Havana, I arrive
in the sweaty thickness of July
caliente y picante
steamy sidewalks, steamy women
chocolate brown, tan and
black against the lemon-yellow walls
strolling through La Plaza de Armas
slurping thick café through weathered lips
in La Plaza de Francisco de Asis
dancing on the pregnant gray stones in La Plaza Vieja
timba, rumba, salsa and son
Cristo, Maria, Yemaya and Obatalá

Havana, I arrive
in the intoxication of your breath
between the acrid fumes
of insecticides and 1957 Chevy's
stepping past the dark grime of your slums
streets plush with tight round bodies
beautiful and sensuously swaying

I arrive snaking past the converted palaces
con las turistas ricos
and the buy-me-a-dress-and-a-ring ******
with their enchanting full-tooth smiles
and undulating earthquake-tremor hips
I hear your beat
the machine-gun laughter of your feet
on the hot cobblestones
with the jinateros and street musicians
chants of Santería drifting from pane-less windows
 
Havana, I smell your heat
under salty faded sheets
smell the long, tobacco-stained nights
with your hips swaying
to the pale drops of ***
spilt from red lips
and the red drops of blood
spilt from your revolutionaries
spilt from the gorging of Machado and Baptista
and 500 years of foreign dominion

In Paseo de Marti
banners of Che Guevara
flapping in the moist tear-laden breeze
Fidel, cigar in hand
tirelessly raging in black and white
on a Russian 1960's TV

Cuba, I can see the green in your eyes
the peeling-paint bedroom dreams and
dirt-poor joy of your richness
laughing out the despair and desperation
dancing out the oppression and the paucity
the aching of your past
the battles of Castillo De Los Tres Santos
of  the revolution
of living
and as I stand on the steps of El Capitolio
looking out at the decaying grandeur
I understand why
I will be back

Zu Twa Szi

(Don't Mind Me I'm Just The Wind   - African saying)

Don't mind me
I'm just the wind
You can scream into me if you want
I'll just toss the sound around
until it wallows into melody

You can dry tears by me if you need
I'll just carry their saltiness back to the sea
You can try to keep me from your skin
with all the skill of a master builder
But I'll search out every opening there is
and rub against all your privacy
without a second thought

I have no manners
or morals
or modesty
or inhibitions
or judgments

I won't reveal your whispers
I'll dissolve them
I won't discuss your secret doings
I'll scatter them
 
I won't scorn your libidinous thoughts
I'll caress them
If you rail against me
or try to beat me with your fists
I'll just part like the Red Sea
and move to both sides
of where your fists have been

You can spit at me when you're angry
I'll just spray it back in your face
You see I'm just the wind

I don't hold your happiness when you laugh
Or your loneliness when you cry
I don't hold your anger when you scream

I'm just the wind, a traveler
With no baggage or destination
With nothing to see
and nowhere to be seen

Seemingly nothing

You are the absence of space
that merely hinders
my journey

I pour you a cup of tea

It drops
on the ground
quickly

I pour you another cup

it flows
over
the side

I tell you

get a new cup

or burn your hand
and stay thirsty

I was lost in the Bermuda triangle
It was like Egypt in a sea of flesh
the great pyramid
******* in all surrounding life
A tilted triangle I thought
circumscribed around your hunger
but you knew my weakness
Told me it was a fig
fresh
succulent
sweet
so I bit into its sweetness
leaving my smile on your thighs
Told me it was a grapefruit
You were right
I bent down and tasted it
pink
juicy
kind of sweet
kind of ****
I ate every section
lingering
around the center
with my tongue
There were tremors in your skin
as I swallowed your body
as you swallowed my hardness
as your body
swallowed the milk of my trembling
I came to Egypt
I came in the great pyramid
between sky and sand
The Pharaohs were waiting for us
You were waiting for me
I visited the pyramids in Mexico
and was jungled in
like green-iguana-slowness
like Asian fever
sweet and sweaty
swollen like an anaconda
moving in and out
digesting the heat of a fresh ****
In Sudan, the Saharan winds
shatter the pyramids into pieces
I lick their dryness like a cat its fur
let the heat burn my bowels
Now there are tremors on my skin
I exhale breath of wet fire into your lips
and rain down upon your body
like night crashing into the surf
like sweat pouring into the sea
like sand screaming into the wind
I even became the wind
so as to enter every part of your smoothness
slipping past even your seditious skin
The wind has no mercy

We draw shapes in the morning light
with our naked bodies
while only the birds cover us
with their fluttering wings
made of the down
of your brown belly
I tasted that too
like Indian velvet
like a Bahian feast of papayas
maracaja and guarana
Da danca do mar
In Brazil the sensuous sun seeps
into the scorched sand where our form was
and cuts through the hot flesh of the earth

To the center
where all desire has fused
has seeped through the surface

To the center
where my mouth burns from wanting

To the center
where your wetness burns my tongue

To the center
Your center

I
Will
Return

lives burn bright
and die out

some are remembered
and some forgotten

each light is precious and unique
in the end which lights are remembered is
insignificant

Ring your arms
Around my neck
And call me
“dead”
Because that
Is what I am.
Pain is love, like a
Room full of broken
Mirrors
Single mirror stands
Reflecting what is
True.