Alveraz Ricardez has two published volumes of poetry, Hot Mud Poems and The Pill Bug Torero. He is the editor of Kill Poet Press & Journal and works as a screenwriter in Hollywood. He lives with his wife and two children. He also raises emu on his ranch in southern Chile.
Alveraz has been published in Chronogram, Arabesque, Pemmican, MiPoesias, Softblow, Shouted Whisper, Down in the Dirt, Language and Culture, AVQ, Voodoo Beat, Propoganda and numerous other magazines and journals.
Retired in Red on the lawn between soft fallen lemons and fresh vined lattice was the onion breathed spaniard and his lunatic cat he wept for the children painted into his fields of wheat and bananas he settled the parents in mulch along the rim of his easel he dreamt the birth of fresh stalk would rise against land lords and propagate these fields into milled flour they would feed the lucid workers and forgiven bourgeois he was the new savior and weathered nemesis of failed autocracy he would finally kiss the sewn soil of youth and tango with his ancestors: they would rise, damn it, rise! and below the storm his lunatic cat pawed at the coagulated paint bone dry brushes and unkempt beard he knew the old man cried from his onion sandwich and by dusk there would only be an empty canvas soft fallen lemons, and fresh vined lattice Letter #16 Dear Helen, There is a little native boy outside my hut window. If I move more than two fingers around this pencil he will hear me and alert the tribesman. Last night I was able to bribe him with a piece of carob left over from the care package you sent. He allowed me to pace my room. Tonight his smile faded when I had no mas. Now his marble eyes survey the walls outside, and I'm scared. He reminds me of our son. He has your spindly body, Helen. His caramel skin ashes like yours in the heat. I never understood how your body dried like a saladito. Remember when I begged you to sweat? Anyway, he reminds me of Douglas. When I woke this morning my gut burned. I think it may be malaria, but I'm not sure. It comes in waves now. It must be ten degrees in here. I can see my breath over the words but this parchment is soaked in salt, so I know my body is broken. Tell Douglas to paint me a picture and hang it over my workbench. Be sure he uses the entire canvas, you now how the white space drives me mad. I can hear his eyes, Helen, the little native boy. I can hear him sniff at my movements. He has a broken foot, a fishing accident. He drags it when he walks, so I hear him shuffle, drag, shuffle, drag, all around the god damn perimeter. I think about killing him sometimes. One of my hands could fit around his entire neck, Helen. I could be swift about it. Maybe when this full moon breaks and these crickets realize there is no audience for their orchestra. I don't know. It was just a thought. I will write again in the morning. William