Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

I will be years gathering up our words,   fishing out snapshots, leaning my ribs against the durable cloth of your death

the heart is a coffer holding the image of light within us ... a bird in flight

Only the Rumor  Published in Salt River Review  Volume 13, Number 1 & 2, Fall/Winter 2010 I, who have rarely seen sanity, or a caravan of Siberian huskies stroll with their pack through the soft white snow, have no appreciation for winter's twilight-silence, or the ruckus of grizzlies ravaging my provisions. I ask: Is anyone willing to put their hand in place of mine on the chopping block, or their signature on paper to demand investigations into all that has been stolen on my passage through this life? I have not witnessed tenderness, nor do I feel excitement upon observing the child fed from the safety of its mother's hands. Only rumors of the existence of distant cities, where harsh winters outlast serene summers, accelerate the rhythm of my blood. That chill is mine. I, who have rarely felt reason, have played with water and snow. I've wrapped them around my legs, given them form with my hands like a lover. ...

tears... the natural bleeding  of a wound 

my secret hiding place... the boy I was calls out to me in noises that he makes?

plaster hands set apart in a sculptor's studio... frozen like the kiss of snow, their loveliness dazzling me

a perfect Sunday... yet when we touch we touch our mountains and fields and rivers of grief

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...