a boy looks at the little bird inside a cage.
it is perhaps thinking that it is too beautiful to hold.
to touch the feathers, and feel its beak and claws.

i am looking at the little boy's face
he is another innocent angel trapped too in the cage of this earth

there will be happy moments but soon when he grows up he will
make a sum of everything

i do not want him to agree with my negative summation.
i, too was trapped, like a fly unable to move in the bounds of the spider.

i once saw that spider inside my dreams.
it was about to eat me when i finally wake up.

so this is it: a boy looks at the bird inside a cage
i look at the boy's face, a spider looks at me, and then we keep summing up things.

we all fall short of what is expected.
the spider has not eaten the fly. The fly has not escaped.
Like the bird. Like the boy who is getting inside the cage.
Like me who is finding a way to open another cage myself.

we all dream that we soon shall wake up.

there are hiding places where people suffer
authentically alone, where they learn to find nooks as temporary solutions.
they have secret passages. Mantras of their own inventions.
They have secret doors. Enigmatic selves learning the games of living.

There is an open park where we meet. Share moments. Buy popcorn.
See kids, wait for sunsets. There are trees where we take shade.
Where we have the illusion that we are one in this journey.
We comfort our sorrows. Share our miseries.

There is a photograph of us. Wacky. There are times when some people
are out of fashion. It is summer and they wear thick leather jackets.
Boots where it could have been more comfortable with slippers.

There is a time not to talk about suffering. We choose law for its neutrality.
Then we forget the left side of our brains.
And that is where the small wars begin to swell.

It would have been wiser if we were monkeys. Playing with ropes
and then staying on trees. Making love on branches and pushing partners to the edge.

When we leave those who are no longer useful.
When we continue living with those whom we have started to hate.

I say, Life is like that. It is too hard to understand.
No maps. Nothing straight. Not predictable.
Not logical at all. Incoherent, and so...i can only have compassion.

MAMA'S LOVE

got this niece who married
early
separated from hubby
now raising her three kids
all by herself

she works in hongkong as
domestic helper

looked at her FB account
and the photos

all i see are the pictures of
her kids
and how they have all
grown up

there is even no picture
of herself there.

THE COMPASSIONATE ONES

some stoop
to conquer

and they have
become conquerors

some stoop
and even kiss the

dirty feet of
sinners

and what they
felt is genuine compassion

they are divine
imitating God.

UNRULY

compassion has no rules
as the heart has none

blind in the darkness of
its decisions

irrational in the demands
of empathy

it has all the guts sometimes
to set aside the law

to put in place
a higher value

it is when you throw
diamonds away without doubt.

THE WAY TO KEEP TIME RUNNING

talk about frozen bread
and hot fuming coffee

or manny pacquiao and
the BIR

or talk about how to
escape from suckers

how to get away from
your own country

about some nails and
hammers

we'll talk about anything
something light and humming

about those hmmmms and
omgs, and what do you think?

WHAT TO DO

rivers dry up
and make a bed

writer's sometimes
live on a block

storms gather
& cause havoc

clouds reunite to
make rain

lands grow grasses
thick as camouflage

oceans rise and
swallow cities

volcanoes erupt and
evoke smoke

i always think
and flower.

sometimes i think
that the only way to escape a trap
is to love it

to live beyond prison walls of our
limitations is to fly inside the eternity of
our thoughts

there are always no limits to what we
decide to do

i always try ways, i will always be...

TO escape
he runs, and all his life he is running and running and running

people who talk about his death
has been united in appreciating the million steps he left

he escaped indeed but
just like the rest he too died

a thousand times.

everyday i am listening
to everything, sometimes i do not have to filter them

sifting can be taxing
i only let those who say they like it
remain

not all can be retained by us
as rivers we too take our own paths

our fluidity cannot take that much
neither pebbles nor sands nor diamonds

we flow with the universe
we are not alone somehow

in harmony.

it is your birthday today
sometimes you have to choose

to plant a tree or
to cut one

to spread the wings of the bird
or to clip or get rid of some feathers

to be a river or
a rock

to close a door or
to keep it open

the options are there
choose whatever makes you happy
whatever makes you live longer
whatever multiplies love, life,
hope.

WE confront evil sometimes with silence

Aristotle ran away from evil
He cannot allow evil to murder another philosopher
That easily

For silence too is a sharp word
IT stabs and the wound is more fatal that the noise
that they have created

Evil kills, and confront it with another killing
It cannot solve the problem

AT home what we do when there is war
is just to be silent. We have to feel the pulse of the silent wrist.
Know the struggle. As silence probes deeper
Into what conflict is there.

There is too a good fight in passivity
Inaction is best where action is at its utmost.
We look at evil directly to its eye
And see that it has concealed too much humanity in there

We go deeper and find later that
It too has a heart
wrapped in the bitterness of its fall
and misfortune.

Silence gives a rebirth and evil is converted
back to the side of the Good.

