Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

hollowed gourd…  the scent of roses  lingers 

the paper blades go back a forth between sisters... each adds a line in their secret language on Snow Flower's fan

Snow Flower’s fan the secret language of love between old-sames

stormy night Van Morrison’s  Madame George  on the radio

day after day the brewing of coffee … tired of the city

I Have Continued Regardless Each day demands we create the world over. I leave the apartment walk over to the elevator, it arrives, I get in, join one person with old eyes and the smell of piss. I hate it.   I get off at the lobby look for entrance and walk out the building towards the coffee shop. Old imperfections cross my mind.   The dirty dishes in the sink, the empty refrigerator, the pills I did not forget to take. As I walk away from the apartment I look back, flames are rising from the windows of the 14 th floor.   I decide to have breakfast. It is now about 98 degrees on a hot Monday morning in July exactly three years from yesterday.

Es el temor de enfrentarme a mi mismo. Es la palabra que escucho y me describe. Es el relámpago de una mente ruin, el día de la danza del fuego comenzó. 

Suicide Broken, yes, my spirit is broken, words no longer flow with ease.   Death courts me insistently. Lays its head on my lap and says:   Drink these pills. I resist because dreams surround my heart.   But I am weakened by its mystery, its charming voice:   it is better in the long run.   There will be no more pain.

cuckoo in a bamboo forest lawlessness

my voice in a winter wind— nickels and dimes

mounting violence the police superintendent doesn’t know his job

For You One can never know a heart until it blossoms and says:  I miss you !   Then you hear wild geese honking, and the snow on withered grass melts.  Your eyes shine like the first time you saw a tastefully livened garden. For you there are orange blossoms, and I know that when I am with you the moon’s round light at the window opens our hands and we touch like friends, butterflies, and birds to rise from a meadow of flowers .

summer melody of cicadas— drunk on love sap

waiting for winter— the upside down world of my mind

dog day afternoon—  I answer the call   of a lone cuckoo

This is the day I stop thinking little.  No more poems about things I don’t feel.  My skin is in havoc.  There are no butterflies around here, or cherry blossoms.  Time is the juxtaposition, and I can no longer run up a flight of stairs.  The lack of human touch is like burning in a lake of fire.  Consumed with pain you don’t have the courage to end the slow disappearance of strength.  So, you die more than you live.  You are not sure you are pleased with the things you’ve done.  There is regret, remorse, and a little fear.  But whatever happens, when the time comes you will go loveless and unmissed. Mount Fuji snow…   I wake up thinking   about tomorrow

searching for the right word … I choke in tears

In the Fields of Bones open window from where I hear a gloomy life walk by nothing but a shred of light conquers shadows and it was I who   thought that light was mine when all along it was the sorrow of finding a frozen melon-heart a handkerchief stalks my tears hopping my grief will be swift in the fields of bones  and parsley