g8

there is a space between
the eyes
it sees better the eyes
also of the
observer

couple

she accepts each sacrifice
as a stair
leading her home

they're going together
hand in hand.

after that anonymous talk
(since you never revealed your name,
referring me to
Rumpelstiltskin, to my chagrin,
i realized,
how low is your opinion of myself,
how debased have i been
with your figures and
stories, that i myself, have not even
bothered for years,
simply because they are not true
and which you tried to impress
upon me as
God's truths,
and as you advised, i look at myself in the
mirror
and i look at it with all compassion
and i tell myself,
this is all i got, and this is all that
i can love
because you cannot
and never dared,
but just the same i say, thank you,
and at that time,
i tell the mirror, i wish that creature
a happy death someday,
one, where after smiling,
one can hear the chasm of the earth
divide, and there
the intrigue is swallowed
whole

i do not know you
so how can i say what you are too,
coward!

the lonely wife in the house
for years has been abandoned by the brown colored
husband,
and she in turn pleases herself with some
daily chores: replacing the vase with flowers
everyday
fine tuned with every occasion
of renewal and
revival
sometimes she wears a dress with flowers
of blue designs
she weaves stories for herself
and indulges in the fantasy
of her sorrows
away from grief and
numbed by the pains
this time as the rain pours heavily
and she cannot go into her garden
to pick a flower
she takes a picture of herself
half nude, her breasts
protruding to the light of the sun
whose fingers
caress her nipple and she closes her
eyes
not wanting death
but remembering the face of another
man
even an illusion of a nose
and a set of thick lips
shall make her
survive

whatever, is, the name of
lament.

outside it is wet.
inside is acrid.
at the inner side of things
deserts make more deserts
sands slip beneath our feet,
outside the rain sings
lots of denials,
hands imploring for more
acceptance
arms looking for an embrace
and the universe
spins some more
the threads of its messy
indifference.

the children at the park
form a circle and
closed their arms around them
and i remember
what once you imagine
as the circle of life
but at that time
the dancers are nude
and blind.

when i am left alone
in the room when it rains so hard outside
and you are not here with me
when you will not be coming
for two or more days
do not be slighted
but i am happier that way
shall i send you a message
that you better be away
for a week?

or perhaps a year,
so i can be myself again
for with you sometimes
in words
i am lost and i grapple
with who i am
and what will i become

perhaps, as they say it
i need more space by cutting
some bridges for a while

one thing with us
is that we are not like the air that fills the space
the void,
we have not adopted the properties
of fluidity
flexible enough to adjust
to emptiness
embracing it
like a long lost friend
and liking what
new setting is there

we should have taken the shape
of God's containers
and say that despite the hollowness
there is nothing wrong
but what is there
is the excitement
of being like Him
Everywhere.

behind this steel gate
are the carolers,
all kinds of kids
with repetitive faces
making business for Christmas
a treasure of coins
for the new year,
all out of tune,
off keys, and irritably
irrelevant,

thus says the
Scrooge.

death of a pig

does one cry when a pig dies?
my nephew who always has
sex in his mind,
though still having milk on his tongue
calls me that a pig has died
and he says, it is my pig,
the one that loves mud
and eats left-overs you know,
an hour ago
but still warm to be
butchered again,

i ask him, are you crying?
he says, why should he when it is
still warm and can be butchered again
for another pretended kill,
and i am not surprised
because next to sex, what he has in
mind is food,

not death, not the burial of a pig,
nothing about decency of a funeral,
health or plain
sanitation

about manny...

