Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

Magic Oh magic, centrifugal current of intrinsically abounding headsprings. Water is liquid quartz, rock that is already flowing, shadow of the eternal minute immobile its fleeting.

Haiku vísteme de auroras que llego tarde a su piel

El Sur I envision a country without observers and spies or frightening police robbing children I envision a city with ocean wings and drunken salt southern cities new appearances in search of their antiquity

Aproximación Esta quietud que mora en la  imaginación  calma mi marginalidad, la viste de mujer para aproximarse al lago y cantarle boleros a los astros.

One More Shade of Gray There is a way lonely people twitch when they find out their friend has died.  I should know, he was a friend and I just can’t stop from crying. One more shade of gray to keep me blue.

Eros I Without stopping to calm your convulsions I take advantage of you spilled on my thighs and embrace II I undo your dream provide the answers but do not form you you break me open III I barely listen to your speech you have so many voices do not I know which one you are I look into your eyes and I raise my legs

Erótico I No me detengo a calmar tu temblor aprovecho que te has derramado entre mis muslos suspiras y me abrazas II Deshago tus sueños te digo las respuestas pero no te formo y me rompes III Apenas te escucho no sé quién eres son tantas tus voces miro a tus ojos y levanto las piernas

False Pride:  Tango Dancer You are the seductive arch of a bay without roots, a drop descending on the half-light, sustenance of magic footsteps at the moment of the suicide.  You dance with the white and silent breeze of AIDS where tango dancers take their stilettos for a stroll— broken-in Italian shoes— then burn their tongues nailed to a false pride.  I spit you, not once or twice but three times. You’re female and male neutered to frighten the children at local holidays, a simple invitation to dust .   

Tangueras Eres el seductor arco de una bahía sin raíces, la gota descendiendo   sobre la penumbra, sustento de mágicas pisadas a la hora del suicidio. Bailas con el blanco de la brisa silenciosa del SIDA donde todas las tangueras sacan a pasear sus zapatos italianos rotos y luego incineran sus leguas clavadas en el falso orgullo. Te escupo, una, dos, tres, veces. Eres hembra y macho castrado para asustar los niños en las fiestas patronales, una simple invitación al polvo .

Deseando un Santuario esto quiere ser una cascada de colibríes que cubren nuestros cuerpos con los números de las páginas de mi libro ii entre tu tiempo y el mío dejo ilusión tu dejas soledad y volvemos a nuestros nombres iii a veces yo te leo en otros crepúsculos a media luz tu voz es diferente abres las alas y no te pareces a ti mismo pero se que eres tu  

for want of sanctuary this wants to be a waterfall of hummingbirds covering our bodies with numbers from the pages of my book ii. between your time and mine I leave hope you leave loneliness as we return to our names iii. sometimes I read you in other shadows in the twilight your voice is different you open your wings and somehow  I recognize you

I want to be phenomenal honey pouring out of me, no lies affecting who I’ve been. But you’ve shot me with your words, cut me with your eyes, killed me with your hatefulness. Men hurt down my juiced legs, their presence lingers on my fighting hands. Yet I am bold and have no scent of fear.  Too high a price… Love set me free!

Dolphins and Moons The sword of perfection is unworthy of mention in my lovers presence unless it be drawn with regret. Bones wear out with age, fire can be easily extinguished, but simplicity is better chained to hearts, like dolphins swimming around the aura of a lunar eclipse, a pendant. When my lover touches my hair I shatter into dancing moons.

Treat us  to your nightmares, become our guru.

The key you have not lost is there between those spaces, not by or in, but flanked between here and there, living like a fugitive on your skin. It is a prelude to our memoirs, the text of a poem fused with nectarines, an exploration through Copper Canyon, visions of Haiti’s angels licking my ears, a hypnotic dance on sands matching the colors that mesh upon your hips, an experiment we refuse to put down, an invitation to cross the doorway of the home I no longer occupy. The key you have not lost is not the manual for a digital camera, or calendar entries for next month’s readings. It is not the Popular Mechanics article you wrote to put food on our table, or a classified add on craigslist. It wants to be the bungee jump into the pangs of a deer in heat, the obituary of bolted doorknobs, or a listing for all the vacant walls on which we'll scribble our love graffiti.

Gypsy Night, the beginning of day, life parting on vagabond raindrops and rented sound effects. Gratitude was once a cherry blossom gypsy robbed of her effervescence, lighter than roaming planets with her moon weeping, rumbling on happier shores.

The Alembic Soft hair and humidity trickled from his torso to his belly button as I moistened my lips. When the fruit ripened, he placed it in containers planked with scented Spanish Oak and covered with moss; export that would later be distilled. But to me Jerez was not what gave him the fragrance of Montilla, it only forced me to savor the memory of his abdomen.

Shattered  Long were the days of sorrow  when maps were studied and places chosen, gifts bought: Tin soldiers and Rajasthani puppets.  Gone  are the days When I believed in blood.

