Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

a blue butterfly hovers above her shadow with battered wings she's earned the sweet release of her own death

Kindly submit up to 10 previously unpublished  tanka, tanka art, &/or  1 sequence. “Undertow Tanka Submission” to: undertowtanka @ gmail . com Or use Contact Form to the right *** by September 30, 2014 / second Issue to be online by October 3 At the end of your submission, please include your full name and country of residence.  All rights revert to authors upon publication. Your tanka must not be under consideration elsewhere or submitted to any contest.  Hopefully this will become a print Review in the near future. Best wishes, Sergio Ortiz,   Editor

the rubble of bark he’s dead … there I said it, a reminder of my own years of eating dates this is how it feels to lose it on those days when death cruises for good food and nice garments my torn body tears itself again— night's million shadows grow taller hour by hour my bleeding lips vanish, my brain blackens like the countryside

what can your past say that has not been said before? nude bodies oozing the sweet scent of peeled pine log... the odor of a naked man

hungover   naughty boys picking   coffee beans   sweat off last night's lost time ... it takes much to erase little

from a distance what will you do with a mended heart? a gate will open and there will be no more scorching timbers the river that was tainted by lies will be cleansed free of impurities 

the new red moon torn in witchy branches at a junction I stare up astounded by the silent darkness

mortals marching into heaven playing in the dusk of creation, bright faces turned upwards

my eternity looks like two men dancing a tango in a dive on an unswept floor

I forget myself when I look into your eyes memory inundates the estuaries of a inspiring mind

Monday, August 18, 2014 Kindly submit up to 10 previously unpublished  tanka, tanka art, &/or  1 sequence. “Undertow Tanka Submission” to: undertowtanka @ gmail . com Or use Contact Form to the right *** by September 30, 2014 / second Issue to be online by October 3 At the end of your submission, please include your full name and country of residence.  All rights revert to authors upon publication. Your tanka must not be under consideration elsewhere or submitted to any contest.  Hopefully this will become a print Review in the near future. Best wishes, Sergio Ortiz,   Editor

back to bed  after I piss... my crow legs  are swollen— how embarrassing is sex when it goes wrong 

UNDERTOW TANKA REVIEW: ISSUE # 1 HAS BEEN PUBLISHED Sergio Ortiz,

stars dangling sugar crystals over the Pacific my lips touch your body our skin, a black rosary of hands

drifting  the flowers need water I have let things slip  they weigh me down  with the present eat everything I breathe like dangerous animals,  free, and completely empty I am a new persona anesthetized  until there is little left to do but sleep I dream  about alcoholic binges  one night stands  in bathhouses  with the thick vapor of lust and cold  mouths sucking on my face I am wrapped  inside my own mirror laughing, struggling until I break loose step on the needle shards of my life tamed, old, fat looking for a way out of this room  where I once felt the need to write  about myself until the tulips turned red

she  sleeps like a child on rosepetals will  we see her playing with the sun and the rain

the fragrance of your parting   to a friend that passed away August 1 living without suspicion you pass away as we watch the city lights disappear butterflies are white because of this summer drought… we talk of grief and shadows that appear in dreams we struggle with our thoughts and find that joy is nothing more than pain refined