imagine a fan
keep it, it is a stick

if you want air
spread it

and it has fingers
and you
sway it

to have air you
must vibrate

to know what
it can give you
you must spread
it like
a wall and not
just a door

truths are not
sticks

the bad guy has learned to write
his story and their stories: wicked ones

when they were kids, they stole all the avocados in town,
put feces on kettles, peeped on Ms. Cathy's panty,
tied a can on cat's tail which ran around the town crazy,

as a band they even burned a cogon land
and the three houses there

soon they killed and raped a girl, and well
crazy, with talent, and genius, still go free,

these bad guys have learned to write
and that is the beginning of how history can be
twisted in their favor of course

focusing on how parents have abused them
how society miscarried them
how poverty shaped criminals in their minds

these bad guys have mastered the art of
justifying how the badness of people come about
how they started as innocent babies without stains
how their hearts were once pure
angelic as they were once from the wombs of
their mothers, from the innocence of their
father's sperms

how lust brought them about
how love was defeated

and so they are now the bad guys
who in their badness are merely giving us
what is due us

we call ourselves good? if we must we must too
learn to write

justify, justify, how good must always triumph over evil
that crime does not pay
and if we cannot, let us be lawmakers
make the law that outlaws evil that outcasts the
badness

in all of us.

the best people in this world
are those who underestimate us
these people, bring the best in us

they say we are tiny people
and we tell them that we really are

and we say we like attacking and questioning
and even harming the big people out there
and that most of us are either dead or
or badly injured, dying and salvaged and
kept in detentions and solitary places of
their wicked hearts

they keep on humiliating us and we keep on
blooming as though the insults are water and
fertilizers to our beings
we become seeds growing underneath their
cruelties
for long but they won't last like everyone else
like us

and that is fair enough i suppose

when we come out from here perhaps
we see each other again
not as priests, or doctors or lawyers or
politicians but as naked souls

heading for our own reserved places
whatever that be

we who had been subjected to the hell of this earth
are not surprised
if there is hell or heaven
we do not care
we had the former anyway
and we had
lived and died and survived.

do not equate morality and holiness
to priesthood

a priest is no more no less like everyone else

seeking for the light and
still not finding

if you find the light, do not tell me your name, where you work, where you are,
what is your name, or even why

do not tell me how, i like to find it myself

they say i have mine but i do not really know where

if i had it burning in my head
i should have been burned

if it were inside my heart
my veins would have been charred

i do not content myself with light alone
i am asking for fire

the one so huge, the one that burns the house
of my ancestors

the one that must burn me alive
because

i have suffered long enough

this morning i did not attend mass

i woke up earlier than yesterday and
i was carried away by thoughts that keep coming like profuse light

outside, and into the window of my soul
i did not think at all

it is like the world is heavy with ice in the sky and then it melted
abruptly causing flood to my
brain,

i felt a cascade of what i cannot explain
i did not even bother what all these mean

when you are carried away logic dies
when you are carried by a flood and you think you will drown
when you see a drift wood ahead of you and you are about to be hit by its weight
you do not scream

what i remember was that feeling of being a stranger
to the world

it is a river taking every piece of us to nowhere
and we are travelers with empty pockets and trembling hands
without right to ask where shall we be taken

it is just this drift. so poetic and formless
taking its shape to what we want to utter but still can't

so i keep on writing, my hands blind on the keys
but punching the letters
making the words, forming phrases

which i do not understand too well,
the same way that you feel when you like me arrive
at the last
word

a word that means nothing but
stopping

if you convert a sigh into a symbol
think of a comma

then you change your mind
it is a hyphenated silence which waits for something that is always coming

from a distance you see something like grapes
they are your thoughts

ripe, and misty, and you think that they must be sweet because they look
like memories

you couldn't help it, you sigh again, like taking a deep breath and filling your
lungs with power and then you exhale like the way you surrender
to that urge for smoking at night

you touch it, it is cold, it is not soft like a fruit
it is solid, something stoic,
you grab it and put it inside your mouth where you tongue
begins to play with
its obtuseness

it is not even sour, something that is possible with a grape,

it is bitter
and you cannot believe it
it is simply unbelievable
you have already buried all bitterness
how come that it is here again?

