Poetry: Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozabal

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5 Poems 


​Luis Cuauhtémoc
Berriozábal

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Tears in the Soil

The gardener has left
his tears in the soil. He
cannot make love grow.

He left his tool, a hoe,
in the soil with his sorrow,
by the slow moving snails.

It is too late for him. He
cannot feed his soul with
his pain and deep concern.

It hurts too much to work
or to breathe, when love
is a phantom dream. He

feels too low to go on. I
hear him weep until
the sun sets over yonder.

The gaping wound in his
soul makes death smile
as his life is up for grabs.

Sad Days

I feel too sad these days
to listen to anything you say
to me. I fade out like I am
concussed as you talk.

Tell me anything. But just
so you know I might not
remember what you said.
My mind is so far away.

Think of me as absent. Do
not look for conversation.
I am distant as a star and
if I smile it is just a reflex.

You can go and on. I am
in a world of my own. I am
lost in my thoughts. You
can consider me gone.

The sad days might go away.
I hate to waste your time.
In silence I will remain.
On occasion I will smile.


Sick Doctors
 
I do not listen to sick doctors
who think less of me and laugh
at me when I tell them I make more
money than them in a day than
they make in a year by just
shaking a tree. When I do that
money falls from the leaves and
drops at my feet. Sometimes I
just leave it in the grass for the
poor who need it more than me.
I just get out of bed and work
for an hour or two and I make
loads of money. I got a whole
mess of cash buried all over
town. I just need a shovel or
hoe to dig it up and put it in
my pocket. I don’t trust banks
because bankers are just as bad
as sick doctors who make a
living by putting people like me
in hospital beds. There is not a
thing wrong with me. They
just can’t handle my personality



Dreaming of the Owl

Dreaming of the owl with one eye
with rain falling inside of my room.
Where the roof went I do not know.
A cloud was born over my head.

I heard the owl song echo in my dream.
My heart felt the breeze of the wind.
A voice called out my name from
the sky. I asked it what it wanted.

I heard a murmur of rain that fell
soft upon my brow. Where was this
dream coming from? I watched the
one-eyed owl flying into the cloud.

For a fleeting second I awoke but
fell back into my dream. A slender
version of myself walked outside
with its shadow, trembling.  I felt

a solemn solitude wash over me.
In silent contemplation I wept for
no reason. Where was the one-eyed
owl? I could not utter one word.

A voice called out my name once
again. The voice came from the
cloud where the owl flew into. It
told me this the place I could hide.



The Unexpected Goodbye

The unexpected goodbye
like birds unlearning to fly
and trees uprooted by tornadoes.

The unexpected goodbye
like asthmatics gasping for air
like being alive but not really there

in a world of dementia and confusion. 
The unexpected goodbye
like a firing line execution. A flood

washes over our lives already swept away by the wind. 
The unexpected goodbye moves in for the finish.

Bio:
Luis lives in California and works in Los Angeles. He is the author of Make the Water Laugh (Rogue Wolf Press, 2021). His poetry has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Kendra Steiner Editions, Mad Swirl, Rye Whiskey Review, and Unlikely Stories.

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