Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

 A transgender man and a transgender woman. A Matter of Habit “...you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on” ― Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable You learned to make those stone-cold don’t-fuck-with-me faces in fifth grade while I excelled at English, math, and history. I knew words, numbers, and dates would never betray me. In high school, we drifted away as you sought the approval of boys. You sacrificed half your humanity to fit in. I circled the edge of the pool and dove in. For me, “outside”...

POETRY BREAKFAST  just published two of my poems.

My Sea is Strong   I confess, in the heart of night, I imagine myself cascading on my lover’s body. My jewel is a dead sea, salty and safe. Blessed lover soaked with my body. He who drags me to his shore. Who gathers the moans I sow in seashells. Who tosses my kisses back to the sea. Who knows stones are also carved by water. Who steals whatever I have with precision. Who recognizes when to replace what was stolen. This is how I love you, every second committed to your pleasure, but I never say it. I hide the salt crashing on your reef inside my veins.

Para que mis Héroes Descansen en Paz Éramos “personas” hasta que el “hombre” creo “macho y hembra,” opresión e idealismo. Reusó odiarme a mí mismo. Pero me he extraviado. Estoy roto. Necesito repararme, reparación física y espiritual sin cirugía. Mi alma no me obliga a cortarme las venas, ni a decirme a mí mismo que soy ángel caído. Reusó toda asociación con lucifer, solo no voy a permitirle a dios que me siga escondiendo.    

Mi Mar Mi centro es mar muerto salado y seguro. Confieso que en lo más profundo de la noche me imagino abriéndome como una cascada. Bendito el amante que se empapa de mi cuerpo y me arrastra hasta su orilla. Que recoge los gemidos que siembro en las caracolas. Que las besa y las tiran a la deriva. Que sabe que las piedras las talla el agua. Amante que roba cuidadosamente. Que reconoce cuando debe reponer lo robado. Así amo, cada segundo comprometido con tu placer. Escondiendo en mis venas la sal que se estrella contra tu arrecife.

In a Room Full of Bodies My grandmother ran an ER she told me that when a man is about to die he drops his hand to the ground and desperately claws the floor later sky and earth merge on his palm he says you can't improvise the edge of that vein

Ella Somos soldados de mutuas batallas … Estancados en la misma pelea. Ella es ella y yo todavía no arribo. Ella muestra su refugio de odio … Parecido al mío, y descarga sus frustraciones sobre mí. Yo lo que quiero es que acabe con mi confusión.   Así es que empieza a desnudar la inseguridad que me traba. Me recuerda lo que soy frente al espejo … Me someto. La quiero cerca. ¿Qué hora es?                                     ¡Hora del espectáculo! Me agarra por mi gruesa decepción y palpa mis limites …                                     No existen.           ...

Muchacho Lindo ¿Quién podía imaginarse que mear en este país sería tan difícil? Que encontrar un baño universal seria toda una odisea. A mí me enseñaron a vestir y actuar como hombre, pero me enamore de lo femenino. Así que me escondía de mujeres agresivas con fantasías hiper-sexuales. Debajo de mi jean siempre llevaba un g-stro que se ceñía a mis caderas como grafiti. Me ponía una camiseta con un dedo que apuntaba hacia abajo decía Esto No Es Gratis Aullaba, Pónganme Atención .   Hay que ser bien valiente cuando se es tan vulnerable. Nací increíble, obviamente. Especial -mente cuando me sentía lindo.

Para Todos Nosotros Para nosotros los bloqueados de comunidades que se quejan de la intolerancia de los de “afuera,” pero adoptan la misma intolerancia desde “adentro.” Esa hipócrita postura de “solo nosotros” olvidando que todos estamos atados a mentiras, que invalidan nuestra humanidad, que separan nuestro cuerpo de nuestro ser, que les asignan roles a las almas. Para los que nos atragantan el sueño de “happily ever after” pero que nunca sanan lo escabroso que es la homofobia internalizada: ‹‹ nada de gordos, nada de afeminados, nada de maricas ›› descartados por hombres que arruinan sexualidades, que reducen a enigmas vergas carentes   de dulzura. Para los homies brutalizados por la esclavitud pasada y presente: “Joe Crow Mass Incarcerations” cuyos corazones laten en los pechos sordos atrincherados detrás de los muros del silencio que nunca van a proteger esos increíbles coros Gospel. ¡Te amo MLK Jr.! ...

Xilografía Soy ese Hombre convertido   en esa Mujer cuya madre se convirtió en la sombra del padre que yo soñaba, pero que jamás conocí.             Me rompo       y me reconstruyo                                     sin sentir nada. Verán, yo y la libertad eventualmente nos vamos a encontrar, aunque eso signifique estar libre de la X. De la X de la Y porque volar sin alas no es tarea fácil. Mi primera confesión: soy guerrero que carga el mensaje sin importar lo pesado que es el bulto. Puedo inhalar dolor y exhalar amor.

Badlands Here we are orphans of the scientific cry strangled by the fury of acid rain. The appearance of a presidential tweet is not rapture, or change. It is an absent body. None of us surrenders that easily to an absent body. A tree frog arrives to the shade of a hollow log with not even a rumble.

