Who Can Ask the Sea for Reasons?
By Ruth Yennie Noguer Figueredo
I want to wake up chained to your skin, feel your warmth while the sun peeks out timidly, kisses of light going through every corner, where whispers of dawn caress my desire.
And between sheets, dual witnesses of moans, are heard, where lost stars find their home. Crying out to the sea to give me back those moments, where the waves caressed our bodies, where your name was engraved in the depths of my being, where jumping murmurs take me to you.
In every wave a memory, every foam a heartbeat, The salty breeze whispers forgotten promises, and I, between laughter and furtive caresses, I relive the magic that bound us without chains.
I long to follow the footprints you left in my soul, trace every step that traced our destiny, in this labyrinth of dreams and memories, beg the universe to restore my lost years.
I would like to return, even if it is in dreams, to that moment that sealed our eternal love, where time stopped and we belonged, where every sigh was an echo of your passion.
From the sea to the moon, from the earth to the sky, I look for you in every corner, in every whisper, return to that afternoon where everything was possible, where our bodies spoke without words.
Eternity slips into every heartbeat, and I wish time breathes for a moment, to feel that divine spark again, where love melts into the ardor of reality.
Eternal Radiance
By Ruth Yennie Noguer Figueredo
In the vast ocean of memories, you are the zenith that guides the path, a constant light in the serene night, shining with an eternal and divine radiance.
I would like to capture your essence in a breath, keep you in the poetry of my heart, where each verse tells a story and each rhyme celebrates your strength.
You are the oasis in the desert of life, a source of crystalline and pure water, which quenches the thirst for love and strength? and renews the spirit with your presence.
To carry you in my being, I always long, like the wind carries the perfume of flowers, and in every heartbeat, I want to feel your presence, in a love that transcends time.
By John Hamley
I’ve seen the dragon cloud its eyes the setting sun Can gods know fear?
By John Hamley
Haiku
Liu Yang is a PhD candidate at Southwest University in China. Her major interests include literary translation and Shakespeare studies. She has published two books, translated and annotated nineteen books, such as Giants of Literature andTheir Timeless Masterpieces in April 2024. She is also the Associate Editorin-Chief of the academic journal Shakespeare Review.
A pursuit of Dynamic Equivalence
--- Anna Yin's Chinese Translation of What We Do Not Know Liu Yang1
In March, 2024, Dennis D. C. Reid’s poetry collection WhatWeDoNotKnow with Anna Yin’s Chinese translation reached its readers. As a 2015 PoeTrain Laureate, Mr. Reid has published eighteen books, including eleven collections of poetry. The poems in WhatWeDoNotKnow are selected from his first nine books of poetry and spanning more than thirty years of publishing, thus can be regarded as well-deserved masterpieces of the poet. The translator, Anna Yin, a Chinese-Canadian poet with six poetry collections and three books of translations, brings her dual expertise as poet and translator to this project, embracing the challenge of rendering these English verses into Mandarin Chinese. Her work exemplifies a relentless pursuit of dynamic equivalence in translation.
Metaphor and its Rhetoric Equivalence. Aristotle writes, in his work Rhetoric, that metaphors have “qualities of the exotic and the fascinating.” In the poem “In Slow Time,” Mr. Reid employs the metaphor of “curtain” to make a close analogy with the “rumple(d)” skin of a beloved one and a shrunken peach in winter. Such images bring the poet a “quiet tear” and evoke in him a recognition of the importance of Carpe Diem, to be specific, “love now and never wait for never.”
Anna captures the connotations of the metaphor, and she uses the familiar equivalence of “起皱的肌肤” (wrinkled skin) and “死气沉沉的桃子” (dead peaches) to reproduce the sentiments of the original work in a faithful manner, maintaining both the tenor and the vehicle of the metaphor, thus achieving poetic echoes in translation.
