Tonight I rise from my place at the desk
and pull myself smooth and tall. Tonight.
I dance to your song, Omara Portuondo,
let my bare toes drag across the floor. Tonight
the tune that you are singing I know
all too well in my bones, too well. Tonight,
a mambo pours from the stereo tat-tat-tat—
I raise my hands to try to snatch it…. Tonight!
I forget myself in the round arms of a song,
close my eyes as the horns roll across
and under una voz muy sabrosa. Tonight—
I sway back, forth, my fingers wrapped
around air. The room is too full tonight
with the song and the drums and the moon
and me and you, Omara Portuondo. ¿Quien canta,
su mal espanta, no? And tonight,
tonight—
your mambo stirs high the dust at my feet.
Translation note: una voz muy sabrosa
(your flavorful voice)
¿Quien canta, su mal espanta, no?
(When you sing, you drive away your sorrow, no?)
This question is an idiom in Spanish that I folded into the poem. I wish I had come up with this myself, but it’s typical of the musicality of an idea in Spanish. Love that.
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Absolutely loverly, tat-tat-tat!
Thank you! Tat-tat-tat!
this was my favorite part of it:
“let my bare toes drag across the floor”, or
“I forget myself in the round arms of a song”, or
“I sway back, forth, my fingers wrapped around air”, or
“your mambo stirs high the dust at my feet”, and of course
¿Quien canta, su mal espanta, no?
very beautifully written, with so many images that transport us to another place, where the rhythms are the only thing, and we watch, as you disappear into the music
which, of course, makes me ask:
¿bailando hace vuestra tristeza desaparece?
(por favor perdone mi español muy pobre)
It is my pleasure. My Spanish is actually very, very… um, awful. I know a lot of nouns. And I own a lot of dictionaries. And I am married to someone who speaks Spanish. I can read some Spanish, and this is the first time– ever– that I’ve tried to use my bad Spanish skills in a poem. (I had The Husband check my work as I got closer to a final draft to make sure I wasn’t too off of the mark.)
(However, I have no fear of using my equally terrible French in poetry form and everywhere else! Scary!)
To answer your question (I ran to my stack of dictionaries!): Yes, yes it does. It always has. Dancing will always make the sorrow disperse.
I am so, so, so very thrilled you think this poem works. I am trying to… let go and be more visceral and emotional in my poems, but this is a new place for me. So, I know you can’t see this, but I am emitting a squee of delight as I write this to you.
if that comment left you squeeing, then you’re gonna love this one.
I almost asked you what song this was taken from. Yep. Then it dawned on me that you surely must have written it yourself. Please feel free to SQUEEEEE very loudly.
I love the use of the espanol in your writing … it pulls the flavor in a way that cannot be ignored … I hope you’ll try it again, because if this was one of your first attempts, I would have to say that you realizó una labor admirable.
p.s. esa foto es la perfección …es delicioso
Con mucho gusto. I love Ruth St. Denis– she opened up the dialogue for world dance and the contemporary stage. Also, this photograph really stole my breath. I’m so glad you think it’s perfect; it’s delicious. Squee!
ARGH! The PC erased my comment! Okay, here I am, going again–
Thank you so much. I did squee. I totally did! However the phrasing regarding the singer’s voice is all mine, but the question towards the end is a Spanish idiom/aphorism.
I LOVE idiomatic expressions and sayings in Spanish, but I also adore idioms from many languages. I keep a list of idioms that I love. I found this one when I was revising the third draft of the poem, and was back-checking my Spanish. And I took a breath. So beautiful!
Your comments have brought up a bigger question for me, though, that I think I am going to have to write in the form of an essay later this month. Why has it taken me so long to add in even a little Spanish to my poetry? Spanish perfumes the air where I live, and most of my family speaks Spanish.
Your comments also had a secondary effect– I’ve been piddling around with looking for dual translations of poets I love (Spanish/English side-by-side translations), and now, I feel as though I really need to start looking up dual translations of Vallejo, Neruda, and more. I’ve browsed at the library, but I haven’t really checked the catalog. Because of you, my next trip to the library will include a catalog search, and, what I hope is the beginning of a new journey for me.
The Husband said, months ago, that one of the ways he first practiced his Spanish was with comic books, but the only thing that I think is readily accessible through the library is Tintin? (I have read all of Tintin in English!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin
Thank you so, so much! I feel as though you’ve handed me an armful of ideas and encouragement written in your beautiful hand. I am so grateful.
Mmm. That was yummy.
I am so, very happy that you thought this was yummy. Your comment made my morning even sweeter!
“I forget myself in the round arms of a song,
close my eyes as the horns roll across
and under una voz muy sabrosa.”
Ahh, THAT’s what I’m talking about. How savory.
YAHTZEE! Yes! You think this works! I am happy now, very, very happy! This style is so different for me that I was quite scare to post it, but I did it anyway. (I’m so glad I did.) Thank you, Phillip!
I’m so glad you rose from your desk to dance for us.
Thank you so much! I have been reading/revisiting a lot more turn-of-the-century poetry for several months now, and some Latin American/Eastern European poets, and I am trying to “risk sentimentality,” which is a term I learned in graduate school.
I think I’m increasingly of the school that I should “risk sentimentality” as much as possible!