Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

I can make it rain, straighten twisted branches, raise the dead ... I say , let there be light , and the whole city’s godlike   

At midnight when August is about to end, I think about the leaves that incessantly fall from calendars. I believe I am the tree of the calendars. Every passing day, leaves me wondering: if the one who loses a father is an orphan, if a man who loses his wife is widower, what name do we give the loser? How to call an idler of time? And if I myself am time, how shall I call myself, if I lose myself? Day and night, not Monday or Tuesday, or August or September. Day and night are the measure of our duration. To open and close our eyes is to last. At this hour, every night, forever, I am the one who has lost the day. (Though I may feel that, like fruit rises through peach branches, the in the heart of these hours rises the dawn.)

Day House People and things enter the day house, acrid herbs, sleep deprived horses, pretensions with music, mannequins resembling girls. You and I enter. Dance enters, the sun, a life insurance agent and a policeman enter. We are going to sell ourselves, Mayhem.

Deciduous Magnolia I live in the emancipated pigeons of verbs that bellow or are silent, tattooing my spaces with the ancient wisdom that climbs up my tired back. I sneak into the senile mind of my illusions. But what if I get lost in the intricate abyss of the flesh's twilight? Who would pour the pearls of their anguish over me, or light the alter candle of my perennial memories? Whose Nannie would sleep with me on the dismay of my wandering soul, my bed of withered magnolias? If I shout into the wind, the leaves of anguish are shaken. Wind stirs the nests of disenchantment and anger. The storms of the past are subjected to the bluster of my echo, and the indelible present among  the branches of my tree. I shelter myself within carmine so as not to lose sight of the dawn.

Icarus 1. They melt in the sun, the wings that I stick on my memories. Some fly to me. Others  migrate forever. 2. Once the Penelope myth is broken, I’ll unleash the moon and set sail to build a new country, without marriages, without respite, where loneliness does not hurt. I'll exchanged the dilly-dally for a sea search. 3. Behind the wall the void as within me there is silence and between you and me skin that limit that sea 4. Head of woman and sex of fish. The heart beats in an old tin can. Shipwrecks leave from eyes that always die because of the mouth. But earth is your thing. You’ve always resisted swimming.

Little Red Cap On the other side of this huge forest the world awaits me. It's time to walk the path, although the trip may take several years of my life. I hear the old voice howl, the one that always manages to stop me: Beside this forest, all that awaits is the house where you die.

Exposed Today I am in a plot, where I suffer the rigors of winter. In summer, I burn in such a way that sparrows won’t nest in my hands. W hat hurts  the most is to lower  my head  and read  the plaque: Naked Woman , like so many others, I'm not even a name you remember.

Little Red Cap, time to walk the path ... all that awaits on this forest's further side is the house where I die

The Square Root of Love If I'm told you're on the other side of a bridge, strange as it may seem, please tell me, what is the bridge that separates your life from mine. In what black hour, what rainy city, what world without light, is that bridge and I will cross it. No matter the goal or the course, or the sun, which was light and whip of that day's journey. No matter the sweat, the thirst, the clumsy tired steps. The round trip. Even the landscape is not important, nor the orange earth, the green of alpines, the turquoise sea, the gray stones of borders and millennial defenses. When I go to love I have poppies on my lips and a spark of fire in my gaze. I wire and garner red roses. Red, the mirror of my darkened bedroom. When I return from love, withered, rejected, guilty, or simply absurd, I arrive pale, and very cold. Pupils rolled over the top of my eyes, white blood cells in the clouds,...

Carmen Carrera ¿Quién quiere jugar con mi día lluvioso? mi alteridad se pega a mi sin importar a dónde vaya : nunca prestes tu día lluvioso : cuántos cuerpos somos: cuántos seres: cuántos mundos: de dónde proviene este dolor: ¿dónde lo aprendimos :: hace años, cuando se me preguntó si mi amante pensaba como hombre no pude responder : la pregunta no tenía sentido : la respuesta está en el fondo del océano : en el mundo, efecto ondulación como vidrio viejo : El viento, lo persigo como si persiguiese conclusiones :: estoy en peligro de convertirme en un cuento de admonitorio : el número de muros que me rodean es variable : no he podido convertirme en un santo de yeso : no he logrado convertirme en una mujer : mi bien-ganado silencio viene de más allá del cuerpo : la vida es sopa, no sándwich : la piel se convierte en dolor de viejas herida : hollamos el mundo esta mezcla y desenfoque : cuando me muera me convertiré en un mapa : es bastante fácil cambiar es...