Wordplay and its Formal Equivalence. Wordplay is a form of wit and a literary technique for intended effect. Most poets engage in word play to some extent, and Mr. Reid is undoubtedly one of the most noted word-players. In “Like the Circles That You Find”, the poet expresses a determined stance by claiming “To be is to be in motion …” in the last stanza. The verbal phrase “To be” derives from the well-known soliloquy in William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet. In contrast to the fainthearted Prince, the poet repeats “to be” for a completely opposite effect, with force and sound to show an externalizing firmness. In translation, Anna uses the Chinese characters “行动” twice to respond to its formal characteristics and the force of language as well. This fidelity to the lexical details of the original poem shows the accurate understanding of the translator and her superior linguistic competence.
Onomatopoeia and its Aural Equivalence. In linguistics, onomatopoeia is described as a mimicry of a sound. It works in the sense of symbolizing an idea in a phonological context. In WhatWeDoNotKnow, onomatopoeia is widely used, such as “… the clock that is ticking” in “Planet Earth Guernica” (p.22), “creaking nails from caskets” in “The Sistine Chapel”(p. 30), “…, echo booming”2 in “Canada” (p. 56), and so forth. For these natural sounds, the translator locates their symbolic representation in Chinese context: “ticking” is translated as “滴答” (dī
dā), “creaking” as “嘎吱” (gā zhī), and “booming” as “隆隆” (lóng lóng). It is true that the first pair of Chinese translation of onomatopoeia bears a similarity in sound for the sake of vowels, while the other two translations are strikingly divergent due to the application of different consonants and vowels. Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, while English the Indo-European family, hence their onomatopoeia inventory can differ proportionally. So, it's not surprising that the translator chose Chinese consonant strings, a more natural rendering but with less literal accuracy, to conform to the target language system and to cater to the taste and language habit of target text readers.
English-Chinese parallel typesetting. For the sake of clarity and appearance, each glossa in part one is arranged with two stanzas within one page on the left, and its Chinese translation is put in a page on the right, so that the readers can read the original text and the translated one at almost the same time. This parallel typography has been vividly called by the translator as “mirrored opposite,” and is carried out through the whole book. For experienced readers, such juxtaposition of the original and the translation reflects the honesty and confidence of the translator. In addition, quotations are given in italicized pattern, while verses composed by the author are in regular script. This difference in type provides convenience for the readers in its visual presentation, also reflects the care, rigor and professionalism of the translator.
According to Eugene A. Nida, a pioneer in the fields of translation theory and linguistics, “there can be no absolute correspondence between languages. Hence, there can be no fully exact translations.” In other words, the translation can be fairly close to the original, but never identical in detail. This explains why Anna
Yin’s Chinese translation of WhatWeDoNotKnow has a quantity of necessary compromises, or closest natural equivalents in target culture. As Mississauga’s Inaugural Poet Laureate (2015-2017), Anna is remarkably sensitive to the form and content of the source text. She made considerable efforts for the correspondences as concept to concept, line to line, stanza to stanza, and eventually poetry to poetry, thus representing the original text both literally and meaningfully. Meanwhile, the translator aims at complete naturalness of the target language. To realize Dynamic Equivalence, Anna has tried all means to adapt the translation to the receptor language and Chinese culture as a whole. She did well in stylistic selection and arrangement of message constituents. As the translator states in the “Afterword,” “there are many powerful and profound key words and images that challenge my translation skills …,” since she has to read between the lines, to look beyond the text itself, to deconstruct in an intratextual dimension and to decode on a referential level, for those cultural-loaded words in particular.
To sum up, Anna Yin’s translation not only transfers the literal meanings of Mr. Reid’s poems in a Canadian context, but also fulfils Dynamic Equivalence in rhetoric, wordplay, aural effects, and even typesetting. She keeps the readability in mind, expecting that the readers of her translated version, would enjoy a similar reading experience with those of the original collection. American poet Robert Frost once defined poetry as “that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.” Here “poetry” represents a quality that stimulates the imagination or gives a sense of more meaningful existence. Happily, this “poetry” is not lost in Anna Yin’s Chinese translation of WhatWeDoNotKnow.
