Cajun Mutt Press Poet in Residence

Duende

Green is the taste of bitter rind that lingers on your fingertips,
cutting through the sweetness of icebox orange smiles
bursting on my tongue, lovingly fed,
conjuring the salty sting of solitude’s imminence,
as if a shade.

How dreaded the tic-toc of the clock—
rhythmic shower of dying heartbeats—
hanging, sourly, above us in white clusters,
promising much, offering little
but that which is within our fleshy grasps.
Before dawn breaks and you slip away—a shadow
fleeing the Eye of Day—
you reach backward, hand upon wanting hip, pulling me inward,
stopping time if but for a second longer.

O morning thief!
I am bound by your fragrant tethers
that permeate, infiltrate ‘the everything’ under my skin
through the hole in my chest that once held a beating heart,
long-since cast at the pink of your delicate arches.
My soul bursts forth as you turn and smile,
then walk away,
leaving behind your indentions and a tattered Lorca,
tossed afloat in the rising, orange currents of morning.

Still, I am drawn to the darkness of my corners,
where Death has found a home.
The purity of her black light defines, reveals all
within this drowned world of light and shadow.
There is no love without fear of absence,
no hope without doubt,
no fulfillment without the memory of Hunger’s dull stabs.
We savor and rejoice these fleeting moments—
all that is good under God’s blue heaven—
for in the end
all we are left with…all that is true…
is that cold taste of green.

as peace –at long last—rests upon our gentle faces…this is duende.

©David Estringel all rights reserved

David Estringel is a poet and writer of fiction, creative non-fiction, & essays. His work has been accepted and/or published by Specter Magazine, Literary Juice, Foliate Oak Magazine, Terror House Magazine, Expat Press, 50 Haikus, littledeathlit, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Route 7 Review, Setu Bilingual Journal, Paper Trains Literary Journal, The Elixir Magazine, Soft Cartel, Harbinger Asylum, Briars Lit, Open Arts Forum, Cajun Mutt Press, Former People Journal, The Ugly Writers, Writ in Dust, Cephalopress, Twist in Time, Merak Magazine, Salt Water Soul, Cherry House Press, Subterranean Blue Poetry, Printed Words, Sunflower Sutras, Tulip Tree Publishing, Salt Ink, PPP Ezine, Digging through the Fat, Haiku Journal, Foxhole Magazine, The Basil O’Flaherty, Three Line Poetry, Agony Opera, Siren’s Call Ezine, Alien Buddha Press, Synchronized Chaos, Pantheon of Poesy, The @baffled Haiku Daily, Blood Moon Rising Magazine, The Blue Nib, Fishbowl Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Rigorous Magazine, Corvus Review, Spillwords.com, Proletaria Journal, Cherry Magazine, Bleached Butterfly, Poetry Pea (Haiku Pea), Sub Rosa Zine, TL;DR Press, Spit Poet Zine, Arthut, ICOE Press, Logos, Z Publishing, Outcast Magazine, Ponder Savant, Impspired Magazine, Drunk Monkeys, The Poetry Question, Headline Poetry, Forever Endeavour, Queer As In Fuck You!, Claredon House Publications, Poetizer, Channillo, and The Good Men Project. He is currently Poetry Editor at Fishbowl Press and The Elixir Magazine, a Fiction Editor at Red Fez, and Poet in Residence at Cajun Mutt Press and The Elixir Magazine. David’s first book of poetry and prose Indelible Fingerprints was published by Alien Buddha Press in April 2019. David can be found on Twitter (@The_Booky_Man) and his website at http://davidaestringel.com.