Solar
Sparrows broke their contract with the sun
And perched their blazing wings on a satellite panel.
Restless, these fiery children from our personal star
Departed from their makeshift nest
And shook the sky, crashing into the sea.
Meteoric, we felt their harsh landing through history,
Noticing their final streaks glimmer
In the atmosphere as we languorously glided
By the Hudson River, our fingers mingling like tongues.
A contract between these heavenly birds and our earth
(Turquoise orb shimmering in space like a glass marble)
Was consecrated when your rosy cheek lay on my shoulder,
A dove slain by a flock of arrows, pierced by a single kiss,
Dripping with the fire and blood of the setting sun.
City
I want to gather this city’s sorrows
And infuse your lungs with them.
We are caught up in this endless metropolis,
Hung up in pleasure and sleep.
Our journeys through glass and metal labyrinths
Make me yearn to soak your fibers with elegies.
You are more than this city of sad serenades.
I look at you and hear a dove cooing in the sewers.
You drone like a plane in our love’s dying breaths
And what vomits out of you are a mountain of cherries.
If I had loved you on grasslands, I would’ve brought my guitar
And sang the wind into your ear and a lamp would eternally burn in you.
But, as it is, a dagger sets ablaze the terrible hollows
Where a hundred ponies prance with their riders dead.
We can never swerve away from this traffic of idiot anguish.
Bionote
Efren L. Cruzada's work has appeared in The West 4th Street Review, Headless, and Songs of Eretz Poetry Review. Born in the Philippines and raised in Texas, Mr. Cruzada went on to study at New York University. He currently resides in Queens, New York.