Two Poems by Sergio Ortiz

Dry Portrait of Frida Kahlo
 
From eyebrow to bars
I am crowned with a rail of thorns
this vertebral column of skulls agonizes me                
this severed placenta slavery feeds me            
the orphanage pushing my gut aborts me
I am a motherless ghost
my dry udders drip rusted curds
punishment for a castrated uterus
Oh, how I limp in my portraits
 
Every sterile night, I un-nurse the fetuses in the bones of my bed
and my eyes bleed drops of mirrors that speak to me
and the twisted breath of daily tragedy nails me
and I am hidden in my Nana, I breastfeed shadows
with the same loneliness that night pours inside me
and I paint myself without looking
 
 
 
 
 
Syria 2016
 
Today I continue to be sad
as if I had died
looking at the fungi of depleted uranium
spreading through the bodies of children
while I listen to Tartini
as if he were a memorable man.
Today I continue to be barefoot
on my city’s streets
without friends, and no one
to wait for me at home.
My loneliness is so deep
that I sit and listen to birdsong,
and no longer want to be here.
There’s nothing removing my annoyance,
nothing allowing me to relive my love.



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Bio: Sergio A. Ortiz is the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. His collections of Tanka, For the Men to Come (2014), and From Life to Life (2014) were released by Amazon.  He’s a two time Pushcart nominee and a four time Best of the Web nominee.  His poems have been publish in over four hundred journals and anthologies.

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