Four Poems | mónica teresa ortiz

Land a man in a/landscape and he’ll try to conquer it – War of the Foxes by Richard Siken

a stone in the atchafalaya​​ 

swamp, face half submerged​​ 

in a portal, offer goodbyes to great blue​​ 

herons flying​​ 

requires same​​ 

mechanization​​ 

as dying  marigolds planted in prayer

erosion unpins desire for oxygen​​ 

resources​​ 

deplete

no inquiries into disappearances

none shall stand​​ 

trial​​  on Earth anyway

no justice for flesh​​ 

only abolition of grief​​ 

eat  dust that works hard​​ 

to be​​  

a ghost

the way wind demands​​   water never moves 

so what  is there to believe? have faith

in the ocean, in swells and calls. sun banished

thinned ozone, line left to stop

heat. reach for the sea  remember it

ancient and deeper than us. go ahead​​  assume​​ 

water isn’t a god. we don’t understand​​ 

much except extinction

think about coffins​​  documents​​ 

of death by now​​   

many have been taken

what does it all amount to?

we mistook Israfil’s horn blast

for a gunshot

 yet look quick​​ 

how plumerias sweep

over the West 

How I am to become a legend, my dear? - Meditations in an Emergency, Frank O’Hara

to be exiled to be​​ 

drunk on a bar stool in New York to be locked​​ 

in a neon dimension with whiskey rotting​​ 

the last time New York still breathes​​ 

quarantine up and down Bowery​​ 

hunt spells to resurrect the dead​​ 

too late to go home darling

hush​​ 

bow​​ 

our head and pray

to be​​ 

the spider plucked​​ 

from your mouth by God