Simon Anton Niño Diego Baena, featured in the new Ocean State Review

Don Pablo,

A crumpled love letter was discovered
in the basement
of your old house
with the words “return to sender”

summer has just started to explode
like an atom bomb

you could have written more poems
while lounging on a yacht
somewhere in the Pacific
with an apple in your pocket
instead of arguing with hyenas

but this was your true political statement:

to dream of tombs and black
laces and naked statues
dripping with lube as you touch
yourself in the dark

Simon Anton Niño Diego Baena on “Don Pablo,“

Ever since my father handed Neruda’s Isla Negra, he has been one of my favorite poets. This used to be a much longer poem, then I started revising it for more than a month. You just can’t avoid mentioning Neruda’s romantic-erotic tendencies that are prevalent in his oeuvre, hence the poem’s last 4 stanzas.

Simon Anton Niño Diego Baena‘s fourth Chapbook, With Different Wars Raging, is forthcoming from Jacar Press. His work has recently appeared in The Ocean State Review, The Columbia Review, Pembroke Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, The Cortland Review, The Bitter Oleander, Osiris, Louisiana Literature, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. He has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in the Philippines with his wife and child.