Simple Things
I say goodbye to simple things
like trees in autumn peel their leaves.
Melancholy is the sad slow death
of simple things that ache.
Stay for a while, beneath
my noontime sun.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Gothed
Tina painted my lips black,
paleness on the cheeks foggy
in layers of transparencies.
I gave so much to anger
it ached like a scared hitchhiker
blowing a trucker in traffic on Interstate 95.
You shook my hand,
offered beer. I said: Whiskey,
and lit a cigarette.
By 4am you were trapped
in the undertide of Mata Hari’s tongue.
You didn’t remember my name: Sam.
But it wasn’t because of the snake shaped ring,
with emerald eyes, eating its tail,
wrapped around my finger.
You left a rose in front of my door
every day for a week.
I took off the mask and smiled.
We’ll have to get a larger coffin.
Sergio Ortiz grew up in Chicago, studied English literature at Inter-American
University in San German, Puerto Rico, philosophy at World University and culinary art at The Restaurant School in Philadelphia. Among other titles, his work has been published in and The Cave, Origami Condom, Poets Ink Review,
FlutterSilenced Press.