you swallow it because of shame that you are swindled by
an imagery that you have never tasted

it is bitter. it is actually bitter. and then you remember
what happened to you when you were fooled.

that bitter grape is real.

to be really free is to be nonsensical.

try being reasonable, what do you have?

you become like the rest, bound, and frozen to something
that is reasonable

what is reasonable is something that is always expected

and those we expect are the most disappointing of all

what disappoints us makes us depressed and angry and

imprisoned to our own cells of discontent

what makes us free is what makes us open

a closed door may be safe, but who likes to live in it?

when the world was born there are no locks no doors to open

our hands have fingers that are not meant to be fists

but tributaries where any fish can live where any

fallen leaf can drift

our eyes do not even close in the dark

they see better there than in the light which we

know has blinded us

this is the path and it does not even look like a path

we are the first to arrive here

and so we cut and keep on cutting the grass

overthrowing stones

paving

when i entered the house of
grandpa
grandma watched my every
step

she was strict. each gesture
must have a reason,
each step must be according
to a tradition

which she had no power to break
but had always upheld
and to which i have had the moment
to judge her
that she was unhappy even in the
last hour of her life, truly

grandpa loved her but like other
men, he had his own love stories
to tell, escapades that grandma
knew but never talked anyway,
since that was part of the
macho code,
that a good man
must have had more experiences
than a woman,

philandering was acceptable,
more children, more happiness
and the woman stayed in the house
doing the cooking and the praying
and the patience
to love the man who had always
betrayed her,

back to grandma, she invited me
to eat dinner,
and i had problems with the rituals,
of spoon and fork, of this saucer and
that china, that porcelain where soup
was served like a

precious liquid which i should not
sip sounding like a faucet
which made me feel that my brain
was going to the drainage
of cockroaches deprived of self-esteem

she watched how i placed my hands
on the table
and i was already conscious how to eat
and not satisfy my hunger
it was not the embarrassment but it was the
hatred about hypocrisy

from that i learned to love papa more
who taught me well, and which i could not forget,
that to eat with my
own bare hands
was like fondling my own penis
where ejaculation comes naturally and
without any guilt at all.

grandpa was quiet and firm
his stoic silence was more honest
than grandma's
well arranged words which
were like all her gadgets
of etiquette
on that lonely table.

i write only once
i do not come back
to read what i have
written

i do not come back
and regret

i live only once and
i have no word for
it anymore

who does not want to
hear the truth?

who is going to bear
the loss?

most truths are losses
who wants to speak about
this?

do not misspell quiet for
quite

it does not help at all
it is there

the disquietude of the soul
because you are losing

somehow you must keep
the quiet, to gain again.

the loquacious
lady meets
the philanderer

then they live
together and
have three
children and
then

separate
thereafter.

i read somehow
that for me to be in
i must not say
exactly what i really
mean

i imagine that i
could have been
more beautiful
as a veiled Arabian
princess

and then i will
win a Palanca
for not saying
much

but i guess i
will be sad:
i am a talker

i guess i will
be dead:
i can't breathe
only with my nose
open

i think
one can write
better only

after the rain.

i've joined the
foolishness of joining
literary contests

i wish to prove
that i can fool those
widely acclaimed
critics and judges

i must be good.

i faked my name
and my address
i was the man with
three faces, three names,
and three addresses.

i fooled them.

i won. But i never
claimed
what prize
forgery gave
me.

upon a toilet paper
i wrote a love poem.

as i pooed and pooed
i read the poem
with all love

i emoted, and
emoted some more
with no one
watching

crazy.
after the release
comes the
sanity and
peace

short reality.
short time really.

i folded the tissue
and cleaned my ass.

the poem went
happily
into the bowl

happy to where
it rightly believes
to belong

poetry is personal.

personal is
detailed.

it knows roots
and phloem.

it can trace the
mole in your
asshole.

