in the afternoon
after a walk uphill
exhausted
i sit down and relax
and do nothing

and then i formulate the
questions
and usually they remain to
be
as there are
in truth no possible
answers

it is this kind of acceptance
that makes life
so exciting so real

complacency subsumed
in uncertainty

the openness of the doors
of this tiny world of the grain
creates the necessary
space for breathing

the ocean of beliefs
chokes us essentially
the myriad choices
freeze us to a series of
mini-deaths

you shall be like the earth
receiving rain and sunshine
without communication

Those tiny mirrors
are giving you pictures of myself
so many of myself
like a picture of teardrops
frozen into
needles
like blades of grass
posing as
swords

you are giving me the impression
that i know very well how to hurt

they tell you
i cause pain and if you ask me
i shall tell you
they are all true
so many are bleeding

and so the toxins are taken away
did they not tell you that
with all the pain
they have become healed?

a simple life one morning with coffee

alright,
we simplify this

it is early morning
they have not awakened yet
the house is very peaceful
the windows are closed still
and the doors too

alright
stand, walk towards the window
open all of them
let the cold air come in

then walk towards the door
unlock it
and open it too and then
let the cold air
come in

you want coffee?
go to the kitchen
take a spoon a cup and saucer and
take sugar and coffee and
hot water

you know what to do, right?
feel at home
this is your home

now take your time
sit on a chair
face the trees
stir your coffee
feel it hot
and then sip


enjoy, savor the scenery of
this rustic place

feel the wind on your cheeks
take the warm side of the cup

alright,
is not life as simple as this?

so many words, thousands of thoughts
minted, printed,
so many lines running and running
to an endless destination


do you believe in me? have you noticed
that never ending story? this never ending road?
these endless musings like days and days that
never stop making and grinding time?

this is the restless world
the wriggling worms of our existence
our way of sounding life to the universe

people want to stop to listen
all these restless people who cannot rest on the nights
they want to die but couldn't
they want to live but can't

what a mess? orderliness, flitting and so temporary
change is always there and always changing
and waning and fading and shining and glowing

you cannot stop because if you will
you are not yourself anymore

do you take shelter in the house of logic?
look! it is crumpled by the battle of light and darkness
parallel lines swerve and fuse at the end when the speed of light
triples and tipsy at the black holes of misunderstanding

you will tell me, i am trembling, short of what i should have
given you in a silver platter of common understanding
that i am just confusing you and making you miserable

sad to say, there is no order in this universe,
the molecules move in random, the atoms are in disarray
like the air, but how can you really see?

you feel only the wind, and see the leaves swaying
you feel the joy, but always, and always, the disorder is there.

confusion as a gift

there is nothing
wrong with
confusion, in fact, perplexity is
a common occurrence which in some ways
give us the warning that
something wrong may happen

there are walls, these are laws,
there are fences, these are guides

when you break the wall, the thieves come
and take everything from you
when the fences are broken, the pigs come and
eat what you have planted

doubt is a mark of our humanity
confusion is our acceptance that we are but
limited creatures of thought

when you are perplexed
take laughter
think some more
give time its due
savor the peace of logic
let rules be rules

doubt, doubt some more
i am sure, you are alive.

the crabs are the creatures of pincers
they bite each flesh and nerve
and it will be so painful but you
are as silent as the
grass and as resilient as the
the vine that is in touch with the
latest wind

when you are finally taken
i know that like the rest you are not coming back
to tell us
how it is there
what perfection has been given
how happiness can never be contained
because it is
beyond the hold of our hands
beyond the grasp of the
human minds

lucky, indeed how lucky can you be
on your first trip to
eternity

there is pain on my right side
there is something living in there and growing
it is silent
and decent and reserved
it is blind and like all blind creatures
its sense of touch has been well defined
it is touching me
and listening

i am ignoring it
it can take me soon to places that i know
exist and can ostracize me from
friends
it can silence me too
like a raging river that finds its
place of peace

some brown leaves float there
on undisturbed waters
i can hear only the soft wings of butterflies
fluttering

somehow there is pain that sometimes i cannot ignore
but i have accepted them
as my new friends

it will stay with me and then will take me
and i will be gone
but i have always been a brave man
and i am not
at all
complaining

after all, i own nothing and will take nothing
it is it that owns me and so it is it that will take me

the injustice of course lies in the
camouflage and she knows all these but she never mentions that to you
for she cannot live
without you that even the hint of
a possibility of
a parting, just the slight movement of the finger
from the hand
she then starts to cry and
touches you and
tells you that you must never leave her
for she has nothing
and no one

you are a man of compromises
and you live between night and day

you always miss the stars but you cannot even be
gazing for them
even for a night

you love to play under the sun and take time at the beach
and play ball and bathe under the softest light
but you cannot have your feet settled on the sands

this is what happens when you have not decided
categorically
one hand in heaven and the other in hell
and your body wiggles as your face is divided
your eyes are crossed
and your feet cannot dance
the way it should have been
done perfectly

on that harmony of love and affection
because you have chosen only one.

