cold are our hearts but beating still.

it is all but a dream
we are but illusions
my hands are mists
and so are yours
my lips are imaginary
flowers of the last
summer

it is all but a dream
a flower of my own fertilized
misery
a bud of my bid for
survival

in this dream
everything wants to be true
no one wants to be unreal
but we somehow have to
wake up
one morning
and meet the rain and wind
harsh on our skin
wet on our hair
cold are our hearts
but beating still.

the first time

last night
i dream of you
making love to me
in that very secret
room where light
is just a streak
from a high
window

we kissed so
well
our bodies like
snakes to
each other

it was long and
sweaty
and i remember
i did not sleep
that whole night
after making
love

it is painful
to know that
i did not have
an ejaculation
sensing perhaps
that there is something
wrong in the manner
with which we
make love


i left that room
while you were
still sleeping
leaving what you
need for the
coming days


to assuage the
pain of having
not loved you really
i left you
nothing
(no heart is involved
here)
but money.

sorry, it is my first
time
to really have sex
without love
at all.

we do not have to tell really
it is useless to say so

that we are riding on the same boat
on same destination

i lie, if i tell you, that i do not suffer.

i have a Pandora box with me.
i do not open it, You have suffered enough too.

For you to listen to mine
is but a cliche, another monotonous redundancy.

let me differ somehow
i still make fun, that is my inner core

for Fun defeats whatever face of misery is there.
IT is light in darkness, it is sanity in madness.

Do not be solitary. IT is true it is deep and
stuffed with so much wisdom. But what for?

Tomorrow may never come.
And today, is the only moment, i still have with you.

Suffer the song with its singing.
Learn to love death, with what Life is still there.

The only dew to the Leaf soon dries.
The sun, how big and warm, soon sets.

This is a message of Joy.
This is the word of Today.

Every second, i savor. Life is nothing but
a breath, it is not a curriculum vitae.

a handsome face can tell a thousand lies.

because when it starts to tell the truth
you will not believe it.

a beautiful body will have a hard time
convincing you that it is suffering

a good career will find it hard to tell you that it wants to quit.

a fortune cannot brag that it does not enjoy spending.

so many more. someone cries and yet still hides
in the luxury house of its privacy.

safe house, well fenced, the screams inside cannot be heard.
a palace where fools live. a yacht where only rats enjoy.

a poetry stripped of the beauty of its sound.

a short story that keeps you away from a happy ending.

a hero turning out to be a fraud. a picture that is mute and deaf.

words that do not live in dictionaries anymore.

a dog with feathers. a bird with walls.

a word of water and no land at all no rock to hold into a magnetism.

a universe deprived of planets. a starless and sunless armory of horizons.

you soon learn this trick. a grope for meaning and reason

where there is none.

a tip for baking emotions

to have consistency
you simply have to take
one direction
if counterclockwise
then just the counterclockwise
do not violate simple instructions
always have the correct measurements
and the specified procedure
do not innovate
that will be dangerous

but if you want to have fun
well, do it your way
and enjoy the
consequences

include that recipe
of how to suffer with grace
how to still grieve and yet with
poise.

short,
stolen moments,
i write, have placed so much weight
like baggage
of emotions in my mind

too heavy, i do not dare
lifting it with my own
fuckin' finger

but i am a very hardheaded
humanoid,
always forgetting, from now,
then hence, and then
tomorrow,
and missing what i had stolen
i turn back and begin again,
as though
nothing happened

i kiss a black spider and shall die
a hundred deaths

mfr.....

there are empty
shells and yet possess still
the beauty of its
unique design
holder of songs still
if you hold them closer to
your ears

there are too,
empty hearts and empty people,
who by their own
merit, and style and personal touch
are still imbued with
beauty and grace

they have their own beautiful stories
to tell
that only if you listen,
will amaze you to no end

by all means, do not take pride
of your fullness
for soon, you will be emptied still
like an empty shell you too shall keep a song
like an empty heart, you too shall fill it with sadness
which, i must not lament,
has its own
innate beauty too

did i not tell you that sadness is beautiful too?
that beauty is like a fan with many blades
wide and long and
makes you refreshed
in humid places like
us?

sometimes if you note,
we are simply places, not people,
simply numbers, not humans

there are empty
shells and yet possess still
the beauty of its
unique design
holder of songs still
if you hold them closer to
your ears

there are too,
empty hearts and empty people,
who by their own
merit, and style and personal touch
are still imbued with
beauty and grace

they have their own beautiful stories
to tell
that only if you listen,
will amaze you to no end

by all means, do not take pride
of your fullness
for soon, you will be emptied still
like an empty shell you too shall keep a song
like an empty heart, you too shall fill it with sadness
which, i must not lament,
has its own
innate beauty too

did i not tell you that sadness is beautiful too?
that beauty is like a fan with many blades
wide and long and
makes you refreshed
in humid places like
us?

sometimes if you note,
we are simply places, not people,
simply numbers, not humans

to have meaning
you define a house with people

a park with lots of them
or a mall with more

sometimes i wonder
why you do not like a conversation

it gives a living room its own sound
why you do not like an interaction

of men and women arguing
and laughing and flirting and
sweating things out

it gives a veranda a smell
of vodka and beer and smoke
that fills the air

do not worry much about death
or noise or petty quarrels

i assure you, whether you hinder them or not
for sure, they will always come

do not hate that apple of discord
it is an honored myth.

