the rose mound

the last drop,
the tongue crawls and licks
the reddish mound
living its life to the
last drop, deliciously
taking in
what this beating life
has to offer, this last drop
still the best,
in sleep still dream
the last drop, the last
of the moaning drop,
an ode to
the delicious offering
of the pink mound,
glistening dew
this rose of a woman.

beauty sings the most
in a swan song,

upon a crystal lake
the trees begin to shed leaves

another season closes
the drapes of the window

there is pain named by
most of those who understand it
as necessity,
it is a passage leading to a door
and when you arrive there
it opens
towards a garden which you have
never never ever seen
once in your
lifetime

amazed you take off your body
leave its parts scattered on the stairs

what they see outside is just a butterfly
and then they begin to wonder
& have that usual in

solitude is a
dignified lady
but when it
stumbles in the
dark
alone, as solitude
actually is,
soon you will
hear the screams
of a mad woman
in extreme
paranoia
calling for help and
when you go there
hoping to save
her with your
hand,
you will go home
with only one hand
left.

automation

if it is yours
it will come

when you arrive
the door opens

when you enter
the living room
the chair rushes
for you to sit upon

when you are hungry
and you go to the kitchen
the plates and spoons and forks
move by themselves
and serve you food

a room lights itself
the blankets and pillows
arrange themselves
for you to rest and sleep

fate knows what you
become
what you are and
what shall you be
fate seals you
and knows where to
put you
till the end of your
day.

a rusty colored rock
from the top of the mountain
falls and rolls
and stops in the middle of
a river
whose waters still keep
flowing
despite the sudden
obstruction

for in truth
in these affairs
things and men
still keep up with the
laws of this
universe
that
for things that flow they
keep on flowing
and for things that stop
they too keep on
stopping
unless

that word that changes
the state of affairs,
unless and until....

WAS IT A BETRAYAL?

in a landscape of words
the disciples finally get tired

and so they begin to put up
portraits
of their faces, put a patch
of grass,
some drops of rain,
scents of roses,
sounds of brooks,
the swiftness of wings of
robins

one disciple who is faithful
to the last letter
says that this is a betrayal
and offers flowers to the
gods so that they may
be forgiven

the landscape of words in
black and white
has changed

it is not paper anymore
but a prairie where children
and dogs begin to play.

A NOTE FOR YOU MY DEAREST

my heart is made of glass
transparent
and too fragile
and if you love me
just in case
please know how to
really care.....

THE riddle of the Hand

a river
has five tributaries
of unequal
lengths

they end upon
a dead sea
where the five
faces of
narcissus
are staring
blankly at
you

A MEMORABLE STRAWBERRY

a strawberry in my hand
is just another strawberry in the farm
nothing special
there is no bliss in there
inanimate red berry
and even if i am hungry
and i eat it
it is still nothing to me
and you who see it
shall notice nothing and
just let another day pass
like a number in a page
of your calendar,

but that strawberry on the floor
from your lips
which you once held tenderly
between your fingers
as you lay naked in bed
teasing me on that night of
the lonely hearts
and when you bit it a little
leaving what is more luscious
juicy
and sweet in your mouth
your tongue peeping
like a snail

and you let it go
like a red butterfly from your
soft hands
and it falls and rolls on the
floor and
then stops near you
lingerie

that strawberry half consumed
still lingers in my mind,

perhaps forever unforgotten
it is special, very special.

EITHER/OR

either you're the prey
or the predator
the parasite or the host
the swindled
or the swindler

either you're
the slave or
the master

between this either
or is
another choice

but in effect
you are just the
separator

in other words just
a symbol.

the hours passed
i was just sitting
just sitting and the hours
passed
as i did not bother looking
at my watch
and time too in its patience
with all my
curiosities
in those dwindling pathways
of thought
and provocations
self-imposed like a punishment
of myself
for doing something less than
perfect
intolerant still of my shortcomings
i am and will always
be forgiven
for growing the white beards
putting more wrinkles to
my hands,
listening, passive, doing nothing
and by being so
have completed
everything, in
a longing that longs
no more....