sometimes you
do not speak at all

but poetry makes
you write

as i told you
creativity runs in
the blood of
this vampire too.

i do not like
a form, i go always for
the content

since it is the content
that takes the shape
of the form

it knows what shape
is beautiful

or desirable for it
to justify its

own existence its own
fading and

dusting and what
you see is a smoke

rising like someone
invisible is smoking

its pipe and you
too pretend that

you do not see and
do not feel at all.

the winners
of the contest
are the reflections
of the faces of
the jury

don't worry
Bondy

be glad
you do not look like
any of them.

now his address
is a far away place
unknown to the
city

when he writes a
letter
it is returned

he keeps all his
letters
for him to read
again

he simply wants
to be remembered
for being rejected

until the pain becomes
too familiar
until he becomes numb

numbness is not of course
happiness
but too, it is definitely
not sadness

at this point rejection too
is no longer rejection

it becomes a word
and it means just like
any word for that matter

in the lexicon.

THE REJECTED WORK OF THE TRYING HARD WRITER
WHOSE WORK WAS THROWN IN BANGKEROHAN RIVER

there ARE those
who by their own cruelties
as critics
threw all your new born
babies
in Bangkerohan river

though fond of abortions
and experiences about
premature deaths
somehow you are hurt
and went to tears
secretly

you are taught, only those
Silent Ones shall be
winners

they keep on telling you that
but your ears are
hardheaded and this alone

amazes you. Glad to know
you are different like me.

Make love again. Pregnant
for all days. And deliver all
the babies you can bear

do not tire naming all of them.
do not regret giving them all away.

They are not yours anyway.
Did they not tell you that God
owns them all ?

listen,
i write because i need
company

i do not have you

you always go away
for whatever reason
you can say

do you wish me sad?

listen,
i have company now

i get tired of all your
excuses

and making you disappear
is the recent magic
that i have learned

i am happy now
with my words

my company.

if you write without
the inkling that you will
be liked

then that is the
beginning of truly

becoming one
godamn writer

do not beg
keep on spreading

give and give
until they all sleep

( and die bwahahaha
pwera buyag)

now, there is this awakening

Wake up, Poets of the Silent Land

i am hot and i need to take the shower
so badly
i am fuming love all over
my body

i need a lot of rain, give me those
cats and dogs, break the zinc over my roof

wake up, all ye poets of the Silent Land

now, there is this awakening

Poetry is also the first medicine.

Laughter is now second.

night has come.

the rain stopped.

the car is wrongly parked.

light the bulb.

open the door.

close the window.

dinner is served.

and then

the total blackout

of my heart.

to keep you
happy, i know
about what
to say:

only that
which you
want to hear.

my niece is forty years old
a lady by all means
soft spoken, smart and
a lawyer

defending the poor and
the unhappy

she is not poor but i am
definite
about the second

i introduced her to a pilot
forty like her and rich and
a bachelor and unhappy too

i make them meet and let
them talk
i hope they can agree
about love and
happiness and family
and

dream that they too
can have that sacrament
of marriage

takes time, i suppose
who knows? God works
miracles

it's been long and i am tired
waiting
and there seems to be nothing
happening at all

these are the busy people
searching
and wanting to find
someone

to love and be loved
but it seems that it has nothing
to do with fertility

but only with futility and now
i have decided
that for me to be happy
i simply have to let them be

i shake my head. Dust off my feet.
i keep reading a book.

and true to what i hear
to be happy, i should not have cared.

FREE VERSE

the poem is a train
without a definite
stopping station.

too much length
i understand is
a suffering

short is crispy

and just right
midway between
your hunger and your
thirst

i, too, like it.

if you believe that a cat
can be a dog by heart

or that the dog can
later on identify with the
scruples of the cat

if you think that a cat
can ask the fish for a dance
without licking its fins

or the kingfisher can for
an hour have a nice
conversation with the
catfish in that clear pond

if you think that an ell
can finally find its place
beside a ladle in that
old and dirty kitchen

if you somehow imagine
that a mice can worship
a cat for a god

then you are a deviate.
and if you are one, then
you are a revolutionary.

