Song for Steve

Steve Cannon
Que en Poesía Descanse

Steve Cannon
Hasta la vista
Steve Cannon

A la cañona
Que en poesía descanse
Y hasta la vista

It was the early ’80s
It was the time of meeting the Pietris Carmen
Sam & Julio who weren't but were Pietris

Joe & bro Speedo Pedro before he was el Reverendo
got the name Speedo in the family because
as a kid he was so slow they thought there
was something wrong with him

in school was put in what was called the opportunity class...
opportunity to fail every which way

Steve Cannon
Hasta la vista
Steve Cannon
Till the seeing

Met STEVE CANNON
through the Pietris
Los Pietris a veces muy
Sin vergüenzas

Met Papoleto of the Jesúletos
Met Algarín Miguel
Met la jefa Lois la de Griffin
Met Bimbo Rivas
Met Micky P of Short Eyes
Met Bob el Holman
Y la Murray la divina Elizabeth
Met Henderson el David
Met Esteves la Sandy
Heard about Diane Burns
La que quema
Met Stefanie la Smith de Oklahoma
Met la Nancy del Mercado

Y tantas tantas tantas otras

MET
STEVE CANNON
Hasta la vista
Steve Cannon

In the time BCB before Cannon was blind
It was the time of the Nuyorican cafe was still

ours...Nuyorican PRs Boricua where it represented
US the Poets poetas PRs without the U.S.

The PR Poets cafe before it was a rich little boy’s play thing

Steve Cannon
Hasta la vista
Steve Cannon
A la cañona
Steve Cannon

used to sit at the end of the bar at the
Nuyorican and if the poeta who was up was
taking his/wasting our time over stating
complicating stammering

Steve Cannon Steve Cannon
yelled READ the goddamn poem
between pulls on his cigarette & gulps
of his drink clearing the air

Far out Pedro said guffawing
Steve Cannon
was Out of Sight
Steve Cannon joining in guffawing

Guffawing ain’t no PR word

Steve Cannon
Before blind
Was/is/always will/ever after be
Out of sight
Far out

It was Zoe time
It was time of their girls
It was said Steve was the best father
They ever had

Steve Cannon
Hasta la vista
Steve Cannon
A la cañona

When we met Steve kissed my hand
Como un Fellini
Only later did he love me madly
Every time we saw we
It was love at last sight

Steve Cannon
Steve Cannon
A la cañona

Later on you wrote or had
An assistant Justina Mejias write a
Jerome foundation grant he offered
me and Hal Sirowitz Queens poet laureate some readings
And even some moola
Which took more than a little time
getting to us—and it wasn’t no One Thousand—
More like a hundred
But I called you with a gentle reminder
And he did come through

Gracias for your vision
Steve Cannon
Qué en Poesía descanses

Steve Cannon
Gracias por tu vida

Steve Cannon
Presente

Steve Cannon
Siempre

Steve Cannon
felicidades en tu vida
Steve Cannon

Steve Cannon

Te echamos de menos
We throw you away less
Because we miss you madly

Steve Cannon
Hasta la vista
Until the sight until the sighting
Steve Cannon

Te extrañamos tanto
You make us feel strange without you
We miss you

Steve Cannon
Hasta la vista
Steve Cannon
A la cañona

Que viva
Que viva
Que viva

Steve Cannon
Que en poesia viva Steve Cannon!

STEVE CANNON

Find the Form to Love Your Life

Life within a form is better than no form I can riff make a ditty to which I can sing Better yet dance move shake this only Body these old booty bones teeth arteries Like vines old veins twist around in the Casket of my bod I’m the fruit of my loom Make wine with me or dine me then Wind me up and try to blow me away I’m not a little girl you know No little woman Once I was tiny in my mother’s womb Did I love myself then almost non Existent yet even then I knew it was so There in the casket Of my mother’s bod su cuerpo Cuero quiero mi vida I want my life I love my life lovely how the Want the love querer exists in one word Takes care of both needs con una palabra

Solamente una vez what’s the rest of it The lyrics to that Spanish love song A cut your veins I love you more than My own life kind of song Imagine loving so deep you’d Kill yourself to prove it Do I love myself enough Huh what say you sitting out there Voyeur of my ramblings Rambling rose by a rose by a rose by a rose The vine winding itself around Strangling Or is rambling just innocent Wandering given enough ramb To wander far far away to a place Where bodies love themselves love their lives So loveable my funny valiant vale of tears valentine you Of the strong heart brave heart Coraje means mad anger in Spanish but also can Mean courage like want and love sharing the Same body with different meanings