still in

on that hammock
i keep on telling myself

"this is temporary
soon things return
to its original smooth
and proper
dimensions"

i do not pray much
but i pray

that life irons out
its own creases

that i soon know how
to live again
just like that smooth skinned
yesterday woman

that the river will recontain
water on its banks

that my mouth shall thirst
for tongues

that my tongue shall keep
some words till dawn

i pray and i pray some more
until

morning breaks again with
light on its hands

there is mug of coffee on the
rail by the window
and its fumes are showing me
how life breathes in space

there is a vine with more leaves
a flower at the end
a tendril still imitating the fingers
of my longingg

everything is alive here
everyone is singing out there

why i do not join them?
why? why in the world will
i say that i do not know how to
live my life everyday?

it is all in the mind
it is all in the mind

decide for now, i tell myself
oh yes, i am still in

for the Lord of Songs

i bet my body and
soul on it

and i lost
i think i lost
everything
for a very lousy
song of mine

with honor
i surrender to you
and i come to
give to you
the prize

and you say to me
"no take that back
it is you, it is yours,
you suffered much
composing
that lousy song
for me"

and i go back
to my old song again
lousy still
even in the gratitude
of taking.

si lolo ug ang iyang batan-ong palangganggang kaniadto sa wa pa masunog ang among balay

iyang tawag ni lolo
dodong
kini baya si inday nga
karaang
latagaw sa sanggotan
gapabirhenbirhen
ug pahiyom samtang
gahungitan si dodong 79
nga ang bigote
halhag ug ang apapangig
wala nay unod
kay gikaon sa bukog

"ambot dong oi" samtang
gihapohap ang dughang
hubakon
"nalibog ko nganong
gihigugma man ta ka"
sa iyang mga
kamot nga
mas pula pas kwitis
ang pulo ka kuko

naglagot ko, gisumpayan
ko ang dayalogo
"...dili kaha dong nga
katigayonan ray tumong
nako nimo?"

akong gituldukan ug
kapulo
aron ipakita nako
ang akong
kasubo.

chismis lang

lady teacher
meets girl

seven years na sila

one time
chat ming duha

joke joke lang

i sent pictures of
sexy women

bomb boobs

girl gets angry

that they are too

dirty


at 19 she's crazy

receiving dollars from ma'am

and plays

innocent


ma'am gets divorced
from hubby and
takes in
son for good


saying girl is in love
with mama

give her the f sign

too young
and to be a sucker

THE THREE-DAY SPREE

three days is well planned

but the execution turns out a little bit odd

on the first day i had Hawaiian pizza and Greek salad and tomato soup

and the night goes smooth like a tequila

the second day gives me a bitter tongue

nothing sour everything bitter nothing for sugar

the night has become a horror

air con is full but the body still heats up like a turbine

electrifying yet nothing about light and breeze

the following morning i pack up

takes the boat and despite the storm still heads for

home

still you, still you, i surrender,

i am this toothless tiger for your extinction

i keep telling you

it's all in the mind, it's all in the mind

and you look at me

hinting that you cannot believe me because i also appear suspicious

about how convinced am i that it is all in the mind that it is all in the mind

our worries are all illusions

a shadow of a rabid dog keeps talking like hands on the wall of your room

a lizard spewing fire on the ceiling?

a floor for a storm at sea? faces turning into masks

and women turning into pins?

you are a thread and you are entering an eye of a

needle, biblical, and oft white against a candle of stones

i run to the sink to wash my face only to feel being drowned by smears of water

could have been a rain in the fields of cogon grass

but things are no longer the same now after a fire, a plunder, a groan

emotions tumble like kitchen glassware breaking below our feet

things like these become wars and we stop for a while and free ourselves

from the bondage of words: sshhh, you try to keep the trees at home with its leaves

shhhh, you keep my hands in your hands

calm down, calm down, there is someone dying in the other room

and the children are nowhere to be found.

pillow there is warmth

in you that i can feel on closed eyes

how foolish am i

to still remember another cold memory

whose face mesmerizes me

from evening till dawn

yet has only greed for an intention

ou want to leave
yet you want to stay

you say you hate
yet your arms hold on for the loving

you want to live you want to die

you want to eat yet you have
doubt swallowing

you like to go somewhere else
yet when you arrive there you want to go home again

you see, life is both depressing and exciting

and you are both dead and alive
happy and sad, silent and noise within you all at the same time

you think you are an illusion
but you pinch yourself as real.

ou want to leave
yet you want to stay

you say you hate
yet your arms hold on for the loving

you want to live you want to die

you want to eat yet you have
doubt swallowing

you like to go somewhere else
yet when you arrive there you want to go home again

you see, life is both depressing and exciting

and you are both dead and alive
happy and sad, silent and noise within you all at the same time

you think you are an illusion
but you pinch yourself as real.

lovers lie

the earlier you know this

the sweeter the pain

love leaves us unprepared

but despite all these

one only needs to recall the kiss, the hug, the chase, the laughter

the stairs, and bed, or the cup and saucer,

the spoon in my mouth, the fork in your fingers

love does it all and we are not alone,

we did not lose a single moment

we have loved and lost

and the earlier we know this

the better the pain

clean cut wounds

that carve in the their skins

beautiful scars.