without
words the river speaks
the clouds
speak the language
of clouds,
it is me,
that hears and gives
meaning
to me,
the heart speaks
no language
but which the mouth
translates
into words...
i can't escape
philosophizing,
full is the heart
but its language
is
still aided by
words

the feathers of the
chicken are doing
the philosophizing
apart from
the bone
of poetry

if i remove all of them
the lark will
be stark
to look at,
and no one wants to
have it
or even
see it

under the sun
where the chicken
pecks on
our grains of rice

WELCOME

if you see me i am inside a room
facing this monitor
my eyes are focused like a lens on paper
and the light of my soul
is magnified and the paper is about to burn itself
with my gaze,

the blinds of the window are filtering light
of a fading 4 o'clock
meditation,

meanwhile the books on the old shelves
are like
buddies wanting to get me to take them,
vendors without mouths however

this room is not airtight and so i can hear the sounds outside,
now it is a car moving away, then another footstep is heard getting nearer
from the stairs up to the bigger room,
where the women are talking loudly
in happy mood,

all my senses are working
(she says i am hyperactive, i just checked it,
blood chemistry results,
everything is normal)

but i guess i am just attuned
to doing things faster and sensitizing myself
with all the possibilities of sound and smell,
and imagination,

in a while, i make a conclusion that this world is indeed interesting,
and i am amazed, always amazed,
and i like it,
this way
this wondering that never stops,
this be-ing always,

it makes me alive,
and i will always remember this,
i once loved you, and i escaped sorrow,

i
grow wings, once a dragonfly,
go into hiding in the garden
where i am just like
anyone else,
bee, butterfly,
caterpillar,
ant, grasshopper

i
bother no one and
no one bothers me.

except, these thoughts,
of course,
because i have allowed
them all
in
in my own way of saying
welcome
and be at home with me

i, am, thinking....

as i listen to the music
( chances are
by air supply) imagine
how i am taken away
and i do not really know where
i am going,
it is the music that is carrying me
far away
and now i agree with you
in this journey let there be
not much
peroration,
not even deliberation for i
have already
stopped arguing with myself,
now, i ride on the wings of your music
to the stars or
wherever, it does not matter,
i just want to be
away,
away from everybody, from
me, from everywhere...

as i write tonight
i play the Beatles 's song

Here comes the sun
It's alright

but know what
there is no sun here

it is cold, it is not
summer

neither winter
it is raining and

the strawberries are
rotten

i lied
no strawberries even....

even the river
has its own way of moving on
with its life

it takes the journey of
least resistance

and to do that it winds
itself like a snake

a snake? yes a snake.

the one that has contours,
and sometimes it bites,

it kills, and does not just
numb

know that he has taken
the road less traveled by,

not political,
nothing to do with economics

poetic, the one you
think

is ambiguous, lost, and
which

till now you still can't figure
out

if it is found.

if the hawk with
keen eyes
is that powerful

why should it
take the
helpless chick instead of the
hen?

THE grains of sand are too many
we simply ignore them.
It is the rare and precious that
we look after.
Like a diamond. A diamond. Perhaps
just even one diamond. The One Diamond.
It glitters.
Many faced diamond. Multifaceted.
The one that you choose and
want to keep forever.

An old man has it. And then he throws it away
In an unknown sea where you cannot find it anymore.

What you have to look for is not the Diamond.
But the reason.
Find it before the Old Man dies.
He will speak for me.

the seed is still growing
without a manual
a tutor
without a book
without a friend to tell it to sprout

the ground is as silent as ever
and the sun as usual platonic

everything, and everyone in growth
is spontaneous

i am waiting for a word to be uttered
I am on this side of this growing world
A failure.

in a battle one soldier is not
dead
the rest of his companions in the
platoon
are dead

silence creeps like a spy trying to
feel what is the next wise move
to finally win
the fight

on the other side is fog, the trees are
hazy, and the silence is always waiting
for the next fire

a bullet is cautious. No footstep is necessary.
The declaration is kept hidden.

