Two Months After Hurricane Maria
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.
And if I
were to expand
to the point
of bursting
into thousands
of pieces,
if my suffering
should 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?
Comrades of the Dream
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 is 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. 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.
Weatherbeaten Literature 