Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

A house on my body There’s no possible hiding place here, vanity or mirror. It’s sharp translucent structure, limpid and deserted. A house on my body of an uncomfortable rationalism, broken Japanese harmony, unfair and icy balance no altars or flowers             no photos      no family, just a passing through       and insomnia , heritage and artifice. A house on my body. No one has been left here. No children. No men. No ideas.

I can't stop writing, so I am going to try to write a poem a day this month also. Yellow Flowers I saw flowers in my grandmother’s garden, perhaps they were not flowers, maybe they were candy, my childhood, yellow memories, lips, time, little piles of light, echoes of the sun immersed in darkness, golden orioles perching   in the air or on the stems; I saw flowers and possibly not flowers, Perchance it was my grandmother, my grandmother in yellow, in multiple portraits, portraits in the petals.

Requiem for Mercedes Sosa Just in case Mercedes returns, in case a bombó or a zampoña bring her back, maybe she’ll return in the gallop of a chacarera , or in the swell of a samba. Hopefully a tango brings her back. And if the songs she left, the palpitations, the flora and fauna (happy to have been conceived by the voice of La Negra ) bring her back: that is to say, in case an airplane doesn’t, or yet another concert, and even then, Mercedes returns with her pure voice purer, and the full-bodied richness of her vocal cords capable of making bread or birds appear. And just in case Mercedes does return, I’m buying two front seats, one to sit down and watch her, another one to dance and sing. 

This tanka was just published in the NeverEnding Story First English-Chinese Bilingual Haiku and Tanka Blog English Original tumbling  through winter she knew she didn't fit... a doll's life trapped inside a young man’s body Sergio A. Ortiz Chinese Translation (Traditional) 蹣跚地 度過冬天 她知道她並不適應 ... 一個洋娃娃的生命被困在 年輕男人的身體裡 Chinese Translation (Simplified) 蹒跚地 度过冬天 她知道她并不适应 ... 一个洋娃娃的生命被困在 年轻男人的身体里

Drought In a tree with three branches, heaven unwinds its sea, placid and without islands. A group of country houses is renewed at the same time as dust of ghost.  A chameleon shivers all night like a gush of underground water. An almond is the plain, a fire of souls.

I told you, they beat us now come down from that cross and follow me

Imperfect Pastoral She began at the edge of the bed, in the wrong city. She had some withered roses in a cardboard vase. At night she weaved, with her veins, a summer coat. She collected bearded vultures and words forbidden by God. One day she touched herself, and liked the smell of fresh ink between her legs. She fell asleep. When she woke death was all of life. There were broken books and scattered papers, open doors and open windows. She was naked like the first time, like when she fell asleep and bit her flesh and drank her blood, like when she was the twilight banging on the door of her belly.

Epistle to future poets Poems are long avenues where our burning rage marches. Everywhere the crying, everywhere a black wall besieged. Could our poetry be a solitary column of dew? It has to be perpetual thunder as long as children stare at a loaf of bread with envy. There are higher things to mourn than lost lovers: the sound of a society finally awakening is more beautiful than the dew, the glittering metal of its anger more beautiful than sea foam. A free man is purer than a diamond.

Indigent I’ve squandered the rainbow, the swallows I set aside for poems are in the red. The account of my sunsets has been frozen. I owe the treasury five thousand fifty butterflies.

Letter to the drummer of my band I want to watch that movie at the cinema I want to see the roses and not see the roses I want to drink café-au-lait, and drink and drink drink this and that and what you have to give and what I have to offer I want to go to the movies but I don’t want to see the movie I want you and him but more you than him more than you or him I want some coke 

To the Economic Board the US Senate wants to Impose on Puerto Rico The crime has been committed, But you’re going to cover it up with sheets, and sheets of paper in television adds, and radio spots. The thick still air, the terror, the ignominy surrounding voices— traffic, life— the crime / has been committed.

sorry but this one has just been submitted.

Sorry but this one has also been submitted

Don’t blame yourself or build paradise out of your faults and miseries, don’t ask your tired nerves for a halo erected out of truth, or demand the unexpected serenity of a vision. Please, try to understand, the world couldn’t care less. Don’t mislead or deceive or fight or turn tomorrow into an opportunity. Don’t plan equilibrium and reason for yourself —always a good shadow. Pay attention to your obsession with the imaginary moon, silver-plate your phantom’s song. Any day’s a good beginning. An hour can be agreed upon. Don’t hurry, it’s like a scuba-diver groping the waters of the sea. Without fear but with the passing grace of a man who has never known to where he is going.

Cover - A Tribute We got there late. Me to your dream and you to my best hour, merman hidden in the cornfields of my body.  Later we lost sight of each other amid the tumult of adolescence. We broke up, widowed before the marriage ever consummated. Fifteen years later we saw each other, me the bard, you the juris doctor. An avalanche of love made me call you the next day. What superhuman beast (perhaps accumulated courage) possessed my body, what lie? What did I say my Troy, my Caesar, my taurine lover, that made you look my way. I can’t remember,  but out of  the sea inside my chest,  my abyss,  primitive animals  emerged  singing:  purple rain, purple rain…

The First Sacred, Joyful, Mystery I didn’t use to smoke but one day Our Lady of Sorrows put her hands on my back, approached my face, and whispered in my right ear: go ahead smoke, give Our Heavenly Father some smoke, and may nobody be warned of his presence.

Death hits me “It’s true, death hits me entirely on my sex” Alejandra Pizarnik Castrated cadaver # 1 Beware of me my love Be careful of the silent one in the desert of the traveler with the empty glass and the shadow of its shadow Castrated cadaver # 2 Now then: who will stop sinking their hand in search of the little girl’s tribute. The rain will pay. The cold will pay. Thunder will pay. for Aurora and Julio Cortazar Castrated cadaver # 3 he says he doesn’t know about love’s death he says that he’s afraid of love’s death he says that love is death is fear he says that death is fear is love he says he doesn’t know Castrated cadaver # 4 “It’s true, death hits me entirely on my sex”

Now this is something completely different from what I have been writing.  It's a political poem.  I hope you enjoy it. You already built that Wall Forgive me Mr. Trump I will not shake your / hand you are not my friend / I cannot welcome you / you are not welcomed / nobody from your party  is welcomed / to this presidential race I want you to say you’re sorry / we are not rapist / we only flee / injustice. I have my hammer. I have tears. I have a backbone. The only thing / I am giving you / is my disapproval. I’ll turn my back  and walk away now.