Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

— for Baroness Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven the Nemesis of aging my hip pains when I walk searching penetrating for my memory help I treads with caution final draft bane aging hip pains -- walk penetrating  -- -- -- S. O. S.  memory treads caution

—for Gertrude Stein yes, I was cancelled, an abyss below my bed yet I was cancelled nobody came, no one cared— unknown shore— I’m enraptured

photo by Greg Henry baby I’m your chocolate cream pie… I don’t wanna’ brag, but I’ll be the best you ever had 

photograph by Marlin Shank.                                                Poem by Sergio Ortiz

— April is the cruelest month … T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land it flowered then faded—blurred into the earth like a rose that was never awakened by a hummingbird

The Second Issue of Undertow Tanka Review will be published October 3rd.  The submission deadline for this Issue of Undertow Tanka Review is September 30th.

angel wings   encrusted with black pearls beating upon the sea's furtive shore … a poet’s tears

—for Sylvia Plath he sits beside me and hums old love ballads while an elm leaf floats down the river… is it the miracle of autumn

The Color of Death her skin chips off around the arms like seashells then darkens just above the ankles… a hundred years on the stretcher I visit after the stroke and hear a knelling— half of her body silent gold dust , the other half a silky sorrow

I am an open road the staggering drunk overwhelmed by the sensuous actions of men

you left… so I turned off  the lights autumn sky

photo by kathryn willett-- poem by sergio ortiz

pollution I know the twilight  of the roads it glides  through my veins censored  like a battered wife or a brain  cyst it clutters my lungs  with phlegm

wordless flower… I am in you without knowing why

albatross “y hay cuerpos que no deben repetirse en la aurora”                         Oda a Walt Whitman, Federico Garcia Lorca there was a beginning an invitation to play pool, the maneuver to have another beer on our first night together there was a middle complications—a need to see you on my bed running your hands through the carapace of my skin there was an end A Farewell to Arms of forgotten names the last clown in a parade taking down the marquee

loneliness is the art of forgetting wishes are a weightless leap if they're not used up

I want to die rolling in the arms of a cello player naked to the waist rolling in my sweet baby’s arms