Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

black boys a rude anarchy of song dance and loving... nomadic wanderings

you're making the rounds searching for words clues to where I keep the keys of my imagination you have time on your hands now that aging has carried you to the last shore — is he stealing, can I trump him? — the envy of a new identity, the terrible envy of a new experience drills a hole in your heart and I wake with the full expression of joy the blissful joy of knowing you search me out you search all of  me for a clue and find nothing but the original inspired by your hounding… come, listen to wolf howl 

so much depends on the grief I tote into your house— I was nothing but a bitch & all the world was filth & sorrow  

Ebola to the desert where redemption is free ... Ebola, a faraway transparency, a swig of blood, a touch? West Africa just sank into the sea— redemption held up the shredded   faces drenched in tears what comes next, will we see the corpses flying above our heads? this jail inside a jail inside a sinking desert

to the desert where redemption is free ... Ebola, a faraway transparency, a gulp of wind, a sneeze?

high in the golden skyline sunset spreads with such beauty— what am I to become, a hopeful man in a room ?

a child lays his fingers on my hand ... the healing gossamer of a gentle touch

The Second Issue of Undertow Tanka Review is now live.

does my enemy love you—help me ignite this house with an urn  full of air cloudburst and dust

your name  a carafe full of wine— Omar  my world  was uncomplicated, a simple rhythm 

— 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