayaba, perhaps besitos de coco. During this café ceremony we talked about everything, I used to like her to tell me about the town in the 30s and 40s, what has changed, what structures were there. It was during one of those coffee sessions that she told me how her mother used to take her to work despalillando tobacco down by the plaza. She told me about a Casino that was directly across the street from the tobacco place, how the popular music dance orquestas popular in those days would be brought in to form big dances, the jíbaras up in the mountains had to escape, make stories up to be able to go, mother gave me the details, she knew girls that had to cross rivers with their shoes in one hand the other hand lifting their pretty dresses, some girls made it to the edge of town and got upon huge horses till they got close enough to walk the rest of the way toward the rhythms. Café they say comes from Africa, that a shepherd from Yemen was in Ethiopia tending to some goats and saw them jumping and come alive after eating the greeny-red-orangy beans. He dealt with the issue till he extracted the juice, but it could be totally a different matter, could there have been Café in some of the past lost civilizations. Or in an Egypt lost to the tinieblas of time. I just know that my mother brought me up on fine coffee, even giving me a light mostly milk glass when I was but a boy. She used to use a colador, a filter which looked like a white sock which eventually darkened with use, the process was to boil the coffee grains in a pot of hot water and then pass it through the filter into a cafe tera from which she could eventually pour it into the boiling milk, she always allowed the milk to rise which made the milk foamy. Coffee got us through many New York City snowstorms. Mami’s favorite fruit was la guayaba, science tells us birth of the guayaba was across the water in the Amazona regions or within a region south of Mexico through Central America, quickly it made it to all Caribbean islands, way before the Latin patriarchal intrusion, I just know my instincts tell me that there is some fine bushels on a road toward Sumidero, a mountain barrio. She loved the guayaba paste, sweet beyond imagination, it is a sin no good for anyone no good for her diabetes, but we loved it, with crackers and white cheese forget about it. Oblivion.
Son las Tres del Café
Picture the aroma
memory before birth,
windows wooden boards
tranca
pushed out into the
sky of blue,
below the wood of the
floor slits
chickens squabble
bark dogs,
determination,
aroma
before sight to see/saw
in a somewhere imagined
before became, an air
gone shows stays
a picture eternal
past eating
vecinity
the next stop for the wind
is the river Guaraguao,
it carries with it
the
tobacco dust lifted from
the worker’s hands rolling
procedure,
add tint of café
and guayaba paste slices
cheese blanc
knife piercing
sweet jelly
the flavor tongue pores
suffocate,
motion vapors pronto
toward the cows
mesmerized by the terrain.
Road seeks the mountains
evaporate dancing into roble and caoba
trees. Night smoke stars.
Vanish, Lucifer appears
Amanece.
No more colador
now we Greca
Italian style espresso objective,
ground packed down
poignant accent speaks.
Café helps eye grab colors
nostrils open fill with morning
flower scents
Sol
ears wide acute to música
first drums, guitar and maraca shakes,
Caffeine haze the years
anxiety
rolls bottom of the ocean
Once again thank Africa
for café and homo erectus beings,
medicine beverage
encourages male pingola
stamina vigorón,
aid to reading, to the art
of looking at girls/women
who chance by street
Afternoon Café
as writing in the curves
of Egyptian hieroglyphs—
blossoming
in lizard green
notebook/Red Ink.
Chocolate
In Spanish or English Chocolate is the wind of Quetzalcoatl, the scent flavor of La Virgin Guadalupeña. Montezuma served a pure gold tass of Cacao liquid to Hernán Cortés, holding that gold sun in his hands full of choco, he realized and reaffirmed his conquering plans; after all, as he swallowed in amazement, where could this richness come from. The Aztec leader walking upon floors of jade, young wife’s coming out of rooms ankles wrapped with turquoise bracelets hanging papagayo feathers, musicians’ flutes songs like birds in chorus perfuming the air. Chocolate always brings me back to La Rondalla Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco’s Mission District where once Californow time I tasted a taza of Mexican hot chocolate for the first time, it had cinnamon toning a ranchera tune within. The Olmecs in the dim of time prepared it with spices and chili peppers. Choco made it to Europe as did the tomato to liven up the Euro panorama (Roma-Italian what would it be without the tomato sauce) the Spanish the English is full of Nahuatl words, borrowed/Stolen. Bon apétit. History. What it does, who lives it, who writes it? What do we remember? Interpret. Chocolate modified, doctored, made less bitter addition of milk, come sugar. Milk Choco. Yet that something that is the center, what grabs at the taste glands is its native eternity, thus I am Taino resurrected each time I savor choco. I am Mayanized, Aztecolized. Mementos of California, recall the poetry of José Montoya and his Royal Chicano Air Force, they were Mexican astronauts poets who mixed the text with the folk loom of song, ranchera, balada, in the suburbs of American English or the center for those outside within.