Manny does not remember as a
poet when he left this small town
24 years ago
because he felt so lost and he is looking
for what self
he thinks he had,

i was then a budding word,
my petals are ugly
and my stem is a worm
the roots crawl like an
invented monster

what he thinks i was
was that i was a monk without a beard
a non-believer of the bishop
and a critic of Lauritz

he never bothered to look at
my room
as i have kept it like a pigsty
it smells like hell
and all he thinks is that heaven
is here

which is not the case.

distance

this distance shall seal
the fate of those bridges
the empty space
are cut arms
the chasms between our
thoughts
are sliced feet
there are no more nails
to scratch what pleasures
are there
in this all broken
arrangement

the words fall from the trees
like poisoned leaves
as i walk away like a thief
you shall have the last
laugh

when you are dead and there
shall be peace
i shall come back
not to bury you with all
the requisites of
religious dignity
i am coming with my vultures
and they shall have a feast
on your rotten
belly.

powerless...

he has steel hands
arms are made of platinum poles
the brains from
specialized computer chips
he is as sharp as an unused
sword
but he is useless in this struggle
for power

last night the old witch
betrayed him
a single lock of his hair
is taken by that woman
of use,
now, lies another Samson
defeated

but not yet dead.

always give a space
for doubt,
spare some people
through a hole
where light still gets in
and illuminate

who knows?
it is someone else
and not you.

you are lovable as
a flower of the early morn
in full bloom
and laden with dew
by the window

no one, not even their doubts
can take it away from you.

i am tired.
you think that i do not know
how to draw your face
from only a few pieces
of evidence: an eyelash,
lips, a few locks of your
hair,
and a bowl of
water.

that is what you
do,
blackmail.

a shadow waits,
and it will stab you
too.

it is yours.

wonder, everything i have
is wonder, every time i have
is supposedly wonder,
each time as i watch
a star, so lonely in the sky
swimming in that vast
space of darkness,
in an unmediated life,
i stumble, and curse
what stone is there,
muddy, i shall rise again,
like that lone star, so
distant, and yet i know,
so faithful and real

of all the names,
yours stood among
the crowd in the malls
of my confusion,
it must be you,
i hear you laugh
once, and you sound
so well, like you, in
the hidden meaning
of your words,
of all my friends,
i know, it is you,
who knows how to
stab at my back,
hide behind the
curtain, slip in
the darkness and come
back with a smile
and say
ho ho ho,
santa.

always, shall i be
held at this hour,
always, finishing
what is composed
by the dawns of
my mind, always,
must i be a servant
of the greatness of
whispers, this and
that, an image after
another, hour after
hour, and when the
sun shines,
the fingers of light
caress my forehead,
i shall stand and
walk, under the trees,
contemplating and
so fulfilled.

there are those, as usual,
wolves, in sheep's clothing,
but we who live in the castle
must learn to distinguish
we know, but we shall not act,
we dislike, but we shall associate,
we are kings, and we pity those
who are slaves of their envy,
servants of their
disappointments, still hungry
of their illimitable greed
must we, still, be gentle,
and meek as doves,
as we hold the breathes of
fire, beneath the restraints
of our tongues.

because i care for you,
i must learn to love the intricacies of
paranoia,

time must cure
what friendships lack

Open Sesame!
let the caves open their doors
and now
display the jewelries, and
shining glories within.

the mind eats up
what we store
let all these be consumed
so we can be light as sparrows
and learn again
how to fly

his name my friend
is Rumpeltiltskin, it is not
Rumpelstilskin that lacks the
t,
it escaped your intentions,
now, must i expect that
you must suffer the consequences
of your bad actions?

the fault of our fathers
is not ours, we have been forced to spin
straw into gold,
which we can not really do,
and so we made promises
and Rumpelstiltskin now
matters.

next time, you must spell
it correctly.

the established one

a rare encounter
tempts, another seduction
(if you only learned
about this art earlier, no harm
could have fallen
in your heart now in pieces
all broken, now blood dripping,
vein exploding)

embrace familiarity
dance everyday let lust hug you
and master the giggles
on your toes,
have a dose of all its qualms
drink every dew that
morning leaves offer
to your lips,

by then, your arms are stronger
your tongue possessing
discriminating tastes,
now the silence gives you power
the stare stable,
you are not shaken by the hair
the touch does not
give you fear
you are what makes
the house a
palace.

the insertion...