Muchacho Isleño   Tenía 17. Piel cobre intenso al frente del espejo de mi abuela: chacho isleño de pelo negro. Ventana abierta, quise aspirar el aroma a sofrito. Se me cayó la toalla. Clavé las yemas de los dedos en el espejo. Para aquel entonces susurraba que no quería ser hombre. Incluso sentí que estos incipientes pechos crecían muy pesados. Pues doblaban mi espalda con todas sus demandas.

The poem is up at Two Words For If It Rains and Night Arrives If it rains and night arrives in Paris, she will sit alone at the threshold of Brahma’s  temple to watch you leave without asking you to comfort her. If it rains and night arrives in Tehran, she will think about Sita repudiated by Rama, and ask you why men  do these things knowing in advance the end. If it rains and night arrives in New York City, she will drop every piece of the night sky and walk,  free and alone, towards the dawn  she glimpsed  when you left her

Nosotros los Chicos Invisibles hemos estado gestando en este arenal durante meses. Buscando fuerzas-pilares, manteniendo habilidades-felinas. Vagamos lentamente hacia amistades y amantes; silenciosos, atados, zurcidos y esperando. En esta ciudad, este Neverland, solo nos tenemos un al otro. Y todos fuimos traídos a esta playa por un flautista de Hamelin distinto. Nos hicimos muchachos calmando infancias mortinatas. Flexionando músculos y observando nuestros cuerpos comprimirse en formas que abiertamente deseábamos, que secretamente objetábamos.

What is Torture Danang 1965 when the eyes of the dead rise among weeds! What is amber when transparency clouds my blood with red! What is an aura when in the distance the jungle tightens the rain and loads the legs of mutilated bodies on my back! If war had not come to me like a clandestine night of a capture, I would be naked and asleep on the sands of China Beach.

PIN QUARTERLY JOURNAL, a vast garden of literary comeliness just published two of my poems.  This journal is based in Nigeria. The poems are in the section: ACROSS THE OCEANS WITCHING THE WORLD By Sergio A. Ortiz Real loneliness is like a window from wherein you cannot hear a thing. My loneliness is the tracks at a train crossing, a damnation of gunfire and impact. In silence my name: the instant at which the gods finally forget to call. I keep thinking, sing to yourself and survive. Expand to infinity like a deaf man expands his voice in a dream. ABYSSES By Sergio A. Ortiz I live between two abysses The staggering patience of him who walks far too long to lean on the rail of a footbridge ―my only afternoon ceremony― to watch the water roll by And the enormous impatience of him who wants to reach the end zone at all costs but only sees the size of his insomnia and jumps off the bridge into y...

A Coyote Lurks Be vigilant of the coyote prowling your words. He'll butcher the jacaranda. We must avoid his ambush. The poets who know the spells of language advise we strike the word match against a stone and light up the word bonfire to keep him away. Coyotes scurry when they spot fire dancing with air.

Confused I hear a ghost undress, so I wait. Dead birds have thirteen unlucky hearts. I sit on a chair in front of the last corner of the night.

Drunk on Sunsets To return to what we were as children we must grow inside as light filtered through sorrow. Devour the rivers that whiten the memory. Listen to the cries of flowering trees. Fly kites with colored arms at the seashore then sit and watch the afternoon sun as it sets in our pockets.

By all that is Holy Kiss the other, and let her settle the sacred earth of a frozen forest. Then  burn your inner self with the language animals use during intercourse. The sincerest words, a response to desperation.

A Grammatically Correct Biographical Note Who do we believe we are, if all we do fits into a couple of lines?

Invisibles stirred the cauldron of history over the flames where their legends burned ... now the cooling hands of women

Cannons         Invisibles jiggle in the cauldron of history. Those who do not remember the name of their president hide in their houses between pages of deleted files in the Networks where they trap their own legends. Tomorrow is the last day of the arid void of their deserts, tombs where animals that do not know how to become extinct lie  preserved forever.         Invisibles stirred the cauldron of history over the flames where their legends burned ... now the cooling hands of women.

Lithograph by Fran z Cižek The Hinge          Forgive the craft of pouring myself into pitchers. Water cannot tolerate thirst for long periods of time, the thirst that invaded my home during the years of submarginal words. Burglars burned down the charity bazaars and school libraries. Now my son will inherit a handful of ashes. Only "The Imprint of Reticence"   remains.

Uno de mis poemas acaba de llegar en Segundo lugar en una competencia de poesía en España. Les dejo saber más dentro de poco.

I am as Lonely as Falling Drops of Rain I am the poem that began at dawn. One day all the sand of Abyssinia sprouted from my eyes and all the perfume in Paris originated from my fingers. Another day I saw the moon rise on a river in the Far East, saw her drown herself completely drunk on life. I also remember that long night when I wept bitterly the wrath of God in the dying eyes of a sad alpaca. And that other day when I opened two hundred and eighty-three doors looking for a letter that said: We learned to challenge darkness with more darkness. I am that poem that began  at dawn  but soon ended.

by Frida Kahlo Adiós “Cuando te hablen de amor y de ilusiones,”                                     José Alfredo Jiménez                      Soy melodía de un amor que no es mío, álgebra del aire remoto que asciende desde los sepulcros. Quiero ir perdiéndome en aquel espacio perfecto donde la piel       termine de pudrirse.  Sal                                          ...