surely you must have noticed by now
that he is evading
what could have been real but you must
understand
that he is already in pain with all
the nightmares that
visit his brain in his sleep
his eyeballs rolling seeking an
exit from
the misery of the nerves
that inhabit his
brain

evasion by itself is beauty
a metaphor for survival

when you meet again
you shall speak of the most irrelevant things

such as a blue bird, a black butterfly that lands
on her white hand
a tree that is longing for a blue bird
a star that hangs itself on a branch of
the night

you do not speak about love
it is too direct to be understood and it will be painful
if confronted

you evade describing a face of a woman
you have seen her dressed in black satin her hair long and curly
her eyes sunken
her cheeks some valleys of so many deaths

you always dream of her
you do not tell her any hint about it
how she stares at you
and blames you for all her miseries in that faraway land
where she exiles herself

she knows how to convert pain into art
pieces of poems
and until all these pains do not subside into a calm
and deep river
she will not spare you
any of her words

that fly in silence into the skies of your
mouth
and lands into the crevices of
your
abandoned heart

the reasons fail to justify you
as you continue in your uncharted journey
that one day
you meet again and you do not anymore remember
what pain is there in the past
or even
what happiness shall lie ahead

at that point
what is relevant is not even regret
but only to be
back in your arms again

she lets her head rest in your chest
and then you close your
weary eyes

the mind is engrossed in thought
the word is embossed in the skin
the tattoo speaks to you
and you ignore what is too obvious
and immobile

at the beach
i pass you by
and you take a slight look
which i surely will not mind

then we face what is beside us
we hold the hand that feed us
we live in the house
where love is another stranger
that does not know
us.

he does not take things sitting down now
the legs have reminded them of their impatience
the hands are wary and the eyes are no longer skeptical
one must stand

one must take his stand now
the crowd is taking that one voice of the brave man

then he asks himself, what for? everything had been lost
most of himself had been taken away
and there is nothing left except the mind that he completely owns now
that thought that he will never speak about it
because if he will
the world will be lost, the castle of illusion shall crumble

and those that who know courage
for the last time
shall die

and to choose between silence and leaving away
and having to see a world ruined by another hurricane of ideas

he's rather have
what it takes the lie to survive, darkness retreating
to give way to light

another new day without change
another peaceful day with some tolerable tales

it is not the right time yet
perhaps, tomorrow, yes, perhaps when i am no longer with you.

the poor [ i.e. workers of the farm,
pregnant corn husker, the driver of the
pedicab, the smoking tomato gatherer,
the sweet potato washer}

i am lost in the symbols
of humanity, i am trying to decipher again
the meaning of their visit
and they decision here to spend the night
at the second floor of this house
where my father-in-law died because his
son pushed him towards the stair
and hit his head
on the grinding stone

the bolo is sharp, blood flowed from the
pig's neck
after that scream

there is noise, and some magicians are selling
potions
when someone needs love so badly
and then resorts
of spells

the natives are smelling so bad
there is no water in the river where they come from
they are thin
there stomachs are filled with air
hairs with lice

i guess you know when this happens
and why this happens

because, it is fiesta time and there is no more road for us to use.

my left hand touches the right side of my neck
rubbing it and then slides its fingers to my ear
i open my mouth to signify that i long for sleep

i put my hands on top of my unwashed hair
the day's schedule is hectic like the way a juggler pleases our eyes
i open my mouth letting the wall see my egg white
teeth and then i close my mouth again
sipping air inside my lungs
my eyes are like heavy clouds low to the ground
becoming fog to the grass

i am sleepy
but i do not want to sleep

i am teasing time since it has no
underwear

because we have so many things still
to be done,
we have lost our sense of time
the capacity to grow affections
have become nil, in fact, shrinking
like the way the speed of light twice
its speed has shrunk my eyes into
a mongo bean
my heart now a tiny part of a
red pear that hangs itself upon
a very loose talk