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                           _________________________________

Radames Ortiz

Radames Ortiz is the author of the chapbook of poems, Between Angels & Monsters.  His work has appeared in numerous publications including, Exquisite Corpse, Pacific Review, Gulf Coast, Susquehanna Review, and Borderlands. He has received fellowships from the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets at Bucknell University and Voices Writing Workshop at the University of San Francisco. He is also a recipient of a 2002 Individual Artist Grant from the Cultural Arts Council of Houston/Harris County. He has recently been awarded a 2003 Archie D and Bertha Walker fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. He currently resides in Houston, TX where he is Marketing Associate for Arte Publico Press. 

There's no redemption
for those who beg
the night for the
back-alley tenor songs,
for the whiskey wild bop
of the streets. The pavement
of our hearts is cracked
and chipped, our veins—
dark alleys of shimmering blood.
We molest the American night.
Our fingers burning of
sea mist and desert smoke,
our hands held up to the sky,
our faces the clockwork
of misery. Look into the wet
black earth of our eyes and
you will see what we are.
We run like children
howling at newborn light
and show the world the
power of our skin.
We chant vibratos of
skyscrapers and tenements
while the thundering
laughter of clouds
collide above our heads.
Our jewel-boxed lives
deny everything.
The mighty hand that
angels bow down to,
the halos broken by the sun.
Our throats stripped
of its whirlwind,
our hair—the white flair
of embalmed coyotes.
We are men, holy enough
to hoot at the moon and
heal earthquakes beneath
a chorus of broken steps.