The book reviewed: Reid, Dennis D. C.. WhatWeDoNotKnow:SelectedPoems byDCReid. Trans. by Anna Yin. Sure Way Press, 2024.
By Wency Rosales
Footprint
By Acela Rosa Cruz Muniz
December leaves its mark on the skin of memory, and in the dust of history life is like lightning that fleetingly flashes climbing its steps. From yesterday: laughter, scolding; of today: nostalgia, path; and the future: destiny as the years go by.
The woman
By Dulce Irene Muñiz Verdecia
Woman is a delicate flower that perfumes the heart, for that reason, there will be no reason to be mistreated, has to be worshipped what gift received and may she never be hurt due to abuse or displeasure, loving her would be the right thing to do like the flower of life.
Taste of farewell
By Jose Heredia
December brings us with it the taste of farewell, the farewell of the departure, the friend's hug; and he is always a witness of the story that ends. The sun rises after the mist, January greets life, The new year invites: Break the old routine!
Imagine your future, hold on to hope; live with confidence to break through every wall. Stay away from the dark, may the sun shine on your face. If life challenged your fighting ability, just stop and listen to the voice of the Being that protects you.
Your name
By Mario Meriño
I screamed your name in the dark cave of the night, a cry for help, that slipped through the shadows and mists And silence answered him. I screamed your name at the highest summit like an arrow it crossed the ether. the echo in every stone multiplied it, in every hollow on every mountain in every space And silence returns it. In the most remote corner I screamed your name, They repeated it Four cardinal points, The rain cried upon hearing it absence and oblivion also cried. I don't know where and how to call you anymore Not knowing what to do with your name on an impulse of my obsessed brain I wrote it on a piece of paper I turned it into a dagger I buried it in my chest.
By Wency Rosales
Like water
By Mario Meriño
Like water you can be
Rain, river or sea
Blue without limits
Transparent crystal
Like water
You can wet my forehead
Calm my ardor
Quench my thirst
Walk through my corners
Like water
You can one day overflow
Break your cause
And angrily attack
Like water
You can be
Turbid
Toxic
Acidic
In short, impure
Like water
You can be steam
Fog
Dew
Snow
Frost
Like water
I could represent you
Contain yourself, embalm yourself
And also purify yourself
I don't want walls or dikes
I want your freedom of water
Like water
Let it get wet and splash me.
December
By Mario Meriño
Tremble in fear for he sees his twilight coming, the mist from the north freeze, split the space The lights of dawn are clouded I'm looking for you and I can't find you Are you cold?
I keep warmth in my arms December is leaving
A cycle closes the year and will return blooming renewed prepared to continue living You closed your cycle And you will not return as December does it
I will wait at the limit of time looking at each season without hope of a reunion
I'm sure there will be new Januarys And that will come back to me
A new February.
Order
By Yalili Leyva Sicilia
The breeze comes And it changes everything Constellations, shoes, modes To see the rush of the laurels Winged Garment Escape of the unfaithful... Rebellious cry of my spells! Winter, a milestone Against the walls... Do you see this calm? That the wind hides? Take my soul, Who knows where...
By Wency Rosales
Lost
By Yalili Leyva Sicilia
He got lost this morning with the sun in the bones and the sea up to the waist...
Someone sings on the shore
Someone sings on the beach
Ancient melody of sirens
Subtly magical,
discovered a Vesuvius beneath the waves, tenacious music of the sky in the harsh distances of dawn...
Go back? Impossible!
The plagues devoured the past of these
Go back? Impossible!
The plagues devoured everything that was left, the sand of the beaches
One morning was lost
His dull gaze absorbed in nothingness
The nonsense
The fear
The bad taste
The rare one feeling of emptiness
The death of the fairies
He was craving it a little
The light of the distance
Riding in the shadows
His dull gaze
Sterile smile
fell silent in the afternoon the next morning.
