Sergio Ortiz Returns

Let's start with Sergio's poem inspired by Etta Jones.

Walking in the 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 Jones’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.

With No Punctuation 

You insist on dealing with my silence

by making sure no one rises to my defense

Between the lips of your vulva 

scented flowers

open locks

on doors that listen 

to what belongs to me

No endless

distances

no monsters

nothing of the low note

minced 

by my voice

To be able to sing

with amazement

sing

with no punctuation 

or alarm

Reparations to Eros

May silence never ride 

on the dormant back of a heron. 

May it leave a homeopathic drop of luck 

on the waters of my trembling body.

May my skin bear no resemblance

to the unshakable epidermis 

of a frozen pachyderm.  

I must confess, I am in debt

to a slave driver's arms.

Tasted his fruit, 

but could not distinguish 

sour from sweet.

Black Salt

You fall beyond your sap / abated remembrance / vile fear of tears // In you my heart / a circle of fire / black salt on the river banks of your Himalaya // And I am shipwrecked / confused tangle of dreams that mocks the cacophonous memory of water.

A Thousand Darknesses

In memory of the Holocaust Victims and Celan

We went to Mirabeau Bridge

and paid your promise.

The hours passed

on the Seine, our lives

increasingly smaller 

grew confident

thinking a suicide chose 

the side of the Tower

where nothing ends up falling.

We threw our coins in the water.

No Country for the Elderly

The young

In one another's arms, birds in the trees,

—Those dying generations—at their song

Sailing to Byzantium

By William Butler Yeasts

I set the rain on fire, lacerated the sun

with my straight razor

so I could part company with time.

I'm saving my abysses

to scamper away from the cold

so as not to be disgusted with death.

This country is no place for the elderly,

the ridiculous collections of antiquated scores,

birds bebopping jazz melodies on the autumnal tree

of sensory music that ignores everything.

Teenagers standing on God's sacred fire

turn to me and say…

Stick to being the teacher

of your wrinkled breath.

Of course, I must start with some Etta Jones.  Here is her "Don't Go to Strangers":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBLaJtXbpRg

Her "I'll Be Seeing You" also features her long-time love, the tenor saxophonist Houston Person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcok47x_sMk

Let's play some vibes.  My husband made a request for some Jason Marsalis.  Here is his "The Man With Two Left Feet":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utk_OKKh2ic

Another song of his is "Offbeat Personality":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D79DbEU9jv0

Back to the papers!