March Senryū 2017

for embracing new life with all its challenges

in one-hundred words | she writes him a love poem | an hasta luego
| maybe another forty | to say aloha again

dancing mid-street | not acting any age | trying to wake up 

unheard voices | speak to us in images | herstory muses

not an afterthought | who you think of while pruning | all of your roses

lonely people | in Japan they rent out cats | here spend days on-line

then she walked loveblind | into a new life chapter | it was much later
| she discovered his role | trivial to her story

an eclipse of light | you stand in the door | occulting the sun

dragons and snakes | soaring / seeking perspective | opposites attract

we won't say your name | you will forever be | just number 45

crow hitches a ride | posing as hood ornament | old time GPS

morning's afterbirth | rainbow rings around the sun | ice crystals bent light

she felt the bones break | before she ever got beat | she got so tired
| of a life dodging violence | before she could escape

trouble... the water | that needs healing like we do | pray for the answers
| sing the water whole again | if we believe we can

we don't grow old | our bodies wear and tear | there's no replacement parts

blood ties not always | as strong as those bonds we form | friends as familia

lugar mágico | donde fui concebida | entre mezquite
| y nopal brotando | flores de sol y sangre

World Poetry Day | let's all put down our weapons | unite in the word
| in flower and song offered | for peace and love to prevail

Spring is in motion | US climate glacial ice | waiting for the thaw

she cannot die | a person who creates | she was never born
| she transcends time and space | becoming and existence

what was hidden | heart in the present moment | brought into being

defrag your mind | fill in those gaps caused by hate | recall slows us down

easy amnesia | another word for denial | erase blasted pasts
| pretend we were all saints | we had no help sinning

can't lose everything | if you give it all away | sit in stillness

before time or space | lived dark where ego is killed | swirls unseen forces

her everyday eats | poems to calm a torment | non-monotonous

gap-toothed pain while ailing | from alien greed | craters in the head

a gypsy poet | with no birthplace monument | born on the road

a force to embrace | women who carry water | who know how to pray

you can pretend | you don't love me anymore | I know the truth

heading west for home | a piece of my heart lives there | on Pacific's shore
| a door to a future-past | one that will always last

rain is falling | in the garden plants lift heads | give thanks to the frogs

Copyright © 2017 Odilia Galván Rodríguez. All Rights Reserved.

April the Cruelest Month - Senryū and Cinquains

creative commons license 

for an understanding of men who have no clue about women

the April days move | slow in snow wanting to be | rain blessing the ground

she cries about corn | how now it's being monsterized | how it is her flesh

wears more 

than protective

vest, she wears a tough flesh

overcoat. Not bullet proof, no.

it serves

keeps men

away, you know

the kind that prey, and stalk

women slight of stature, or off

balance

wearing

stand 'em up shoes

those kind that make you lose.

ones that say come fuck me ~ pumps so

untrue

the coat's

gotten too long

she wants to give it up

donate it to Goodwill ~ it's ov-

er kill

when men's

eyes turn to her 

they slide over the hill

her latest disguise is close to 

salty

couldn't hug her | enough to leave her there | sun child in the land of snow

she thinks

his mouth on hers.

how good it makes her feel 

knowing that morning, she did brush ~

her teeth

your days are overcast skies | your heart bursts like clouds | it rains from your eyes

everyday we shake our heads | because we can't believe | you in body are gone | we search for you on shorelines | in the songs of spirit birds

used to jump at shadows | inclined to take flight | now never afraid | to take on a just struggle | a battle of ideas

all her hopes and dreams | born a reality | his life her salvation

she speaks oracle | no one knows how to feel it | a flower opened

slanderings scurry | up and down the shoreline sure | I think of your mouth

winter reminder | driving rain from the Valley | golfball sized hailstones | April when corn is greening | foggy storms turn turbulent

you = happy | at times my greatest sadness | it's an up - down thang

She says let's dream on it | she no longer thinks | thinking has no heart

we celebrate | national sibling day | mourn our lost ones | and our parents gone long to land | of ancestors they've become

sun broke through grey days | a walk in the snowmelt | April showers frozen

the hawk is wind | razor sharp its insistence | to stay the course

snow in April | winter holds spring in its grip | everyone looks for sun

Spring rain spills in ropes | hopes for another green day | tomorrow today

I could

write abuela's

hair braids, her bun~

but what fun would that be?

rather write about her high tops

red dreams

she wore

them in the Spring

garden, planting her seeds ~

calabacitas born darkest

lime green

she grew

corn much taller

than her, barely five foot ~

sweet, abundant that tenderest

golden

green corn 

masa for best

tamales of the year

everyone helped shuck, newly born

heaven

because

it is April 

her almost birthday month

we sing her las mañanitas 

she cries

man gave her lemons | she made lemonade before | she bashed in his head | not really his head you know | but she visioned it in her own

women bleed so much | in so many ways | then become bad daughters | to mothers that don't mean them | no harm only the best good 

Copyright © 2016 Odilia Galván Rodríguez.  All Rights Reserved.

