Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

my mother  passed away that March— a loon  followed me down  the curved river road

little blue mirror naked white river face that turns black when night seeps into your bed

Where do children play? Their names carved in the keel of the vessel in which they travel; their margins, our boundaries, their songs, pushed to the center of what matters in our fallible and sensitive lives, seeking responses to the unknown.  Position yourselves next to the mystery of their music. Where do children play? In time . . . that abstract glimmer that does not bond to anything;  the school of a submissive homeland?

¿Dónde jugarán los niños? Sus nombres labrados en la quilla de la nave en que viajan. Sus márgenes, orlas de un confín. Sus canciones, clavadas al centro de lo que importa en nuestras falibles y minúsculas vidas, en busca de respuestas frente a lo desconocido. Ubícate al lado del misterio de su música. ¿Dónde jugarán los niños? ¿En el tiempo, fulgor abstracto, inasible ? ¿En la patria sumisa?

A Poem for Uganda:  Our Wealth It is now illegal to be a homosexual in Uganda.   We went underground to escape the mist of colonialism.  I take off your shirt to tattoo a prism, a machine gun, and a dove dripping blood from its heart.   be a rainbow in the gale of life free of heavily-lidded eyes on the battlefield “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”* Do not answer that middle-of-the-night-knocking at your door without resistance.  We are no longer children of the half-light. artless fog man-on-man smithereens in a moment  black-on-black blemish without a purpose ·          John F. Kennedy

cold air fills the city spring is at the end of a line where lovers search for joy like peacocks  

http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/ One Man's Maple Moon: Map Tanka by Sergio Ortiz English Original if my life were a map it would be one of a man in the snow…       picking mushrooms at the edge of dread Lynx, 28:2, June 2013 Sergio Ortiz Chinese Translation (Traditional) 如果我的生命是一張地圖 它將是一個男人 在雪地裡 ... 在恐懼的邊緣 採蘑菇 Chinese Translation (Simplified) 如果我的生命是一张地图 它将是一个男人 在雪地里 ... 在恐惧的边缘 采蘑菇

never mind the sting of winter solstice warm-blooded love we felt it on the divan and in the ballroom

an hour’s length in our noisy city starts with sadness and leaves in its wake this empty page http://thebamboohut.weebly.com/current-issue.html

a heron, bluer than the lips of Lazarus, awakens to the harsh cry of a jealous sea

I dance on my heart when stars are spaced so far apart that doors opened to lovers close around them like a book 

The poem was accepted for a competition and had to be taken down.  Sorry!

Náutico escarcha que no se desprende de mis manos— entre flor y canto, rosa y viento, logramos vivir sonámbulo existiendo en ambos lados de una frontera— las primeras campanadas al alba en una aldea silenciosa siempre me halle en el limbo de las palabras perdidas el murmullo cimbró la tierra insular y fui aires del pasado que descienden a nuestras zonas dolorosas colocando a un lado la miseria, la ternura y la violencia

Asimbonanga (We have not seen him) Asimbonang' uMandela thina (We have not seen Mandela) Laph'ekhona (In the place where he is) Laph'ehleli khona (In the place where he is kept) Oh the sea is cold and the sky is grey Look across the Island into the Bay We are all islands till comes the day We cross the burning water Chorus.... A seagull wings across the sea Broken silence is what I dream Who has the words to close the distance Between you and me Chorus.... Steve Biko, Victoria Mxenge Neil Aggett Asimbonanga Asimbonang 'umfowethu thina (we have not seen our brother) Laph'ekhona (In the place where he is) Laph'wafela khona (In the place where he died) Hey wena (Hey you!) Hey wena nawe (Hey you and you as well) Siyofika nini la' siyakhona (When will we arrive at our destination)

held in ice as dancers in a spell leaves that fell on frozen over lakes— New-year bells bicker with the snow

watching him sleep in long alleys over a wild solitude I assume I’ve discovered the secret of life

he soiled his bushy muse with sequins— he ordered in a trick and called it dial-a-dick

we empty the dark in the dark . . . somehow someone finds by mistake a need fulfilled

he knew how to touch fire and leave unharmed . . . I knew how to open every door

we have rituals of regret, boys sent back home in body bags . . . we lie down in meadows and leave behind their corpses

wordless   as the flight of birds endless streams and mountains— Mandela

a quiet exit free  Nelson Mandela— from a prison rock quarry to the presidential suite 

Sergio Ortiz

Me publicaron unas poesías en una revista literaria Mexicana;  CUADRIVIO http://cuadrivio.net/2013/08/naufrago-de-sombras/ Tu sexo Extraño tu sexo ciñéndose a mi lengua. Amo tu racimo de sudores olvidados, la gota de coñac que resbala por tu muslo con la indiferencia de una nube que se aleja. Amo tus claras humedades: las de tu esperma tramposa las de tus ojos lacrimosos. Mi silencio con sus fauces te rodea.