city boy meets barrio boy

now they must like each other

no choice, no choice

they are both the same now

if you say that the war is over
it is not actually over:

one has to count the dead
look for trucks, and kind hands, contact the priests and imams,
and bury them

one does not have to say prayers only for the dead
but also prayers for the living

one needs more time to open once again those fists and locked jaws
one has to compose the words to heal

more years to go for more promises

a thought perhaps that war is cruel
and that those men who inflict these wars
on fellow men, brothers, and
comrades and fellows of the faith
are always more cruel than those mortars and
tanks all combined

one can for the meantime only give
a little pause for silence.

a joke creeps in
like a scorpion to your spine
it bites
but only in air
somehow you expect
something else
and so it becomes too funny
for me

beauty and hope

the early morning
is beautiful

it promises me
something too good

to be true like a
simple yes from you

there is white butterfly
on the red rose

well framed by my
window

war if you know is a good business

mortars, guns, tanks, choppers,
bullets are expensive

we do not manufacture it
so we buy it

no arms sales so far for the past few days
and this is not healthy and wise for business

the gunrunners of the worlds are worried
why there is so much peace in town

they met and discussed these things

in their business war is a a necessity
otherwise they will be so lonely

so you have wars now,

the gunrunners
are busy and they are so happy

they party somewhere
as deaths and
destruction rise in
shocking number

everyday

instead of stretching my legs and arms

i stretch my mind to the sky

i can feel my nerves screaming

the one at my neck is aching

for more comfort

sometimes one feels that the hands are not

connected to the arms

like a night emptied of its stars and moon

there is chaos because some parts of our selves

are no longer in harmony

with the old body of the world

the streams and rivers get disconnected

with the sea

and the ocean waits for all these waters

to come

and be at peace with the silence of the stars

there is nothing to learn from
poetry

if there is, perhaps nothing much
but one somehow feels that

a certain restlessness is cured
a certain light is seen and then felt

and when you leave a crowded room
heavy with despair

you feel so light like an inflated balloon
and you rise to the sky

and then you see every house, every road
every mountain

and the horse that you want to ride
looks at you like an ant

on that tiny hillside where you want
to escape

I've seen her
leaving

four broken
pieces of her heart on the floor

i expect her to pick the pieces
but she didn't

i could not pick them since
they're not mine

somehow i guess
she does not need any piece anymore

learning perhaps
that to live well and survive the hazards of love and living

one does not have to have a heart
anymore

if you show a wall
they have nothing in mind but to break it

if the window is closed
it will be the same thought

close a door and they will think of stones
and hammers

show them a mountain and they will think of climbing it

the sea and they will think of boats and voyages
it will make them feel buoyant

oh, the prairies, they will miss surely the daisies
and the pussy willows

show them the river and they will waste no time
to fish or bathe

show them an open house
and they will think of living.

beside the wall
is an old mirror
framed with
wood designed
as flowers
carved
in petal and
sepal accurate
details
so intricate that
you forget to
see what you want
to see before
coming inside the room

below is the floor
of oft-white tiles
so clean and
tidy that sometimes
you have second thoughts
stepping on it
mistaken instead as
a dining table
due to the food
and fruit designs
embedded on each
surface

there is a window that
sees you like you were a
camel and it behaves more
like eyes of
mother's needles
and you begin to shiver

it seems that all that you
see are misleading you
into something

a mirror that makes you
forget your intentions
a floor that makes you long
for dinner
and a window that makes you
remember your sinful
nature

you pause for a while
close your eyes and breathe
some air and when you
are composed like a song
or a poem
you open your eyes
again
to see a door before you
which is open

it looks like open arms
wanting to have you
but now you doubt all these
things
and you hold your feet
deciding that you stay
that going out is not
what you really wanted

you feel that home is here
and not over there. Arms
wide open which you
cannot trust because there
is no body out there
shaped like your past
beloved.

it is all in the mind. I am comforting a friend who is dying. Heaven and hell are all in the mind. Death is all in the mind. Living too, is all in the mind. And the mind is just a mind.

We still have something better than our minds. I showed her my heart. I lead her hands to her heart. It is the one that feels. It is the one that sees too well, what is next to come.

It is where God dwells. And it is there where everyone finds rest.

so we keep on writing and writing or working and working, or playing and playing
we think we have the fun
or even the dedication to art and living

how foolish have we become

someone rakes the money. someone takes the
income from the sweat of our soul. someone reaps the fruits of our labor.
as we grieve. someone is laughing.
as we sink our eyes down to the bottom of our lamentations
someone out there sells the stories, sells the flowers,

sells us.

mama once commented on my choice of
words
the way i compose a poem like the way i
make a garden

of vegetables, potatoes here,
chili there, onions on this line
grouped and measured exactly
one from the other

for no other reason that they all
must not only be healthy but must also
look good to our neighbors

as though if well aligned and
categorized as to their kind and variety
and color and texture perhaps
then like a poem they may sound
good and make you feel good

i told mama, i don't know how to do it
i am not good at distances, and i do not
know how things can look that good

she cannot force me to do things that
i can't

but deep within me i can. I can easily
measure lengths, and sizes, and can
classify colors

i am good at numbers too, but
deep within, which i did not tell her,
i like
spontaneity, i like beauty in its
mangled self.

i like scattered things, bursting
exploding firecrackers, i like falling leaves
and spitting snakes, and water falls and
drizzles of rain

i like to hear and inner sound that comes from
nobody but just me, or perhaps who knows from
an Unknown, an X, a Y, and a Z.

