Upended
Far from all forms of charity,
I am the prophet, the retired apostle
of faith in myself.
My friends: escape artists,
foreshadowers of verses,
sunk in the quicksands of language.
They believe in the melodies I babble
exalting legendary elephant graveyards
and mystic monsoons.
We witness the paradigms of a century fall
while celebrating a Wimbledon match,
a joy much greater than revolving revolutions.
Walking in a Limbo of Words
the lighthouse of the indefinite
trafficking voices of absence,
skeleton walls smuggle freedom.
My country: a poem under an illegal shade.
A sun full of cameras rides
my skin like ghosts
who claim what is rightfully theirs.
I lead the echoes of my flight
to a heart masked
as theatrical delirium,
my wrinkled memoir
slow dancing to Etta James’s,
I found a dream, that I could speak to.
A dream that I can call my own
At last… I touch your lips
with my revolutionary blood
and leave my confession
on your cinnamon eyes.
Sergio A. Ortiz is a gay Puerto Rican poet and the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. He is a two time Pushcart nominee, a four time Best of the Web nominee, and a 2016 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have been published in hundreds Journals and Anthologies. He is currently working on his first full length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard.
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