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Showing posts from February, 2010

Criminales

La orquesta Yo soy / Tú eres / Nosotros somos Esta tríada que pide al cuarto / este no muerto, no vivo, que no sangra salvo por el clamor desesperado, el consenso amplio de lo torcido. El hospital Yo soy / Tú eres / Nosotros somos Esta procesión de confesos criminales / esta tusa arrabalera, capaz de matar por un centavo / esta privación del sentido común / esta máquina sin piel / este oído sordo que no sabe disfrutar del tango /  este sinsabor postoperatorio / esta inexistente sala de emergencias. El Extravió Yo soy / Tú eres / Nosotros somos Este elipsis / este grillete en los labios que te encarcela la boca / esta mano abierta que no se atreve a aterrizar en la mejilla del vampiro / este cirujano de mierda. Las Lenguas Muertas Yo soy / Tú eres / Nosotros somos Esta madre muerta/ este hijo muerto / este padre muerto / esta hermana muerta / este anciano muerto / este amigo muerto, solo porque los dejamos solos en sus últimos momentos. El Otoño Este futuro invierno / esta

There is no such thing as Emergency or Post Operation Care in Puerto Rico

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Today I went to Pavia Hospital in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, because I thought I was having a heart attack. It took them close to 5 hours to run test and take care of me and only because I opened my mouth and demanded attention.   There was a disoriented man, a junky, possibly with a life threatening disease, in the same eme rgency ward where I was. No one paid this man any attention until I started taking pictures of him. Then they gave him some food and something to cover his torso, but I never saw a doctor get near him. If you go alone to a hospital in Puerto Rico, if you live alone and have to provide outpatient care without the proper help of a professional, if you or your family do not know how to defend yourself from these abusive institutions, chances are you will not come out alive from a hospital in Puerto Rico .

La Castañeta

Estuve temeroso y fui la castañeta, juglar blanco con la cara pintada de negro. No fui la coleta del torero que amortigua golpes o señala el honor su retiro. Castañeta de Zambra Mora sacudiendo mis caderas, reposando tu palma sobre mi ombligo. Baile nupcial tormentoso, palillo de fiesta tentadora. ©  Sergio A. Ortiz 25 de febrero de 2010

Mama got AIDS from an enemy soldier

We walked five miles to the nearest waterhole. A baldin’ boogeyman convoy left her unconscious by the roadside. We ran—three little birds (cryin’ and cryin’) . My brother stayed in my head—boogeyman’s body sucking his breath (yellin’ and yellin’) yeah (yellin’ and yellin) .  He’ll live, or I’ll shoot him myself. Death (wow - wow - wow) sprawled like a lizard. Papa (whoo - whoo - whoo) tore off his ankle bracelet and went for the gun. © Sergio A. Ortiz Published in the 2010 February Issue of The Houston Literary Review

This Wants to Be

The Imagination This chewed sweet and sour garlic / this asymmetric leg of Greta Garbo / this involuntary grotto of silence / this unpublished premonition of a stiff kiss / this anticyclone in the topography of a sigh / this genteel lubricant of bovine orgasms / this kyriopascha obsession of turning the abstract into the concrete. The Words These oblique cartographies / these choral songs with those far-off glints / these cesti gloves from the Forum of Augustus / these small moments of our “visions of paradise.” The Impossible This malnourished duffel bag / this cement stuffed tooth painter/ this resolute algebraic cat / this invisible postcard to the invisible man / this rumble that startles a child’s mouth. © Sergio A. Ortiz first published in Whispers&Screams Magazine,   24 February, 2010 

Illegal

1. She shares a room with eight strangers. None of them know where to buy money grams. Her face flushes at the grocery store, but she still looks straight into my eyes and asks: Can I walk there? Which way is it? 2. Jobs are scarce, so he eats what he finds in dumpsters near the house, squats on a vacant lot that floods in autumn.   He doesn’t say it, but he’s scared of fever. Knows that if he dies, back home, Juan will stop by the bar and flick quarters in the jukebox. Jose will tell dirty jokes at his wake until four in the morning, while Pedro recounts the story of the irate husband shooting at his naked butt flying over the fence. But here, he doesn’t have a name, he’s constantly cold and unnoticed. 3. She makes it difficult to ignore the wet clothes on a man’s back as he wanders into la migra’s office for a 24-hour stay, or a free jet ride home. She’s too alarmed to remember the two daughters left behind. Umbrellas keep her in the shade while officers bring tam

Edificando la nación: prótesis + circuito cerrado + panoplia = Infierno

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Os cortaron los testículos con fuego, luego insertan la prótesis (un dispositivo de circuito cerrado) esperanzados en captar la deslumbradora panoplia de maricas marchando derechitas hacia la visión del infierno según Rivera Schatz: a Spanish tea party . — ¿ Que es un Spanish tea party ?   —   Yo no sé.   ¡Búscalo en el diccionario urbano! © Sergio A. Ortiz 20 de febrero de 2010

My brother and his son in my apartment in Jayuya

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I made all of the arts and crafts in the living room, including the knitted bed cover my nephew is sitting on.

My brother and my stepfather. My mother and me.

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Me, my sister Priscila, and my brother Carlos in Chicago

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My brother the cop, his wife, and my stepmother. This was also my apartment in Jayuya, PR

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Dulce Ponte

Me in Fifth grade. The year I got glasses.

