Comrades of the Dream Life by Sergio A. Ortiz

February 10, 2018December 23, 2017 ~ califragile ~ Leave a comment

I recognize you,
those with the moon
spread on their face,
whose faces have no beginning
but have a resounding
and enveloping end,

the ones with smiling sores
on their bodies,
who sweeten thorns
and pin hope to hearts,
who have painful tails
and tender eyes, and move
like a falling leaf or a
shooting star.

I regret your arrival
before or after the pain,
always at the wrong time
but when needed.

Volunteers of laughter,
multipliers of atmospheres,
inventors of the game
who win without winning
even when losing.

Brothers of the flesh,
companions of the fierce tooth
that leaves a mark,
connoisseurs of navels and buttocks
and of their own music,
I greet you!

Sergio A. Ortiz (Featured Poet, August, 2017) is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a six-time Best of the Web nominee, and 2016/17 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Loch Raven Review, Drunk Monkeys, Algebra Of Owls, Free State Review, and The Paragon Journal. His chapbook, An Animal Resembling Desire, will be published by Finishing Line Press. He is currently working on his first full-length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard.

Photograph by See-Ming Lee.

Nostalgic Hate by Sergio A. Ortiz

January 9, 2018December 31, 2017 ~ califragile ~ 1 Comment

My ears listen to you lovingly
until the very end of love.

At the finish my hatreds harken,
my mind figures it’s a weapon

made of paper and tattoo ink.
I’d journey to East Asia and do us

love-making in origami.
Listen to the paper fold finely.

Imagine my ears there,
where the only thing that’s heard

is me disassembling, each time,
every time, at the end of tenderness.

Where hate is nostalgic
finalization of affection.

Origami Spring folded and photographed by Jason 7825.

Two Months After Hurricane Maria by Sergio A. Ortiz

December 2, 2017December 1, 2017 ~ califragile ~ Leave a comment

1.
And the world disagreed with its own blood.
The wind blew away sanity and today
we pull against the riptide.

Time and space, wooden shacks, flew
in an unknown direction and love lied
on the image of a moon tired of unfaithful
lovers.

2.
Night undressed, and all could see
her nakedness. She stopped weeping
and wailing over lost paths to rescue
what was left of her pride, seaports, airspace,
enslaved hearts, and raised fist
without knowing the shackles were so heavy
that even her silence had toppled.

3.
If I were to expand to the point of bursting
into thousands of pieces, if my suffering
should ever reach that level
do not sanction my heart or my body
do not let me escape into nothingness
like an insignificant hot gas.

4.
Toilet paper or disposable towels…
insensitive son of a bitch— do we really need
to kiss your presidential ass?

can we afford another one hundred and nineteen
years of insults, grave diggings,
war deaths and stupidity?

Sergio A. Ortiz (Califragile Feature Poet, September, 2017) is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a six-time Best of the Web nominee, and 2016/17 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Loch Raven Review, Drunk Monkeys, Algebra Of Owls, Free State Review, and The Paragon Journal. His chapbook, An Animal Resembling Desire, will be published by Finishing Line Press. He is currently working on his first full-length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard.

I Dive by Sergio A. Ortiz

September 2, 2017 ~ califragile ~ Leave a comment

I dive

into those tiny pitfalls that set us up for life,
traps as small as the cages to hunt sparrows.
Some days, on specific days, Mondays and Fridays,
when opening my balcony, I look and see
with all my senses, hear with all my senses,
smell with all the senses. I am a stubborn fiddle
in evidence, a delusional excuse
and life flips on me like a card game.
It makes me fall in love with new lips,
hurries and makes me as essential
as driving credentials, a: here is my hand,
my millions of hands.
My skin quivers with infinite pity.
Humankind kills, dies, lies, steals, gives up
with its back to Beethoven’s Ninth
in the voracious desire for permanence.
Confuses freedom with movement.
Sleeps armed against other men
and against the little man inhabiting
the clearest corners of my chest
despite that music, despite the sun
that rises. Despite the fierce, clean, morning Ode
to Joy denying the spoils of yesterday’s dinner.
Life today presents itself in a costume
and I know it’s a trap. But I give in,
get drunk, and accept any kind of a truce.
I’m a spiral, a seesaw, a chorus, because when
I open the balcony door, when I look, see,
listen, and smell with all my senses, and know
life has taken a deck of cards from its sleeve.
And all I can do is beg in my favor.

Sergio A. Ortiz is a poet, a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four-time Best of the Web nominee, and 2016 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Loch Raven Review, Drunk Monkeys, Algebra of Owls, Free State Review, and The Paragon Journal.

Editor’s Note: Sergio A. Ortiz is our featured writer for August. Click on his tag (his name at the bottom of his poems) to find all his Califragile work as it is published! Watch Califragile‘s Facebook page for announcements of his upcoming book of poems.

Letter #51 by Sergio A. Ortiz

August 31, 2017August 31, 2017 ~ califragile ~ Leave a comment

Today there’s a self-drawn sketch
of rice on my forehead, a tiny sorrow.
This mourning is the unhappy reward
of what we never talk about.

Today I tire of birds,
I cut off my wings. A tiger
devours my legs,
an old disgruntled tiger.

He drinks my blood,
disappears like smoke
resembling the roar
of an insomniac ocean.

Today I walk into the surf
with my pockets full of rocks.

Restless by Sergio A. Ortiz

August 30, 2017August 31, 2017 ~ califragile ~ Leave a comment

Youth carries with it the demanding, relentless need to relate everything to love. Martin, I sat on the doorsteps of your house. I saw flowers with leaves like swords. They looked like soldiers. You were a soldier. You marched into my life. I came to say, I love you but you were not here, so I wrote it down on a notepad. Martin, I stopped writing to let my arms hang uselessly over my body.

I always sat down and waited, even as a child I bided my time. All women wait for a future life, their images forged in solitude. We see bridesmaids walking towards us, a promise, a man, a pomegranate that opens and displays its red, shiny grains, a pomegranate like a thousand mouths. Oh, my love, we are all so full of inner portraits, so full of unappreciated landscapes.

On My Way to Disbelief by Sergio A. Ortiz

August 29, 2017August 31, 2017 ~ califragile ~ Leave a comment

There are times when everyone
remembers the living as if they were dead,

the way time disappears
from noisy places.

I want my life to fade from the globe,
be inspired by the silent rotations

where all things are hushed
and not even God survives.

Sergio A. Ortiz is a poet, a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four-time Best of the Web nominee, and 2016 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Loch Raven Review, Drunk Monkeys, Algebra Of Owls, Free State Review, and The Paragon Journal.