My favorite dream
By Robier Fernandez
Melting my love in hope to bring your heart to joy, as time passed, I would enjoy to feel the response to my longing; a dream that is now achieved the light in the infinite, from the horizon I need a help and not revenge, and from this love in an alliance make my favorite dream come true.
An unexpected day
By Pedro Abel García Mayo.
When I saw spring from your eyes a burning tear it seemed like life was beginning for me, in it I understood the meaning of wanting to have me with you.
In your eyes I read everything you had suffered, what you preferred to understand what I was to you.
I also suffered that hard decision, I filled my life with inexplicable doubts, I ripped you from my heart without fear or mercy, I really lied to you to hear what you said, but your soul suffered more when you hear my words that were really hard, and I didn't realize what you wanted from me.
you filled me with joy with your sweet words, you hugged me and I kissed your burning lips, I felt so different
that I began to fill my heart again with illusions that seemed like dreams and in reality, it was life, what you gave to our love.
By Wency Rosales
The poet
By Beatriz Andrés Castellanos
“Where wisdom abounds, sorrow abounds, and whoever accumulates science, accumulates pain." Ecclesiastes 2:18
An old nobleman, completely crazy, he asks, at the door of his house, if that's where you live. someone passing brings light to that illustrious pray.
His soul, deep in his well, he doesn't show him his name, or what he has been, in the town where they loved him so much, for being a wise and loving man.
In the mouths of neighbors, it goes, of gloss, his reputation as a very erudite reader, that did not conform to what was written, maker of poetry and good prose.
In the eyes of a stranger, he is nothing more than a poor unbalanced person, who wanders the streets in anguish? a bird that flies without a nest.
A being sunk in alienation, clouded your notion and your conscious, bitten in knowledge, dry your mind, consumed by so much erudition.
But he is confident in simplicity of dementia and its state of grace, that distances him from the world and its fallacy, ineffable source of happiness.
Mother earth
By Robier Fernández Serranos
blessed crib where man is born; it is home, bed and paradise created in your favor, although death stalks her, finishes her, it's time to take care of her, to love her, because in her firm weight there is hope.
It is a faithful challenge: to heal her, be grateful for her fruits. The man must protect her so that your life is light in existence. The Earth is a gift that God has given, and like a mother you have to adore her.
Soleras to Gibara
By Caleb David González Ávila.
What is your secret magic? to captivate your children which payment in dry shell?
Do you touch the heart? with great guilt for leaving and nostalgic pain?
How much I would like to leave you! but from behind you hug me and I cry my bitter song.
I'll leave, I say very quietly, but I stay, I can't go, your veil captured my soul.
I want to suffer you and I can't, like those far away that today return to you, my people.
Surrendered to your unknown charm, to your great law of Lenz, I conclude my deep song.
By Wency Rosales
I sing for you
By Liliana Caballero Aguilera
I sing to you: Gibara, for your Silla, your places; for your smell and your landscapes.
I sing to you for your Bay, for the waves you raise; for your rivers, for your Rafts.
For your coast and Playa Blanca, for your boats, your skiffs; your corals and reefs.
For your lost spas, your precious craftsmanship, walks and fishing.
I sing to you for your crabs, your crabs and shrimp; Blue tank and Warmers.
For your forts, your tiles, for your colonial houses; your screens and stained-glass windows.
I sing to you so that they come back to your streets, empty today: the smiles and joys!
Thinking about you so much
By Cristian Jesús Guettón Pérez.
Thinking about you so much, I was like on the moon, I tried to catch stars, but I didn't catch any.
I wanted to give you, a thousand stars that illuminate, may they be like my eyes, and always watch over you.