most of the people who
read this believe that
what i am saying is
fiction. And they won't
take it seriously.

if they think that this
kind of writing is poetry
then there is also something
wrong with them.

they too are revolutionaries.
they believe that something
impossible may happen
if it sound as beautiful as
the cat singing in harmony
with the mice and in that
orchestra the dog serves
as the conductor and the
rest are either doing the
drums or the violin or the
piano or the cello.

on the river the fish come
out with their open mouths
saying: what a wonderful
world could this be!

though our land does not
contain much water for
them to live and love.

we keep on blaming them
those who steal from us
whatever we have given
all by heart and mind.

we scheme for another
revolution and forgive ourselves
for our past losses

many lives, a river of blood
a broken bridge. a house burned
an explosion at the wrong hour
killing those not intended

vengeance is blind and terror
is so unkind. There is no name
for hatred. There is no address
for violence.

we lose sight of who are are
we sit on the river banks wondering
where this water comes from
and why is there streaks of blood
on the rock and sands

old age creeps on our brows
white hairs taunt us to stop
our legs are weary and our mind
start to forget where we are
heading

some new faces are learning and
will want to follow and ask for our
old maps

we look at them with pity
we cry for our misfortunes
then we have decided to move out
to secret islands and unknown caves
they lose contacts of us
and there we begin to write
what horror we have inflicted
upon our souls

weary now, we begin to really know.

did you say you
live in a box
where the entrance
and exit
look the same?

where the walls
are so strong
that to break it
you must obtain
divine permission?

did you say that
you were mislead
into getting into
said sameness that
you do not anymore
know which one is
you and which one
is them?

don't you know that
uniformity is their
design for peace?

that to deviate is
a rebellion punishable
by death? or stigmatization?

have you been isolated
and wonder if you can
still live for another day?

don't panic. There are
so many of us. If
you get out from there
we will be so crowded
outside the box
and you will surely
regret having come
out from there.

and those who dared
suffers the same fate
as those who didn't.

so keep the peace.
stay there and just be
quiet.Don't move.

Don't shake the box.
Don't hammer the wall.
Don't touch the door.
Don't nail anything
of the ceiling.

Just follow all the
instructions. Do not
ask for more. There is
nothing more.

I repeat, keep the peace.
Your life is short. And
the box is not worth
your struggle.

There is a right time.
To watch a sparrow
and then know it all.

What wisdom is left
Learn from the ants.

i have asked
so many questions

and all i gathered as
answers
are same as mine

i pretend i like them
and agreed with them

we go for a drink
from glass to glass
till dusk

our goal is the same

we must learn the
best art
of forgetting

IF my cat can only read i could have recommended the following books to read:

The Pelican Brief
Lonesome Dove
One Flew Over The cuckoo’s nest
The Maltese Falcon
The Eagle Has Landed
The Owl and the Pussycat
Cardinal Rules
Mothergoose
The Ugly Duckling
Lonesome Dove
I Heard the Owl Call My Name, Margaret Craven
Owls Do Cry, Janet Frame
But Where is the Green Parrot?, Thomas Zacharias
Flaubert’s Parrot, Julian BarnesWild Swans – Jung Chang
A Sparrow Falls – Wilbur Smith
Where Eagles Dare – Alistair McClean
Tommo and Hawk – Bryce Courtney
Black Swan, White Raven – Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling

BUT it couldn't so i decided to read them all myself.

upon my soft feet
i leave you

do not feel trapped
i am just

the usual fog.

listen to the rain

do not make it sing

listen to your heart

do not let it speak

you have spoken much
but never was one well said

words fall from the leaves of
books

but not much heaps of
ideas grow as
seeds

no flowers for tomorrow
no roots to expect

listen more like a fertile ground
that does nothing but wait

i promised my eyes
that i will love them all

like the way i cared
for the longings of
my tongue

i have given them all but bags
of burdens

sore to the mirror of my
morning

tryst to myself and to myself

what revenge shall they
give me?

ah, this blindness to what is
near to my touch
to what is pleasing
but so distant

what i touch is rough and ugly
far from what
i imagine things to be.

what we touch still turn
to stone
what we love are always
wings of departure
what we long for we soon
detest

we are full of love but no one
likes to have them

what we have in our hands
are bouquets of
white African
daisies

we wait by the door
we descend the stairs
we look far on the road

the flowers wilt and there is still
no one there

when we left for good
and then we are far away from where we come

they have arrived and turn all the lights on
it's their party and we are not invited.

