Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

Monday, August 18, 2014 Kindly submit up to 10 previously unpublished  tanka, tanka art, &/or  1 sequence. “Undertow Tanka Submission” to: undertowtanka @ gmail . com Or use Contact Form to the right *** by September 30, 2014 / second Issue to be online by October 3 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

back to bed  after I piss... my crow legs  are swollen— how embarrassing is sex when it goes wrong 

UNDERTOW TANKA REVIEW: ISSUE # 1 HAS BEEN PUBLISHED Sergio Ortiz,

stars dangling sugar crystals over the Pacific my lips touch your body our skin, a black rosary of hands

drifting  the flowers need water I have let things slip  they weigh me down  with the present eat everything I breathe like dangerous animals,  free, and completely empty I am a new persona anesthetized  until there is little left to do but sleep I dream  about alcoholic binges  one night stands  in bathhouses  with the thick vapor of lust and cold  mouths sucking on my face I am wrapped  inside my own mirror laughing, struggling until I break loose step on the needle shards of my life tamed, old, fat looking for a way out of this room  where I once felt the need to write  about myself until the tulips turned red

she  sleeps like a child on rosepetals will  we see her playing with the sun and the rain

the fragrance of your parting   to a friend that passed away August 1 living without suspicion you pass away as we watch the city lights disappear butterflies are white because of this summer drought… we talk of grief and shadows that appear in dreams we struggle with our thoughts and find that joy is nothing more than pain refined 

anatomy of an abduction your eyes are * nothing but a one-man cult Frank Ocean, It’s a Bad Religion

ruminations at a fast-food store yes, I share my hunger with the ocean's wave don't say things I don't want to say regret, appalling regret swallows me in pieces... why do I say nothing? perhaps it is their grief tugging at my shirt…waiting to be free of situations

on the road to Gaza charred intestines a memo to the families of the world …genocide Gaza beasts are just beasts insects making slaves out of the small, and thirsty Gaza eyeless, earless to all other nations deaf and dumb we stand-by as the bombs drop Gaza living in the underworld neighboring   mythological creatures that creep and crawl with tanks and shells

mistakes… wincing in the mirror is not an option I choose life and failure as my stepping stones

similarities a miracle of words or a plagiarist’s dream— running amuck through the pyre of your accusations 

steam in my head all for having taken care of too many pigs— sadness adds weight to the places of strength 

the dead  gather missing limbs and tear  at the human heart they know its fragrance, and love it I know  the smoke of my own breath and who I am  my pulse, the kisses, the feeling of health

Provoked her message accuses me of stealing the key to the world's voice... I pluck a flower her words burning my chest like a brand . . . at the center of the drama the foolish belief of wrong doing she grins, a coyote with old eyes, as I tell my story with the grace of a deadly weapon

she sent an email accusing me of stealing  the key  which hides the world… I reach and plucked a flower

she grins  like a coyote with old eyes as I tell my story  with the grace  of a deadly weapon

their bodies  crust the earth like salt— the dead  remind the living  of the coming storms

the heat of their words a wet brand on my chest...  crushing me like a bug

swallowed up I get quite angry and scream: go hang yourself from a tree, people of dying memories my wounds you shall not witness treachery abounds in a vulnerable tyranny beauty and truth lay in cinders death is now their nest tomorrow I will rise like an icon caught in the breast of the beast