Life
By Adela Gonzàlez-Longoria Escalona
Don't live regretting what you did or didn't do in the past, Don't even live expectantly, worried, thinking What the future holds for you. Enjoy this moment, It's all yours. If you suffer now, cry, scream tear yourself apart inside but come out strengthened, more sensitive in the face of other people's pain. Yes at this moment happiness knocks at your door, jump, rejoice, laugh out loud; don't let her escape hug her, enjoy it, infect it. These moments are yours, yours and no one else's No one can live your life. They are not you before Not even you after They are you now The past was left behind. The future, don't look for it will come alone
Life... It wasn't yesterday. It won't even be tomorrow. Life... Life is now!
By Wency Rosales
Simulacrum
By Rosalía Pupo Laguna
For better or worse I am a poet. the word attacks in my throat, It makes my hands sick. I wake up with swollen eyes and almost skeletal figure. Tired of the woman in the mirror who always sings a song that I don't understand.
I'm a poet, obviously, I'm not crazy. From time to time I tear off my flesh, I steam it or I let the neighbor's dog peel my eyes, bite them and spit them out. He doesn't like my poems very much.
I am a poet by addiction, due to ambiguity, I'm not sure anymore, but I write. I have to do it. Thus I condemn, I am silent, I survive or I die. Dissatisfied, for pleasure, With precarious words and my salty tongue I still don't have the legitimate key to immortalize the poem.
I am a poet, I take advantage of love. With their guts I feed my ego. my poems wander by banks rotten in semen. My job is the alms of a people.
I am a poet, a woman, Cuban. I'm barely 19 years old and I falsify my life as I do with this poem. Almost imperceptible delicacy to make you believe that I tell the truth.
By Wency Rosales
Forever you will stay
By Caridad Tamayo Rodríguez
He will never be able to receive you with that loud cry, full of wonder and pain the city is very sad; but you did not disappear because the beautiful bay If I could speak, I would say: - Gibara is destroyed, the longed-for Villa suffers that shone before you.
I remember that one nice day here you came from afar and you fell in love with her when you were filming Lucía. The landscape attracted you and its natural charm, your eloquence without equal I spoke to the foreigner and in your mind, it germinated hold the Festival here.
This town, with love knew how to appreciate your friendship, your dreams, your clarity, your simplicity, your candor, and today tells you with pain: - We don't forget you Solás, with us you will be because value you gave us and although you were gone forever forever you will stay.
In the streets day by day many will see you pass, you will parade again tasting your joy, to choirs the singing of our ancestral hymn will be tuned, and the crystal fires shining will find you presiding the Festival forever.
By Wency Rosales
Our Cuban Culture
By José Simón Verdecia Aguilera
Our Cuban Culture in all its dimensions brings hearts closer in a very human way and in a very healthy way without anyone denigrating it I want my chest to vibrate deep in your feeling Well, you will always have to say: - Be cultured to be free.
My seafaring soul
By Rosario del Carmen Blanchard Álvarez.
Our seafaring souls of dawns and mists, between light nacelles, they dream between sun and foam.
The waves breaking aroma of pure essence the Villa, the blue of the sea and its clear transparency.
Destined to love her we see its serene bay, and the Chair like a pearl between the blue and the sand.
We will never forget our harmonious land; we will always love her like a true goddess.
By Wency Rosales
To the Colonial Theater
By Dulce Irene Muñiz Verdecia
In my precious Gibara since I was a little girl a beautiful theater offered its spring soul.
Your education and teaching were for me, dawn, to fulfill my school and with my beloved country.
Functions, films, evenings, were from the Adventure Theater for the pride of Gibara and glory of its culture.
Today we evoke the Theater and its opening we long for as a jewel of the arts in this Villa that we love.
By Reynerio Jesús Reynaldo Graña
Don't die anymore butterfly packed in your misery, the grim reaper plays his token imposing and seditious wonderful creature escape from that fate now, in the flower you remain inert your flight no longer calms down, fragile crystal that fidgets and saves you from death.