March Senryū 2016

"Crows in the Hood" by Comrade Foot. Creative Commons.

for the ability to live up to challenges

we visit you here | in this place we can't fathom | with beautiful flowers

grand love

fathers \ daughters.

some, almost perfect, no?

there are those who could tell you truths --

to shame.

when you're proud to know | the boy you raised who grew wise | way beyond his years

that kiss was kismet | some past life holdover | now to get over it

wild blackbird warning | then car's back door flies open | wallet on the ground | 

Good Samaritan noticed | comes to your rescue saves day

old Havana | has her secrets hidden deep | in layers of paint

mysticwoman | she who sees beyond eyes | who hears the longtime voices

there are don't ride trains | ones that are going down wrong | sidetracked forever

the eyes have it | true windows to the heart/soul | what do yours say

she works in the dark | hands need no light to create | smooth and soothe the lines

people block the hate | with their bodies and prayers | close down the clown's cars |

until the streets can be safe | once more from this war on us

ancestral knowledge | sure as sunshine and moon rise | we are all welcomed

my dream peeps | are keepers and are not me | have their own lives to live

in shackles and chained | no respect for human beings | illegal they're not

kindness of strangers | takes you by the arm | welcomes you like family

sad for that hurt feeling | don't know why people hate | ocean bottom deep

in the morning | she will give thanks for being | for one more day |

to become a better human | to pray for health and kindness

tongues for justice | will never be silenced | from ashes rises fire

we geography | the maps and myths of our lives | places and people

beauty of the blush | of new flower bud just born | of sacred promise

new flood warnings | morning woke late and foggy | turned off her alarm

thunder beings roar | gulf waters jump up the shore | downpour on the brink 

going inward | to reflect on no reflection | mirror the darkness |

seeking out those specks of stars | your love that's become so small

hair clip

on the sidewalk~

rusty as the years long,

held up some beautiful tresses

back when.

so we dis-agree | about presidents and such | aren't we family |

we're not that divided | we both want peace and justice

land where you were made | where ancestors lived and died | a full life circle |

you piece together the songs | the wrongs no longer matter

a book is a world | enter its doors and go | journeying the unknown

the mother in her | makes them feel comfortable | is what makes them talk |

they open up like windows | on a bright sunny day

so much love is soup | simmered steamy with good will | veggies and chicken

hunger food for thought | and a quiet place in woods | where the raven calls

denial does no good | in friendship one must see | their own shortcomings

Copyright © 2016 Odilia Galván Rodríguez.  All Rights Reserved.

Xoxoctli ~ Little Green

for RL

verde como nosotros
when we met in that
long ago yoliztli
cuando éramos
tiernos como el maíz
verde as our love we thought
would last siempre
but forever is a long time
y los verdecitos no saben
nada del tiempo ni como
se mueve mas rápido
the older people get
pero un yolotli no se olvida
el teteyollocuicatl de su amante
a heart that flowers

xoxoctli
in yuh (así como) tu y yo
cuando creíamos que éramos
todo lo necesario
to live a life in love
and together always
y lo vivimos así hasta que no
you went your path y yo el mio
but always you had temactli
ipan no (poder sobre mi) and
I was only safe
when I didn’t know
where tu corazón latía
couldn’t feel it calling me
from so far away
now I hear it
dondequiera que voy
lo oigo
y me persigue
me llama
tú, corazón
your heart

Copyright © 2014 Odilia Galván Rodríguez.
All Rights Reserved.

Notes on the Nahuatl words ~

teteyollocuicatl: heart beat
yoliztli: life
yolotli: heart
xoxoctli: little green

NaPoWriMo ~ National Poetry Month

Oh my dear poets, readers, and friends, I had every intention of following my usual custom of sharing a poem a day for National Poetry Month aka NaPoWriMo, right here... But being a person who moves and lives from place to place on a regular basis - know one ever really knows where I might be from month to month; I've decided to dedicate a blog to Spring, to April, and to National Poetry Month by putting up my poem a day in it's own new home.  So to find me and much of my writing for April, go here: April Blooms, hope you'll be glad you did!