Now, it is a beautiful world with evil anew
In the side of the good.

i remember

i, too, have a problem
pinpointing

the cause and effect.

what caused the
depression?

was it another
depression?

what caused my
repulsion to you?

or my attraction to
the other?

was i the cause
or the effect of you?

dolly.
the new dolly.

is fat now
as she is no longer in love.

she makes a pact with
herself

that she will be in love
with no other but herself

at night, a la Li Po
she drinks her cup of tea
with the moon on top of her

she dances with her own
shadow

her left hand holds her
right hand
her upper lip
kisses her lower lip

as she hums her own
composed music

and then soundly sleep.

sometimes we have nothing in mind to write.
not because there is nothing in our mind, but because there is so much in there
all wanting to be written.
so many places and then we really have nowhere to start.
we are tempted to start with a beautiful place. A paradise in an island
far from everyone. It was at that time when they hurt us. So we need an island
to start with. We put shells. And flowers and birds. And coconut trees.

Then we wake up. This is not what is real to start with.
You change. There is an ugly place. A place where most of us were born.
Where we started.

Then we wake up again. These are better forgotten. Buried skeletons.
We do not want to be broken again, and be broken some more.
Even with one story.

Now you must see it. I have doubts. I am tempted not to write about anything,
but here i am. I just finished one.

It is an indecision. You do not really know where to start, or where to go next, or what to do. But this is still the same thing, and it is something that we cannot refuse to do.

We always think. I do, and i just did.

time's changed
a long time ago
when it rains so hard
people are sleeping
and dreaming
in the comfort of their
blankets

it's different now

i pass by the river today
and it is not really heavily raining
the neighbors are ready
with their trucks on the road
wanting to take with them
all the bad thoughts.

unless you are
stripped
you will never learn
the necessity of
a cloth

with all the coldness
and shame
you have only one
dream

a simple cloth
to cover and make you warm

God knows this
God knows you fully well

slowly he is stripping you
with your skin
and then your flesh
and then your bones

and nerves

how painful and shameful
can this be

stripped of almost everything

he has one purpose
and only one

to save your soul.

perhaps you
must have noticed

do nothing
you go crazy

do a lot of things
write, dance, sing,
teach, listen,
go places

forget everything
you become everything

healthy, sane, and
whirling

you are not earth
you are the cyclone

you do not watch
how messy can this
world be

you are being watched
whirling like a cyclone
exploring places
testing, testing,
and not being trapped
by all those trees

it is you that moves
and that which moves
controls the world.

THE EVACUEES

Last night the waters
of san Antonio rose

this morning
a child on top of
the dump truck
stares at me

a group of hands
are waving

they will be taken
back to where
they belong

a man continues
his leisure walk
on the park
still enjoying the
freshness of the
morning air

THE CHOICE TO DO THE WORKS INSTEAD

even during a calamity
politics will still be there for a play

evil seemingly is incurable
society is diagnosed with cancer

stage four in fact
what you see on tv is your head of state

smiling, there is no show of worry
there is no discord

two politicians well trained in speech
will make endless arguments as to

who shall receive the blame as
to who shall reap the credits

the rest have decided to be silent
go to the place where there is injury

touch the hearts of the many
and do the corporal works of mercy.

IF

if for the whole day
you tend your garden of flowers

have a bountiful harvest of the fruits
of your selfish labor

enjoy your own breakfast of sausages
toasted bread, brewed coffee,
and some slices of oranges

if you watch your favorite movie
and then spend your time shopping in the mall

buying what you do not really need
feast your eyes in what pleases your

taste which has become so discriminating
as you too have become too sophisticated

if you dine with your chosen friends
in expensive restaurants and laugh a lot

while the rest of those unlucky ones
suffer, lost their house, and their jobs

still living to an uncertain future,
on days that mean more suffering than life

if you call that life at all,
then, by all means, you have committed sin

the sin of utter omission, the sin of indifference
and IF that night you cannot sleep

and in the following morning you go to church
hear mass, and confess your greed and avarice

you are still anxious, because you know, from
your heart, You are not forgiven.

BUSYBODY

there is no need for some sleeping
pills
to a body which has been blessed with so many
work
each hour spent each minute devoted each second spent
to a chosen apostolate
each thought focused on what good can you do for the rest of
humanity's less and underprivileged
so that when the day is over, and the night comes to you for comfort
in the sweetness of its bosom
you shall
soundly sleep

what dreams of the self you have
they are meant to be forgotten.

A CLEAN MIND

the pigs
are doing it still
and the dogs too
and in the fields the carabaos
are too busy

let us do it too
with decency though.

MY FRIEND

do not regret the wars we waged
we lost

losing is just one step of the stair
just one

be satisfied that we felt the pain
everyone is avoiding

it is the pain that makes us stronger
it did not kill us,right?

A FRIEND'S POEM FOR SOMEONE

do not love me
i have nothing to give

not even the honesty
that you expect

do not follow me
i have no direction

do not say that because
you love me

then everything will be
alright, far from it

when you force love
upon my hair

what do i have? a crown
of thorns

when you insist that things
will be as they will be

i begin to wish
that i become air again

invisible, cold, and
wandering.

