"Cooking the Pills," "Words of Indifference," and "In a Pure Sky"

Cooking the Pills

I cook the pills
to get all of
the poison out. 

I feed it to
the spirits and
ghosts in the house. 

The smell of the 
poison alone
will drive them off.

I do not need
the pills because
I’m not crazy. 

The spirits and
ghosts are real, but
I’ll deal with them. 

Once I am rid
of them I can
live peacefully.

 


 

Words of Indifference

 She serves pessimism on a platter.
This is her best dessert.
Time and time again she dishes
words of indifference, plates them
for you as if to say, choke on this.
She has nothing to offer.  Her
only desire is to take.  She will
not leave you hanging by a thread.
There will be no thread.  She will
bring the chains to lock up any
dreams or desires you might have.
She uses poisoned words to
take your world apart, to bring it
crashing down.  I want no part of
it.  I rather remain human.
I will walk on my own, stand on
my own two feet, keep my distance
always. I cannot swallow what
she attempts to serve.  I must
look out for my best interests.

 


 

In a Pure Sky

In a pure sky
you can see past the stars,
past the blue skies,
into the seed of where
the world and time began.
You see the mirror 
of the sea Narcissus 
stared into and drowned.
In a pure sky
you can see past the sun,
past its blinding light,
and see the beauty
of the world’s origin,
where vanity is unwelcome.

 

 

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in West Covina, CA, works in Los Angeles County, and is the author of Raw Materials (Pygmy Forest Press). His poetry, prose, and art has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Escape Into Life, Nerve Cowboy, Triggerfish, and Yellow Mama Magazine. His broadsides, chapbooks and poetry books have appeared in Alternating Current Press, Deadbeat Press, Four Feathers Press, Kendra Steiner Editions, New American Imagist, New Polish Beat, Poet's Democracy, Rogue Wolf Press, and Ten Pages Press. Luis recommends St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Monday, October 23, 2017 - 22:39