Victor D. López's Blog: Victor D. Lopez, page 3

Siren’s Song (sonnet) – Text with link to poetry reading

Poetry is a dangerous siren’s song,
That calls the soul towards a chasm deep,
Dulling the mind and making the heart long,
For that which it may touch yet never keep.

A Sonnet is too much the friend of truth,
And leaves no room for self-deluding lies,
It conjures up the honesty of youth,
And artifice through artifice soon dies.

Essential truths will spill onto the page,
Transpiring through the pores of consciousness,
Leaving exposed the battles that we wage,
To build facades of hope for hopelessness...

Modern Art and the Critics – Complete short story and link to my reading of it

A half dozen art critics stood around a naked white canvas perched at an angle below the empty wall space where one would have expected it to hang. They closely examined the piece, some squatting and some taking a knee to get a closer look. It was the opening day of a hot new artist’s exhibit featuring a variety of works in multiple media from oil paintings, to papier mâché sculptures, to collages rendered from a multitude of objects and some smaller pieces that appeared to have been made by par...

Ode to French Bread (sonnet) – text and link to my reading of the poem

Oh still-warm vision of my heart’s delight,
Your crusty, crunchy skin and doughy heart,
Your sweet aroma with tears blurs my sight,
And makes me yearn to taste your every part.

My doctor says you’ll be the death of me,
Blood sugar and triglycerides too high,
But I don’t care, for my love sets me free,
And of one thing or other we must die.

Come, spend some time with me, bask in my love,
The simple pleasures are the best, one knows,
We’re meant to be, we fit like hand in glove,
The more I have you, the more...

Links to free, unabridged readings of the first seven chapters of my novel

I’ve posted my reading of the first seven chapters of my novel, Hire Lernin’: An Idealist’s Quest Through the Realm of for-Profit Education. Although the novel is available in eBook, paperback and hard cover versions at Amazon and most other book retailers, the entire novel is also accessible free of charge to readers around the world through Storywrite.com and Royal Road (along with other samples of my speculative fiction and poetry). Beyond the drama, humor, romance and professional struggle o...

On Fading Echoes of What Might Have Been (poem and link to my reading of it on Spotify)

I can plant the seed that grows a new soul,
Though have left the field I plowed fallow,
I am strong but know weakness’s greater strength,
My kind dominate, great injustice that,
Strength builds not a road to justice, alas.

I am the end of a long, fruitful line,
I’ll leave dozens of pressed dead leaves,
But not a new soul to carry my name,
Decisions we’ve made that can’t be undone,
I wish it were otherwise, but too late.

Music saw me through the toughest of times,
Novels let me live in far better wo...

Unsung Heroes Part III: Remedios (maternal grandmother) – poem and Spotify link to my reading

Your husband died at 40, leaving you to raise seven children alone.
But not before your eldest, hardest working son, Juan, had
Drowned at sea in his late teens while working as a fisherman to help
You and your husband put food on the table.

You lost a daughter, too,
Toñita, also in her early teens, to illness.
Their kind, pure souls found
Their way back home much too soon.

Later in life you would lose two more sons to tragedy, Paco (Francisco),
An honest, hard working man whose purposeful penchan...

Lita (Manuela — Mom) — Text of poem and link to my reading of it on Spotify

You were born five years before the beginning of the Spanish civil war and
Lived in a modest two-story home in the lower street of Fontan, facing the ocean that
Gifted you its wealth and beauty but also robbed you of your beloved and noblest eldest
Brother, Juan, who was killed while working as a fisherman out to sea at the tender age of 19.

You were a little girl much prone to crying. The neighbors would make you cry just by saying,
“Chora, neniña, chora” Cry little girl, cry which instantly pro...

In Remembrance of D-Day – June 6, 1944

Like most Americans today, I know only a fictionalized glimpse of the hell our soldiers encountered upon landing in Normandy on D-Day through films like Saving Private Ryan and documentaries or reading about the events that was the beginning of the end of Nazi rule. I did not personally know any of the brave soldiers who endured the carnage and to whom I owe the privilege of living in a free country where I can write, teach, practice law, worship and speak my mind without fear. But shortly aft...

Unsung Heroes #5: Felipe (1931 – 2016) (Dad) – Poem and link to my reading of it on Spotify

You were born five years before the Spanish Civil War that would see your father exiled.
Language came later to you than your little brother Manuel. And you stuttered for a time.
Unlike those who speak incessantly with nothing to say, you were quiet and reserved.
Your mother mistook shyness for dimness, a tragic mistake that scarred you for life.

When your brother Manuel died at the age of three from meningitis, you heard your mom
Exclaim: “God took my bright boy and left me the dull one.” You we...

Unsung Heroes Part IV: Maria (paternal grandmother) poem and link to my reading of it on Spotify

You were a gentle, genteel young woman swept away by a man
Thirteen years your senior who gallantly courted you,
Riding proudly atop his great steed, and who offered you
Safety, security, his good name and his heart.

He gave you four children—two boys and two girls—and left you,
And them, just before the Guardia Civil came for him. You told them that
Your husband had emigrated to Argentina and was an honorable man.
They questioned you but left empty handed and did not trouble you again.

For the ...