Suddenly the last soldier stands up
points his armalite to the fog and fires all his might

and then the fireflies are gone.
So many leaves fell to the ground.
Branches of mangium cut.

One last bullet. It got the last soldier.
But that is not the end of this war.

love is good.
But some people love cash more.

I once had love. And it was good enough.
Love comes. It always comes like a ferry ride
Four times from Ozamis to Mucas.
But i have decided not to cross the sea anymore.
Love is not a compulsion.
It waits.

Love is always good.
It is a beautiful poem. A red butterfly with blue rivets on its wings.
I do not want to see it die.

Love is the best. But there is more to love than love.
People opt for a revolution.
They love change.
That change for the better.
Love too is like that. But there is more to this and that.

It is just felt.
I have never said it.
I still have no word for what is more than that.

I am into an abandonment.
It is this journey without a stone to carry on your hand.
Traveling like light.
Do not misinterpret speed
Neither distance.

THE REASON FOR YOUR FEAR

you feed a rabbit with a
carrot.
It does not mean however
that it excels
from the rest of the rabbits
who are not
found in your cage.
You feed that rabbit not
because it is white.
If there is a black rabbit
or a blue one
or a red one
Just the same you will give
it your carrot.
It is hungry and it loves carrots.
And you, this rabbit collector
cannot withstand a hungry
rabbit. After all
it is your rabbit.
Caged by you.

No one has seen you feeding
a wild rabbit.
No one.No one. No one.
Not even a rumor.
A wild rabbit is free and
It has carrots everywhere.
No one owns it.
Try feeding it and it will
bite you.
You and your cage are
condemned
by all the free rabbits of this
world.

for as long as
there is experience
there will
always be something
to write

for as long as you are
sensitive enough
in such a way that you
can see a needle in the sky
or a grain of sand
in the deepest trench
of surigao

for as long as you keep
on living and noting what
is happening each day

not just what is there but
what is missing
not just what is said
but what is not uttered

there will always be something
to write

even if it is not
poetry at all, even if it is
nothing

there is always something
to write about....

the gods in the skies are
getting insecure

the coffee fumes of spontaneity are
brewing

like wings of angels flapping beautifully
in our room

where walls are smelling rose wood and
a roof without ceiling is breathing more fresh air

from the faraway mountains of the south
from the salty sea breeze of the north

clouds gather and then drift away
spontaneously

the gods wonder, what is happening to our
love of permanence?

our way of discarding security
this denial of commitment, this drift this

paradigm shift, this dislike for staying put,
this longing for what is not here

this setting aside of the self, this joining to
the ocean, this nihilism for the good of all.

in your spontaneity
you can write, you have no
choice now but
write, for it is not you
that writes it now,
upon an edge where you
are pushed beyond your
limits,
someone writes for you,
you are
pen and paper rolled
into one
you have become
your own
reader
your savior
god and
angel

in truth even if you do not mean it
you mean a lot to me
when you touch me
to you it is nothing at all
but i am touched so deeply and
i rise to fly like
a bird in that morning sky

something inside me is alive again
that part which died
years ago,

i am
like a flower that you cut and has forgotten in the garden
alone with the
grass

and you remember
and take it inside your room
put in a vase with water
and then

i bloom to brighten your room
as you sleep
where you dream of another flower that
lives only
in your dreams

sometimes in love
nothing fits.

to the poetess who
once loved me during my hard times

now that
i am a free bird
on the wings
of my spontaneous verses
do not
write me a love poem
hell,
i can write it myself
for myself
and no other

heavens!
leave me, love yourself
for you
have no other.

to all those who
in one moment or another
have suffered much
for love
unrequited

do not be sad
try once more if you will
savor the
flavor of love as though it were the
last baked bread
in the house of sweet affections

i know what you will
say
"it is easier said than done"
but
on the 14th day of this
month
i will not argue
with all of you

i am reserving my
same and usual
statement of the world

happy valentines

keep loving till all the
unrequited lovers of this
world
drop dead
on the loveless
road

