Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

Poets are the magicians of the unseen,  snake charmers of winds and thoughts,  wolves echoing the lamentations  of a broken heart.  Through their blind retrospect we taste crimes of the living  and the dead, smell the pollination  of a rose upon the diamond mount  of the soul,  clutch a stormy Alaskan  winter of the heart, free the taste buds  of paellas of disgrace, a father  who has left his first born helplessly asleep on the highest peak of the Himalayas

He’s NOT my President the wind is what I believe in, the One that moves around each form Veteran , by Fanny Howe I eat breakfast, watch t.v.  while I think about the nurses  Uand doctors in protective gear on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The wind reaches into the pockets of the night, sails through hospital corridors I don't recognize, deserted emergency rooms I had never seen where promises are paid  with more promises, and lies  are the substitutes  for more lies. My keys draw lines of fire  on the counter in the bar  near my house. They're building nationalist utopias, banishing unmasked,  unprotected, racist women protesting  in front of the White House. My job is my father’s old job, I write the newspaper headings, pour more salt on my tequila,  stare at each individual crystal, frighten away old precipice birds.

Desiring my boyfriend's body I had a boyfriend once, who believed in decomposition. He told me this as we swerved in his truck, careening the back roads of Lajas, Puerto Rico, finishing the work of some come-before travelers, flattening each roadkill carcass into unrecognizability. "Less for the highway crew," he’d say. egrets, known as the Great White Heron gather at the maw of the stream feeding into the lake too many to count. I thought they were solitary birds. But there they were eating the ticks of the pasturing cows. My boyfriend wouldn’t have sex with me. He didn’t believe in latex, artificial hormones, the calendar or his own control. I can’t, he said, risk bringing a life into this world I’m not prepared to care for. And I’d plead, cajole, argue for his skin and my skin, sheathed in multiple prophylactics, only succeeding occasionally. at certain times, lake flies clot the air, thrumming, their mouthless bodies my body hungers, vibrates with no disce...

I am as Lonely as Falling Drops of Rain  I am the poem that began at dawn. The sand of Abyssinia sprouted from my eyes today  and all the perfume in Paris  originated from my lips. I saw the moon rise on a river  in the Far East, saw her drown completely drunk on midnight lovers' lips. Bowing my head I knelt  to beg for God's wrath  shaken by the sad eyes  of alpacas, opened two hundred and eighty-five doors looking for the letter where you say, we learn to challenge darkness  with more darkness. You said, I am that poem that began at dawn.   I added, and never ended . You laughed. I responded, you'll need more than that to get me to walk to your bed.  Then we both laughed.  I think you'll be convinced  before we finish the wine. Who knows, let's give it a try.  I smiled and I said, I'm in . You ordered Siri to turn on the music and I got up from my chair edged closer until I reached out  put my arms around you and da...

Songs of Anguish  Clouds approach my eyes, silent spaces, intense blues and greys, buried simulations of a life preparing for the day of departure.  No one leaves dressed in diamonds.  No prince parts clothed in gold nuggets. No one flies covered in sapphires. Abandoned we return as dust or salt. Nameless we embody other parrots, worship other snakes  in the skins  of faceless saints.