Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

clouds move in a space beyond grief or understanding... memory, my scandelous mirror alwasy telling a lie

tumbling  through winter she knew she didn't fit... a doll's life trapped in a young man's body

I won't lose you I will follow your body as far as the street where best regards forms a corner with the breeze I will follow your body up to where our two bodies fight to enter your dark tunnel... the deluge of your cloisters

filled with longing I came looking  for ghosts and found  whispers— divergent

strange creatures on moonlit nights ugly sloth faces when I'm alone

you bend like a secret about to be revealed erotic logo

Voto for my logo: Undertow Tanka Review

We met as soul mates on Parris Island there were holes in the Persian rug we sat on that Christmas I could smell the fear and uncertainty of happiness no war crimes would ever be punished our shadows, a candle burning at both ends, kept singing  Goodnight Saigon 

this cold night a silver birch reaches for the sky the life I shared with him ...a scent of lilacs

cold night, a silver birch reaches for the sky— life dissolves into circles when visualizing loss

tiene sangre en las manos y vidrio soplado en los pulmones el corredor del narcotráfico donde mi isla muere tiene sangre en la cara y vidrio molido en sus fosas nasales el corredor de la justicia donde mi isla muere tiene sangre en su pene y vidrio cortado en su colon el corredor de partidos políticos corruptos donde mi isla muere y sangra, sangra, sangra por la cabeza sangra por los pezones sangra por los pies y es capaz de salir absuelto 

Juan Ramón Zalduondo, Puerto Rico's true owner, was arrested today! He is a criminal in all the sense of the word, political corruption, drug trafficking, banking corruption, you name it he has been alleged to have done it.  It is a real triumph for Puerto Rican justice.

I've had this blog since 2009.  I want to thank you all for the support you've shown through the years. Have an incredible Holiday Season! Sergio

fairy-tale illusions: I want to make love but my neck smells of another lover's touch… sleeping on Sunset Boulevard

another soul  blown like glass...  I'm sleeping  on Milagro Boulevard waiting for my train to Machu Picchu

winter solstice a cold that travels from my heart to the moon to the other side of silence

I stare at my hands look for visions  I haven't braved— a haven without sea surf or undertow

watching a ginkgo tree through a hospital window... should I say I'm sixty-three, or that I’m a devotee of Eros?

I am orbiting around your face my heart is like a fire-stone… sparks ignite my bones

you were my fallen flower a 1000 gifts of heavenly abundance my banquet of endings

Everything eventually comes to an end I've learned to disappear inside the cracks of the path along my shuttered house this is as far as I venture into empty space… I bond with the quartzes of a moaning night

we are ripe with gifts, the moon, the first rays of morning from the East, a coffer for a faithful heart

winter I have walked through your storms dreaming within the folds of frizzled viola petals

The Pianist We buried him yesterday. Night finds little, if any consolation in the embellished stars, and although I’ve stopped crying, I still sigh. I'm listening to music when there's nothing but the luscious scent of emptiness…my haunted past stares at the future

Torture Song I saw my face in a cell at Guantanamo electrocuting his genitals, my government waterboarding I saw my face in Ferguson right after being shot… a commanding surge blasted through the streets I saw my face in a man selling cigarettes on a NYC street corner screaming I can’t breathe , and I can’t breathe

wondering what it will feel like after he's gone pulled by a rope I walk through the dark

I'm going back to a time when I was  a woman … my kimono brushing  the arid ground

unmoored launched cloudward he dreams  with heavenly music— carnations tinged with love Spanish translation by Pedro Perez Osorio sin amarras lanzado hacia las nubes  sueña música celestial claveles teñidos de amor

let it rain may it all be suppressed your footsteps in the melting snow... climb through my window after dusk

Undertow Tanka Review Issue # 3 is now live! Submission are open for Issue # 4 Copies can be purchased at createspace and amazon!

he planted palms along my driveway so dates could ripen before my sorrows... shadows in the stream

to paint M ácacoel, he who is without eyelids,* I have used the ink of flowers* that fly  from the hidden scared caves *Mácacoel, him who is without eyelids, guards the entrance to sacred caves in Taino iconography.  He was turned into stone and placed in front of the caves for all eternity. *Colorful birds thought to be extinct.

think nothing of it if at the shrine of your life I'm cured of madness... for I tasted silence in the book of words

our eyes will meet and so I wish you well... there are boots under my pillow, memories of you in love with orchids

when I am all alone my heart is incomplete… for years, you were just a superficial distance in the glaze of memory

talk to me soothe my capricious pulse with the fluttering of chanting hummingbirds... I wrestle shadows tonight

to this day, the junipers are humming their farewells ... does the past change more than the present?

you've been  heading down the wrong road walk out  on your lover leave her for me there's a street  I walk on when I am lonely I sing, look  for signs that will tell me  where to go in peace

daybreak is no time to grieve... at night  I open the sails of my thoughts in the path of the wind citation: Ahmad Shamloo

I hear beats  inside my dream our voices,  quiet flames shuddering in the night

long before  my mother's burial life  had some form to it... I dove into the seas inside me

it had come to you and you were in the body of that failing deer... what does death feel like, does it use you up like birth?

for Brian Zimmer he’s gone and the heartache will be tamed... but aren’t we all already disappearing, sleeping among the flowers?

lost boys there is sorrow on my face, you churn-up earth like   lovers of dim corners

I lost my way out of the woods on the night swallows went south... vanished among strangers

trying to remember old lyrics, I watch the world toss its shadow on the moon

Alternate names for brown boys          by Sergio Ortiz                  roo F ers trench digge R s               brok E n rims  pro-ball pip E dreamers   pinto lowri D ers celebrity  gh O sts    cured by    M edical science

it’s time to mean what I say be the rider in the harsh silence and force an oath of unity on the wind

each heartache is the science of claws… dashing across quiet ocean floors shadows breed in my veins

Hero to die a hero gripping at the moon adjusting to the gloom children playing in the rain when anger twinkles and shadows breed in my veins I hear this song: I never meant to start a war …just wanted you to let me in