the insertion was a little bit slimy,
the Senate says, "Foul!"
I am watching it for some meanings
perhaps it will be more significant
if done tightly, and
without any inhibition at all,
you think, it would have been real
with all the flesh, and not
with corrupted legal technicalities.

routine

it is the same over and over again,
no change, nothing unfamiliar,
the terrains we master,
the confrontations too boring,
all words, no images, nothing about
metaphors, trains and rails, sky and grass,
winds coming, and eddies leaving,
air filled with dust, leaves blown away,
women with straw hats,
hands of children, whistles of husbands,
what more can this world give us?

perhaps, a global erasure.
when we all perish, when no one blames
anybody anymore
when cockroaches begin their rule.

when confronted with the unknown

you dislike what i am,
but you cannot tell me, i know that,
one day, you take the courage,
with the power of your
hidden self, and i have engaged in
the word war, with the unknown,
very much like it, very much like you,
and i have no regrets, having known,
what worse reality you have seen
what you cannot have spoken
what is revealed, and how i deal with
what i do not know, and i, afterward,
learned, how to win,
even with an unknown, which seemingly,
seems to be the truth,
you are cruel, i tell myself,
but thanks, i have become wiser
by then, even an inch higher
than my toes can handle.

for those who wear masks

actually, those who love you
prefer that the masks be worn,
for they want that confidence in you
when you wear even one of them
in fact, you showed what love is
you conquered those who shame you
with what you are
when you are without it,
so by all means, our purpose is anyway
to survive this pass over
we shall cross the river shortly and
with the mask, this thing will be easier
smoother, and at the end what matters
most is your victory,
not what is behind that mask,
the horror within, the shock in every line
of your realities.

the bamboo tree poem

see the coming of the wind
from the prairies
see how it is playing with the
leaves of the bamboo tree

see how a bamboo leaf falls
to the ground
withered by the sun
and now flip-flopping
like an Olympic diver

see how it finally touches
the womb of the earth
silently it lies there
soundlessly it appears
like any other leaf
beside a woman now
sleeping

in this party of life
where party is party and party and party
you may borrow my shoes
and dance all your way
to a certain madness

that which assures you
that even without an afterlife
or when everything is over
life is still worth
whatever salt is left
to it,

it is sweet, and
so inconsequential,
it is not borrowed
but well spent.

the conversationalist...

he can strike a note on the side of the glass
with his fork and then begin to sing or hum

an old tune and retain the lyrics in his mind
and move on till the last line

he talks about it without any emotion involved
nothing personal anyway he keeps on murmuring

this is pure recollection, those tea and dates when
he had a good time in the desert with her when

what surrounds them are the uninterested sands
when the sun keeps the heat as they cool themselves

inside the car as their lips keep burning as
he keeps on licking what does not hurt

he is a good conversationalist who talks alone
responsive to the demands of his solitude.

keeping things...

something inside her is not telling anything
not even to her own mother

perhaps she could have told her husband
to give him a hint of what is really the matter

gorgeous, she wants the word to stay
lovely, lovely her hands sometimes claps

but her whole body says otherwise
it is confused whether to sleep or not

whether to take a walk in the park with a friend
and then tell all, like a child finally sobbing

it is when the rain pours heavily and
there is not any inkling to run for shelter anymore

the shallow thoughts

along the shores
where the salty vines have covered our tracks
the coconuts are growing tall
and being so nearly planted
their leaves reach for each other

in a little distance
the heaps of dry leaves and husks
make a mountain
and now covered by the vines
and so concealed

beyond this place is a grass-less space
it is where most of the strangers stay
the mass of people gather
and bask under the sun

the gates here are closed more often
there are no kids
neither are there old people who take
their leisure here

this is my own place
so private and so deserted
i would like to call it another solitude
but the coconut trees without nuts
on this rainy December
signify otherwise

it is lonely, the hut speaks.

