Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

when I stop to consider my calling, I unfold, in the form of your body, these summer midnights

over-involved  caught in a cobweb  waiting for rain  will I end up sundered  like the shifting clouds 

I am an archaeologist of stones  hunting for stars in the river where passion's a crime against nature

The Age of Colorblindness A caste system in the USA? I hear stories about young black males incarcerated for smoking marijuana—some get life sentences. Don’t we all commit crimes? I know I’ve made mistakes—sitting behind a car wheel without a license—the only difference is I haven’t been caught. When a young man born in the ghetto and knowing little of life beyond the walls of his invisible cage turns to us in bewilderment and rage, we should look him in the eye and tell him the truth. orange is the new black— your face, the brown of declining autumn,          dodges the threat of erasure

Submission Guidelines to Undertow Tanka Review Kindly submit up to 10 previously unpublished  tanka &/or  1 sequence. “Undertow Tanka Submission” to: undertowtanka @ gmail.com Or use Contact Form to the right by August 15, 2014 / first Issue to be online August 29 At the end of your submission, please include your full name and country of residence.  All rights revert to authors upon publication. Your tanka must not be under consideration elsewhere or submitted to any contest.  Hopefully this will become a print Review in the near future. Best wishes, Sergio Ortiz,   Editor

lost among acres of scuffed limestone my people were known to speak in surreal, mechanical hyperbole

An I for an I: Palestinian and Israeli Children  be as sand in the places of bloodshed and kidnaping— don't sleep while the arrangers of the world are busy be suspicious of the thirsty machinery   in the world— the current is already live in the wire kraal be the shadow that struggles with shadows in the land of the sleepless streets where men draw guns on children

there were days when I wore the wings of a bird      to soar into daybreak like a nightingale's song

hardly anybody  knows me now— I sing hallelujah like a victory march out in the jungle

things fall apart planets move and crumble  but the cobblestones we laid together will remain *for my sister

I sing like a bird among moon-drawn vineyards in a town of shadow-draped churches and gossip with the clouds

to a wildflower meadow on the outskirts of Kyoto I let the rain bathe me through my shirt and walk away unharmed

light as air I sit on my doorsteps— an alpha dog comes home to die for the day

he stands among my mother’s  roses a metaphor packed  with the sound  and fury of a wounded  tongue

Me preocupa el silencio, los mensajes ocultos, la ceguera de los celos, los muros manchados con sangre inocente, las metáforas que no entiendo, las espinas escondida del racismo, la estafa del viento, el vaivén de mi resaca. Me preocupa el olvido.

a simple thing like running home head first, a welcome from the waiting fields, a gentle fall in clover       who sings with the dying so much of the past cries out for utterance who won’t turn the page

good morning heartbreak, meet your sister pain, she thaws out yesterdays into gorgeous rain

to those of small flame who feed off envy and grow old quickly…   live out your lives in hunger

everyone  has a heartache  the sky is breaking  with rain  and all the flights  are delayed there’s no way back  to where we’ve been