Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

trying to remember old lyrics, I watch the world toss its shadow on the moon

Alternate names for brown boys          by Sergio Ortiz                  roo F ers trench digge R s               brok E n rims  pro-ball pip E dreamers   pinto lowri D ers celebrity  gh O sts    cured by    M edical science

it’s time to mean what I say be the rider in the harsh silence and force an oath of unity on the wind

each heartache is the science of claws… dashing across quiet ocean floors shadows breed in my veins

Hero to die a hero gripping at the moon adjusting to the gloom children playing in the rain when anger twinkles and shadows breed in my veins I hear this song: I never meant to start a war …just wanted you to let me in

sadness is the symmetry of balance… it makes you hefty in all the wrong places because it knows you

he disappeared like a fragrance, while I aged, lived half my life in hollowed caves unable to find my way back

Submissions are open for the Third Issue of Undertow Tanka Review Kindly submit up to 10 previously unpublished  tanka, tanka art, &/or  10 sequence. “Undertow Tanka Submission” to: undertowtanka @ gmail . com Or use Contact Form to the right *** by November 30, 2014 / third Issue to be online by December 6, 2014 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. We accept submissions year-round. Best wishes, Sergio Ortiz, Editor

i wish her a frail voice that says goodbye forever— not even death in a distant place chases away my sorrow

sea debris mixed with froth left by the tide… I reminisce on the joy of rooms that smell like herbs

sea iris fragile flower— gulls drift on waves like paper boats

Pockets my bitter life a colorful concert hall that took all my love— there’s no such thing  as stillness  on a heavenly island sea lover under the darkened sky with pockets full of sage and calamus… touch the heart that is under you

he knocked on my hotel door and met me with a smoke… I took off the gray, my heart  pounding  in its bloated stall

I made myself a clan, and my clan scattered— I watched starlings swirl through layers of clear skies

I marry a ghost to slaughter him with love on the lost child of a desert continent where light turns to what it touches

my instinct is to head for the gutter and stomp my foot in the puddle... call it magic cutting me in two

again two stepping  on your grave... I take logic to bed and rise beside a monster

I watched you undress that Indian summer  and my guts tightened… imagining the rain on you  when there was no rain

alone thinking about the instant I turned memory into blissful sorrow and let it marinate my heart