ever since
this dog had always been my friend
we played on those fields
we had so many joys of our
past

do not say that i am choosy
but i can't eat his meat
nor any of his friend's meat

how can i eat a friend and say
that i am
a friend?

do not say that by eating his meat
or all of him
then he becomes a part of me
and i of him

i vomit for all these
a dog eats a dog.

it was meant to be read aloud
as it will be as beautiful as it sounds
it was meant to be power
the beauty that is found in thunder
but i purposely desist you
as i detest what you want me to become
and so i read it silently as though i have
denied myself that power that lies in
my teeth and tongue
i prefer it this way, slow, dragging,
soundless, for i have taken the cudgel
of the deaf and mute and it will be for
years, and years, and you will be mad,
as you want to know me only in words,
in the loudness of my being,
i have chosen what shall destroy you
this silence, the way we watch how
funerals initiate themselves till the
end when everyone has thrown the last
stone, and then the covering begins,
just like the way how it should end.

grief
the rain starts falling
softly

on your hair as we step
outside
how can my hands
prevent you from getting wet?
just life grief
is this rain, that starts to fall and stops a while
and falls again and much to chagrin
we have never really learned
this cycle of pain,
this grief that behaves like rain
wets us and makes us cold
but we keep on going trying to find
once again
home.

there is way to hold your hand
after, we
make love, when i pull my body away from yours
i lose

grip of your hand after trying to keep it tightly into mine
there is no
we
or us,
there is nothing permanent in union,
to lose you is to
find myself,
alone in this struggle for
who i am
and what shall i be, after
discarding what notions are there
about nudity,
about me getting into you and yet
there is no
self in there just a plateau and then
a cliff where
i fall again.

a few of you may have written the most nonsensical
view,
and i pretend i am liking it,
who wants to hurt? nobody. And then i stopped thinking about
the nonsensical,
i begin to live life the way you see it,
nonsensically,
and then after a while, as i grasp more about the madness
of the nonsensical
matter, that is the only time that i, myself,
have made
sense.

the nonsensical makes sense.

trees, lakes, sea,
boats and paddles, and smoke and shiploads of
hands,
and feet on mud, and cows grazing on the pastureland
and dragonflies still on the blades of grass,

when you are here and wandering, you become
detached from words,
when they become real, when you touch them
bathe with them, live with them,
when you do not think about how to put them together
within the four corners of your paper.
you caress your hair.
it is not a word anymore. it is soft hair, soft hands.

how do you view life? a contest?
what do you think of poetry? a ranking? a who you wanna be
among them who write like you?
invite me in your circle,
i am out.
i write because i want to breathe
to be air, to be light like some floating feather.
tempt me with an honor. i will refuse it.

life is living. it is not who live longest.
it is here. I am sipping it.

i am just wondering
why you have not visited us for years.
it is not the rain, it stopped.
or was it so much sunshine?
does light hurt somehow
let me know
how softness can be that
unbearable at times.
how is you wife? did you tie her again
by that post inside your room?
we heard her scream inside our dreams
we tried to hold her but she is like smoke
from your kitchen with a lot of our
concoctions.
how are you? is anger that overwhelming?
do not close your door
since you did not come we are coming then
to tell you that we care.

he had an insane wife, o how can i be so literal about it?
how i ever forget how it both humbled him
or humiliated perhaps for he met all these in utter silence.
we pretend we are not affected.
life moves on like a boat with a hole that sinks silently
into the ocean. We do not scream for its fate.
she had a depressed mother. She drowns herself inside a
tequila. Sunrise and sunset do not bother her.
She does not ask what time is it. There is no market day
nothing about a picnic on the beach upon a sunny day.
how can we forget all these? we have our own secrets too.
we are not telling anyone. For like them, no one helps anyway.
and words are just words. Hands are fists. And eyes are nothing
but mirrors on the walls. Glinting, and reflecting.
Nothing more.

reading your short note
makes me feel, modesty aside, that i
am greater
that what you have written so far,
and i am telling myself, that i must move on
to write more
for myself as you have always written about other
people
never about yourself,
a shell, empty
always with a song for the sands
but never heard by the waves that keep
coming and coming
and as usual upon a noise without end.

the ripples of kindness
always come back to us faithfully,
always, and always,
and so how can we ever be
unkind?

enough of coffee
i've had it, or beer
i've had it, or milk or
soda
i've had all of them
all the days of my
life
enough of all the
sweetness
and the bitterness
i've had it
already, but not of you
please
not of you, for i am
always hungry and thirsty
of you,
there is never enough
of you that i can
taste
or ever understand.

