Victor Hernandez Cruz

Juan Goytisolo Dies on a Ramadan Sunday In Marrakesh

His country was language,
His culture escritura,
In the frontiers 
Of concrete imagination mask 
He pursued his ‘Identity’
Bourgeoisie Family had Cuban African slaves,
He went to the Cuban barrio
Of his invisible relatives
prose them into first novel.
What Virginia Loba said
You need a room and some money
To write
Idle, make mistakes, write re-write
Juan son of the bourgeois,
Rejected his nation
But not the money,
With flus you can write,
Against falsity
Prejudice.
Subjective Europe, Paris, the Americas,
Final Marrakesh, Megrib
Marrakesh Old Medina foundation home,
A second Sevilla
Bronze colour clay edifices all,
Hazelnut blanket wraps.
Community found a family with friends
Their Wifes and the children.
Flus hangs him
Had a chef, chauffer, handy man,
They all guised his creations,
Dates, almendras, cus-cus,
Queso Manchego,
Rioja wine
Afternoon in the labyrinth
Of his ancient palace,
Rooms, paintings y books,
Turkish music melodies passages,
Through Segovia, Falla Spanish dances
Strings weaving with the minaret
Calls to prayer,
Before the sleep rooms,
Wall of flower geometries,
Rugs Berber floor or hang,
Tongues Arabic, French, Spanish,
Basque,
Recitation of the Koran circles an agnostic,
Happy of the informant
Jinn’s who in and out dimensions,
Bring him notes,
Blend, he made a truce
With the chaos, the embroidery
Of the tiles, infinite circles, octagons,
Squares, leap streets of energy,
Charge of the Plaza Fna,
Carretas, horses, donkeys, snakes
On the floor looking at flute players,
Falcons on shoulders, diviners,
Pack of cards….destiny,
Barkers selling whatever,
Beggers, balloons float, children, women
Musk drifts along Fna plaza,
Thieves every crevice scheme,
Shadows of swift hands,
The night is money, the tourist are
Opportunity salute. 
Juan just goes back to his
Paragraphs 
His thoughts open to the
Paradox
Of his destiny
In this south of his language,
In this Africa of this planet
Water,
Fluid he writes, invention
The laws of an escriban.
Inventing a self,
Escape from tyrant patriarchal 
Episodes 
No nation
But what Dante earth country 
Claimed citizen of the world
Like fish in water.
Juan buried next to the tomb
Of Jean Genet,
Old friend and mentor.
In Larache town on the
Mediterranean coast
Where there is Spanish
Flavor hotel along the beach.
The waves if they could
Speech the prose dance
Repeat the observer
Observing.

Victor Hernández Cruz was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico and moved to New York City with his family as a young boy. Spanish was his first language and at an early age he began to write poetry. As he grew, his poetry grew. He felt each book was written by a different poet. The Filipina-American poet Cyn Zarco once said that she wrote, “from her background and from her foreground,” meaning one writes from one’s cultural tradition. “I am me and my circumstances,” the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset said. What that means for Hernández Cruz is migration, bi-lingualism, and the ethnic cultural fusion of the Caribbean. Hernández Cruz currently lives in exile in Morocco with his wife and family. His poems have been translated into French, Turkish, Arabic, Chinese, Greek and Japanese. His last book was titled Beneath the Spanish (Coffee House Press). His next book with Coffee House is titled Guayacan, which is a native tree of the Americas sacred to the Taino natives of Puerto Rico.