Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

Erotica Babel is blind. He has no eyes so he touches, rubs his fingers over the words of men that in the terror of their silence know there's a secret. Babel’s pleasure is fast and hard, it comes from far away and rumbles inside my heart with the noisy jolt of a sleepwalking volcano. It drags an ancient mud. There are broken bird feathers in its pubic hair.

insomnia, a piece of man, an aquarium full of hissing snakes, and I’m alone, naked on the bed sheet  imitating zodiac signs.

Elegy I dreamed about you, you were just like you were, no slip-ups in your voice, motionless shadows for arms, and statuesque genitals. You copied yourself, you were nothing but the foam of your own life. I felt you were deified verse in my dream. My sadness did not fit the bottom of my pain, and so I went to stain the night in purple. The noise your legs made could have awakened a pond, the hours that never went beyond bloodletting, the silence of many windows. Tenderness wept from one of your nipples to the other. Last night I dreamed about you and I couldn’t tell you my secret —because love is a magnificent apple tree with copper fruits wrapped in skin made from the intelligence of leaves that recall the future, and roots like arms mired in the snows of sainthood— even my fingers couldn’t find you in your perfection. My very presence would be violent, so violent  I'd fill you with wonder.

You come at night with the fabulous smoke of your black hair trees and trees of sorrow my body catches fire and quivers the eternal is immobile stones thrown into the windstorm tend to become unique oh tree, my heart parts from a faraway place to reach your brow with nocturnal beasts in its eyes and blocks that fall from its hands you immerse me in the phosphorescent sea where my being comes to life I roll down the slope of your body to your feet twin constellations in this earthly night where we read the history of the world

the bitterness the white corals of your eyes the scintillating blows to your temples the wave that erases the sparkle in your eyes the tapestry the putrid flower the delicate aroma of your armpits the equestrian turtle of your fingers sailing across my skin

el agua lenta los caminos ligeros accidentes suspendidos en el aire el tiempo se anuda para echar raíces sobre nuestros cuerpos desnudos y yo alisaré tus pelos hasta llegar a tu boca

Love Letter to an Imaginary Indian Lover March 26, 2016 that intimate place between your legs —my black obsidian god with a diamond head— that drags and throws me into the sea of assumptions my beautiful night demon with implacable testicles of a tiger whose semen— running ember from which the Milky Way proceeds— fills me like a well of light I will never forget you yet in vain do I now demand the thirst of fire before the twisted landscape of my life

A teenage love poem To those who gave me their love in return for very little I love you because you write poetry on the urgent edges of your empty room. Because you've attached verbs to the pain that invades you and even when you can't remember I’m Sergio it's me who accompanies you through the travesty of names. And because you say, you’re beautiful, and leave with the dawn. I love you because you took me to the river and the flight of birds that nest in the water. You place your hand on my shoulder to give me the encouragement I sometimes lose. Because you stare me down and wink your eyes to make me follow, you inspire, and welcome me, sustain me in the air when I'm flying aimlessly or when I've lost my bearing.

your body, the gap through which the crystals of dreams usher forth... (aimless women) never to return to Ithaca

I am Thersites crushed by your arm, the brutal weight  of your horses I 'm the one who loves you you are Achilles the beautiful loser, & whether you like it or not my world looks like  an almond, a date, a guava.

nesting on a blue bow skylight cardboard buterflies

the distance which lies between the branches with furrows on my face I've put on my mourning apron. there is an empty bench where I sit and die a little in front of the house. people walk by. I don't explain anything to you. a different death in the middle of the street. … I leaf through the obituaries and the clouds you look at me with fear, (my heart starts to slide down the gentle slope of your black hair.) … it rained because I needed it to rain, and because you wanted you gaze at me through the mirror. night came because I wanted it to come. and I looked into your eyes, and I kissed your childlike hands, and prepared your clothes, remember? but you were afraid. a sullen and grim fear. a fear of watches. remember, it’s all true. … I've not given up on either love or wound. … we never measure the distance which lies between the branches of the blooming dragon tree or r...

tangled I am afraid, that's right, afraid of getting tangled in the barbwires of a dream afraid of your arms shaped like golden bars. Remember what other winters have meant to you: the sea, ships arriving without a single casualty,  the wind, remember the wind, my love, softening the corners.

Puerto Rico-My Bankrupt Island You’ve imagined, smiled, waited so long to meet me that you’re tired. Don’t ask for an explanation. Don’t take away the idea that I have, even when it’s vague. Please, don’t test me, on firm ground (you’d shove me aside). Sometimes, there’s nothing left of you but an illustration, a map. If and when you arrive, you approach, you think it’s alright, but it’s something else, something totally different, a hallucination. You've got magnitude and heat. But you’re the other side of the coin.

moriviví- tu caricia aquel día de marzo

You you were my sea urchin   my turtledove but your name was also Acacia my Cuban prostitute my día tras día tras día the absurdity of a loveless morning yes, you have so many names I can’t single you out as a single person my Juno my next trick but everything is such a lost cause that it really doesn’t matter what I call you the bathroom mirrors are all foggy my bear with a half beard my fifteen past seven my hundred petal lotus

Defeat I've never had a job where I could not go to Paris, have a serene day, and get married where writing a poem was like committing suicide at the sight of your large penis where you’ve said it yourself: I am not what I am or what I'm not where literature is lived rather than studied and the word "subject-matter" is                 synonymous of "mystery" where every aggression is a man looking for a flag where there’s no difference between the ordinary and extraordinary sexual encounters on the beach of existence where announcing me dumb at birth was actually a blessing, I stood by it for so many years that it started to feel like my soul

this is the land where Indian tribes embalm carnations the day's tremulous ink the red hot rose adrift the annals of the jungle you stretch out softer than the memory of a blind man later  you find me and become the rough city that seals my mouth you explore time like alcohol doubts, those orphan airs you exhale, arise from doubts my only fortune the booty torn from fear

flor de frío para Carlos, que ya no me llama dañada luz  de mis huellas llena de voces sucias la parte más negra de mis mentiras nadie conoce la leyenda hueca de mi piel el lugar del crimen mi nostalgia la flor maldita que sembraste en mis textos la serpiente intima de tus palabras tu veneno de sombra el insomnio que todavía me provoca tu voz tus labios el moriviví de tus manos al despedirnos en los días lluviosos y es que prefiero no buscarte aunque empeore mi vida y la noche me trague prefiero acostarme junto a la niebla de tu cuerpo esperando tal vez a que nos tomen un retrato retrato en noches de locura mis ojos húmedos tus ojos resecos tus piernas débiles entre mis piernas invisibles te sobraste mucho más de lo que piensas durante días huracanados eras mi vida el bisturí para partir la esperma seca de nuestros cuerpos y no eras nada ...

it's cold and I want to be December and live south of a love song