A METAPHOR OF STRENGTH

what i have is strong
but it lifts no one

some will say i have
a mirror

for it reflects light
in the dark under my bed

but i doubt it
when i throw it on the floor

it is never broken
it is still strong and whole

what i have is strong
i know this from the start

it is inside me and tested
it never breaks even in head collisions.

AS WE LEAVE A BEAUTIFUL PLACE

I am riding in my car
driving it myself but i am not alone

the mountains are green this time
rain has not been remiss

the trees along the streets
are having a show of their fruits

i open the window and breathe
such a very fresh air

i know this is a beautiful morning
but how sad, we are leaving.

THE EVACUEES

Last night the waters
of san Antonio rose

this morning
a child on top of
the dump truck
stares at me

a group of hands
are waving

they will be taken
back to where
they belong

a man continues
his leisure walk
on the park
still enjoying the
freshness of the
morning air

their church had
a cement for a facade

they are pointed towards
the sky

the storm comes and
it stands proud amidst the ruins

now they are
confident about their God

is their God not ours
too?

has God taught us
that love can be that
exclusive?

is God's arms too
short?

i am praying for
answers.

i can help you
but because i love you more than you know
i refrained

from taking you in the quicksand
i look at you struggling for life

i want you to struggle some more
watching if you can save yourself

i am testing myself too
to the future comfort that when i am gone

you will still know how to live by yourself
that quicksands could have been avoided

i could have helped you easily
but i wanted you to help yourself first

i want to see you stronger this time
and even wiser

i am getting old
and time shall soon make me irrelevant in your life

soon you must survive on your own
and when i see you finally on this state

i can say to myself: i have truly loved you
because i have never allowed you to be weak.

your morning is
beautiful

as i see it
it is white like another transparent
wall

to the other side is an opaqueness
blurred still

and yet so exciting.
just wait, something is happily
gyrating

good morning
i greet another new world

miniaturized
i take this world inside my palm

assured myself
everything is under control now

nothing to fear
everything to love

it will be a happy day
much happier than yesterday

i comfort myself

grief is always an island
in the middle of the sea

it will always be that way
even if the storm has already

gone away. Grief will always
be an island

separated from the rest
of the world

even if the waves on the
other side keep on reaching

for its shores, it does not want
to keep them here to stay.

grief will always be an island
silent with the wall of sands.

after all that happened recently
the meaning of the wind has changed meaning

when it starts to blow
even how lightly like a hush on the cheek

those who met the harshness of death
too quickly

will always be reminded of the kiss
that cause a thousand deaths.

it does not matter if all of you are asleep
i expect that
i accept this fact that some hands are meant to write
while other are meant only to be put on the chest and
be numb

and say this is the most relaxed position of having to
do nothing with anybody anymore

it does not matter if i write your pain using my own pain
what matters most is the the words are made visible here

those who come late also deserve to know
that somehow, pain is universal, that it is not only them

but once we were. And that i have captured time in my own
words.

sorrow is a wind and i have put it in a cage, at least.
a cage made of words.

theoretically anything will do
even it if causes harm theoretically
it is all in the mind anyway
virtual sins, illusions of grandeur,
delusional, dreams of delineations ,
for as long as they remain conceptualizations
then everything is possible
permissible, detachable, ..nothing real
nothing is injurious, no one harmed

but realistically when what is thought
becomes a gun with a bullet that intrudes
the skull, not just with a bang, but with a
rapture, not just a passage from one end
to another, but it creates a hole, it
spurts, red and liquid, bloody hell, then

what was once only theoretical becomes
deadly, even if the pain is quick and easily
goes away... it is too real to be just taken
for granted...

you are dead.
now this is most real.

AN ODE TO GIVING

there is something more
to what we do
there are always returns
of what we have so earnestly
given

as you comfort others of their sorrows
some of your hidden sorrows
also go away
unnoticed

as you try to solve other's problems
your own problems too begin to solve themselves

as you teach a person what to do
you are taught yourself what to do with your own
idleness

unknowingly this is what giving is all about
unwittingly
more is also taken

it makes you full, and then it makes you sing
and in the streets where you walk alone
you begin to dance the steps you have never
really known before

i can spend time thinking about
myself

i become tense, all these moments
spent in thinking about myself,

it is too tersely selfish, and this is the
essence of intensity, tense and fearful

for nothing.

on the other hand, i can spend it with all of you,
now, no longer thinking about myself, but about

all of us. Asking questions, finding the answers.
Putting light in a dark cave.
Seeing a door, a passage to an outside world.

we are in the dark. Laughing.
With us, the dark is another happy game.

playing with our shadows on those walls.
contrasting the beauty of light, and the
mysteries of darkness.

alone
can always be a prelude
to being
miserably
alone

be with people

soon you will forget
what misery is there

they have their miseries
which you will learn later

and then
you will start laughing

be the butterfly
fluttering

from one tree to
another
from one mountain
to another

trees of tragedies
mountains of miseries

among the thousand leaves
that fall

how can you notice
yours?

when a storm
has stripped the leaves of
all growing trees

what do you see?

all the twigs
seemingly are like
fingers

like hands
in a unison

praying

THE REASON WHY AN OPPOSITION MUST EXIST

you think that i should be excluded
because i opposed you

it is natural tendency to crush an
opposition

but you should have remembered about the
bow and arrow

without the strong string of opposition
where can the arrow be?

it is the string in me that pushed you to
a distance

i made you win and that is enough satisfaction
that i get from this

usual rejection. I have not explained myself.
I do not wish to be understood.

