Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

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