Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

Two poems up at Journal of Truth or Consequence 

El Mapa de Ámsterdam ii Mis amigos trajeron hombres parecidos a él, pero sólo me hizo oler a sudor amargo y a gardenias muertas. Me había enamorado de un hombre que tenía un nombre que proteger. Me encerré en la casa durante días enterrado bajo la vergüenza. Escuchaba sus voces distantes, mis párpados parecían pesadas piedras hinchadas por el agua salada, y mis mejillas calientes como si tuviese fiebre. Después de unos días, ellos encontraron un hueco dentro de sí mismos y se agacharon allí en silencio hasta que la tormenta alrededor de mí disminuyó. Le canté himnos y conté historias de aves y personas con corazones de papel. Mientras tanto el hombre que tenía un nombre que proteger caminaba alrededor de la ciudad rompiendo a puñetazo todas las ventanas de cristal que encontraba.. Finalmente llego a mi casa, se sentó al borde de mi cama y trazo la cavidad de mi culo con su dedo. Nos dejaron solos,             dos hombres ...

The Map of Amsterdam What does love search for if not to grow wings and become a hermaphrodite. Is it not the obsession of the loved one to burn your summer until you cook like escargot and die? (I was kneeling in front of him, my mouth on his hardness. His knees trembled and swayed. When I looked up his eyes were closed and he asked:  Do you love me? ) Love, immobile happiness of the swamp. Who was he to my intimate places to ask me that discomforting question? Did his wings carry the same dark dirt as my map.  Had he found my scent in Paris and lost me in the canals of Amsterdam? Had he found that place in me —  the where where he could always return? ii. I had fallen in love with a man who had a name to protect. I shut myself up in the bedroom for days buried under shame. Friends brought me look-a-likes, but it only made me smell of bitter sweat and dead gardenias. I’d listen to them speak as if from a far distance, eyelids heavy, like stones swollen wit...

Lost The hunter’s arrow crosscut through the most sensitive part of my imagination as my poems coagulated between each sunrise. In the middle of this chaos my skin dried, hardened, peeled, and bled in the gardens,  the museums, the streets, mountains, and rivers where the mention of affection was lost and you knelt, sweating cold, every time I struck your face             —my love.

Luces de Diciembre Para aquel tiempo, bajo el sol frío de diciembre, tu habías llegado desnudo como una rosa. Yo pedía permiso para que permanecieras bajo mi sombra. Cerrabas los ojos y abrías tu piel, luz perenne de deseo, para pasearme por apariencias breves de galaxias lejanas, tránsito infinito de latidos, como si la muerte se paseara entre nuestras piernas y algo de lluvia cayese sobre mi cara.

December Lights Back then, under a cold December sun you’d arrived naked as a rose.  I’d ask for permission so you could to stay under my shadow.   You’d close your eyes and open your skin, the perennial light of desire, to walk me through brief appearances of galaxies, infinite transit of heartbeats, as if death was strolling between our legs and something rained on my face .

The Rattler of Keys Carapace of fake smiles— eventually the day will ease into a long permanent dream, a ghost ration of sweat lying in my eyelids folding the years where timid stars hide in silence.  This dream is dying and it has asked for my body. It wants me to jump in the river and search for an ocean inside a rose. It burns my skin until there is nothing left but impotent verses reaching for the stars, suffocating.   Run, go tell the jailer it is time for the execution.

Era que el tiempo había borrado todo rasgo de dolor y el aire se desmayaba en nuestras sonrisas . Era que la noche perecía colgada como un broche de emociones aladas. Era que estabas presente por encima del ruido ,  y los campos  vestidos  de ángeles  pedían sus retratos. Era que eras mi amigo y tomados de las manos decidimos caminar.  

Note to the Psychiatrist:  The Great Unhappiness The original phallus with annatto and banana leaf taste is lost.  I do not care to contemplate mountains or the sea. Moreover, I desire to chop off the rays of light and cover myself in broken glass.  

Nota al Siquiatra: La Gran Tristeza El falo original con sabor a achiote y hoja de guineo está perdido. No quiero contemplar las monta ñ as ni el mar,  más bien deseo tronchar los rayos de luz y cubrirme en cristal roto.

Almost Dawn I am the call of happy cranes the sigh of the wind around fruit-bearing trees.  And, of course, Sir, I am the perforated nipples that change everything into symbols like the storm in the last stanza of a poem.  I am almost dawn that wants to be broken if only to say something.  And I cannot pay for a book of poetry but I am present in all of them as the dirty billow of abandonment or clear day of dreams.

Soy Soy la llamada de grullas felices los suspiros de viento alrededor de los árboles frutales. Y, por supuesto, se ñ or, yo soy los pezones agujereados que todo lo tornan en símbolos como una tormenta en la última estrofa de un poema. Soy casi alba que se quiere romper  a sí misma, por decir algo.  Y no puedo pagar por un poemario pero salgo en todos ellos como ola sucia de abandono o día claro de ensueño.

Laughter and Clarity He rows with dew oars toward the spot where the wind begins, the remote shore where he grows in undisturbed silence, and stares at the ebbing moon, the color of the world which has not had a cradle of pupils, and cries.

Poem up at THIS - A literary Zine and Guerilla Pamphlets 

You You were the unborn ship of stars a shadow exiting the sound of my death my distant smile my ocean without a currant my thick riverbed my fine sand nobody else but you

T ú Eras navío de estrellas sin nacer sombra salida del sonido de mi muerte mi sonrisa distante mi mar sin lecho mi rio grueso mi arena fina tú y nadie más que t ú

On my first day without you , I’ll wash my face with ice water.  Grab my coloring chalks and paint a woman dressed in red coming out of church.  She’ll be staring into a blue sky with a blank face as the exit walls tremble.   Her womb swollen, and you speechless and unhappy beside her looking for me, eyes begging for absolution. But here I am to remind you, as the earth quakes beneath my feet, absence makes the  mind forget.

On the Death of my Mother I woke up thinking about Sparks and how she still has someone to remember her long calico fur.   How death had poor directions and left that scruffy dog living on the other side of the street sleep until noon while she found a corner of the house on which to lay her cares for good.  I thought about the guilt I felt for not being the perfect son with the large bank account, the mansion, and the sports cars. I shed a few tears when I recalled how you’d caress my face.  It reminded me of Paris and how much I thought about you while shopping for gifts at the wineries.   It was me death should have looked for— childless, flashy, with the sexual appetite, the urban legend,  the one who should be spooking children when they go to sleep for weeks after Halloween.