Monólogo Tu piel cubre las dimensiones exactas de mi deseo. Deposito el tiempo en tu cuerpo y me divido entre tu piel y tus ojos. Digo:  será  la última vez. Las gaviotas y el oleaje se acercan y me tocan Pero ellos no son tus manos .

To the rock of Sisyphus: North Korea : A tide, yes a tide of blood. We say so weedy a race only happens in mythology.  There the famished plump the bellies of their camels in wars empty of complaints. Unicorns thin out in paper jungles to survive the vinegar of our contracted livers. Uta’s stare, and the absolute silence of slender bony people wearing black cornflowers, and purple cabbage-roses on their surgically enhanced lipped smiles at funerals revive our fears.  There is no Shangri-La, no forest, or canyon far enough to stand guard against their stiff lean assault on peace.

Heart   He used to wake me up at 5 a.m.,   8 every Saturday and Sunday.   I’d stare into the eyes of that skinflint   angel caressing the most dull-witted features   of my morning thoughtlessness.   All sorts of miracles occurred throughout   the day, tricks of the heart. Then   he bought me an alarm. I knew a rook   had made its nest in his trunk. It was   as if he’d moved me back and forth   through dosshouses.  I couldn’t sleep.   My friends said I resembled a comma.   That was, of course, until I met Omar.   He’d call me up at 5 a.m.,   8 every Saturday and Sunday, and grunt   like a grizzly without constraints.   Why, my teeth would actually chatter,   and my skin sounded like the roasting   of a crackling pig.   But my heart never did get over   those everlasting Monday’s when Steve   softly poked whatever cheek he’d choose   to kiss that day and say: honey: wake up !  

On the Sands of the Mojave  Those forbidden twilights, brandished balloons hanging from hands fusing my horizons. Your scheme, Medusa, wrecking the tender years when wonderment still struck my heart’s core, was anchored on those midnight moons that pierced time’s foundation. Twenty years gone astray, yet bees still sizzle and cymbals snap at the thought of desire. Today I sit and twang my concertina in the nude on the sands of the Mojave humming revivalist songs for lack of any hearthstone affection.

The Lottery of Stars   The great payoff   is over. Turn your mirror   to the caterwauls   of Satan’s bride   if superbly round breast   and two weeks’   vacation in the azure   with Circe were your goal.   Death has a first,   second, and third prize   in the lottery of stars:   a rare rump, a magical orb   sweetly rolling around   your arm pits, and clouds   on their way home   along the seashore.   The streets sing as well,   to hydrocephalic   politicians reeking   of a haunt, a way to bring back jobs.

Monologue I tend to overlook the obvious. Nothing wrong with some skin covering the exact dimensions of my desire when you are by my side in a dream. I deposit time in your body, divide myself between you and your eyes. I say: it’s the last time. Listen, and self-destruct. Seagulls and the surf approach and touch me but they are not your hand. I watch you sleep Among the far away oceans, my Ulysses, and understand why mermaids sing to heroes. I approach you with my echo,   but you remain distant, fortified in your alliances.

The Map of Amsterdam  What does love search for  if not to grow wings  and become a hermaphrodite.  Is it not the obsession of the loved one  to burn your summer until you cook like escargot and die? (I was kneeling in front of him, my mouth on his hardness. His knees trembled and swayed. When I looked up  his eyes were closed and he asked: Do you love me?) Love, immobile happiness  of the swamp. Who was he to my intimate places to ask me that discomforting question? Did his wings carry the same dark dirt  as my map? Had he found my scent in Paris and lost it in the canals of Amsterdam? Had he found that place in me— the where, where he could always return? ii. I had fallen in love with a man  who had a name to protect.  I shut myself in the bedroom for days  buried under shame. Friends brought me look-a-likes, but it only made me smell of bitter sweat and dead gardenias.  I’d listen to them speak as if from a far distance, eyelids heavy,  like stones swollen with salty wetness, cheeks

Seventy Eight He was about mother’s age and stature when she died four years ago; stout and short but graceful, with the buoyancy of fresh foxglove bursting forth in summer. He’d hang a hammock and go for a walk on the beach. Wading to his hips  as his feet  pressed  the wet sand;  salt seasoned  the expression  of joy  on his face. Two bongo players about his age, black as his shirt, struck a harmony of rhythms he could not ignore. The sun reflecting on his face emanated the happiness of an old freedom-song recaptured. For a brief moment, he eluded winter. Soon it would be time to return to retirement and the hammock, dream about a good dance partner.

Hombros Monocromos Ven hállame cortando a tajos a través del idioma enmarañado con las manos arrugadas por dirigir tantos destinos erróneos definidos por diccionarios y números. Apenas me queda cabeza una tiniebla, un viento frio, o una fogata sobre mis hombros monocromos; Lo negro y lo blanco, de la casa al trabajo, del trabajo a la casa, el gris de todos mis temores Quizás los números me hicieron tímido y pequeño, o la guerra incivil con mi peso, hasta que apenas estuviera aquí. Sonrío mucho y sigo caminando— el hombre desaparece , pequeño-pequeño en un mundo grande-grande.