I trust that horses run through vast canyons though I watch through the window with small flutters of fear

deceived, once again misled— it’s the pain of loving someone who doesn’t want you back

crickets and dragonflies— the sage ask that you understand there is a beast within you

touched by water, a spring... touched blindly to dress his wound, the injury of being

Cuando ya no contestas mis llamadas Al final tu cuerpo se apodera de la memoria. De una mente que no existe no hay nada que confiscar.

Tristeza Se funde la luz de tu vida sin embargo esto no es una plegaria ni un reclamo de herencia no consigue ser ni una disculpa, tampoco es un adiós la casa que me arrancaron sigue viva— visitada devotamente por sus muertos.

page after page of blank torsos longing— even the weathervanes look happy

Shadows unusual bird furious to free himself from his hatred of moral negligence— he’ll drift home quietly his ghost will darken soon enough and loom through new snow, he’ll sit down alone by the river whittling a root he’ll say nothing as the waters flow—just think, think of his wedding day

I had surgery on Friday.  Today I wrote this tanka,  it has been changed into a tanka sequence.  It was accepted for publication.  I was thrilled. Coming Out shrouded in mist I wear a torn place on my sleeve — turning like a mirror on a string a key in a lock, I have no more tongue than a wound beads of an abacus— the shed skin of a snake remembers what it once held calculating all the ways I numbed myself casting minute after minute into the wind . . . taking off the mask

the past  had its magic . . . its silent,  yet crowded, shore of ships  whose freight was everything

he reeks of the grave— a terror more barbarous than the hiccups of a dying dog

Caminé para Abniel Marat Quiero corroer los busques que desataron la lluvia con vientos mutilados para bañarme de sal, porque soy faro de lo indefinido y traficó voces de ausencias, murallas de esqueletos que contrabandean libertad. Mi tierra es un poema que da sombra a los ilegales pensamientos de una noche perdida entre tu tiempo antillano, y el sol lleno de cámaras transita sobre mi piel como un fantasma que reclama lo suyo con evidencia. Caminé al frente de los ecos de mi huida hacia un corazón disfrazado de delirios teatrales con mi historia arrugada y mi amor negro bailando la intensidad del jazz.  Recorrí tu cuerpo con mi sangre revolucionaria dejando huellas profundas sobre tus ojos color canela.

desire falls  across my body  like cherry blossoms . . .  never allowing the traffic  to smother it with noise

how imprecise  the smell of desire . . . my solitude  is the guise of unending  repetition of a hanging 

thirteen ways of looking at a skylark . . . after death the poor have a better view, as the dead cross over into song

now and then a smell of grass displaced by fear—no sight, no sound, no touch, or taste

burning alive with mad  devotion— is it better  to anticipate love  or to age alone

Nobility of Blood Dear Lord, this Thanksgiving all the drug-lords promise to thank you for AIDS, although it has not made them transcend into the 21st century. They are still caught up in superficial things like money, BMWs, and killing. We thank you for tent evangelists, brothers and sisters alike, breeders of hate crimes, that reject the perfect beauty of homemade remedies and blood transfusions. Lord, forgive my arrogance toward the medical community and appoint faith healers to pharmaceuticals. Dear God, thank you for allowing me to live on the periphery of society, where nobody asks yet everybody tells.  Thank you for the innocent illusion of my open exhibitions of affection toward Omar. Thank you for the rapid spread of HIV  in Africa, where water, food, and medical supplies have always been scarce or costly, where rape and violence towards women is beyond control, where children have no choice but to fight...

Me dejó atrás— Fue la distancia de tu cadáver que perforó un agujero dónde estabas tú. Fue el imaginarse esa inimaginable travesía . . . Mi Ulises sin cuerpo sin Ítaca. Fue ese tácito clima al que nos referimos cuando no hay más voz ni consuelo en nuestra morada. Fui yo al no saber cuál cuerpo tu tomaste en mis sueños— yo, deseando más que una visión. Fue el no querer clausura, una memoria sencilla, el desvanecerse de tu voz, tus ojos, la calidez de tus brazos.

in the hallway of life you were a bougainvillea with no thorns . . . I, the caretaker sweeping away the fallen petals

su mantilla es encaje de roble negro, siempre hay alguien llorando- mi desnudo yo inflexible

the best part of me  was always him . . .  he's moved on  yet I can't erase  his face from the starlight 

in his eyes  I found the best part of me...  though he's gone  I still see his gaze  in the starlight

susurrando mentiras a los muertos— un jacinto en la luz otoñal de la luna ondea mi calma

so many ways  to avoid seeing how  others suffer  such wounded flesh...  a bad moon on the rise

