3:AM Magazine

By José Hernández Díaz.

The Ocean Blue

fountain sounding smolder
hawthorn lake lithe
cistern coerce the

rainfall sitting tree
purple petal smoke
bluish dilemma

concise never fluid
conduit plural
of chant miter open

vacant shopping
cart summer asphalt
neuoro bliss sixteen

canopy snake foreseen
river belittle
without fathom can

nothing sitting tree.

Ballad of K’uk’ulkan

sacred feathered snake
jaguar jade and purple sun
sacred feathered snake
jaguar jade and purple sun

thirteen rabbit rise
eagle drum and orange moon
thirteen rabbit rise
eagle drum and orange moon

shadows on the lake
floating gardens feathers bloom
shadows on the lake
floating gardens feathers bloom

never will

A shore A mind

the seven angled fluid room of thought
expands to writhe upon the page

with livid river slant a frame of stone and
craft an anvil mantle shifted crane

upon an age of withered scale the
flinted names of things escapes

the night of blue and grey
beneath the oval moon

a trail of clouds
dissolves in flame

A thought A lake

The strength of tigers (separates us from what we feel is open space)

III.

Fountain sounding smolder hawthorn lake lithe cistern coerce the rainfall

Bluish dilemma concise never fluid conduit plural of bliss sixteen canopy snake

Foreseen river belittle

VII.

Sitting tree purple petal smoke blossoms
Chant miter open
Vacant shopping cart summer
Asphalt neuoro without fathom can nothing
Sitting Tree.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
José Hernández Díaz has been published in The Best American Nonrequired Reading Anthology 2011, Bombay Gin Literary Journal, The Progressive Magazine, Poetry Flash, Counterexample Poetics, The Delinquent (UK), ditch poetry (CAN), Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Kuikatl ~ A XicanIndio Literary & Arts Journal, BlazeVOX12, among others. He is an MFA candidate at Antioch University Los Angeles, where he serves as co-poetry editor of Lunch Ticket.

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Sunday, December 23rd, 2012.