H
e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n G i n s
b e r g
N
a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i
v e s E d i t i o n
RON RODRIGUEZ
Mulatta of the Antilles
––by Luis
Pales Matos
In you now mulatta,
I receive the warm sea of the Antilles,
Sensual and slow water of molasses,
Port of sugar, hot bay,
With the sunlight resting
Gilding the clean waves,
And the sleepy buzzing of the crowds
That thickens the traffic on the shore.
In you now mulatta,
I cross the sea of the islands.
Small electric currents
In your curves are lengthened and curled up,
Meanwhile over my boat the pensive night
Keeps falling from your eyes.
In you now mulatta…
Oh to wake up gloriously in the Antilles!
Wild color that reaches my chest,
Red music fills me with happiness,
And hot aromatic chants
-Lime-tobacco, pineapple-
Numbing the senses
Your intoxicated voices of delight.
You are now, mulatta,
Everything of the land and the sea of my
islands.
A symphony of fruit, whose scales
Furiously break in your melodies.
Behold here, the custard apple in its green
dress
With its fine and bland pantaloons
Of muslin; behold here
the star apple
With its infantile milk, behold here the
pineapple
With its soprano crown… All
The fruits. Oh mulatta!
You offer me
In the clear bay of your body
By the suns of the tropical burnish.
(Translation by Ron Rodriguez)
Mulatta of the Antilles
––by Luis
Pales Matos
Under your command, the plantain and the
coconut,
That appoints your golden artillery
The transient ship that leaves us
Its blond contraband of tourists.
In a wild horse of a hurricane you go on singing
Your Creole song, dark valkirie,
With flickering spur of lightning bolts
I ride the green Valhalla of the islands.
You are immensely free and without limitations,
You are love without shackles and without
hurries;
In your womb my two races conjugate
Your vital expansive potencies.
Love, torrid love of the mulatta,
Cock of rum, melted sugar,
Coconut shell kissed through the marrow,
With the essence of sandalwood and myrrh.
With voices of the Chanter of Chanters,
You are dark because the sun looks at you.
Below your tongue there is milk and honey
And ointment spilled on your pupils.
Like the tower of David, your neck,
And your breasts like twin musk deer.
Flower of Saron y lily
of the valleys,
Mare of Faraon, Oh Salamita!
Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico,
Foggy and sensual land of mine.
Oh the hot rums of Jamaica!
Oh fierce gumbo of Martinique!
Oh fermented night of Haitian
Drums impenetrable and vuduistic!
Dominica, Tortola, Guadalupe,
Antilles, my Antilles!
(Translation by Ron Rodriguez)
[Originally
published in NHS 2009, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs09/Ron_Rodriguez.htm.]