Five poems by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozabal

1. What is in Your Heart

 

What is in your heart,

unrepentant executioners,

chewing bullets as they

pull the trigger, blindfolded

like the bards standing

feet away from the firing squads?

 

What is in your heart,

silence and apathy, violence

and violins, pent up rage

and desire for a world

falling apart at the seams

on the day before the end of days?

 

What is in your heart,

the unutterable truth in the mouth

of a terrible infant, teething

and hungry for mother’s milk,

settling for a baby bottle filled

with vodka and pomegranate juice?

 

2.  The Illusion of Rest

 

As I slept

through

the illusion

of rest,

I had a

heart

opening dream.

I felt

a bee’s sting

at my heart’s

core.

It felt

like an old

wound

penetrating

my flesh.

 

 3. I  Found Your Bones

 

In a shipwreck I found your bones.

From the damage seen, no one was saved.

A sleepless ocean buried your dreams

in the watery depths below,

where no lights will ever shine on you.

 

You went through life without true love.

You had to go and drown your sorrow.

The wild ocean put its arms around you.

This is far from Paradise for sure.

There are so many bones down there.

 

There are men, women, and children,

who must have swam furiously.

There was no tomorrow for them

as water filled their mouths. They must

have had people waiting for them.

 

There must have been people searching.

Their moans were never heard from

dawn to dusk, from dusk to dawn.

In foul water, their remains were left.

Four centuries washed over their bones.

 

4.  The Message 

 

In a gulf

of blood

the dead sink,

leaving

a flood

and ships

no longer

sailing..

 

In a

forgotten

world, the winds

carry a

taste of death,

a message

for you

and me.

 

 

 5. A Presence

 

Youth talks with its mouth full.

Death talks in silence.

Much of our time is wasted

and ghosts have no time to waste.

Their days are never numbered.

They have found a permanence.

 

Their youth was once wasted.

They will not let you forget it.

They are up nights haunting us.

They like to be called a presence.

They will live in our dreams if we

 

allow it. You find them in parks,

twenty or thirty ghosts. They like

places they have been before.

They feel outraged just like we do

for taking life for granted. We

know about love wasted. They are

like us and we run away from them.

 

Bio of the poet: Born in Mexico, Luis lives in California and works in the mental health in Los Ángeles. His poetry has been published in Blue Collar Review, Borderless Journal, Kendra Steiner Editions, Piker Press, Pygmy Forest Press, and Unlikely Stories.