Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

in the city of dust you walk with your face  turned from me I walk amid the late-blooming roses and guard my glass from the moon

above sorrow's tree a flutter of wings low in the rainclouds... we carry our lives   like a true oasis of language

Absences The door slams shut and once again I'm driven back to empty pages. No rain or street voices, nobody calling to someone else, my fingertips touching reality’s face, my own face streaked with tears in the mirror at dawn. Miles away—in time and space, you offer your adieu and move on. I stand in the desert where the cacti bloom. Something strange gathers in the sand below me.  A mystery governed by those sacred absences   that make the spirit soar. In the desert far beyond the city, one hears the cadences for which one longs,   the lyrics of those half-forgotten songs… some of them poignant, some of them witty. The words come rushing back like songbirds.

Mother’s Day I keep calling and all I get is an answering machine. She’s eighty-nine and someone has had the bright idea of getting her an answering machine. She probably doesn’t know how to use it. Or maybe she can’t remember to call back. She might have forgotten where she put my phone number. Anything could have happened at her age, and I am furious, no livid, and full of anxiety. I remember the birthday party she had for me when I was seven. The toys were all bigger than me. The cake was a carousel, a huge carousel with big beautiful horses. No one in town had ever seen anything like it. Now I fail to be grateful on mother’s day. How can I forgive myself?

Visions I saw myself  before an empty stage. I saw myself in galleries  of laminated clippings  declaring war on Boko Haram, #BringBackOurGirls! I saw myself on the subway  in stinking clothes during rush hour  with balloons attached to my ears. I saw myself simulating masturbation  while the Governer of Puerto Rico, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, drove by. I saw myself waking in the place  where women die giving up   my dream of being seen.

Broken Dolls 1. They enter the skin of painted leopards to reveal mysteries, voodoo magic. Then they gaze at the world from broken constellations, sitting directly across temptation and tittle-tattle about retiring in style. 2. She looks for her dealer, keeping a vigilant eye on Icarus ready to escape into exile. Suddenly she’s one with the concrete. 3. She doesn’t want to be a calendar queen. She wants to be a doll and spend her day in silence. She has body art; cranes floating through pines, lustrous yellow leaves. 4. She was happy to bend, raise her hand on camera, but men and silicon made her sick. Now she swims silently in heaven with a blue mantis, sings praises to her king. 5. Nothing shocks anyone anymore.  Callous is the fad. It is no wonder some end up living on the street. Ten million baby girls swallow sand every decade before their first scream while Barbie plays with medical...

My Shadow Today I sit by the window my delusion spreads—nothing I think has the quality of a wounding experience. I'm lonely because I allowed you to step on my shadow. But now that I've crawled out of the ground I think I'll dance on your grave. Is this an angry statement? You are dead like a great white wolf who cannot sing, dead sonofabitch, always mean to me.

Honorable Mention Anger by Sergio Ortiz IBPC worried your name is missing— it circles in the shadow-world, a wind-blown ghost a salamander crawls up my skin– my tongue tangles with aphasia, ready to confront his mouth full of fumes - I blaze up like the ruff of an offended bird shadows prisoners left on the wall — ..........scattered in a mass grave

La Jaula Rota Un río de dimensiones míticas puede inundar el corazón con luz … Sin embargo lo que veo son pétalos de cerezo cayendo. Dentro de mí la jaula  está  rota. Fuera de mí hace falta la parte que florece con palabras en la primavera. El río se convierte en dragón cuando mi alma se convierte en espejo inundado de luz.

A Broken Cage A river of mythical proportions can flood the heart with light… yet all I see are cherry petals falling.             Inside me the cage is broken. Outside me, I miss the part that blooms with words in spring. The river turns into a dragon as my soul turns into a mirror flooded with light.          .

This is the last poem of the NaPoWriMo 2014 Rain thirty days of morning showers— am I to be for you like the rain, or shall I sleep alone amid a yoke of silence?

the house of souls a doorway stopped by clouds inside my dream      he lives alone, the wilderness will not let him go I come from the wilderness I awaken in this body broken like a sword I ache thinking of the seasons, how they pass, and how I change into Tiresias’ weathered sex

a triumph of light— the sun soared into view rejoicing        in its own splendor, the mask of darkness fell it's clear as a veil of light I knew                   I had felt the freshness of dawn

Él limpia con esponja tersa la arena de la soledad sobre mi piel y aplica el agua salada de la autoestima a mi cuerpo.

Bashō and his friends gaze at the moon threading  the sky  with rules for their linked poem

Remembering he sponges the grit of loneliness from my skin and dabs the salt water of self-esteem over my body I carry my life like a stone   in a tattered pocket, yet I have a weaving song, a healing tone, inside me

The Barrier I would barricade myself inside a poem. Becoming increasingly critical, I would see my own image everywhere and hide my enemies on that side of the mirror. I would fall in love twice a year, buy 1000 roses. With no gift of abundance inside me, I would  worship the penuries of sobriety, allow them to catch up to my sorrows. I would wake his stony heart and give him one of flesh.

Para Gabo despierto sobre flores de rododendro amarillo--Cien Años de Soledad

for Gabo a hundred years of solitude— I awaken to a blossom of yellow rhododendron

Young & Old - tanka sequence here I am, at 63 waiting for the rain… I am old                        a dry head among breezy spaces, yet I feel young, drunk in the midst of leaves whispering to the Titans in the land of enchantment… here I am