Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

Werewolf I am werewolf, I devour myself. At dawn I cut fresno trees where the moon settled. At noon I burn pastures where the deer run swift. At dusk I go to the beach to butcher turtles. I climb mountains to hunt the eagle. What God created in six days, I destroy in one. I am the werewolf, I devour myself.

My Aunt Hermione The story of my aunt Hermione has always bothered me, lost, according to my father, for a year in Yugoslavia. Missing, according to my uncle, on the ship bringing her from Smyrna by the Sea of No One. Survivors confuse the paths of the dead with their own, they no longer know what dream, what memory is from whom. Was she lost in a time without calendars, a sea without waves and a ship without walls? Didn’t she know that while she was alive, however far she went into the Nameless Country, she’d always return to the refugee ship which is the present, which is this planet? They found her one day, this is for sure, but if she found herself, nobody’s telling: one day she disappeared without leaving any other anecdotes.

Joshua Villena Portrait at Sixteen Beardless, skinny, long-haired, he makes love to everything: the lark, the oak, the butterfly, the distance. Days have no name or date, they ignore the cage of hours, they are the same as a desire, can belong to yesterday or tomorrow. The streets down there are an open hand, between whose fingers the sun plays to nail its fangs. The deer bellows on the hill, the yelp of the fox is heard— their eyes go into the undergrowth drunk with rain. The sun yellows his face, paints his hands westerly, he leaves his shadow among the pines, squashes the tiger on the floor.

De-Creation Once the world was made            man arrived with an ax a bow a rifle a harpoon a bomb and armed from head to toe with bad intentions he killed rabbits eagles tigers whales and men

Colli Albani This is where light fell. Where oblivion became stone ash and mud skull and bone. Air became a bird, tree became flight, man                hunger, valley             escape, and mountain green rain. This is where man turned into clay, returned to silence, meddling in the night.

I spent all of yesterday morning in the Emergency Room with asma.  I didn't feel better until today at 2am.  This is what I wrote today: Before the Kingdom Comes I must pursue your body as far as two bodies fight over your dark alley and dangerously day has contact with light that does not belong to it —belonging to itself— possessed to the degree that the demolition of spells does not forgive the sound of words I must pursue your body as far as the end of its streets where greetings create corners with the wind and the impossible security of known hands gives life to wishes—constellations in the single balance of the shadow

The Message I came Martin, and you were not here. I sat on the doorstep of your house leaning against the door and I thought that somewhere in the city, a wave that crosses the air, you were intuiting that I was here. This is your little piece of garden; your mimosa leans out of the wall, and when the children walk by they rip off the leaves from the most accessible branches…Above the ground, planted around the wall, very straight and serious, I see some flowers that have leaves like swords. They are navy blue, they look like soldiers. They are very serious, very honest. You are a soldier. You march through life, one, two, one, two …All your garden is solid, it is like yourself, it has a vigor that inspires confidence. Here I am against the wall of your house, like when I am against the wall of your back. The sun also shines against your windowpane and gradually it weakens because it’s late. The reddening sky has heated your honeysuckle and its odor becomes even more p...

Naked Letter Today, tired of the birds I renew myself in mirrors. There’s a self-drawn sketch of rice on my forehead, a small sorrow. This sorrow is not you or me it’s that unhappy desert of what we never say. Today, tired of the birds I cut my wings & my voice no longer flies. Today, a tiger devoured my wings, an old disgruntled tiger        —    you drank the blood of a body that is not mine, that disappears like smoke, that resembles the roar of the sea who has not slept either. You are real, the rest is on me. P.S.    Does my letter tremble in your hands?           The pain was just too much to experience on my own.

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.