I listen, and then i write. No notions. No prescriptions.
I have something and i do not even know what it is.
It is making me move. It is also making me stay.

she works as nanny during the day
as call center agent at night
weekends are fully booked for
some other part time jobs

her body aches, her eyes need sleep
but for one thing, and this she likes best
her deep seated depression is gone.

she is like Christ crucified. This time
she saves, not the whole world but
herself, from the hell of boredom.

AFTERLIFE

in the next life
you will be a tree
grounded,
immobilized
but fruitful still

next is you,
you become a turtle
with a finished house
to live and carry

next is you,
always having light
a firefly

and you
shall be the crocodile
you can live
well both in land
and water

and you
shall be the star
so beautiful and
yet so distant

and you
shall be the stone
hard and so
unfeeling
no worries
no angst
no pain
no joys either

and you
who has suffered much
but survived
without any word
of protest
shall become one
of those
gods
in your chosen sky.

we all want order.
we believe that for art to be beautiful
or even life

there must be order.
our brain always finds a way to make things
in order.

thus if there is a spoon and fork, we think
that there must be a plate

if there is an egg, a chicken must have only two legs
if there is a window, there must a frame

we miss the point sometimes: for a window to really exist
we need an empty space, not the frame

a spoon can be laziness, when you are feed with it
and a fork can be but Neptune in disguise

the brain itself is one convoluted map that it it malfunctions
it is hard to pinpoint the exact disorder

what we lack is the acceptance that everything
is not in order

the boat is in the sky,
the baby is deep down the sea

a bomb is in the bed
and the devil is drinking wine in the church

decent men that we have high respect
are thieves

justice is as twisted as a broken leg
and judges look like robots

don't you see sometimes that the king
has actually no penis? i mean no clothes

rightly said, no balls.

i love disorder now. If you see my room where i
am typing this poem

you will never like it. There is shit on computer table.
My favorite dog's shit.

my wrist watch is on my feet and my
eyes are at the back of my hand.

my point is , this is a crazy country. you do not expect
anything in order anymore.

and the danger is, with time,
we will love it. we will tolerate it and those

crocodiles and snakes will say: idiots,

unless you kill us, you will have no other choice.

unless you revolutionize, collide, rotate,
rattle and roll, you will still have us.

on the street
i have seen an old man
repairing shoes

a street kid vends
cold mineral water on
a very hot day
in the city
heavy with traffic

a fruit vendor carries
her ripe bananas hanging
on a bamboo pole

the jeepney driver wipes
his neck with a cloth
sweating it out to earn
money for the food
of his family

on the other hand

others, politicians,
power brokers,
legislators, executives,
stock market manipulators
wallow with their
easy money in hotels,
vacations abroad,
mansions,and flashy cars,
etcetera

this cycle of corruption
this death of rules and decency
and the triumph of greed
and immorality
this cycle of dynasties and
violence

may God
solve all these
inequalities
may Good Men
thrive

no one relies
upon people anymore

...and so you are finally afraid
about what i am thinking even
if you later on know that all those
are but bluffs

even if i tell you so you will never
believe me again
even if i wear the face of the
buffoon
even if i wear my eyeglasses again
to assure you that
i am the man of letters
decent and kind
and gentle and tender

i guess you are afraid of
tenderness

it can kill us both.

i am like  a firefly
in the dark after the rain
keeping peace with
the mangroves
away from the rest
of the crowd
which i cannot really
keep pace

they do not like
my kind of light and
hence put me
behind their glare

i do not mind
i keep on shining even
when i am asleep
even when i dream or
perhaps die
i keep my light
shining
my fire burning

there is no one
that can turn me off
not even myself

i keep this light
this eternity

i am looking at this
old picture of a man with a leash
crawling on the ground
and treated as a dog by
other five men

the five look so sadistic
and to my opinion they have found
their own kind of pleasure

i write in my journal that night
about five dogs who have the faces of
men

and to the naked man crawling like a dog
i put a note: how sad, you did not bite.

all i remember in those old days
about you was about this bohemian with nothing to hold her hair
some paintbrushes
a palette of oil paints
a portrait of yourself in your hand

just that
it was faint like dusk
faded like your Levis' jeans
sounds of rare
laughter

just like that
and then you were gone.

i am looking at this
old picture of a man with a leash
crawling on the ground
and treated as a dog by
other five men

the five look so sadistic
and to my opinion they have found
their own kind of pleasure

i write in my journal that night
about five dogs who have the faces of
men

and to the naked man crawling like a dog
i put a note: how sad, you did not bite.

i watch
how he draws love
first on a piece of paper
then on barks of trees
and then on the skin
of people, not just on men
but also on women,
i watch how he colors it
something bizarre
and i can feel all the pain
just pain
just pain and nothing there
is sweet
or tender
and i do not like it
i shut him out of my life
he is not
human.

i could have told you
that love and romance can also be
fiction
i should not have written my name in there
i should have not told you
that i love you
i should not have given you the hint that i like to make love to you tonight
i could have told you that giving the moon and stars is impossible
i should not have been there
i should have not waited that long
i could have told you that diamonds glow best when it has more faces
i could have told you that it would have been better if i did not tell you anything at all
but it happened
it just happened and we did not even know that it really happened

now i don't remember
and if i don't remember at all
i could have told you that it is better that we

no headache, no emotional baggage
no desecration of love
no inhumanity
no indiscretion
no memory
no mark

just living life, and letting go and then moving on again.

i think i know the difference between lust and love.

