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.