Who Cares He threw himself on me, wanting to drown who I am, he was sick. I fought, broke his lip. Kicked his pride. I dredged up large pieces  of hard wood, tied them together, hammered & hammered. Dug a hole as deep as I could. Buried the logs upside down, thrashed him violently demanding he recite: I'm human, with nothin' of nothin' but sorrow. And the swagger who refutes my claim better take it easy, or ... Who cares. There are no deserts or Mayan sinkholes here, only human twilight.

Que importa Se me tiro encima, quería ahogarme. Estaba enfermo. Luche, le partí el labio, pateé su orgullo.  Busque dos pedazos de madera dura, los cosí, clavé y clavé. Hice un hoyo, lo más profundo que pude. Enterré el madero al revés y a latigazo limpio lo obligue recitar: yo soy humano sin na' de na,’ pero sin quebranto. Y al echón que me desmienta que ande muy derecho … Que importa. Aquí no hay desiertos de cenotes mayas solo crepúsculos humanos.

Discreto tomó el último jalón del cigarrillo observó que alzas tu cerveza al otro lado de la barra intentó  prender otro Newport te acercas, preguntas si se puede me interpongo entre la luz y tú ahora mi sombra es toda tuya

Asterisks for the Intact With you everything is without witnesses something imaginary but       real numbers crisscrossed lines under the first layer of my cartographic epidermis

Topography this is my story, my birth: I'm a wheelchair, a body wrapped in a sack, a tugged around childhood an unfair curse and the useless, stubborn desire for a pair of tailored hands scaling my thighs.

Piña ¡Golpea a las setas tailandeses de mis nalgas, perfumadas estrellas de mar  y de hojarasca! Tus dientes laceran la piel de mi nuca que late frente al abismo de tus pensamientos calados, historias translucidas que arrancan a besos la pulpa de mis labios al compás de un danzón que no tiene descanso, que retumba como los dedos de Ismael Rivera sobre mi cuero, lasca de piña redonda y azucarada, empalmando la morena dulzura de tu melaza.

Pineapple Smack the Thai mushrooms of my buttocks, the scented starfish, my cloak of confectioner’s leaves! Your teeth tear the skin off my nape beating in front of the abyss of my wet thoughts, your flash erotica pulling kisses off the pulp of my lips to the rhythm of a cha-cha-cha. Rumble my ass with fingers like Ismael Rivera’s, round and sweetened pineapple. Interlace the redolence of your molasses to remind me it’s Christmas.

Dedications To my Enemy: A face to face. To Insomnia: Pears or apples. To the Endless Wait: A white South African warden asleep outside a diamond mine. To the Classroom: A watch, the sobriety of water. To Distance: The little I still remember about Omar, furtive glow, naked wet body trapped in the precincts of my pupils. To love: A truce & another truce

Reasons to post a Photo of a Dead Child from Aleppo Omran was a Syrian boy and African and Afghan and Salvadoran: Our son defeated in front of the sea after chasing the dawn, our little brother cleft by the blows of the crab that was death, nothingness, emptiness, a thick river of icy water. Our child like all innocent children whom they bombed in Aleppo and are no longer: I want nothing more from this world. Everything I dreamed of disappeared. I need to bury my children and sit next to them until I die. Omran survived hunger, despair and thirst, but not to the Syrian government, not the world who did not know, or care, how to save him.

Away from your Shores Your ghosts play and look at me weird. I plan an early escape from your disastrous shores. You had nights with moon and shade, nights with fire and windows, nights of desiring to give what you've never given. To whom did you ever belong? To no one, and perhaps to nothing. I regret escaping early from your shores because we liked each other lying on the floor, dragging our bodies like old Sequoias, boneless, purely out of lust.