after i have touched you and then i want to go away and not wanting to remember
anything is lust

and you whom i have not even touched but i still want to know more and always remember when i am away on a long trip and still wanting more time to be with you
and spend perhaps even my last breathe with you...is love.

well, to have more friends?
simple , it is too simple

say what they want to hear
and listen to what they gonna say
please them
all the time
feed them
all the time
and be with them
all the time

you see, it is as simple as that

one day
you will regret this matter
you are your friends
but you are no longer yourself.

i watch
how he draws love
first on a piece of paper
then on barks of trees
and then on the skin
of people, not just on men
but also on women,
i watch how he colors it
something bizarre
and i can feel all the pain
just pain
just pain and nothing there
is sweet
or tender
and i do not like it
i shut him out of my life
he is not
human.

i have a black cow
and i place it on a patch of
grass
which i put on the side
of a hill
where white and yellow
daisies grow
and there is a footpath
there which is
muddy with rain
leading to a cottage
where a polka dot dog
is waiting.

now i have a meadow
my own time and
a long weekend
escapade.

heinz 57

Ex-Marine ,
seen way too much ,
And demand loyalty
and truth

None to be found

heinz 57 (part ii)

fluent in
fourteen languages
and calls
nowhere as
home

i am looking at this
old picture of a man with a leash
crawling on the ground
and treated as a dog by
other five men

the five look so sadistic
and to my opinion they have found
their own kind of pleasure

i write in my journal that night
about five dogs who have the faces of
men

and to the naked man crawling like a dog
i put a note: how sad, you did not bite.

all the defenses i made
have fallen

i have become vulnerable
and now

waiting to be slaughtered
by the armored

truths of my being, but
i still have hope

that all these are but
stages of my own growing

till i become invulnerable
again

...and then we behave like
beggars in need of affection

if you see us dressed on our
Sunday's best
waiting along the busy road
for someone who
never arrives
you would have known what
pity is all about

we eat time, we squander it
like a prodigal son,
we do not mind what is left

loneliness too is tiresome
expensive and senseless

you know what i mean
look at you, you are fully dressed
"but you are not going anywhere"
you are waiting
for no one

there is one who arrives here
but what a pity
she is not also looking for
anybody.

the feel of what is real
is far away from what we think

to see is to believe
but to hold it even for a minute
is more credible

and then to use it like a spool
that you run far away from where you
hold it
is having a connection

you make a kite and let it fly with your wind
now you have given something for the sky
to know.

there is a longing for uselessness
that feeling that i am being held not for any other reason
but just to be felt
and then made free by cutting the thread
and letting go that kite

somewhere is this crash
that shakes the paper
tearing every fiber of our being

making us real

time is always
wasted in our local
wars

money spent not on
food
but mortars and
bullets

lives most of all
wasted for nothing

she says
"this greed for money
and power"

the roots of
violence still unfathomed

my hands
create

a flower and
a bird

my mouth opens
uttering

what you want
to hear

i presume
beauty

as usual you
are the one but
you are not
here

my hands offer
flowers for you

my mouth waits
for your kiss

just an imagination
i suppose

and then i finally
know

you've been dead
and buried.

it happens
most of the time

what you think
that is good you
offer

a bouquet of
flowers

a set of hands
to be bound
for love

it happens
unrequited
unequaled so

you throw all of
what you have to offer

away.

writing for its
usefulness is a virtue

heroic when you
expose the truth and
sometimes
suffer the consequences

the utterer of truths
killed in the process

i've been there
and it's not an easy life

at this hour however
i write for no use at all

and they taunt that
when i speak of love and
its satisfaction

i am but just a lousy
dreamer
dumbfounded and
very stupid

at the end
you realize

it is just
a shell, a cover,
a thin membrane
a crumpled paper

you watch time
taking its toll on anyone
art is always wasted
nothing lasts

but then so what?
when the shell cracks
there is still something
there
when the cover is
torn perhaps the
contents are still
intact
and the crumpled paper
still finds use
i suppose, in your anus.

keep on running keep on running, run away, she keeps on saying that to me.
i am hardheaded, stayed put, stand my ground, and ask, who is she?

no one tells me what to do with my one and only life
i live it the way i want it: not so good perhaps, but it is, and will always be mine alone.

not even the sickness can sway me to grieve
not even your cruelty can make me change my mind
to live, and to live fully and to say that always, life is beautiful!

when asked
he said he wrote what he did not
understand

he said it is the surface of
the table
the facade of a wall
the back of the shoe
and the ripple only of
the pond

there must be a good
explanation and
you are hiding it
away from us

there is. And i have lied
about its true meaning.
sadly,it is about the pain that
i found in the things that
please only you

he scratched his head
successful on that hiding
he gave a smile
for secrets that we too have
sharing it
like a delicious food
unnamed.

there is an exhaustion
that spreads to the hidden
nerve of our lives

when we think of nothing
but just the blanket and the bed

we experience this cold
that is not brought about by a weather
which clings like a leech
in our skin

after the seven storms
we have earned enough defenses
we have learned that
all these are but illusions
shadows on our walls
which we try to hold checking
whether it is real

they slip away
they all slip away
just like that

someone reminds us
about our shadows on the wall someone hears the music but no one is dancing

someone remembers what we were when we were still small where no one minds
where no one takes us seriously like a nail to the hammer

someone hides away from us and leaves a note that he is collecting shells
and gathering leaves

someone misses us so badly but we are drinking to the noise and dancing to the
beat of sticks and belts

we don't remember that someone anymore
his name does not sound like the names our parents gave us

yes we forget because we do not agree about how life should be spent
in a closed container

someone says he is contained and soon shall be exploding
like what we have been keeping too inside our minds.

i play your game
at nighttime

when mothers no longer
watch their
favorite sons

when fathers do not
care because we can already
fight for
what we think is right

they are old and
tired
so they always look
forward to
the last journey

this hour i sit behind a door
unloading a
baggage while you
take some more
what you can not anymore
hold

i won't play anymore
my hands are broken.

