Live Encounters Poetry & Writing March 2025
A Gift, poems by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal.
A Gift
You can hear the sobbing
in the panting on canvas.
The artist has a gift that
jabs like daggers inside our
hearts. There is no remorse
in the pleasure the antagonist
on canvas yields. The painter
long dead, has left his labor
for all to see. It hangs in a
museum I’ve only been to once.
Rimbaud’s Sun
I see you.
What do I see?
Rimbaud’s sun
over the sea.
I watch it
confess its
empty soul
all day long
from my house,
from my porch,
I see you
fly over me.
All alone
embers stir.
I feel you.
It’s pure torture.
Down you go
at last. It’s
Rimbaud’s sun
over the sea.
Walking On the Grass
Wasps built their nest in our backyard patio.
I planned on drinking a six-pack out there
and walking on the grass without shoes.
Twenty-five years ago, we had pine trees
in the backyard, and two years ago, a giant
pepper tree, which are gone. I wrote a
poem or two about the pepper tree. No other
tree we have grew as high as that one.
There is a lemon tree that provides us
with the most delicious lemons. I like how
juicy they are. The orange tree is not so
shabby. My current favorite is the
pomegranate tree, then the lemon tree.
I like the word granada, pomegranate
in Spanish. It reminds me of Lorca,
the Spanish poet, dead, but alive in my heart.
© Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal
Born in Mexico, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. He is the author of Raw Materials (Pygmy Forest Press), Make the Water Laugh (Rogue Wolf Press), and Peering into the Sun (Poet’s Democracy). His recent poetry has been featured in Blue Collar Review, Live Encounters, Kendra Steiner Editions, Made Swirl, River Dog, and Unlikely Stories.