Sergio A. Ortiz is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a six-time Best of the Web nominee, and 2016/17 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. Ortiz is the editor of Undertow Tanka Review.

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?

Remoteness Songs

Undertow Tanka Review

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