THE BELL OF THE OLD CHURCH

what i like in that bell
madam
is its tongue located
at the center of
its body.

when it tolls
everyone listens
everyone feels
an urgency to
really bow down
and pray

and then it goes back
to its silence
which we can still
remember for our
long lonely years

THE BELL OF THE OLD CHURCH

what i like in that bell
madam
is its tongue located
at the center of
its body.

when it tolls
everyone listens
everyone feels
an urgency to
really bow down
and pray

and then it goes back
to its silence
which we can still
remember for our
long lonely years

when i arrive
you are there sleeping
on the sofa near the
kitchen

in that exhaustion
i take time looking at you
now getting older
on white hairs

it makes be feel guilty
how i have too much love
which i can no longer keep
for you or for myself

to hide a betrayal
i keep my silence
keep it well like a flower
in my garden
cutting it for no one
leaving it
as it is
until its ripe
for wilting.

yes there is something
else

beyond the words that
we say

like the way we drop our
underwear on
the floor

beside you i feel the
warmth
and it is to me a
very wonderful beginning

till we're finished till we
let go what sadness was there
which until now we
can never describe with
utmost clarity

yes, there is something else
that we will miss
despite....

meet me
tonight i will make a surprise

the poem that you have read which i carelessly wrote
does not smell like the incense of a monk

i guess you are carried away by its flamboyance
the man has a pipe and releasing a big tobacco smoke in the window

meet me tonight
it will be a big surprise

what you read does not look like myself
it is something and i am someone else

hopefully i will be a surprise
and God forgive
i just hope that you will like it

i could be light wrapped in the cradle of the
dark.

early morning
i need to know you

we exchange notes
about last night

some of them are lies
but deep within are truths

which we do not need to say
during our breakfast together

the plates are listening
and spoons and forks do not argue

i like this ambiance of softness
this skin of empathy

your eyes still glow
and i love the way they see me still

despite the pains of our years
we are still the best of friends.

as i told you, write anything

but as i told you once, if you still remember,
write anything that tickles our minds, like acupuncture

to lessen the pain, with those needles, which to me
feels like your thumb, and the ring finger

it lingers, like the way i keep your lingerie last night
in the room which has no more tongue and teeth

which is quite beautiful in its peace and quiet since
it cannot tell which one of us did the healing or which

one of us inflicted the pain after. What pain is that?
that pain of having you and then losing you and then

planning again when to feel the gentleness of the
acupuncture needles again? I don't think much now

i have no more time for all these. I am alone in this
world, and i have mastered the art of pretending.

talking is like
a peregrination of the mind

it is sometimes like releasing bees from our hands
since we bite sometimes

and the people who are listening scatter like children
in fear and trembling bitten

and they come back with their injuries now looking
for you

and talking becomes war where the talkers become
all victims

but talking can sometimes turn into prayers when we
begin talking to someone invisible but whom we trust

and those who see us have only empathy why now
i talk only to myself after releasing all those terrible bees

i understand it somehow, this need for an elocution
since the soul is sick and badly it needs the balm of

words, a dressing of prayers
and more time for waiting so that the healing may complete itself
in that litany of confessions.

when i am sad and i walk alone on a road leading to the sea
you advise me always to imagine

i follow it. And i imagine people in the market as trees.
the vendors who keep walking here and there are boats

the road is a big river and i do not wish to cross it for fear of drowning
but you keep on saying that to have courage i must imagine and imagine

so i imagine myself as an eel.long necked, a conger, and vibrant with
my electricity moving and sliding and swimming among the corals and weeds

and so i cross the street and you wave your hand with a thumbs up sign
and you meet me there with a hug and ask me how is it? and i say

oh well, i like it, and without your knowing, i imagine you as a port
  with a lighthouse, and then i have to go, since i still have to imagine, a home.

when a door finally
closes
and you knock again
pleading
"sorry, i am very sorry"
it shall not
open and
tell you "please come in"

it has its own reason and
you cannot say that you do not know it.

it is a dark night
and darker for an old man who cannot sleep
soundly like you,
it will ask about the moon or if the moon is not coming
it will ask about the lights on the streets
it will look for an island
where it can stay
and be happy at least for another hour
before he dies.

the frogs at
three o'clock in the morning
sing
for the rain

i provide the lyrics
"coldness is real
it is
lonely in here"

but look at us
and hear us

we are singing still
for the rain.