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Me in a Choir, Chicago 1960

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plataformas

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plataformas entre el odio y la guirnalda hay un lobo esperantista entre el cacto y la dulzaina hay rudeza de viento entre el borracho y la brújula hay hedor de distancias entre el pergamino y el volcán hay borrones de luz entre la zarzuela y los mayas hay institutrices neuróticas— poetes maudits entre la adivina y el granizo hay un riachuelo y un francotirador © Sergio A. Ortiz 19 de febrero de 2010

Efrain Lopez Neri, Puerto Rican actor.

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To My Leaf Storm

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To My Leaf Storm Don’t fear my touch. Sustenance from windmills slowly gathers around our skin: leaves never fall, fragments spiralling into your smile, tears humidifying our lips. Don’t whisper to an alien ear. Look away to my lap, brush my breast.   Edges sooth the tip of a finger on my back, deeper fragments. Don’t list the possibilities. Keep stretching our secret. Swim in my hair, flaunt your smile on my torso, until the fragments and the leaves come to a sudden stop. © Sergio A. Ortiz 2009, first published in All Rights Reserved a literary journal. Issue, Margin of Error, 2010

Chavela Vargas

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" Isabel Vargas Lizano (born April 17, 1919) is a Mexican (Costa Rican born) singer. She is especially known for her rendition of rancheras genre - a folkloric musical genre widely popular in Mexico - but she is also recognized for her contribution to other popular Latin American song genres. She has been an influential interpreter in the Americas and Europe, muse to figures such as Pedro Almodóvar, hailed for her haunting performances, and called "la voz áspera de la ternura", the rough voice of tenderness. Her first album, Noche de Bohemia (Bohemian Night), was released in 1961 with the professional support of José Alfredo Jiménez, one of the foremost singer/songwriters of the Mexican cancion ranchera. Vargas has recorded over eighty albums thereafter. She was hugely successful during the 1950s, 1960s and the first half of the 70s, touring in Mexico, the United States, France and Spain and was close to many prominent artists and intellectuals of the time, includin

Untitled

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Dedicatorias

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Al enemigo: un cara a cara. Al insomnio: peras o manzanas, una zanahoria dulce. A la espera: un celador Sur Africano blanco dormido sobre una mina de diamantes. Al salón de clases: un reloj, la sobriedad del agua. A la lejanía: lo que recuerdo de Omar, un resplandor sigiloso, desnudo y húmedo en lo más profundo de mis pupilas. Al amor: una tregua, y otra tregua. ©   Sergio A. Ortiz febrero 16 del 2010

Lucecita Benitez y Alberto Carrion singing a song that is actually a poem from our greatest poet, Luis Pales Matos

Heraclitus: Coral Sea to Black Sea expedition

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© Sergio A. Ortiz 2009

El hombre de las palomas

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© Sergio A. Ortiz 2010

Grandfather and granddaughters / Old San Juan

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© Sergio A. Ortiz 2010

Tempestuous - Tomorrow I hope to be reading at The Poet's Passage

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So stormy a night So, so bright a day So wide a river So, so shallow its waters So ingenious the thief So, so small the dowry So white the paper So, so muddy the ink So lingering the love So, so treacherous the lover So strong the perfume so, so foul a nape © Sergio A. Ortiz 2009

Esto Quiere Ser

La Imaginación Este masticado agri-dulce ajo / esta asimétrica pierna de Greta Garbo / esta gruta de silencio involuntario / este inédito presagio de beso rígido / este anticiclón en la topografía de un suspiro / este gentil lubricante de orgasmos bovinos / esta obsesión kyriopascha de convertir lo abstracto en lo concreto. Las Palabras Estas cartografías oblicuas /estas canciones corales con esos destellos lejanos / estos guantes de cesti del Foro de Augusto / estos pequeños momentos de nuestras "visiones del paraíso." Lo Imposible Esta bolsa de lona desnutrida/ este pintor de dientes rellenó de cemento / este gato algebraico resuelto/ esta tarjeta postal invisible para el hombre invisible/ este retumbe que aterroriza la boca de un niño. © Sergio A. Ortiz 14 de febrero de 2010

Train at the University of puerto Rico

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My first photos

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© Sergio A. Ortiz Feb. 12, 2010

Medley

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She came out of church dressed   like her other life, purple, ready   for the parties and   las palizas ,   carrying the eighty extra pounds   of luggage she pawned the day before.   "Funny how a lonely day   can make a person say,   what good is my life…" The first time I felt   mutual kisses, whispers   nibbling on my ears,   under the cover  invitations penetrating, taking flight,   I went along with the salutation.   "Funny how I often seem   to pick and find another dream…"   The boxer, the man I bumped   into on the corner,   Sylvia Rexach and her guitar   taking my imagination into humidity.   W e were one   "This is me, this is me…"   His hand on my back   crossing me to the other side   of the street, taking me   to the movies, giving me his lucky charm .  "This is my life   and I don't give a damn   for lost emotion… ."   The day the Jewish boy picked   me up from a gutter, sat me   on his bike,

Video: Two poems by Imtiaz Darkher

http://vimeo.com/1148506

“Gloria a esas manos aborígenes porque trabajaban.

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Gloria a esas manos negras porque trabajaban. Gloria a esas manos blancas porque trabajaban.” Juan Antonio Corretjer there among the moon and sun Iguanaboina signaled my arrival i had found the cave the serpent and a stone from which Atabey drilled and looked through the hole Inriri carved my future existence in the clouds there were dreams and in the bite of the reptile-cobra those dreams became a sounding conch the owls regained their razor-slit eyes and my life was set free free to worship flamboyant trees and dualities © Sergio A. Ortiz Feb, 2010