THE FOOL

the one you love comes home
on muddy feet

you open the door
and inside the house

without a word or two for you
sleep soundly
comes

rushing to the bed
dirt lies upon the
the white linen which you have
laundered for
days

when the time comes for waking

again
nothing is said

what for are the coming days?

ah, still for the one you
love

THERE will always be someone strange

even if there is a name, or a place to go, or a house to stay,there will always be
strangeness haunting

it is like nothing else
it fells like no one

There is always some places where we remember the scent as though we are dogs
of territoriality

There will always be strangers even if we live with them.

The name of a place loosens. There are ropes that we do not honor.

There are stones that we do not carry. There are hammers meant only for
the keeping.

There are nails meant to rust. There are houses which never become homes.

Hearts that never become hammocks. Hands that remain fists.

There are familiar places which we no longer consider returning.

There are times of sleeping which are residents of wide awake eyes.

There are moments when we regret having mouths.

10:41

i mark this hour.

This is the tree
where my eyes
are hanged.

i mark this place.

There is no time here
There is a fish. No scales.
No bone.
No flesh either.
But i smell it just the same.

This is the fishy hour.
Where i speak about a rumor
and it is all about
myself.

now i look at my hands
closer than
before

near to my face i have ten
paths

i have these wrists which
are detestable
for many have done
what bad intentions they
have had
for themselves

i rush to the highways of my
ribs
and take shelter to the roof
where my heart
rests like man after he has
waded
in the river of his dreams

do not let me remember
kindergarten

make me remember father
with his pipe talking to his
workers in the fields

one rainy day when they have
to rush
to cover the grains of rice

when they have to drive the horses
back
to the comfort of their stables

do not let me remember the babbling
of my mouth

that baby whom mama left for the
house-help to silence.

it is too late
it is dark and
there is no more
time to
play

mother has called
and waits by the door
with a beating
ready on her hand

it is too late to remember
what sweetness is left
by youth

what pool is there to jump
upon
so we can be frogs
again

let there be distance
between us

let us be like pillars again
far from each other

to make this house stand
and strong

upon its four feet
below its wide roof

let the sky have joy
let the moon smile

my friend has turned into
an old sagging woman

but she knows her way
to cope up with time

she surrenders her mind
to the plunders of her past

she pawns all her dreams
to tomorrow's promises

on nights when there is
nothing worth doing

she sits by the window
and asks the wind to make

love with her again.Look
at her: strawberry lips

a winding road, a high cliff,
two mountains for breasts

waiting for your fingers
her tongue lands on your pelvis

her hair becomes the river
where you sing and sail again.

honey, i am a sail
boat

the best thing that
happens to me, listen

you are the mouth of the sea
that becomes my port of entry.

there is this ambiguity sometimes

when i think i love you and i want to make love with you

i compress distance in a dream

my mouth is being conquered by your tongue

i am helpless and i surrender to that beautiful gesture of defeat

i am ready

i pack my bags, buy a ticket, and a map where to find you

on that long journey i dream of the moon

i dream of stars caressing my hair

i glimmer like a distant sparkle of a fish on the sea by the side of the boat of the

fisherman who just make love with his woman by the shore

when i arrive there i see you waiting and longing for me wanting to hold me like

an old jacket during that stormy night

but it is a sad thing

i've seen what you bare

all of it like a nude painting of a woman who had been sitting for hours before

her patron and benefactor and lover and all rolled into one

i did not put my clothes on your bed

and without a word i left you.

if you only know, i also shed tears for this

sweet stupidity.