Rapunzel was mildly written
with all moral restraint
and the fear of distaste
or
condemnation

it would have been better
to speak the
truth
about the saving
power of
her pubic hair.

when you are fire
i am water
when you are the moon
i am those plains
when you are the wind
i am the leaf
carry me wherever you go
i can be a bird
flying against your direction
but in love
i choose not
to be swift and
all alone.

the world is a metaphor
of the self,
it has a Sahara
it has an oasis somewhere
a row of date palms
a camel and
a Bedouin and the wind
and the moon
a tent for a
dwelling,

my heart too has a
Sahara
i hide a date palm in my
hands
a camel in my mind
the moon in my eyes
you are always my tent
and i am
your Bedouin
forever

at night the socks
sleep with the feet
and the feet sleep
pretty well with it

in the morning the
socks keep staying
there, there is no
moving out nowhere

she sees this situation
and says "it sucks!"
quivering on such a
an unhygienic thing

on unwashed feet the
socks smell, but who
cares? their love is
strong, their bonding
pure, sticking it out
together forever ....

Thrown
into. Away and
now immersed with
all of you.
Pebble on the sand
some waves come
as occurrences.
Another
pebble of insignificance
is here.
Nothing is like
it and it likes
no one
upon its shiny
and glittering
arrogance.
Fathered by
stone
it cannot escape
the ordinariness of
all.

The rest of us
are silently
laughing.

Out of resigned
acceptances,

call it humility,
when it is
finally alone and
lonely,

we assure
it
that we are
pebbles too.

i'm here breathing,
writing, chatting, reading a case,
pausing for a while, looking at the yellow green blinds

profuse light from the window, murmuring air conditioner,
books piling, folders rising,
papers to sign,

switching to music, turning it off, listening to a tv opera
next to my cubicle,
someone is concentrating on a ball game,

sounds of a car arriving, a door opens, she is singing,
someone is taking a chair pulling it like a pail,
another laughing woman,

i imagine if the trees are greener with leaves now
after the storm
or if the pathway towards Tabon is still muddy
what must have happened to father's white horse taken
cared of by ronnie?

i promise myself, i will visit the mountain soon
sleep on the nipa hut there and watch the fog the following
morning
thick on the top of the forest trees

how cold was it? i want to remember.

to live
take the moment
just the moment

today, now,
this day, this minute,
this one
this time

do not look for
the future
for it is not there yet
forget the past
for it is gone

i am learning this

this time
this self, this hand,
this mind,
this, and this and
this ,
just this.

now i know
how to live.

we're just two of a kind
fluttering

we have no wings
we have no place to land

we like to think
that we know where we
are going

that soon we will be
happy together.

the word permanent
is dangerous
it can kill you if you
believe that it has a
right to exist

take the word eternity,
it will make you believe
about what is not there
yet and no matter how
the dictionary denies it
it will always be there
in one of those pages
touched by dirtied hands.

attracted by the flame
the moth
flew in there and
got burned

given another life
it will
go there to be
burned again

was it for the love of
the flame

definitely not the love
of life

could be the love of
death

or could be that it is
so stupid
not having learned
the danger of fire

that unforgiving flame
that eats even something
nonsensical

too conscious of my roots
now
how can i be shaken by any
departures?

if i choose mobility to forget
i will borrow the journey of a leaf
float in the air and then land on one of the rivers
where i can drift
and then find my way to the ocean

all, as one sage says, always go
to the sea
and find their resting places
in the
ocean

the leaf in me will find you there
but if it cannot find you

i have other leaves on the tree where
i keep all my roots
and i can still be alive and be
significant

i have prepared for all these
done so much thinking like a whale
that knows
one continent from the other
and if i wail
you have no way of knowing it
for sure...

