Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

we mate, then starve, wait inches apart to die, to share fully each burning moment

I could see him walking through the sea grapes . . . luna moths flutter  towards each other like exotic birds

I seek a permanent home, a guarded space where an oak tree stands motionless against the sky

an irresistible light brushes through the angel-wing begonias— moon over water, the luminescent burning of space

sandalwood scent lingering in the room— days gnaw into your stomach, with the sharp teeth of longing

the permeability of words silence has come to see my heroes— a growth of many inventions and rare combinations one sculpted a salt cathedral inch by inch out of tears and autumn wind songs but I love the one who wrote my funeral melody… the palimpsest  document of past misadventure   

I feel like I must be honest, this month’s poetry entries at Poetry Foundation.org were very poor.  I did not enjoy a single poem they published.  I think it is time for them to hire new submission editors. Sergio Ortiz

missing clothes, but I don't have money on my mind... seed-pods blowing off the sycamores

days so bad I couldn't afford a meal… independence has a price tag

you are everything I ever closed a door on, the closet of my childhood where no one could ever find a broom

A Quarterly Journal Jeffrey Woodward, Founder & General Editor  Volume 8, Number 2, June 2014 Sergio Ortiz  San Juan, Puerto Rico A Murdered Woman She prepared for the  Via Crucis  by putting the white silk mantilla on top of the  peineta  buried in her  azabache  hair.  La primera estación , hands clapped in dissonance, torches set on fire. Brunilda emerged from the shadows chained to the wall,  un alma en pena . She dragged the long, heavy fetters a few steps before she tore off the bolero jacket and exposed her small white breast. Then she darted into the crowd, her little feet hammering the wooden floor with a flamenco, arms outstretched until the chains gave out and her body threw itself to the ground. Her sisters grabbed the chains around Brunilda's wrist, wrapped them around their own arms. The guitarist's widow grabbed the fetters too. All the women danced and flung themselves at the crowd. They pulled on the cha...

art, the history of air— follow this silence to its edge and you will hear me

art begins with a lie,            that’s the legend, a sharp speck in the eye

the bridges   we have failed to build between us... my ink, the color of veins and arteries 

he's been texting me all night... is that a booty call? I need to go to the bathroom but first let me take a selfie

the normal heart an ocean of tears   fighting against the tide… in the ruinous summer of a epidemic 

in the arms of winter camouflage we can be anything we want-- a spot of warmth in an icy world

Colonial Shame guilty words amassing faults-- a bird trails its shadow on the ground my injured airy forest at war... bought & sold a gallant extortion of the past I have no choice but to use blended words... I know there's something better down the road must I learn another language... I stand upon your back to face your destiny

to all the seashells— I set fire  to the rain, watched it fall as I caressed your face