Let your fate be your own confusion.
without my laws of gravitation you could have

not fallen to the solid ground of your stability
you could have floated in space forever

and find for yourself forever lost in that
black hole of an uncertain existence.

Everyone will know, except you, who shall
continue blowing that horn of arrogance.

Soon it will be worthless. As i have predicted.

THE CLOUD

i can only think of a cloud
as the only comparison

i think of it, and thinking makes it more like it

thoughts floating, self floating,
no anchor is visible no rope

no reason is enough to hold it and put it
steadily upon an accepted principle
a universal dogma

i am tired of catching a self
it will be futile, night and day,
it is the same trembling
saying i do not know anymore how to live
i do not know anymore how to be calm

perhaps the floating is just the usual way
of things to be steady some other time
after it has spent all that is necessary

no one feels for me, or for us
we are tired too
making configurations

it is the same birds that form in our minds
even boats, even kites, even leaves
what we feel is always the fleet
of flitting moments

let us leave it that way.
Let things simmer down a bit.

Float, float self, do not attempt
to hold on to anything

be like a cloud, go anywhere
be free

until space is traversed
completely, and then at that end
you may be steady again

like a continent of trees and stones and
dried magma

by then when it is through
give a little way to a crack
for our new selves to grow again.

WISDOM

swallow that bitter
pill

believe that i can
cure you

swallow some more
till the bitterness cannot be felt

that is what i always do
smell the bitterness of me

taste it
and then know that i have
wisdom

THE PERISHABLES

I respect contrasts
i pay homage to opposition
i kiss the hands of my adversaries
to a happy ending
but i do not have to change my direction
i am born
to take the opposite
of what most people desire
this world is not a matter of left or right
or up or down
there are compromising positions
in the middle of the air
where clouds settle and then drift
away

like them, some people are not
meant to stay
they are meant to go away

if they settle, try to understand,
they will perish.

THE HAPPY EXCLUSION

you sit there looking outside the glass enclosure
as thinking goes on, questions float in the air like fears

all sorts, in all colors, mostly darker than the blue of
a denim

you hold a cup of coffee but not drinking it yet
you look at its fumes, and smell it like a smoke from an old friend's cigar
always, you remember, what good was there before
even in those days of fear and trembling, there is always a lesson learned

five friends of yours swing the door in
they are here for coffee too and for the boisterous talks
loud words, restless phrases, listless laughter

you do not like this situation, it is too alienating,
solitude is broken like a saucer that falls to the tiled floors
what a wreck

they look at you, an alien, a freak, they name you but not your name
even if they are not going to utter it, but you know what they are apt to

"exclude, that freak!" he is not one of us.

you stand, you walk away, you leave, they have invaded your world
and you do not like it: somehow this world is too huge for narrow minds

outside, the garden beams with greenness,
sunlight and silence go hand in hand, -- a beautiful yet lonely world

it is all yours now.

a breather.

Everyone is looking
for the meaning of
one's life as though there
is no dictionary available
to shed light on
what it really means

is the meaning of life
found in the book of life ?

do you have it now?

you breathe, you are checking now.

a breather.

That is what you are
but i guess, you are not good
at definitions.

me too. I am poor at spelling who i am
and what i can really do

in these calamitous times.
in streets where names have become too confusing.

in rooms that still ask what our names are.

in books where the last page
has no number.

THAT PARASITE NAMED envy

it enters through
one of the holes in your skin
penetrates your
flesh
and then your bone
marrows

it eats
all of you
and yet
you will never
know it

you look for
yourself
it is nowhere
to be found

at the facade of first glances

what comes as pleasurable
at the start
turns out to be painful
at the end

who appears to be most cruel
in the beginning
becomes your most and well-meaning
teacher at the end

whom you find uninteresting for
all those years
when she is gone
becomes the person most missed
most loved

YOLANDA

a stranger, even suspected as
man-made,
devastating woman,
mass murderer,
a thief, a plunderer,
the queen of destruction,
underestimated,
no cry woman,
irritating, champion of
all evil,
tormentor, cruel,
unmerciful,
most hated, most feared,
stripper of properties,
ravisher of hopes and
breaker of all our dreams

on the other hand,
as you realize after
she leaves you
penniless, broke and
downtrodden,

she is your first and
best teacher.

and in the hardest way
you learned more than
well enough.