I’ve learned a lot Have so much in my addled head Can drive myself coo coo like someone who is Loco in the coco loquísimo meaning nothing Like loquacious someone talking too much may Seem mad or selfish or just plain distracted To be in love with your life Find the form to be the love of your life Evoluting that breast pocket pad to telephone Writing covertly writing openly when others Are watching or not when you’re your only Voyeur voyage to the bottom of your soul To the top of your tippy brain by the fontanel

Remember the fontanel the hole in your crown That never quite closed your skull vulnerable Ever since they poured the holy water right over That venerable spot where things can be let out But also let in let in the sun and the shine Don’t be stingy giving accommodations to the Best things which may or not be free To be free you me and the bees those that still Survive to be flee fly or stay in one place Hovering when there’s something interesting To observe be near to be a party to Party till there’s no manana only The now The process forget The end the Ends of the earth are there just To be explored on streets of sesame or rogering In the nabe with the good mister who wouldn’t care If you spoke English or not you were still worthwhile

Even if poor of money and clothes you had a roof above Your head with the hole On your skull where you felt the cold when The landlord The lord of the land on Stockton St in Williamsburg the Lord of the land on Ryerson St in Fort Greene forgot to heat the Tenements where you and your Mami your Papi your little sis and bro lived always winter wondering Do we get heat today the silent radiators Sadness personified the water too icy to bathe or shower Barely tolerable to take a puta’s bath in the ponchera Why did we call the basin a ponchera Did it somehow come from the word Punch the bowl where people Put the punch in and scooped it out with a ladle

We poured ours from a pitcher our summer punch Kool Aid We went through so many envelopes full of thousands of Crystals melded with sugar almost drowning out the Chemicals so lovely in their purple red orange rage Jewel encrusted azucar Celia Cruz AZUCAR her cry out of open windows That voice her rhythm her blued negritude Summers with no air conditioning we drank pitchers and pitchers full of technicolored ice waters Cool in our aluminum tumblers in all colors I always wanted the golden one The metal so cold To the touch to the cheek to Fingers frozen in winter We waited for the heat for the esteem to return bundled in coats under blankets

Got to get this all down Getting too much for My head thoughts Getting folded over Twisted up One word added to another and another Finding it hard To fit they Push one another into long convolutions Head speech crowding words almost Hurting one another the way they must if there’s no space to Be let them out to pran brehe To show off their worth their sparkle They can’t be seen all crowded and glopped up Like overdone spaghetti Gotta let out the voice let it out And let in the other voices that want to come in be safe from All that coldness out there

You have to have a relation to form and shape Otherwise it’s mush pasta One pasta for all forever and ever amen One and all one perception leading Superseding immediately another content being form being content Content are you content with your content with your form objectively Correlatively co re lated elated related how como in Spanish and com’e in Italian In Spanish come is a command familiar form Come syllabized into two is you eat Could also be he eats or she eats But we’re talking you now You are to come here in English and eat come in Spanish A command

And if pouring wine in a glass and it breaks That’s the poem Fast lick that wine off the table I command you Get that tongue slurping slurp lucky lurking Ton gue ton gun magically paradoxed into a Spencer Sonnet # LXXXV Venomous tongue tipp’d with vile adders’ sting The old poetic forms go back to the old stuff Stick to your own kind A girl like that Back to the old to get to the new Get down get down to come up Comeuppance resuscitated as Susto A scare que susto dios mio Four and twenty blackbirds coming for me Come to egg me On bacon bay and con Con means with in Spanish In English get away with something you’re a con Are you conning me chil’ chili con carne Carne meat in chill Spanish Carne in Italian still neat meat The truth

Word of the old nabe Of Boris the Venetian blind Jewish man His shop under our stoop on Stockton Mami let us sit alone on the stoop because she knew Boris the Venetian Jewish man of the blinds looked after after us Boris please watcha my ghels Mami afraid of the barrio Changing Loved her nenas One had tremenda capacidad to do to be The translator the little adult the decision maker The smart one To watch out for the family The other one pretty too but a dreamer a bit boba un poquito zángana Thinking who knows what thoughts

FINAL

Lydia Cortés is the author of the poetry collections Lust for Lust and Whose Place. Her work has also been published in various anthologies such as Puerto Rican Poetry From Aboriginal Times to the Present, Resist Much, Obey Little and online forums as What Rough Beast (Indolent Books) and Upstreet Journal. In November 2O19, together with Julio Marzan and other poets, she was invited by Pen Puerto Rico to participate as a panelist in a Dialogue on Boricua Poets in New York. She is a MacDowell fellow and also was awarded at VCCA and Valparaiso in Andalusia Spain.