today's reflections

start the day
with a choice

choose what
is right, avoid
wrong,

the Lord is
happy
and everything
unto you
shall be given

to see you
skimpy under the rain
beside the
banyan tree by the
poolside

teasing me again
with that body
those eyes
long hair and
soft hands

been dreaming
to an hour of Spanish guitars
strumming
inside my mind

she is a beautiful woman
reserved
and not so kind during the
day

at night alone with me

i like her
bad habits of caressing
my hair

and pulling my lips
towards hers

wild and carefree
as though i have not known
her since

now take comfort with me
in this empty hall where we are the only
ones left

when the sound of silence creeps in every
tile of the floor

when i can hear the anxious beatings of
your heart

i entertain no fear in this chosen field of
loneliness

i am extending my hand to your hand and
i hum an old music in my mind, and i say,

" will you dance with me? please..."

time for me to go now
outside this
room of dim lights where
i catch words like fireflies
not putting them in jar
so they may die but letting
them go
where they can be free and
then die
in their wildness

the world is not just poetry
it is work too, it is also rain and
road, and law and conversations,

taking coffee at the cafe
sipping time slowly
savoring every second of your
existence
every pleasure of living life
as though it has
no end,

i assure you however that when
i drive my car
and take the road to meaning
i have nothing about
oblivion
or reaching in that chasm
of nihilism

this mustard seed is growing
summon all the birds you love
it is readying itself for the roosting.

i had a walk today
and saw fog hanging on the
faraway
mountain tops

a quiet cold morning
a peregrination of emptiness
i do not ask for any
fullness

after some joys
that night offers without
conditions

here i am
accepting what comes
gathering blue berries
in the basket of my
hands

picking imaginary flowers
for mankind's
real gardens

fog, this quiet, cold morning,
night arms,
blue berries, hands opening
for more

what more
what is it that does not
really please us?

i do not ask for fullness
it is here.

when you do a portrait of myself
do you use a white paint in a background
of white?

how can you see the real me
in this white color of monotony?

white upon white, how can you see
the blackness of my eyes?

there is something bloody in me too
paint my heart.

to the strums of a guitar
she stands on the sands
under the shades of the
coconut trees and then
she dances looking at me
and i
who has ignored her
has not fought much with
that feeling
that from then on
one must forget and then
wake up to someone
dancing alone
wanting to have another
dance with you

to the strums of the guitar
some hearts heal
some loves are reborn
without much talk
both can take their walk
after...

this is the window
of my room

first is the screen
then the jalousie of glass
and then
the iron grills

a sparrow lost
perhaps
lands on one of
the grills and
stays there for
a while

i see it but it
does not see me
that is how the
window
deceives it

on this arrangement
it is real

there is no fear &
this compulsion to
please me
does not exist
at all

things combine
as we too
fuse to make another
world
for both of us

as sound comes
in the still forest
birds become alive
and flowers on
barks begin to
bloom
for both of us

my words too become
too alive
with the music inside
my mind
as my body begins
to know the soul within
i become whole
you and I,
for both of us

no one escapes
from the hands of love
beautiful soft fingers
caressing your hair
your body
your pelvis
your legs and toes

no one escapes from the
whispers of love
telling you about a tryst
a garden
a grassy field
the softest of green
the freshness of air
under the moon
your hand
above her hands
your fingers entwine
to her fingers
in perfect
fit.

reality is an elephant
what you touched was only the trunk

be not blinded by the hand
or the eyes

or take it from Plato
the kitchen is only a deception

it is just a play of the shadows
of the cups and saucers

the forks and spoons and
napkins are all illusions

you always think
that if people know you
then they
will soon not love
you

it could be a fact
from your own point of view

but take it from
my way of looking at the mountain

i do not love myself that much
for i am but a child
playing with my own
feet
stamping on the sands
and feeling each
grain
like the last day of my
life

the mountain is always
at home with its forest
and the path i take
always leads me there
not for the losing
but for the communing

the mountain loves me
and the rest have become mere
beliefs that i toggle
with my fingers
and when they fall off
i can only give
a little sigh and then
let go
without a tear
to signify
a cry....