TIED DOWN

all the happy faces
tied up in a frame
from a click which
made you stick it out
in Badeling, China
where the Great Wall
appears
to be most beautiful

beside you was the
beautiful Canadian who
accidentally held your
hand
perhaps afraid that she
might fall down and
die

your wife was on the
left
preoccupied with what
to project with her
friend in that
not so famous town
in the Philippines

you doubt everything
since then
but to cut the story short
and to stop all
the ambivalence

you crop the picture
and you deleted
the one who is more
beautiful than her.

OF COURSE, YOU ARE FREE

how can we agree
on that same point: i am free

and you are free. Free from what?
and of what? and free for what?

i am free
to do good, to only do what
is essential for my
essence
as man, as individual,
as
the servant of
God,

once i twist what i am
once when i stray away from the Light
once when i do what negates myself
my true nature
i am no longer free. I am bound.
And what i will be thinking is
to escape and return
from that space called
freedom

i am free from evil.
I am free of limitations.
I am free for divinity

which awaits me at the end
of this journey

for i am but a journey
a road

i have a destination
where i will be at rest forever

i am for perfection. I am what i ought to be.
I am this must. This imperative.

I am being.

WHAT WE VOMIT IS OUR SAVING GRACE

what you take in
is the error of the matter
which makes you dizzy

gastritis you say or
perhaps amoebic contamination
because you have swallowed
what was handed by your dirty
hands

to save yourself from death
and which you did not really realize
the system stimulates itself
for the needed cure

you vomit
and this i can say
sometimes it is not the intake
that matters most

it is what you spit out
that makes you live.

EVERYONE HERE EXITS

we mourn for those
who exit ahead of us
in that Door of the
Great Divider

sometimes i think

that those who arrive
there
also mourn for us
who are left here

we who are in the bitterness
of greater pains

of incoming miseries
of ever pinning pains

they wish that we are
there with them

but they can never tell.

WISDOM

there is wisdom in the birds
the sky
there is wisdom on the grass
wisdom in the river
there is wisdom in the sea
even in the stone
there is wisdom in the leaves
so much wisdom underneath
the trees
treasure in their roots

those that do not speak
there is so much wisdom in them
in their natural silence

there is, and this is what we think,
so much wisdom in ourselves
gifted as we are with mouths that speak
but the more we open our mouths
the less wise we become

to them, to those who never speak a word
to us
perhaps all they do is listen to us
as we appear too foolish to them
in our noise

there is so much wisdom in God

and like them, those
who like the trees and the posts with their
lights shining at night,
and
the sun and the moon
who stand still amid the chaos,

He has not spoken ever since.

Him i have not heard
Speaking to a man
named Moses
burning once as a bush
never consumed by its own
fire

telling once that
in a holy place we have
to leave our sandals
and go barefoot
for once.

OUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS CAN BE DANGEROUS

at first glance i thought she is listening to a sad
music
that she is wearing a head set

she is crying
she is fetched by a military chopper
leaving the dead
in a place where she cannot be safe

her little girl is nowhere to be found
swallowed by the water

she is the sad music after the storm
you do not have to cry
just listen

and do not be like me mistaking her
as a woman who loves sad melodies and
then sheds her tears

I'm sorry.
We are sorry for her.

Our first impressions are dangerous.
The first glance can be misleading.

Until we read the whole story.
Until we pay attention to the details
that we miss because we are too busy
with so many things.

And so this time, i miss the tree,
because i am lost in the forest.

Let me say again. I am so sorry.

from a distance
misery is nothing but rectangles
and squares
and just even lines, and dots,
and
blotches

or smears of
mental constructs

no wonder
you have successfully
maintained
that fortitude of
detachment

no one feels
what is hazy
no one cries for
a shadow

shadows are
doubts
and haze is
confusion

REAL PAINS

i thought
i have no more appetite
to write
another poem tonight

i am watching news on TV
showing the horror pictures
of the recent calamity
brought by Yolanda

the bloating bodies of the
dead
scattered on the streets
of tacloban
fall short of the
wheelbarrows for
transport

no relief goods
are enough
water is still scarce
roads inaccessible
anarchy is
roving all around
the broken corners
of the city

to prevent the spread
of a disease
or any possible epidemic
the dead have
to be buried at once
no matter how shallow
the graves
sans the religious rites
en masse

seeing those skeleton houses
and the "zombies" walking the streets
as they are recently named
surely destroy our sense
of charm and
beauty
and with all unease can
even
dismantle our concepts of
humanity

we like to demand that
Life must be beautiful as
always

we like to believe that
those videos cannot be real
that this massive destruction
caused by nature
is a gross violation
of our taste for the
good life

but these are all real
we have heard their grief like
a surging river
seen them in the sizes and
shadows of mountains

we have felt their ocean cold sorrow
penetrating our bones
and sending the signals of excruciating pain
to the hollows of our
souls

i excuse myself from this
family dinner
i go outside the house
feel the coldest wind in
my nape
as though i have a ghost
for a lover

i look to the dark sky

and prepare my guts
for the needed
puke.