AT a different sound level
you do not hear the elephants making
their calls for help

only they can hear what they are saying
as you watch only
silence

and so it will be with the trees and the sands and the sea

you stand there thinking that this world is a silent garden
but it is not

there is a language of the leaves and the branches
there is a talk of the sea and the sands

you just could not hear it
for you too have a language of your own
in your heart
that you
and only you can
hear and understand

who knows? who feels?.....

i stopped
comparing myself to you and the rest of the gang

there is no use
there is no cure for this hollowness

so let it be

i sometimes think that you are luckier
what with a family of three
and a house on top of a hill with a red car parked nearby
what with a parrot to greet you good mornings inside that silver cage by the window
of your cottage at the right side of your daffodil garden

on the other hand
what choice do i have?

i live on my own now
rooted to a family history

the house is old but smelling still of the bread that mom used to bake
the wall still resounding of the nails that father hammered on my younger days

so many things so many memories

and so i stopped comparing myself to you
you are different, so much different to what i am

i will be what i can be
without you even without this world
even in the eternity of emptiness

for this universe is nothing but a big burst
of loneliness

coping up with planets and stars
moving on somewhere still hoping to catch

what happiness is all about.

thank you for the night
its coldness and darkness
had serve us rightly
we did what we could
to make love so real

that moment when we part
i to the north
and you to the south
we fall short of courage
to leave the word
on that empty bench

the world remains
what it is
the blue ocean
the green mountain
steady stones
as usual
indifferent and
unaffected

to two lonely souls
converging and then
be diverted.

how i wish to think
that
that red tailed fish
which roamed the
small aquarium world
throughout
its life is
happy

but this is what
i feel

like those sweet slices
of pineapple
and melon chunks
which i kept inside the
refrigerator

how chilly can loneliness
be?

how cold, how silent
but when eaten

still fresh and so sweet.

last night at
eight
the Father said
to me:

i do not give a
portion of
my fortune and
treasure
of my kingdom
and power

since you are my
child
i give you whole

and this morning
he said to me:

believe always in
me
and you shall have
no worry.

i heard that Kant
never traveled
and so did Kierkegaard

what they did
they did it in their minds
their philosophical windings
went beyond what we in
strange places reached
by foot
& eye

and so here i am
rooted
with no choice but
to bloom

white clouds
hang in that
monitor of blue
skies

a memory of
a lighthouse
love once sticky
on grass

eternal horizon
fresh winds
craving in my
nose

a short stay
here in Batanes
a day or two

soon, soon
despite its beauty
i still have
to be home

• sometimes you lose yourself
  in the middle of a
  talk with friends who wish
  to come to your
  succor
  
  they'd say they are concerned
  and show their love on that drink
  and stories about other people's lives
  as examples of bitterness turning
  otherwise
  about how love cures a broken heart
  about how one must rise to a fall
  and be whole again
  courageous to face the storm and
  the usual trials
  
  you oblige with attentive listening
  but for how long? you measure it
  with the cups of coffee, saucers of
  peanuts, beef loaves, barbecue sticks,
  and those long-necked bottles of gin
  and slices of lemons and pinches of salt
  
  and then all of them are drunk except you
  who still thinks
  sober still, clear as cellophane bag,
  you begin to travel alone in your thoughts
  far far away
  trying to reach still the one you love
  but who never loves you still.

  

it feels like
i have fallen
from bed

in that dream
when i was about
to kiss you

and then the
awakening comes
too quickly

when we reach
cicada hills

i fall asleep
and then dream
about someone
i have never
even met

upon a blank face
can love bloom?

when you posted this
picture of an exhausted man
walking on the road alone
they were worried

a friend of yours guessed
that you are going home

your sister does thinks
otherwise, there must be
something wrong

and i, who do not know
you much, a man of few
words, bathing always in
the silence of your
dispositions, actually
worries more

whatever happens, i
must agree, it is all
planned, and nothing is
wasted.

the flowers
say something

to see beauty
one must spend
more time

and time must
stop

even a little
while
in focus

when i see bird cages
i remember us

caged and feeling so
many wings clipped

we are like pens
which cannot write

blank bond papers
thirsty for ink

the sea
always understands

it is not the river
pouring
all its waters
to the big mouth
of the ocean

mind you,
it's us.