ONCE I PASSED THROUGH A POPULOUS CITY

by Walt Whitman

Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future

use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,

Yet now of all that city I remember only a man I casually met

there who detain'd me for love of me,

Day by day and night by night we were together--all else has long

been forgotten by me,

I remember I say only that man who passionately clung to me,

Again we wander, we love, we separate again,

Again he holds me by the hand, I must not go,

I see him close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.

the bad eggs go to war
the good eggs rot and suffer.

things that i imagine
and want them to be true: a small room
enough for our two bodies
airconned, insulated,
a conversation for a while,
a touch here and there
a little laughter, a kiss once in a while
and then
i turn off the light and keep
the tv talking and on its
streams of colors and light
we make love.

before all these, i keep
praying that i could be  a train
not on its wrong tracks
where
ahead is that deadly collision
causing so many
deaths
including us.

at that time
she concluded, "this matter is not our bread and
butter thing
and we can do something apart from these
somehow we
are not the literati who make those split-ends
scurry, hurry and
bury"

and looking far into that island behind us
where we are seated upon a beach bench
comfortable with our pizza and beer and
coffee and that background music of jazz
and wind and coldness of the place under
the trees

our feet buried on the sands, she finally
blurted " we must be kind and patient
we shall encourage those who have
yet to start their life
in poetry and let them explore some more
the world
where we do not intend to
live for a while and then die
unnoticed"

this of course, i do not very well understand.
i dare myself, i have come this far
to understand my life and live it to the full.

Confronted with an either/or
early morning one must choose.

you think that choosing is easy
and a privilege.

one sometimes is given a he or she
but not both
now you have a problem since
sometimes
you want both

do not give me that wrong notion
by all means
you need a peahen and a peacock
a lock and key
a peg and a hole
you cannot just have one
to really be
complete or successful

a race may die and then leave all
behind its tracks
humanity is an endangered virtue
without the yin and yang or both
in one empty hand

now it is either you or her
but not both
that is the human condition
but we can talk and bargain for time
and energy

money talks they say
and the ways and means of fate are always unpredictable
for in the end
it all depends
upon the agreements of hands and mouths
for in this world it is all about you and me and us
depending on how
we really understand the fans of happiness
the forks of despair
the furloughs of chaos and order
we, for most, may conjure, injure and
perjure and then
if we have the courage
all these, endure
what this either/or in the future
brings.

neither

after the early morning mass
i walk towards home ahead
of the crowd.

alone i see for another time
the leaves of the mahogany trees
falling

the strong wind comes in
a sudden
i even had the fear that
one of the branches
may break and fall heavily
on the cemented pavement

i stop for a while watching
how the leaves fall
flip flopping
somersaulting
and finally landing on the
pavement
and still blown to the farther
side of the
road

i am reminded of so many things:

so many leaves, so many lives.
zamboanga seige, colliding boats
at sea in talisay,
landslide in sagada
bus falling in a ravine somewhere
in negros
gas poisoning in syria
helpless children
collateral damages on innocent
civilians
twisted governments serving for
the selfish ends of their leaders

so many things

and then i think that i do not
really belong here
i am not one of those who
plan an attack and make it appear
that it is necessary
for mankind to survive
neither am i one of those victims
who can do nothing but
cry in helplessness
and in due time
choose no action but simply to
forget

and begin again as though
nothing bad really happened.

something in me is stirred
for i can still be unhappy if among
the 99 who are pleased
one is still there
angered by the word that i have
uttered

nevertheless there is still time
to recompense
either that i be silent for a while
face a blank wall
and stare at it with wonder
looking for a leak
for the light to get in

i may go somewhere else
reinvent myself and come back
with the gentleness of wind
come the first day of august
when i have to rethink
what word is proper
what seed to give
to that little bird in pain.

i have a poem
in my mouth

the tongue is
eager to say it

it is like a bird
that is about to
fly to the
sky

if you want to hear
a song
the bird requires
that there will
be no
rules for the
tongue

and the mouth
need not be tight-lipped

it must
more of
like the mouth
of your river

there is a door
inside us
which we do not want
to open

there is a room there
where the ceiling
has no star

we want to keep that
door closed
forever

we wish we cannot
enter that room anymore

yet it is simply not possible
if i won't go in there
something inside me
dies

and something outside
myself
does not know how to
live anymore

and off they go
to that old bareback
mountain

far from us
we who believe
that love is
otherwise

love is still forever
regardless of gender.

when i was young
father bought me a bike

i bought a poetry book
sleep on the grass

and begin to read
what now i too write

it is about the sea and
the sand

it has the taste of salt
and blandness

it smells like the cogon
grass that they just cut

the words stay
on memories built

inside my heart
beyond this mind.

i offer today
in my hands
a bud, a raw fruit,
a tendril,
a fledgling

all small, and
dainty
young and
hopeful

take them all
from me

and what is left
of me
are these empty
hands

tomorrow i
will offer a hatchet
a scissor
and a knife


take them all
please

if you will not
do not blame me
i will do
what now i will.

I like to see hills. Meadows.
Blue skies. Blue birds.
Trees are lining like
confident soldiers.
This must be the Alps.
White caps on mountains.
A winding river. Pines and cones.
Rabbits and squirrels.

This is the Sound of Music.
A movie in my mind.
You come with your lonely boys and
girls. You are the mother of escapism.
They are the hope of lost fathers
of the wars that man has waged
against himself.

I like to see hills. But there are none.
I like to hear the sound of music.
But there is none.

I face another darkness.
Tense situations. Another struggle.
No conversations. Heavy with
Monotonous Silence.

Perhaps i will light a candle this time.
And inside the flame. I shall see hills again.

the wisdom of
a fly sometimes lies
on its capacity
to be
eliminated without
guilt by the
man who simply
swats the fly out
of life
because he is
on a moment of
his chosen pleasure
of sipping
his cup of coffee.