A RESOLUTION

The storm has
stopped

The white dove
has come back
bringing
the leaf of the
clover

Open the doors and
windows

Let the new light
come in

We shall now
sing praises for
the Lord
again.

this is the time
for silence

we pause for a
while

a minute of silence
will do

as tribute for
the dead

a minute of silence
too

for ourselves
as we give our

hands a chance
to do their works.

we look at the eye
of the storm

and we ask it

"why are you doing
this to us?
what have we done
to deserve this?"

we will ask the same
question for
the coming storms

we know the answer
now

the usual indifference
the common deep silence

after each of them
leaves us

on a misspelled
suffering.

THE LAW OF ATTRACTION

you sit there
not looking for someone in particular

just you and your
coffee

someone looks at you
and you look

the other way around trying
to dismiss

what attracts you pulls you
further

towards that world where
both of you

could have been happily
rooted

but you boot it out

you are married and
not that really stupid.

FOR ALL THE LITTLE THINGS THAT YOU REMEMBER DURING OUR SCHOOL DAYS
( for NOL)

inch by inch you have to wash
the pair of pants
scrub the floor two times a day
throw away to the rice fields those
violating shoes

to the tower of Babel
you draw water for the priestess
to have her bath
pail by pail
glass unto glass

verbal abuse is the code in those days
our days
we want to end them and in late night
sleep we think no more
what sacrifices we have to make some
more
some more some more
that drowning some more
that do not drown
us anymore

just to finish school.

How the days slip
away
how fast are the hours
how
youth was wasted
in the books
how old have we become
with our
calloused hands
how love was spend
unwisely
and gone
with nothing left
except our fears
that we have nowhere
to go
except our
shallow
graves

recall the causes
they lead us to nothing but
our respective perdition

i do not wipe father's shotgun
with oil
I'd rather have it
stolen
I'd rather have it
buried

what causes have i
embraced?
oh, it caused the
death of so many
friends

and so sorry that
i have lived
to die again for another
time
in another place
to outlive
another hundred
deaths.

nature is just
doing its cleansing

there is too much
pollution already
be it in the sky
sea or land,
man's causing but
nature's duty still
to clean what man
has inflicted upon the
face of the earth
the wings of the sky
the body of the sea

the earth is heating
itself
bracing for more
tornadoes and
cyclones and typhoons

brooms and scrubs
and sponges and
bleaching agents and
flushing tools

the hands of the
storms go where
its eyes see

just doing its duty
complying with
natural law....

i go near the truth
as it is enticing
i face it
it is smiling and
then i like to speak
its name
i couldn't
i stutter
i am at a loss of words
it is my truth now
and i tremble
it is my whole being now
in that impending kiss
that well sought embrace
that love
that I've been missing
for long

it is both sweet and bitter
and then i surrender
back to the room where i
can be alone again

now the walls surround me
i am protected
from that storm that i
cannot face again

it is self-destructing
i could have exploded
destroying everything

safe in the house of
my body
i read a book and
then write
another poetry.

i have won and lost
but through another person
i have loved and hated
but through another being
i have a name, alright,
but it too is the name of another
i have a body, but it is not just
mine, always, always, by
another
i am touched and glorified
but always through another
i am just a path
another labyrinth
you have been within me
and through me
and with me and outside
of me
i am never myself
i am always through the other
that is how i was born
how i was brought and schooled
always the other

some tell me i must be
a christian
i have many faces
i am many crosses
i am a lot of thorns
in my many heads
i guess, that is how it
should be

forget myself, and be
good for all
forget myself and
just be remembered
as

the other.

the dark levels us
all
like death that knows
no king
or slave

when i face the window
and when it is dark
what i see is all black

no trees, no stars, no
houses no light
everything is black
all equal in its blackness
all dissolving and
seemingly all gone.

WOMAN

when you treat me as another
bone or meat
when you think i am just another
dog

i do not really mind, i ignore it,

but how can i ignore you?
how can i describe how gently you have
abused
every vein, every muscle, every
hardness that i still have

when it is over, when you finally dress up
and set your hair and without a word from you
you close the door

i do not really mind, i just ignore it

i can be a dog for now, but i am not
i too have to sweat it out, spend some time
thinking and running and flexing

hoping still, to have another time and
ignore you again.

AFTER THE STORM

THERE will be more pictures of the dead
cars overturned by the wind, faces of children shedding tears
bloated bodies on the river,
there will be more stories to tell
an old man has drowned here and they are just looking
what can they do? they too have to save themselves
from the upsurge,
glass windows break, rooftops are blown away
what we see are skeletons of houses

the maps of destruction are too much
and what's next? another storm is coming

we look at the people, we speak to our neighbors,
we go to the market, we look at their faces

the question comes: who's next to die? who shall be lucky
enough to be given the privilege to bury the dead?
to cry, and then to offer the flowers?

after the storm is another storm, another cyclone, another
earthquake, another tsunami, another drought

will it make a difference who's next to die?
it won't.