our
own poverty
is chosen

relatively
your poverty
need not be
mine

ultimately
everything arrives
at a certain
fairness

and so when
asked:

say " I'm fine"

the young boy
runs to the sea

jumps in
complete glee

as a man he
comes back to
swim again

taking more time
to love
salt and foam

at midlife he
finds a chair and

sits there alone
longing for more

sunset comes
with so much
softness

warmth on his
shoulder

looking blankly
to an endless
horizon

for fear that it flies
away
over the fence
and be gone
the foot of
the red hen is
tied upon a bamboo
pole

the white dog which
ran wild yesterday at
the kiosk
which bit an old man
limping on his muddy
black sneakers
barks loudly at the
wrong tree

travel is a way of
forgetting that you are trapped
in an open place full of
chairs and tables which they
fail to see as
another prison of civilized
working people
in those rooms where the
walls are made of glass

the storm that you meet
and the hotel that holds you
for more days
are variations of another mode
of forgetting as a form of art
where to lessen the chill
you begin to compose
what you think is poetry to you.

how i wish to be like the
mat weaver of our place

he is 95 years old and still
making mats dyed to pure
colors of art, nothing more
nothing less

his wife left him and his
kids named him irresponsible
he is alone in the old house that
his forefathers left him
eating out what is due to
legacy and inheritance

he does not speak much
preferring the silence of his
weaving as though they are
just words unspoken

"nothing is for sale" he writes
a note on the left side of the
door

we know his rules. You come
you go. Do not take anything
from me.

Back to his weaving. Mats,
and mats, nothing more and
nothing less.

No rewards. No praise.
Nothing more nothing less.

I couldn't help it. I write.

do not be
tempted to take this
matter
as a game of words

words are merely tools

boats where we take ride
for a while

wings which we wear
so we can be in places of
the heart

we do not wish to be birds
and be birds

neither do we take strengths
from rigs and
paddles

we are singers here
chanters

we are bringing with
us the clarity of
our destinations

we sing because there is
a need
we speak because our
silence needs
be broken sometimes

to comfort us
to bring us to places
we long
but we still do not really
know where

NO one comes here to vend wares
we are bringing nothing for sale

We have arrived because we want
to bring more life

we will not stay somehow to make
us fixed

there are paradoxes to cross
myths to either amaze us or
destroy us

No one comes here to make a show
far from it

what we want is to silence the scream
to settle for what is less and what is only essential

and then move on...

once in the garden of
a stir
i stare
attentively i listen to
the murmur of the
water
follow every ripple
and wait till the water
settles again
as transparent
gossamer
of my own dream

time is lost in the
stillness
and i feel like a god
not needing
any worshiper.

how can fun
be alone? how can one finger
clap?
how can love be just
a man?
how can this earth
be a mere stone?
how can i see this universe
as a grain
of sand?
how can running be just with
one foot?
how can i be happy
without you?

i can be.
sad in a room.
alone in a bus trip.
sleepy on the plane.
lost outside the hotel.
i can be.
myself, but it is
too
tight, and the pressure
gets too high
that i have to whistle
and then walk in the middle of
the night
to let go what clots
inside

just about her....

she is beautiful
i guess cancer is beautiful
she must perhaps
accept this idea that cancer is
beautiful for the soul
i have never seen her so frail

her fragility is so feminine
and so is pain
a woman

pain is as fragile as
a center piece
on the table, a tea cup perhaps
which no one wants to break
to hear that sound of
pain

i do not know when to stop
to tell that pain must be beautiful
and that the soul is becoming more
beautiful in that pain

she cannot complain
what she will leave is that happy feeling
that beauty and grace have been transmitted to
her grandchildren

if she dies, she is complete
she asks for nothing more

her children have given her more than a bouquet of fresh flowers from the garden
she is happy now and will be even happier for another hour perhaps

resting her tired body on that sofa looking at the kids playing
she rests her head upon a pillow
and then closes her eyes
not wishing to wake up anymore for
another painful day....