Luck
By Wency Rosales
Gibara
By Florena Guilarte Tamayo
Composed of its forts and walls Gibara shines, our beautiful Villa; and proud with its wonder surrounded by wetlands and beaches.
Thanks to the wind, the horizon, the sea and its ancient and beautiful architecture some famous figure admires her wants to return to her charms.
We must mention their legends, to Solás and his beautiful festival, and among the people the great event that invites filmmakers to dream.
Discovered by the conqueror, region of unusual places; here everyone is fascinated loving its beauty and splendor.
Destination
By Acela Rosa Cruz Muñiz.
I don't know why destiny wanted to take you away from me; knowing that you loved me how I loved you.
They took you away forever from this burning heart, and the soul was imprisoned in the resentment of the people.
Today we are invaded by urgency that betrays sanity, and the years evoking life of its adventure.
By Jorge Alberto Pérez
For your heart
By Efrahim Eloy Fuentes Suárez
Give freedom to your heart let it fly high give it a little reason let the song be joyful.
Let it laugh and sing, go with it to the firmament let it enjoy and dance, Go with it, it's time.
Let yourself be carried away by its beats let me walk among the people let yourself be carried away by your senses let it guide your mind.
Look for beauty in love let it search in the present look for it to lose its fear let it look different.
Find a reason to beat let it reach the universe, look for a reason to feel, let it be happy with my verse.
Gibara Saddle
By Elaine González Concepción
Chair from my town, beautiful summit that can be seen in the distance the shining mirrors of the blissful bay.
Among the pure beauty that displays our dawn, you are the most adored illusion of its greatness.
Everyone who admires the landscape never forgets about you beautiful you are like that and you have a great lineage.
You were born a long time ago my people always miss you, laugh, sing, suffer and cry for the beauty that exists in you.
The painters do not forget you, the poets remember you, the artisans remember and everyone together admires you.
For your majestic form you give life to the hills and to all that hamlet Well you are a Goddess.
By Jorge Alberto Pérez
When Gibara wakes up
By Manuel Magariño Galván
The sunrise is beautiful when Gibara wakes up and life at every door with the light can be seen.
The pilgrim day is happy with the park dove that waits in the trees to give away his trill.
The boats go to sea and the noise of their engines wake up the dreamers when it starts to lighten.
Between the smell of coffee and the baker's proclamation everyone seeks their path with a prayer of faith.
Who comes to visit you? goes early to the hill for when the sun rises your beauty contemplates.
The sky protects the Villa with its celestial goodness only your clarity when you wake up, Gibara.
Fleeting
By Yuliet Alberteris Ricardo.
Fleetingly the sea slides its brush on its canvas of coral and sand; and the children growing up in the serene music of the coast and the mangrove.
Fleeting age on a golden steed rides between auroras, and sunsets fleeting they dissolve in the arms, the dreams and beings you have loved.
Fleeting, bitter and sweet journey of a ship without direction or destination, It is life: sadness and joy.
The cunning, vile, mean time is fleeting; with its seductive and cold scythe, it has to pluck the flowers from the path.
By Jorge Alberto Pérez
Yearning
By Jennifer Silva Pérez
The sea of childhood flashes in mirrors of longing waiting for other bodies that infect the modesty of its waves. The afternoon pales in the weakness of the iris and the star that ignores the last lights still senses smiles and escapes.
I don't know why I love you anymore
By Julián Francisco Silva Cordoví
I don't know why I love you
He told me when I woke up And tried to escape
From this adventurous love
In your dreams I was first
Hidden flight without dive
Lapel jacket
I don't know why I love you anymore
I lose which star
Centuries before crossing
And what magician to steal away
True feeling
I always go to the innkeeper
From your unfilled source
You set traps when singing
I don't know why I love you anymore
The little thief is very subtle
He chokes like a pea
Creepy nightmare
Equation taken to zero
At the bottom of the closet
Elegant and perfumed
What disheveled passion
I don't know why I love you anymore.