Let's face it. There is no choice. Do not forget
have time for laughter.

Or just ignore, what i have written.

UNVEILING THE TRUTH

there is sorrow in your eyes
the veils of happy pretensions are lifted

let me tell you, you are more beautiful in this
that truth, so gentle and kind, all laid in your face.

at night
deep into its recesses
the clerical errors
begin to
attack your
piece
which the mind
with all its spontaneity
dismisses
as a periphery
surrounding the
essence
of what you feel

that is good
enough
you have pierced
it with the sharp
arrow of
your determined
wisdom.

TOO MANY, TOO LITTLE

you have only
one boat

one mouth
one tongue

you are sailing
on ten rivers
with one boat
ten river banks
where soon shall
you dock?

one mouth
one tongue
ten cotton candies
which one will you
lick?

you have an
array of teeth
you may bite
but which flesh?

there is only
One God

so many lesser
gods

to whom will you
pray most?

you have ten fingers
they will be two hands
ten rivers
two boats

soon you will be
lost.

and i won't
find you.

OUTBURTS

the upsurge comes
at dawn at midnight
twin silences

come bursting
fireworks of words

SLEEP IS UNFRIENDLY

a woman in her thirties,
a man in his sixties, and myself on my
fifties,

it is 11:02 in the evening
we are all awake

i know why, i know why.
sleep is unfriendly.

UPON AN ISLAND OF LIGHT

as i write this
i open the window

out there
is an island of light

it is the language
of the lamp
post

there is a lonely
soul somewhere
patient
with its sinful
body

holding his hat
on the side of his pants
slowly letting the night
pass
as the rain keeps on
falling

i am closing the window
now
resting my body in bed
beside
a woman in the middle
of her
sleep.

STILL ONLINE AT 11:31 PM

there as so many night owls
perched on the branches of the
night tree

deep in this silence merely
looking

THE LAW OF ATTRACTION

you sit there
not looking for someone in particular

just you and your
coffee

someone looks at you
and you look

the other way around trying
to dismiss

what attracts you pulls you
further

towards that world where
both of you

could have been happily
rooted

but you boot it out

you are married and
not that really stupid.

TO BE FULL AND BE FILLED

I'll take lots of whatever
one guava is not enough

when i drink the tequila
one shot is not enough

i'll take lots i'll have many
lots of money, lots of fame

when i get old, i'll get bored
and will not want any

then i will be happy and
be ready to go.

WHAT DID THERESE SAY?

more
are, and have been pretending to be good

wolves in sheepskins

less, and have been, too, are pretending
to be bad

the common denominator, of course,
is that

some, but maybe not all, are pretending
to be someone else

cows wearing carabao skins
and vice versa

some have valid reasons, an old self is too
old to be functional,

prejudice has marked its face with names,
and to fully serve,

they put on their masks, after having known,
what you really want to see

everything then, is relational, 'we just want to
help" whatever illusion you want

to see, and have, and give, and squander.

" i am myself now", i assure society,
"in a calamity like this", one man answers

"original or fake, it does not matter"
says Therese.

At eight in the morning
one decides to go naked

just half-naked in the
open field

basking in the sun
one feels a lot of bites

times have changed really
the sun too has claws

and teeth of
the invisible tiger
unleashed from
the skies.

No one
no one teaches us how to love
it is love
it is love and no other that makes us love
even the unlovable.

it is your love
of life
sometimes that
kills
love,

it is the way you are
amazed
to the glitter of your
name and your
power
that you set love aside
in one corner

you begin to forget
that love has loved you better
and more than
ever
when you have loved yourself
more

but you pay the price
of your chosen indifference
do not say that you may be alone
now and
yet happier without the
other

you are both
alone and
sad

in fact quivering about
how to meet the loneliness
of days
and continue
to live in such
a mess

we see the
grandeur &
the beauty
we feel the warmth
more that ever
of the sun
we feel love
as never before
felt,

after
Yolanda.

SHAPELESS

i will be leaving
places,
places where the dwellers
always live on rules
i feel like
dammed, you know what
a dam is?
it prevents waters
from falling naturally

walls have always
something or someone to protect
and rules are made
by masters

am no slave.
and i protect no one.

i am water. i take
shape in my own thoughts.

anyway, if you are
free, your shape is
shapeless.

AN INTERVIEW

SO what do you do in life? i am a poet.
What do you do for a living? i am a poet.
I mean, do you earn money from that? sometimes.
What do you eat? i eat poetry.
What you you drink? poetry has water.
Do you have a family? yes, words are my family.
Do you have a wife? ( pause, ... ) excuse me, I think i left her in the park.

bye bye.

THE RIGHT AGAINST SELF-INCRIMINATION AND THE MUCH RUMORED STORM

the rumored storm
just passed by---

it did not even say
anything

thanks, the rumor
is not true. Back

to work, face another
rumor.

