FULL MOON ON TOP OF A CHAMPAGNE PALM'S TIP

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....