Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

Para aquellos días íbamos a la playa a practicar tiro al blanco: la seducción. Aprendimos inglés, o francés. Leer quitaba un poco la mancha del plátano así es que no faltaba el bestseller . Se usaba el arte de la palabra tersa, voz sobre modulada, mirada acaramelada. Éramos los afortunados nacidos después de la última guerra. Los que desecharon la zafra. Los que no aprendimos a matar y desplumar una gallina. La turba de futuros empleados públicos con palancas políticas, desempleados. © Sergio A. Ortiz 2009

1. Willie, baby, when Eloy showed me the wedding rings I broke out in tears. He had to get a doctor to calm me down. I was so innocent, didn’t even know why I followed him to Bolivia. 2. “Yo fui la mas callada de todas las que hicieron el viaje hasta tu Puerto.” The sky fell. Willie, write me a poem that will bring me back to life, papi . Be my distraction, or I am going to find a tall blue eyed angel with baker hands and lips like James Dean. 3. “A dormir se van ahora mis lagrimas por donde tu cruzaste mi verso.” Negro , I’ve murdered myself so many times the effort is starting to hurt. Someone stole my poetry. They wanted to teach me to write on paper. Ha, as if everything I do isn’t already written in blood. I begged mama to help me die, but she refused, had to slash my own wrist. 4. “Todos los ojos del viento ya me lloraron por muerta.” Do you think ghosts can ask for asylum in Cuba? Willie, take my clothes off. Look at my scars without crying and tell me I’m beautiful....

Last week I went to see Julie and Julia, the movie about Julia Child chef and author, and Julie Powell, author and blogger who became famous by following Julia’s recipes in: Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I can’t believe it has been nineteen years since I went to chef school and Julia Child signed my copy of her latest cookbook: The Way to Cook. We had just returned from a trip to France at Restaurant School in Philadelphia. . I didn’t know she was ninety years old at that book signing. She certainly didn’t look it. We were told not to bother her took much but I just had to meet her. I asked her to sign my copy of the book and she wanted to know more about me. I told her had gone to the public library and taken out Mastering the art of French Cooking every week for a year since classes started at the Restaurant School, and that I was thirty-nine years old and changing my profession. Until then, the only thing I knew how to do was teach English as a Second Language. She aske...

The Martyrdom of Quddus One hundred and thirty-six mirrors whirled around him like a hurricane, the reflection of his heart on the Hand that shapes existence. Mountains gathered around a line of blood—radioactive chain reaction dripped from his open wounds—and I despaired. He left me dressed in shades of purple, aflame, lowered back into my coffin. © Sergio A. Ortiz 2007

I love this song!!

stone aging Cheech & Chong happiness free Tibet excuse me while I kiss the sky rucksack wanderers hookers gave them a calling avoid the draft heading for Woodstock one generation got old one got soul © Sergio A. Ortiz 2009