SO, what do you
really know?

I don't know.

Why is that?
My lawyer says, I have a right.

These are the
tidbits on my salad
at 3:56 a.m.

THE VIRTUE OF NON-REPETITION

I like to love without traces
to sing without any echo
and just to be myself without
a name tag

To be lost without fear
To be a question without an answer

To be found again without my knowing it
To stay put in my chosen prison

To write a poem without a period
To be and just another speck to eternity

THE LOTUS IN US

we're different
if you notice it

our roots are not in the soil
but on the water

we float
above the mud

we flower
we drift with the air

we live in peace
that is what they think

WE'RE NOT THE ELITE

whatever little we have
we give to everyone:

the old man without a cane,
a woman without a face, a seaman without a compass,
a child without a crib,
even to the rich man without a heart
or those who without feet dance with the gods
nymphs without wings
satyrs without their hoofs,
to the dogs without voices
some left-overs,

whatever word we have we sow
even to hostile fields of snow
whatever warmth we have we dissipate
even to rails whose arms are numb to the winds

we are nobody
we have names that do not ring a bell to you
yet we give
we do not store
we spread

we suffer
and in the hope that whatever flies away from us
shall diminish
these pains
we dream of wings
we acquire them
only to be given away
to birds
whose wings
are clipped
by you.

ABOUT THEM

we are fools
listen we are really foolish
we have been deceived
for quite long they have been
stealing from us right in
the front of our faces
when we discover this
we go mad and run on the streets
make noise and shout for
their ouster
we cannot be appeased
but only for a while

now, we like to see them
again dancing before us
and we say we are wrong
we miss them and we want
them still to proceed with
the show, they walk on the rope
they spit fire they sing and
they look beautiful with all our
money

back home be ready with what
the mirror will show:
we look like them
foolishly incurable

ESCAPE ROUTES

I've seen yours
you open a door on a page of a book
and you are gone

been there
and i am back

Yours too
there is a door on the cork of a bottle of wine
you open it and there you are
pretending to be lost
in your own hideaway

yours is dangerous
into that door into that labyrinth where
explosives are adornments
of your chosen confidences

and yours too
a crystal and there too is the tiny door
of your chosen freedom
if you come back
everyone becomes strangers
in a new world
of hallucinations

been to dangers to and bubbles
and a little of that crystal world
and i am back

all escapes are always useless
at the end we are caught and those that catch us
always returns us to ourselves

at long last we have no choice
but to be responsible

i am telling you, i am back
and this is what i mean

i am back to the open
wandering again looking to the stars for directions
and still tripping from one stone to another
as if everything is real

there is only one exit
and none of them are those escape routes
which i have mentioned.

THE KIND OF SILENCE THAT I NEED

In the naked light
i only want to see you
if it pains you
i do not have to touch
what light is there
let me kiss the darkness
and then leave it
waiting for the silence
of the kind of light
that you love.

MORNING IS BROKEN

What is broken
scatters

a glass that you
throw on the window
feeds the splinters

diamond like
to the mornings of
my life

i guess
one can still
have faith
even in the breaking
of whatever

when,for instance,
this morning
breaks into
splinters of
twilights

i too break into
pieces of amazement
after the darkness
of my night

something will always be
new

one which you have
forgotten

you make it come back
and it becomes alive

and it will be new again
and what a pity

when you yourself inflict
that sweet pain again.

after the storm
we see two dead trees drifting on the river

dead trees move in the same direction
always towards the sea

we are on the same river
drifting too with time

we are too light we have set aside our burdens

i am like the black crow flying towards the
blue mountain searching
for what i do not yet know i like

you are the seagull towards the sea
looking for fish that delights you
in your dream

FACEBOOK

This is a collection of happy faces
most of the time
on a vacation, a tour you say,

china, hongkong, macau,
the U.S.A.
Phuket, bali,
budapest, brazil
vienna, london,

on poses like yaki-yaki
selfie-selfie,
flyie-flyie in the airie airie

no one wants to confront reality
of a disease,
a weak heart, a pain in the ass,
a dying situation,
a life in prison, a life in waste,

it seems then that happiness is everybody's business

not sadness or misfortune
not death or decay

when you start crying,
true to the saying, you cry alone

when you are lucky
wins a lotto, or gains on a venture

now, you've got what you have to do
flow with the mob
have facebook.

better than having drinks that go beyond
the limits of your sanity

better than suicide. Cheers!

THE HOUSE OF DOGS

the house
is full of dogs

she loves them

the sad part
is this:

it's the dogs
she love
more
than you

you let it
be
no harm is
done
somehow

she is happy
with the dogs
in the house

and you escape
from the
dog show

outside the
house

a flower
sweet as
white

falls only
for you

LIFE is just
one swing

mind you

when it is over
you swing
no more

another one
grabs the rope

just one swing

and then another
and then
another

there are no
onlookers

only one swing
nothing more

no one likes
to

because
it was sad
and lonely

dizziness and
waste