HEAT AND LIGHT

Coffee darkens the cracked streets
of Havana as communists float
in their faded green fatigues
eat wilted vegetables with
yellowed teeth half-hidden behind
tight forced smiles and stuttered
proclamations

their boots fall apart
as they limp on
cobblestoned calles

the whole country
has travelled and spun
languished in circles of rum
for too many miles

across the warm waters
powdered sugar paints and covers,
coats like flaking old plaster these
broken down chairs
which litter Jackson Square
a block from the levee
in pre-Katrina New Orleans

where tired astrologers wait
at uneven card tables
in capitalism's sweat
for clients with money at
the foot of the cathedral
in thick sweltering air

beneath the swim and lyric of place
imagined or explored are these
memories of poets
who often stumble and strain to hear
each word and phrase
against the bumble and hum
of such frustrating cultural din,

still, the lacey day and
its musical phases
are dusted with light,
tranquilly composed
within the transformed
coffeehouse nestled right
here on a quiet corner
in Kensington’s ageless
open heart.

And their boots
fall apart
as they limp
on cobblestoned
calles.