By Jorge Alberto Pérez
The Boquerón
By Rigoberto Felipe Gómez Gómez
Historical Boquerón of pleasant confidences, you share many experiences in your cozy corner, the sea kisses the boardwalk and murmur your value, you have beauty and candor, and the design of pleasure to link with your power the delight of love.
Wishes
By Ernesto Rodríguez Véliz
You come to fill a space, and it's not just talking, act, love... I always wanted that the wishes were mutual to live the days intensely; life happens, the roads open, the everyday and oblivion, like time, they are endless; and I have next to me the most precious: desires that do not fit in the palms of my hands.
Complicity
By Maricela Pupo González
Your pleasant presence evokes orange blossoms in the wind, fresh breath of breath, what a fragrance it places on me. Verse, like moss and rock, united we both go, you give me life, I give you a voice, If fragile I cling to you, You now return me like iron: verse, gift of God.
By Jorge Alberto Perez
Tonight By Yudel Rodríguez Hernández
Tonight I whisper your name in the shadow of the moon.
Tonight I feel you here, in the drawing of my lines.
Tonight I will pray the poetic joke to hug your body to perceive your distant aroma.
Tonight I will dream that I pass by your street and I will bind myself to the sound of your voice ripping away my self-esteem.
Tonight the agony of not having you it takes shape and expands.
Tonight The stars will tell you that I love you.
Tonight my hands will fly and touch you and you will know that it is me.
Tonight I will reach your threshold I will break the silences and there will be no more distances...
Dawn in my Villa
By Joaquín Cuesta Rodríguez
The greenery in the mangroves with early clarity shines bright in the morning and adorns the River of Seas; from all places from the coast of my Villa you can see the mythical Silla; and the zephyr, on the cover from a ship, to the awake sea when the Sun kisses the shore.
Popular treasures
By Yasiel Pozo Morell
Legends are treasures, traditions and customs, on the plains and the peaks, fields and cities. Garments they are for you to understand the magic of storytellers, sellers, charcoal burners; fishermen, farmers, that give life to the roads and fantasy to the trails.
By Jorge Alberto Perez
Hope
By Bárbara de la Caridad Hernández Batista
Before I met you my world was empty absent from the rain that renews the landscape; cold and sadness hovered in the silence of starless nights, and the crystal of some dream cracked its sparkles at the root of a tear, lucky you showed up invading all spaces and spilling the aroma of the fire that cuts down nostalgia.
Serendipity
By Claudia Camila Rodríguez Hernández
The duality of our souls is a set-in contrast to the world... Like the universe when it boasts of its many wonders just when the stars try to stand out among the aggressive sky; the galaxy is envious of us, and the sun hesitates when it sees us fly. This persuasive feeling, forces me to leave my comfort, to tremble with happiness... We were designed perfectly for each other, manufactured to be honest, to be imperfect, You are everything that awakens my senses, You are what my heart was waiting for, although not aware of it.
By José Heredia
December brings us with it the taste of farewell, the goodbye of the game, the hug of the friend; and is always a witness of the story that ends. The sun rises after the fog, greets January life, the new year invites: Break the old routine, dream your life, imagine...!
Imagine your future, hold on to hope; and live with confidence to cross every wall. Get away from the dark, may the sun shine on your face. If life challenged your fighting ability, just stop and listen to the voice of the Being that protects you.
Hug
Love, perfume and thorn
By Eugenio Ernesto González Aguilera
Love, don't bleed me dry with your thorn of rose, masked in perfume of the fugitive nectar that consumes, and it peels off its leaves between the divine skin.
Take your adventurous fury out of me, loneliness and senseless impetus, low drive and innate drive that flows through luck and despair.
Simply, by chance, a kiss, love, of the heart makes its prisoner a masked rose mouth and her perfume of a pink liar hides the painful spine that sticks in the soul in love.