The Birthday Party Gambia. Alhaji, twenty-one and gay, had been planning his birthday for months. The guest list carefully locked away; there was that real threat of decapitation to consider. However, he could no longer find peace by avoiding life. how old is need, how knotted are the corridors of loneliness? Imam , there is no angel with an orange by my bed His friends gathered by the poolside, each with his past shut in him like the leaves of a book, eyeing the uninvited guest snapping photographs.  freedom is a fire that runs like a staircase up then down— my lover's lips the color of soft-skin mangoes

for Alhaji, a 21-year-old gay man from Gambia freedom is a fire  that runs like a staircase  up then down— my lover's lips the color  of soft-skin mangoes

¿Cuán vieja es la penuria, cuán anudado está el pasillo de la soledad? Monseñor , no hay un ángel con una naranja en mi cama

coiled  in each other's blood they drive  BMWs & sleek black  luxury Audis...Caribbean slaves

used needles and old skeins of yarn a tangled tapestry... madness or a beginning

Canción Triste para un Adiós sin Remedio De la selva huyen cotorras con las alas en llamas. Le prendí fuego a la lluvia, laceré la sol con mi navaja para huir del tiempo que agita tu piel como un látigo. Hoy salvo mis abismos, huyo del frio que agrieta mis alas de mariposa para no disgustarme con la muerte. Ahora los peces de tinta preguntan por ti. Dime, qué les digo.

Sublevado De que me sirven tus abanicos rotos, o el sudor del tiempo licencioso, o tu espalda en el ocaso de un abrazo. De que me sirve la memoria de tus ojos pardos, o el perfil incendiado de tus labios tristes. De que me valen tus pisadas robustas de anhelos fértiles e invisibles corrientes en las aguas sin playas que contienen las noches frágiles de un sueño intenso. De que me sirve la canción para dormirte, o cien pozos callados.  De que me vale un “ adiós ”  si todavía  te veo arrancando sombras en la playa de mi histeria.

I looked for him  behind a line of trees--  our flesh  with colors washed off at last  opens to the rhymes of sex 

Envejezco entre sueños en los riachuelos. Éste no es un país para ancianos. Cúmulo irrisorio de partituras anticuadas, aves cantando sobre el árbol otoñal la música sensorial que todo ignora, el abrigo andrajoso sobre un bastón doblado. Ustedes, adolecentes   sabios, parados sobre el fuego sagrado de Dios, giren hacia mí, sean los educadores del canto de mi aliento.   

listen . . . I'm more than what you made of me— you won’t find  me trying  to chase the devil

broken by another wave . . . I feel the river shift, the ink on a line

it started in the foyer of dusk . . . him folding into me with auroras in his eyes

El Silencio Desperté lo suficiente como para verme mirando hacia atrás... Las cosas desechadas para siempre me seguían abrazando. Muda imagen de cera que emerge intacta desde la distancia: corazón, que ya no es mío, tira la máscara, deslízate hasta el fondo de mi tristeza. No me preguntes cómo pasa el tiempo.

http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/ Sometimes you touch my body and awaken it… Sometimes when I talk     you listen, stripped of concepts, and become air and flight, and when I am lost to this world you force me to return with soft streams of words.

down in the groove I wear a ball and chain . . . live on the street by a hurricane breeze

he left me begging for the thing most men have below their belts . . . looking out the window, skywriting  

http://www.baquiana.com/Numero_LXXXV_LXXXVI/S_Po%C3%A9tica_V.htm#Sergio_Ortíz LLEGAR CON LUZ hilando fino y sin planear, soltando amarras, que los ardores de este cuerpo me devoren, allá yo, allá voy, allá… Empezando a darme cuenta que no siento nada al escuchar tu nombre pasearse como un reptil sin cola por mi diáfana mañana. Eres despojo de infancias, el intermedio arbitrario de un pasado cauterizado con la luz del vientre de mi madre. SAL Caes más allá de tu savia como un pálido recuerdo trocado en blasfemia de lágrimas. Y en ti mi corazón es un círculo de fuego que se torna en sal oscura sobre tus playas. Y soy naufrago de sombras, sueños confusos que guardan el recuerdo silencioso del agua. AMANECIDA Qué escuchas me pregunto. Has colmado de raíces mis espacios, urdiendo, exhalando la melodía de mi hambre, urdiendo, exhalando la sed de mi piel. Yo busco mi propia habitación en este ...

http://thegiantgilamonsters.com/abramelin/ Orpheus’s Death when I wrote of men folding in their tight skins like an apple— apples swelling inside me— it was a mask when I wrote of a god standing near the window dancing— it was a mask there are no apples filling my hunger, no god folding in his skin, there is only the memory of my self torn at birth by my own music