i have a red melon
which i put on the
table

i am concerned
about you
you must be hungry

i like you to eat
and be happy

if you are ready
please take the shadow

come to think
of it
i am just poetic

i sometimes think
like a gogh

violet clouds to
be alive and
beautiful must
whirl

mountains must
have bold black lines
as boundaries
like hunchbacks
of Notre dame

trees appear
truly powerful if they
are taller than
the moon or some
stars

and the world is
happier without
those other people

whom, by all,
wit, jean paul
has called Hell.

if the tree is there
and stands tall even
without leaves

and if the empty
bench is unmoved by
the coldness of the
wind

will you still write
a lonely poem?

sometimes
no eyes

incomplete
face

breasts are
erased

there are lips
but sealed

so many parts
missing

in a woman
named wife

VARIATIONS OF CHILDREN

• 
  
  i
  
  what they need is just
  a box of chocolates
  the cheapest that you
  can buy from that
  flea market
  
  if you give them money
  their father will spend it
  on cigarettes and bet on
  a cock derby this coming
  sunday
  
  ii
  
  the one with a blue shirt
  wants to play killing with guns
  the other one will play dead
  and the last one will, by
  statistical probability, like
  a barbie doll
  
  iii
  
  next month their mother will
  again be pregnant
  and then their father will
  be laid off from work
  
  iv
  
  The President of this country
  will build them a house for free,
  a lot too where the house shall stand
  He will also give money for them
  to cross the bridge of poverty
  and this three will not go to school
  and the mother will have another
  pregnancy and the father will have
  no plan of finding work
  
  they can thrive on charity,
  they will live on dole-outs
  and they will vote without
  thinking come election time
  
  and the same political dynasty shall win
  all over again
  
  v
  
  it will be the same mess
  the same hopeless case
  
  vi
  
  tomorrow a writer will change his
  point of view
  he will be cursed for his pessimism
  
  and these kids who will grow to become
  lazy bones
  will have wives who like to sleep and make
  more children
  
  whose picture will again be taken
  by another man who will say that the
  writer died at an early age and
  was proven wrong by the
  pages of history.
  
  vii
  
  fine. That is the ending of this
  fiction.
  
  Which i know, you never liked
  
  

  

her true name is
Gloria Villa

in english she is
the house of glory

at an early age
she was called
Bangengak by
her folks since
she is not white
and bucktoothed

when she grows up
she may continue
believing that she
is ugly and hence
she may act like
from an ugly duckling
to a full grown
ugly duck

if Gloria however
reads a lot and transcends
how people thought of
her

she may become
what she is in her mind

she may transform herself
into a beauty
from inside her guts
to outside the boundaries
of this world

who knows? she must.

BITS ABOUT A FAMILY TREE

the news came that there are people with same names as we have in that faraway island. I am curious.
I went to the place and introduced myself as a possible relative.
There is a need to trace our roots. My grandfather and his three sisters sailed
from Bohol to Zamboanga because they have no future in that rocky island.
They left taking only a few clothes and their dreams.

Their great grandfather was Juan and his wife is Maria.

When i went there, this i found: more or less there were 50 juans, and 100 marias.
They all look the same. Their faces are our faces too.

There were 3 politicians, 8 bandits, 2 at-large.
There is a priest. And there are 4 prostitutes.

I look at my list. It is same with who we are in faraway zamboanga.

I am not surprised. This is what a family is all about.

Scattered Leaves. Broken chains. Bricks that make a tower.
Black clouds. Storms.

Flickering Stars. And a big lighthouse.
There is a port there, abandoned by boats.

I took with me an exhibit of their poverty. Showed it to my arrogant sister
who hates kids. She looked at it with all contempt.

They are poor. They are not us. When you invite us they will not come.
I also have that contempt for poverty.

We are poorer. I concluded.We, too, must dislike them.

TYPING LESSON

the big brown dog rolls his body over a river of grass near the old table by the side of a bamboo pole.

the green green grass of home makes this typing lesson the loneliest of them all.