Grand Theft Auto Monstrosity  

Glassed over, unblinking 
to the furious light. 
The rainbow blood flashing
across the television 
screens of his eyes. 

This nine year old, fingers 
cramped into a constellation.
Grappling a controller 
against his undeveloped chest.

Eyes opened wide, each finger
in contact with
what is torn: dodging bullets
in the pixilated air
of a 27” screen. 

The length of a health bar
becomes his ultimate tragedy.
He virtually smashes mailboxes, 
grabs prostitutes, 

puts them in trunks of cars.
Slashes torsos with bullets
from 9mm glocks;
everyone writhing.

All pixels wound continually
in the pupils of his eyes,
like azalea blossoms stirring.


Waiting Rooms

They talk of days after the war
of the days before
Those disembodied days 
that once danced in the sun

Others talk of sisters in Virginia
trading recipes of delicious cakes
Solitary baking at dawn 
till gathering birds fly off in a swarm swoop

Still others talk of grandchildren
Of their faces chubby and rosy,
faces like cherubs
Their eyes are nebulae, a rebirthing of themselves

And I sit among the blinded, 
the youngest of them all
No walking cane
or skin grappling with gravity

In my late twenties, my eyes 
are wild with ash
One with shrieks inside it,
the other smothered in soot

I wish I were in another place
Where raging sunlight is graceful
The words of books, glimmering
in just the right angle

Instead madly I wait,
in the scented dark of waiting rooms
Hoping one day 
the music of my eyes bloom


An Alcoholic’s Villanelle
 
My liver twisted into disaster
The hours drunkenly spent
Shadows, time lost in a flutter

of chaotic shaking. Accept the fluster,
the poisonous blood stream intent
to twist my kidneys into disaster

I should know better
Shot glasses on counters and empty cabinets 
Shadows, time rage in a flutter

The piercing light. The heart beating faster.
Curse this weakness that is evident
The liver twisted like disaster

Morning now, roaches scatter
away from light. Their grievous commitment 
to shadows raging in a flutter

On the table a bottle sits like danger
Wounded, writhing, spent
This spine twisted into disaster
Time drifting. Lost in a flutter.


Sunday in October

Among a cricket cacophony, 
she strides along brick wals
A rosary captive in the palm 
of her hand.
The harsh moonlight
and the spattered wind. 

Her feet—a marching confession.
Satellite dishes are crucifixes 
in the monochrome night.
Over her head the tired screams
of clouds.

Pigeon shit on sidewalks.
An airplane nosing its way
to a paradisal island.
The clunkish rattling
of clothes dryers.
A vigilance against 
the sweaty hours.

Yet, she sings,
Christo no esta muerto
My skin fails to scatter.
Christo esta vivo

A lullaby that triggers
my spine.
Not into glory
but into the rancid 
dust of faith.


The Flamenco Dancer

Hearing the flamenco dancer’s feet
pummel the wooden planks of a stage
And a guitarist’s furious strumming echoes
through the great hall of a strange church
The sound roars through our bodies
and fills the air with seductive melody

Outstretched—her arms blur into melody
Beyond the pews, the sorcery of her feet
enchants us all, brings weakness to our bodies
She stomps and twirls like fire swept across the stage
Forever lost. Lost in a small church.
Her dress blooms open. Spain’s passion echoes.

Walls tremble and sensuous vibrations echo
in the tunnel of our ears. A symphonic melody
holds us captive, prisoners of a low-lit church
We journey with her, though, never rising on our feet
Everything fades away except her gracefulness on stage
What matters most is the flame in my body

And I love to see her hair wrap around her body
And the snapping of her fingers becomes a roaring echo
And it fills my heart to watch her burn up the stage
And she pries wide my eyes with thrilling melody
Her arms defy peace in a church
She opposes darkness with fiery feet

The guitarist’s strumming guides her feet
Against the air, she battles with her body
She rains vengeance inside a glowing church
Sounds of battle, clashes of echoes
And the night turns crimson with melody
Beneath autumn clouds, I witness conquest of sages

The thought of spirits blessing the stage
The devotion of limbs, hands, hungry feet
cry out their bleak and night-long melodies
She sings, “Fall belongs to your bodies.
Everyone embrace my echoes
within this restless church!”

We become alive within our broken bodies
Become marvelous through her booming echoes
inside the sprouting garden of a church  

Old Birthday Card Triptych

I.

In late autumn night
old birthday cards scatter around me
Descending like leaves from a shedding oak
	A reminder that someone loves me
Not this shallow rusted casing
Not this trembling coward
more afraid of the emerald light
But the gilded heart, they know 
I swallowed

When you look into the mirror
	I study the glittered page
I want you to see
eyes that sparkle
	Trees begin to shake in earnest
and maybe a few mischievous thoughts

I try not to think about my heart ready 
to stop, nostalgic like a decade
	The killing years, I thought 
would be enough
to rediscover the mystery 
of cheating time

II.

Of all the daddies 
	In all the lands
That there could ever be

Slowly reading, his eyes downcast
	A father gripping his heart
The incurable follow alongside of him

And yet no one to recognize

It is a good thing to be outside again
Among the bleak buildings and trees

	Carrying an old birthday card,
he looks like a suicide 
“It’s been three years,” he mutters
beneath the amethyst glow of light

No more contiguous giggles
No more struggling absurdities 
	a daughter brings

For once in his life, he dreams 
	being in a church
ignoring a preacher’s ornate sermon
Instead he reads the scribbling
		of a seven year old

Even though you think you’re sick. Always, I’ll be around.

III.

The room seems hazy, too clean for its own good
she sits upright on a bed
Cancer blossoming in her lungs,
Arthritis crippling her fingers,
but, with a drip of morphine, she is able to read

this old birthday card
There will never be enough time
	The words bleed into her wrists,
To tell you how much I’ll miss you
	She thinks of Radames, her husband, battling 
the war of his body too
So, she sticks close to these words, that border 

on bipolarity, the ups and downs of his spirit
to battle what she fights inside


                         ***

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Radames Ortiz