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.

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

the two of us can make a good pair
we know it, we are just perfect for love
we feel it, we can make love grow as healthy as
the biggest squash of the county

only our hearts speak, our eyes oblige
for a stare then manage to blink for fear of shame

we are two stars in the heavens, close to each other
twinkling happily on these dark skies

when i see you, you say you are the moon,
and i for a defense, say that i am the sun

two heavenly bodies not meeting on the same hour
sad, unrequited, estranged, and always hurting.

I live next door
and i know you live next to mine
sometimes we meet
and i look at the floor
hiding from the beauty
of your eyes

i do not have the courage to say
that love exists in me
and that its life
is all for you

how sadness slowly kills us both
hiding inside the comforting
darkness of our doors

i live next door and you are next to mine
but we are so far away like star to sea.

how i wish to be eloquent in your language
so that i may be able to speak what i really mean
as a first attempt and then when
i master more its idioms i may begin speaking
what i do not really mean
so that you may look at me and i return your looks
with my stare that what i am telling you is far
from what i really want to say
because i have fears and that my life is in danger.

i am an alien to your land. I live here now. But my heart
is still there in my native land. Where the bush is still on fire.

truths hide. we know where they are.
their bodies buried but their heads are still in the open
grasping for air, hoping to live

truths scream. But we who watch truth die,
pretend that we have nothing to do with it

its death, its burial, its memory.
we are guilty but what can we do? we have suffered enough
and we cannot save ourselves.

we have thick sunglasses. The sun is too hot. Our fats melt.

i will forget the rhyme
and miss the rhythm, i am on a rush
looking for an ambulance
to save this dying poetry
from a world which is too busy
to just even mind
and read.

i stopped for a while
looked around and reflected upon
what really matters
even for today: it is not you anymore
something keeps bothering me
it has nothing to do with you anymore
i want to insist that it is still you
and i reflected some more
deep down, thinking like a hermit
honestly, i must admit,
this is all about me
and i have not really understood it.

What i lack, is perhaps,
what i have not understood fully well,
the bones are here
the flesh are growing smoothly,
and i feel just a little bit, weird
about where i am going,
there is pain, i can pinpoint it
with my finger, press
it with warm hands, hoping that
it will disappear,
i summon you, to tell me more
how pain is, what is its nature
and how to dislodged it,
but you are not here, you are always somewhere
in that island of pain too,
and so, i make comfort with my own mind,
stretch what lies dormant and
strangled, this neck, these limbs,
pull my hair, and knock my knuckles,
until i find peace within,
without you.

If by this time
you still have nothing to write
try getting out of the house
see the world
walk its paths
without any conceived thoughts
free and open
to what this world can give you
see the forests and the trees
wander, wander
do not stop, walk farther,
until the day is over
rest upon a rock on top of the cliff
see the stars and the moon
breathe that cold air
and let it stay
inside your heart.

Been searching for the thrill
imagining what is next to happen
lusty thoughts, rusting soul.

The magic of Now is here
it is taking away my sorrows.
it has a Wand that erases what
pains are there in the past
saying that those are not longer
important, nay,
not even relevant, for what is here
and now is always new
and interesting

It IS, Exciting!

the fog and the pine trees

slowly the fog
blankets the
pine trees

at night the coldness
creeps
in every pore of the
skin

like thoughts that
cover our hair and
creepy too in our
spine

wake up in the morning
see how the fog leaves
the pine trees

see how our minds
clear

thoughts leaving
like birds perched
last night
in the branches of our
minds

DAMA DE NOCHE

that flower blooms only
at night

perhaps afraid of the
light

or just shy of the
sun's light

in darkness it spreads
its scent

nearby a man
embraces its own shadow

in bed
another man cannot
sleep

meanwhile the dama
de noche
continues to be enchanting

FROM THE INSULAR HOTEL

i watch them, father and son
sailing on a boat, selling shells and
pearls upon a sea of green salty
surface

i stand upon planks of wood of
that resort where the rich are taking
their time weaving words to depict
what power they have what emptiness
is there

the boy holds the paddle as the
father tempts me with the shell and
the pearl

someone muttered from behind me
those are fakes which i have equated too
with the way how we see their poverty
and chances for prosperity

Ateneo de Davao U.

I only remember books and
silent nooks
i can smell the odor of
dead bugs embedded
in the seams of my sweatshirt
i've had a dose of Sartre
and Sophocles

tragedies from which
in my barren mountains
and dry plains i have
sowed seeds and from
henceforth grew
towers with rapunzels
and dragons which
St. George did not really
slay

i remember that maiden
bathing in the river
diving deep and rising
with the droplets of brackish water
caught in her navel
singing all the songs of
my self-inflicted academic
loneliness

i remember the chapel
with succinct sermons of Fr. Dot
a few churchgoers
praying for a sunny day
of September

it was lonely and i was thin
like a fisherman's pole
my bones rattle like an old
bicycle

i was hiding with a book
to keep me sane....

i've been cheated
five times and five times
i have to assure myself
that nothing's wrong
with their cheating

they get what they want
and they punish themselves
after.

i am not diminished
by their evil deeds
i am not envious of
their success.

i close my eyes on the
night of my defeat
and chant my mantra:
" i am great. i am good.
i am honest. I am not
evil".

to sound sleep i go.
mornings are great.
sun is brighter.
birds sing. air so
fresh. I am new.