Anna+Iglesias

Thoughts in a Zoo  BY COUNTEE CULLEN

They in their cruel traps, and we in ours, Survey each other’s rage, and pass the hours Commiserating each the other’s woe, To mitigate his own pain’s fiery glow. Man could but little proffer in exchange Save that his cages have a larger range. That lion with his lordly, untamed heart Has in some man his human counterpart, Some lofty soul in dreams and visions wrapped, But in the stifling flesh securely trapped. Gaunt eagle whose raw pinions stain the bars That prison you, so men cry for the stars! Some delve down like the mole far underground, (Their nature is to burrow, not to bound), Some, like the snake, with changeless slothful eye, Stir not, but sleep and smoulder where they lie. Who is most wretched, these caged ones, or we, Caught in a vastness beyond our sight to see?


 * My Papa’s Waltz**

The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy; but I hung on like death, such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf; my mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle; at every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt, then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt.

Two Guitars  BY VICTOR HERNÁNDEZ CRUZ

Two guitars were left in a room all alone They sat on different corners of the parlor In this solitude they started talking to each other My strings are tight and full of tears The man who plays me has no heart I have seen it leave out of his mouth I have seen it melt out of his eyes It dives into the pores of the earth When they squeeze me tight I bring Down the angels who live off the chorus The trios singing loosen organs With melodious screwdrivers Sentiment comes off the hinges Because a song is a mountain put into Words and landscape is the feeling that Enters something so big in the harmony We are always in danger of blowing up With passion The other guitar: In 1944 New York When the Trio Los Panchos started With Mexican & Puerto Rican birds I am the one that one of them held Tight like a woman Their throats gardenia gardens An airport for dreams I've been in theaters and cabarets I played in an apartment on 102nd street After a baptism pregnant with women The men flirted and were offered Chicken soup Echoes came out of hallways as if from caves //Someone is opening the door now// The two guitars hushed and there was a Resonance in the air like what is left by The last chord of a bolero.