Saturday, February 18, 2012

Families: Poem

Families

By Armando Ortiz


Families are wild flowers.


nameless

is the creek

where baptized words

float away.


Lineage,

there is none,

just endless 

rebirth.


Stories lost

in the sound of water.

there isn’t 

much to say.


Daily, 

they bud 

and wither

living


just a miracle.


Sunday, February 12, 2012

Hummingbird No.2: A Poem

Hummingbird No. 2

by Armando Ortiz


Let the bullets of war 

become shooting hummingbirds 

that pierce armors of fear and 

pollinate the hearts with courage


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Waiting: A Poem

Waiting

by Armando Ortiz


I wait for you to return to this side where the earth is young,

Laying here marking off the days that fall like dead leaves,

And hoping to see the blossom of your rose again.


The rocks underwater kept silent the day I caressed your skin.

and the trees around us became a collective yakshi that saw it all.

In our mischief we didn’t hold back, and lost ourselves in revelry.

That afternoon a part of me entered your sacred sanctuary.


The barn swallows living under the concrete bridge,

Are witnesses to the memories that flow down river

And accomplices to what happened that day.


Let’s be the holiness of the first birth, and the miracle of the moment.

Let me enter, and experience the rebirth of what I was before.

The sun rises as the flowers of life open, slowly moving across the earth.


Sunday, February 5, 2012

Growing up in Los Angeles (Part Seven): Splitting of Electrons

Part 7: Splitting of Electrons 

By Armando Ortiz

All you get is the splitting of electrons. That is what she said after I explained to her what it is that I was seeing and feeling. I had been tripping pretty hard that day and the world that existed outside of myself came in to focus. I had been aware of the world that I live in and the daily transactions that take place with one another. However, this particular day it all changed. I could see far into the horizon and spot the different layers of movement and people that were going hither and thither. From a distance I could see people pass by and at times saw the tops of their cars, and at other times people I looked at the people on platforms just enjoying the whole view of the event. I was at the center of all the chaos taking place. Everything was happening before me and around me, and I realized that all that was outside of myself was a sort of organized chaos, but what about myself, my mind, my being? I was the center and the center was a mess. My thoughts also represented a type of chaos. Chaos that was disorganized or organized? But what of my thoughts and the world at large? What was after all that? What was there between my thoughts and the rest of the internal chaos? She’d been listening to me talk, and at times looked around and spotted random decorated bicycles.

“Well, after that all you have is the splitting of electrons,” giving a smile after her reply.

“Hahahaha…” that really shocked me, but it made sense, because at the molecular level there were electrons splitting and connecting to other things.

“What we all are is mostly space and water, even though we don’t perceive that reality,” she said, “It truly is a miracle that we just don’t dissolve into nothingness.”

“What is that thing that keeps it all running? God? A spirit? An electrical charge? Air pressure?,” I asked with a sense of desperation. “Is nature outside of this chaos? Is nature chaos by nature? Does this mean that our bodies are of nature, but we turn around and look at it in a weird way of chaos.”

Chaos……living in the city one experiences organized chaos, but in nature, one sees the multiplicity of nature’s wonders, an organization that seems to have equilibrium  and symbiosis. We see the different animals, the trees, the ocean, the insects, the mammals, the birds, the snakes, and the grounds the slither on. There is so much more, so much of what we call wild, and why do we call it wild? Why is it that humans have a desire to “tame” nature, just like we like to enslave others, conquer and dominate others. Nature does not do that, right? Is there love in nature? Our cities become representative of what we deem as natural. The slums, the desperation for survival, the constant up and down driving, the mechanized sounds of metal against metal, the tall buildings that look offensive when compared to the distant backdrop of the Azusa mountains. All we have is splitting of electrons.


Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Poem: Trying to forget you

Trying to forget you

by Armando Ortiz


The last plum blossom has fallen,

joining past events,

in that precipice of forgotten decay.


Soon leaves will be a cicada green,

And we will explore other valleys,

While seeds die and repeat this infinite scene.


When winter returns,

You will have disappeared from my thoughts,

And the last leaf will descend with the frost of night.


If I am unable to eat from your tree,

Then being pushed by the unknown breeze,

will be my final decree

as I unroll my sails and sail away free.