Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

missing clothes, but I don't have money on my mind... seed-pods blowing off the sycamores

days so bad I couldn't afford a meal… independence has a price tag

you are everything I ever closed a door on, the closet of my childhood where no one could ever find a broom

A Quarterly Journal Jeffrey Woodward, Founder & General Editor  Volume 8, Number 2, June 2014 Sergio Ortiz  San Juan, Puerto Rico A Murdered Woman She prepared for the  Via Crucis  by putting the white silk mantilla on top of the  peineta  buried in her  azabache  hair.  La primera estación , hands clapped in dissonance, torches set on fire. Brunilda emerged from the shadows chained to the wall,  un alma en pena . She dragged the long, heavy fetters a few steps before she tore off the bolero jacket and exposed her small white breast. Then she darted into the crowd, her little feet hammering the wooden floor with a flamenco, arms outstretched until the chains gave out and her body threw itself to the ground. Her sisters grabbed the chains around Brunilda's wrist, wrapped them around their own arms. The guitarist's widow grabbed the fetters too. All the women danced and flung themselves at the crowd. They pulled on the cha...

art, the history of air— follow this silence to its edge and you will hear me

art begins with a lie,            that’s the legend, a sharp speck in the eye

the bridges   we have failed to build between us... my ink, the color of veins and arteries 

he's been texting me all night... is that a booty call? I need to go to the bathroom but first let me take a selfie

the normal heart an ocean of tears   fighting against the tide… in the ruinous summer of a epidemic 

in the arms of winter camouflage we can be anything we want-- a spot of warmth in an icy world

Colonial Shame guilty words amassing faults-- a bird trails its shadow on the ground my injured airy forest at war... bought & sold a gallant extortion of the past I have no choice but to use blended words... I know there's something better down the road must I learn another language... I stand upon your back to face your destiny

to all the seashells— I set fire  to the rain, watched it fall as I caressed your face

Tonight And I, have runaway to tell you– tonight God weeps in my hands. Call me, exiled tonight. Where are you now? Who lives in your arms tonight? Whom else from rapture’s street will you unarm tonight? My contenders for your love– you’ve invited them all? This is mere offense, an alarm tonight. Your treacherous love will be my harm tonight. I can’t flee your imaginary charms tonight. Love will not be familiar to my arms tonight. I’ll try to break out of your arms tonight.

aroma of history, boiling water and a pinch of sage— life's triumph in the thick forest of a Japanese town

above sorrow's tree a flutter of wings in the rain clouds... we live our lives in an oasis of language

this board of curly maple – a map of the last age of my life in its wandering grain

rumble under your feet tanka sequence I'm coming up from hell with all you've suppressed-- hermetic texts with stories of hot & dangerous homosexuals I'm coming up now  with all that was hidden get ready, big boys,  I'm pushing up the ground O censorious ones BOO! I'm thrusting  into your point of view,  your private parts O men of losing battles

in the city of dust you walk with your face turned from me I guard my goblet from the moon amid the blooming roses

two boats moored,   rocking between nowhere and nowhere... two men wrestling nude   in Lawrence’s Women in Love

because it is night the lotus is nervous… he waits for me to say what might awaken him from his dream

if this wooden board were a map, it would be the atlas of the last age of my life

I also published this other book of tanka: From Life to Life

https://www.createspace.com/4807487 I just published a new book of poetry at createspace.com So What If I'm Wounded

in the city of dust you walk with your face  turned from me I walk amid the late-blooming roses and guard my glass from the moon

above sorrow's tree a flutter of wings low in the rainclouds... we carry our lives   like a true oasis of language

Absences The door slams shut and once again I'm driven back to empty pages. No rain or street voices, nobody calling to someone else, my fingertips touching reality’s face, my own face streaked with tears in the mirror at dawn. Miles away—in time and space, you offer your adieu and move on. I stand in the desert where the cacti bloom. Something strange gathers in the sand below me.  A mystery governed by those sacred absences   that make the spirit soar. In the desert far beyond the city, one hears the cadences for which one longs,   the lyrics of those half-forgotten songs… some of them poignant, some of them witty. The words come rushing back like songbirds.

Mother’s Day I keep calling and all I get is an answering machine. She’s eighty-nine and someone has had the bright idea of getting her an answering machine. She probably doesn’t know how to use it. Or maybe she can’t remember to call back. She might have forgotten where she put my phone number. Anything could have happened at her age, and I am furious, no livid, and full of anxiety. I remember the birthday party she had for me when I was seven. The toys were all bigger than me. The cake was a carousel, a huge carousel with big beautiful horses. No one in town had ever seen anything like it. Now I fail to be grateful on mother’s day. How can I forgive myself?

Visions I saw myself  before an empty stage. I saw myself in galleries  of laminated clippings  declaring war on Boko Haram, #BringBackOurGirls! I saw myself on the subway  in stinking clothes during rush hour  with balloons attached to my ears. I saw myself simulating masturbation  while the Governer of Puerto Rico, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, drove by. I saw myself waking in the place  where women die giving up   my dream of being seen.

Broken Dolls 1. They enter the skin of painted leopards to reveal mysteries, voodoo magic. Then they gaze at the world from broken constellations, sitting directly across temptation and tittle-tattle about retiring in style. 2. She looks for her dealer, keeping a vigilant eye on Icarus ready to escape into exile. Suddenly she’s one with the concrete. 3. She doesn’t want to be a calendar queen. She wants to be a doll and spend her day in silence. She has body art; cranes floating through pines, lustrous yellow leaves. 4. She was happy to bend, raise her hand on camera, but men and silicon made her sick. Now she swims silently in heaven with a blue mantis, sings praises to her king. 5. Nothing shocks anyone anymore.  Callous is the fad. It is no wonder some end up living on the street. Ten million baby girls swallow sand every decade before their first scream while Barbie plays with medical...

My Shadow Today I sit by the window my delusion spreads—nothing I think has the quality of a wounding experience. I'm lonely because I allowed you to step on my shadow. But now that I've crawled out of the ground I think I'll dance on your grave. Is this an angry statement? You are dead like a great white wolf who cannot sing, dead sonofabitch, always mean to me.

Honorable Mention Anger by Sergio Ortiz IBPC worried your name is missing— it circles in the shadow-world, a wind-blown ghost a salamander crawls up my skin– my tongue tangles with aphasia, ready to confront his mouth full of fumes - I blaze up like the ruff of an offended bird shadows prisoners left on the wall — ..........scattered in a mass grave

La Jaula Rota Un río de dimensiones míticas puede inundar el corazón con luz … Sin embargo lo que veo son pétalos de cerezo cayendo. Dentro de mí la jaula  está  rota. Fuera de mí hace falta la parte que florece con palabras en la primavera. El río se convierte en dragón cuando mi alma se convierte en espejo inundado de luz.

A Broken Cage A river of mythical proportions can flood the heart with light… yet all I see are cherry petals falling.             Inside me the cage is broken. Outside me, I miss the part that blooms with words in spring. The river turns into a dragon as my soul turns into a mirror flooded with light.          .