Yet, Yet
love can unite rationally two beings that arise from a longing marked by the conquest of happiness, exonerated by the immutable thistle that the wound portends in the insensitive skin of the light, or absorbed in the night flower that forgets the dew of the morning in its eagerness to save itself from the dawn.
The garden is not the same
The garden is not the same the vine invades the lilies that know you so well and the rose bush abandons its calyxes, claiming your hands.
The garden is not the same
The cunning breeze spreads the aromas that anointed your face, your confused silhouette wanders like a ghost in the soul of the night and the stars shimmer with nostalgia over the plea of the jasmines.
The garden is not the same
The grass still worships the dew that invokes the morning while the enervated flowers try to decipher the language of light to hide your inevitable absence.
Gibara’s Sea
By Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández
The waves of Gibara sing in cobalt blue, a lullaby of depths where ancient secrets brew. Beneath the surface, a prism takes its flight neon fish dart through curtains of liquid light. The boats, like dancers, sway on salted air, their wooden ribs etched with journeys rare. They chase the horizon where sky and water blend, guardians of tides that begin where they end. The White Village gleams, a pearl kissed by sun, its clarity mirrors the day’s quiet hum. Walls whisper stories of storms weathered long, of hands that built faith where the waves belong. Above, the sky stitches wings to the breeze migratory birds charting paths none can seize. They pause here, brief, in their infinite roam, dip feathers in waters they’ll carry back home. Gibara’s heart beats in rhythm with the shore, where time is a tide it leaves, yet returns once more. In every shell’s curve, in each salt-laden breath, the sea writes its ode to life, loss… and what’s left.
At
the 53 dawns of your life
Dedicated to my wife Michelle Cristiana
By Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández
Your eyes keep moons from other times, laughter that wove our spring, 53 years of auroras on your forehead, and in your hands, the honey that time ordains. You are root and flight, stillness and fire, the melody that nests in my chest, every wrinkle a shared story, each gray hair, the light of a defeated battle. The years that name you are not figures, but the wheat that grows in our garden: Thirteen springs after the fourth decade, and the world still beats when you open your eyelids.
Because with you I learned that love is not measured in candles, nor in mirrors, but in shared coffee at dawn, in silences that understand without advice. Happy birthday, travel companion, my accomplice of dreams and defeats: May the years continue to find us with new verses... and the same rose in our teeth.
Hi All: Devour 020 is up and running with a 25% tariff added. 25% of $0.00 = $000.00 - Canadian Culture at it Best and it is FREE!!!! You can send your family, friends, and Lit Lovers and even your USA buddies to the largest undefended border in the cosmos at www.WetInkBooks.com. In the middle panel at Wet Ink Books there is a link to All issues of Devour. I am collecting reviews of this issue for a press release so if you or anyone would like to say that this issue is incredibly wonderful then I would be happy to hear from you. Email me your review to: Wet Ink Books @ gmail .com - take out the spaces. Pass the word far and wide. The printed version will be available in a few weeks. tai
Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández, CCLA Ambassador, Editor
Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias, CCLA Cuban President, Assistant Editor
Katharine Beeman, Reviewing Editor
Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado, CCLA Cuban Poet Laureate, Reviewing Editor
Wency Rosales, Cuban President of CCLA Federation of Photography
Lisa Makarchuk our Canadian VP as (former) Reviewing Editor
E-Mails: joyphccla@gmail.com jorgealbertoalcc@icloud.com
IN OUR UPCOMING ISSUES, WE WOULD LIKE SUBMISSIONS FROM EVERY CCLA MEMBER SO THAT YOU RECEIVE SOME DESERVED PUBLICITY WHILE WE ARE NURTURED BY YOU. BOOK LAUNCHES? POETRY EVENTS? LET US KNOW ABOUT THEM AND WE WILL PROMOTE THE INFORMATION IN THE ENVOY.