thinking

i have always looked at you
from the tip of your hair to the tip of your toes
and you noticed me many times doing it
but you do not do much of the thinking to know
why could i still possibly do it to you?
what could have been the matter?
i give you no answers to my own questions
because i cannot, or even if i can, because you cannot accept
this line, this kind of thinking
which is the reverse of everything
a counter-flow of the river
like the sea receding upon its shore
like the hair diminishing on your forehead
(how ugly could you be if i think so much harder
and try enough to destroy what is innately beautiful
to you? i cannot possibly resist
what is it that bothers me for all these years
it is too near and it is something that i have no power to touch
it is too beautiful but it is what they think can kill
because perhaps it is too sweet to me
how can you ever understand this?
i am thinking.
i am powerful and yet when you look at me without any meaning at all
as though i am just like any grass journeying on the sand
slowly and tenderly
and yet i am nothing at all but a wall,
a tiny shower of rain among the mountainous trails
i could have told you but i know i can't.
this is it. i shall hide again in the silence of my wishes.
you are mine, but i can never be yours.
i always have you in the arms of my dreams
but you shall never have me even my own shadow
you think i am nothing but the wind
and it is just that
i feel alright.

i am thinking and i am not destroyed.

As a young man, the painter Henri Matisse used to pay a weekly visit to the great Renoir in his studio. When Renoir was afflicted by arthritis, Matisse began to visit him daily, taking him food, brushes, paints, but always trying to persuade the master that he was working too hard and needed to rest a little.

One day, noticing that each brushstroke made Renoir cry out with pain, Matisse could contain himself no longer:

‘Master, you have already created a vast and important body of work, why continue torturing yourself in this way?’

‘Very simple,’ Renoir replied. ‘Beauty remains, but pain passes.’

Once upon a time, there was a farmer in the central region of China. He didn't have a lot of money and, instead of a tractor, he used an old horse to plow his field.

One afternoon, while working in the field, the horse dropped dead. Everyone in the village said, "Oh, what a horrible thing to happen." The farmer said simply, "We'll see." He was so at peace and so calm, that everyone in the village got together and, admiring his attitude, gave him a new horse as a gift.

Everyone's reaction now was, "What a lucky man." And the farmer said, "We'll see."

A couple days later, the new horse jumped a fence and ran away. Everyone in the village shook their heads and said, "What a poor fellow!"

The farmer smiled and said, "We'll see."

Eventually, the horse found his way home, and everyone again said, "What a fortunate man."

The farmer said, "We'll see."

Later in the year, the farmer's young boy went out riding on the horse and fell and broke his leg. Everyone in the village said, "What a shame for the poor boy."

The farmer said, "We'll see."

Two days later, the army came into the village to draft new recruits. When they saw that the farmer's son had a broken leg, they decided not to recruit him.

Everyone said, "What a fortunate young man."

The farmer smiled again - and said "We'll see."

i see time
how convoluted it is
how deceiving like a magician
hiding it
inside the black box
and time
pretends to be a rabbit
or a bouquet of flowers
and excited as i am
to all these magic
i have forgotten
that i am a subject of
time and that
it knows
how to kill me slowly
without my knowing
and i look at time
closely
from my hair
to my belly
to the thickness of
my hands
and the losing of
my balance
what can i say then
about those
beers in my belly?
those furrows
on my forehead?
these silver hairs
these tight lipped
existence
words unsaid
a heart closing
as time shows itself
again
more real this time
like the black hooded
sickle-bearing
anonymity

it is evening and it is cold.
the table is alone with its four feet intact.
on top of the roof is the moon, and it is too
alone, just like my own thought of you,
alone,

i wait for you and then you come.
i am sitting and you stand there
and i am thinking
if you are thinking about me
or that you are here because i told you to be here
like i am one kind of
compulsion, like i am an order

i do not wish more about this matter
because all i need is
the voluntary hand, you gaze at me
and i let my eyes fall to the ground,
i am embarrassed,
and you suggest something that i must take off
i do not shed my skin
or my underwear and this is what you have misunderstood
from the beginning of our
meeting,

i do not want you to undress
me or me undressing you
this time, all i need is words, soothing ones, calm syllables,
love that once i lost
because i have given it to another
because for some time, long time ago,
i have been
too foolish.