If you really want to give yourself insanity do a new
and selected of poetry you have written
over 40 years, which I did.
And I am slightly insane.
However, since there are Puerto Ricans in the room.
I don't know.
I see him there.
OK.
"Spanish Lesson."
This is from way--
I was two.
Well maybe, four or five but anyway.
All right, so I came to New York City.
I ain't never met no Puerto Ricans.
I didn't even know there were islands.
All right?
Hey I'm from Arkansas.
Jamaica was like, Jamaica, you know
like the movies about whatever.
So I came to New York City and I discovered many different kinds
of Black people.
OK.
And other kinds of people too.
But anyway, "Spanish Lesson."
Hey, I had fun, OK.
You can tell, I went to dance clubs.
I was terrible.
But anyway, that's all right.
La negra, term of endearment.
El blanco, dream of riches.
One woman, una mujer, one man, un hombre.
Tongues that began to taste like tense geography.
La Bamba est la danca divine de los Africanos.
White shoes ice the city dance floor.
Sharp that old pencil thin mustache dream is dead.
Because salsa es caliente, suave and the men
want brass to blast away the crumbling buildings, the dope,
the young dead carried away with candles glowing.
Las chicas dulces trabajan the garment district,
cursing when necessary.
The others damned in the push and pull.
Forgive the old pirate his coffers of rum.
The ingles got more than they bargained
for, the city pulsating from borough to borough con rhythms
necessarios.
Las mujer es lindas bochinche on 14th Street,
about the one with his tongue hanging out.
While Hector Lavoy lured the ladies with a real or promises
made sweeter by his yo no sé, yo no sé.
Outlaw African breezes perfume the shining dance force,
speaking this language never sanctioned in the New World.
Libations poured from old pirate stock.
Please the ancestors here in North America,
where Carmen Miranda and her mulatto progeny sashay
de stuff across Hollywood camera eye,
like comets christening the tropics.
Sí, cómo no?