The Gadfly

the donkey's
tail was badly bitten
by the gadly

the godamn
gadly
made the tail swell
got infected
and the donkey
died

the donkey
has a spirit and it rises
high above
its dead body
above the grass
and the table
where its body
is laid

and when it
sees
everything now
clearly
and accurately
why the gadfly
bites &
why he died
not by fate alone
but for a reason

it knows this:
the gadfly suffers
a lot
from being disliked
by everyone

it killed the donkey
far from making it move
and do
a lot of work better
and faster
far from its motive
of efficiency
it died instantly
causing much sorrow
to its master
its user and abuser

but the donkey
still recommends
more gadflies in
society

and adopts Darwin's
legacy
let the most fit survive
let the weak become
the humus of
the earth
for the seeds of the trees
for the moss
for all those roots
for all future fertility.

do not let the music stop
it will not. It is not the guitar
neither the lyre,
it can't stop, it is this soul
always singing.

SHORT POEM FOR MS. O

you bloom
even without
the gardener

you are on
your own now

answerable to
no one
except the sun

you meet
serendipity between the
lines

of a conversation
it hides there

it speaks no word
among the black and white

your heart sees it
as no other

i wonder
what made you stop
dancing
with the words

did the music stop?
did all the other
dancers leave
the hall?
did the hall close
earlier than
we expected?
was there a
blackout?

the world somehow
does not stop
revolving
around the sun of
beauty
when one
chooses the slumber
of nothingness

it may tell you
that one quitter does not
destroy the beauty of
the quiet that still
reigns in the pond where
the frog keeps
splashing
with its hind legs
and then croak happily
after each
jump

on top of the lily
rising with a flower
from the mud
of its past

somehow
the heart of the earth
feels
the waste of a fallen
leaf
and there is no exact
connection for this
that one
can point

but soon you will
discover
that in one corner of this
universe
a star dies
another black hole is born
and so many
floating creations
too shall be lost with it

sucked
into that darkness that we
know still exists
but we are
still uncertain as

where and
why.

the Mary Poppins
experience was not that easy

you had it
you fly and the wind was too strong
and you were not found
until

a naughty boy saw you
and caught you with his
extra rope

this time you are taking extra caution
studying the power of roots

every night you dream of roots
and early in the morning you grow roots
in your hair
and on your feet the toes
transform into roots

deeply you penetrate the grounds
of your being
you hate the floating
you like what is cold and damp
the silence in the dark
the peace and
quiet

six feet under.

sifting thoughts
like flour
takes time

putting the yeast
making the dough rise
takes time

the smell of bread
spreading
the smell of wheat
in the fields
takes time

savoring the
slice of bread
beside coffee
aroma rising to
the nose
then to the brain
thoughts of love
and memories of
past loves
and loving more
and more than
we can give
we wish that there
is more time

takes more time
than we ever
wanted

till it lasts

tonight
i join them
praying for the dead
singing songs
and chanting
the long litanies

more than an hour
and i am carried with
the song
the sweet lamentations
the power of each word
in those prepared
prayers

i wake up to the
same reality however

the dead is dead
and we are wishing him
peace

as he begins
to enter the
Great Divide.

A NOTE FOR BERNSTEIN

a cat is not a god,
not a dog,
not a leaf,
not a sky,
not the sun,
not the river,
not a man,

a cat is not.
that is what a cat is.

THE CORRECT TIMING

Is it the right time &
the right person?

is it the correctness
of what is wrong?

is it our correct choice
in a given situation?

is it the shortness of time
that we make
haste of?

easier said than
done

however, it does not matter
to me now

my clock has already
started ticking and i am in
the middle of the journey
and i am not coming
back to
correct what tracks i
have made.

the past
is a place i leave behind

it was nice
i said remembering the
fresh waters
of the island's lagoon

when we meet
you remind me of those
colors and
scents
those sounds of laughter
hanging on the
trees

i always remember them
too
the past that i
leave
behind with you

sometimes
you have a cup of coffee in your hold

irresistible aroma
hot, brownish, fuming
concoction

but actually it is not
about coffee

it is something else
but still it is hot and irresistible

abstracted from the hand
and the concoction
and the cup.

the body has
become a distraction

so we close our eyes
to fathom what we are

two tributaries leaving
and meeting

one finger above the
other

like lips meeting for
a risk of a kiss