she speaks
wise though i think
that to survive all these
(whatever those
be) is to ignore what

little disturbances there is
in a stone
or in the air what could have
been its message
when you enter a room
think of nothing but
sleep

at noon
the sun scorches
all ambitions, and
with so much fire
in all hearts
our bodies burn

she dances in fire
as she eats fire
and as fire eats her
she never stops
that dance of life
and then the fire
rests in cold stones
in short breaths
of surrender and
she lays herself upon
a bed of contentment
everything does whatever
is to be done
without having to do anything
at all
life smiles and keeps its
own thoughts
it has brought you here
and you did much of the
thinking
that made it hard and harsh
which should not have been
the case
for life is life and it is
never yours
only lent but which you
think you own

if you speak
you create an imbalance
about what we see &
hear & touch
convince yourself that
for a while
not to speak is
great respect
for what should not
be spoken

from the beginning
when my roots fused to your roots
i have always detached
my thorns
from your thorns
my tendrils are cautious
not to harm myself
neither yours.

i am different and will always be
one
apart from you
when you kiss me as i close my eyes
i always think
of myself

soon all these illusions will be gone with
the sunshine
and i won't regret it when the rains will start
to pour heavily
as i am always ready

i keep a boat ready on the river
when this time comes
i can always paddle
to the other side
where i keep my roots my seeds
where i am a tree
of old

always myself, yes, you cannot make me
forget
who i am

you  knelt before that
god
it is your hands that
travel
from the peak of
the mountain
to the foot of the
hill
both sun and moon
hairs as stars
you close your eyes
and worship this
god

i regroup all my senses
and call all the roses for reasons
sham god
and you're a fool
hormone engineered.

the old lion merely
sits there
calmly like a drifting cloud
the slim deer without horns
walks gracefully

on the grass taunting
that from now
no lion catches her
even from a short
distance

you ask me why?
oh, it is just a flipping mind
an acrobat

a bat hanging on the side of a cave
trying to see
how beautiful is this world
upside-down
it is just a tiny world
living outside the grip of sun
mellowed darkness
tapered with a chosen slice of
silence

given the choice
i have always chosen what makes me happy
though you do not notice it well
from your inscribed rules on those
rigid walls

i can be happy in the silence of my
walls
i always know what to do
pleasing you and pleasing myself
in my own smart ways
oh, this world of compromises
rules that you think can never be bent
i always bend them
behind your back
you give me no choice
it is me, giving myself all the choices,
i have a world
apart from yours
my heart knows too well
what does not hurt you is that which you
will never know
and so? well, it is simple
i close my door, read my books, write my poems,
and there are not titles, no names, no places
and the world smiles at me
it very well sifts and simmers
it understands.

to filter the light from the morning sun
i keep the venetian blinds steady
no hand shall completely open it
there is beauty in halftones: half open half close

morality is more like it: one door is partially closed
another window is partially open which
amounts to the same thing: a compromise
sometimes you do not speak completely the word
to give the listener an opportunity to discern you
to make it think that it could be either that he did not
completely hear it or that he is minding another sound
oh, you do not have to understand to really feel
what should be hidden and what should be kept out
there is a way to respect sound
apart from noise, to hear the song and not remember
to set it out apart from you and then to forget.

sunday
the usual sound of the air conditioner at
quarter of seven
the tv showing the mass, the preacher's monotone,
the coffee is getting cold
and the stillness of the spoon and fork
on the table
with one lonely fly buzzing her way
unable to choose
where to land specifically
perhaps feeling the usual hate that the people of this
house are giving her.

the words are here
and i am not unkind.

a choice is not always divisive.
it is not all exclusive, like if you choose her then
only her
that if you walk north, there is no way that you can
also take south
of this border.

i reflect this world of either/or but not both.
in every rule there is always an exception.
the more you know this, the more you know how to live life to the fullest.
i am watching CNN news, while i eat breakfast,
i have taken both the sausage and the scrambled egg omelet on my plate
some Lima beans and black pepper
and herbs,
i leave the knife, and i have chosen both to hold
spoon and fork.
this is the old red velvet chair that i have always taken
my own place
above me the mellow yellowish bulb shines
at seven in the morning
i listen to the preacher and shift my gaze to the kitchen sink.
work has piled up. Things will never change.
i want to finish this meal, and i will choose the beach
rather than my books.
or, i will compromise,
i will take two books, read them on the beach, and then
swim with all those words deep in the ocean
and then listen to no one....

i like it
when i have nothing to say
i feel like i am a still water
that makes no sound because
there is no ripple and

ripples are nothing but
disturbances of my being
i like it when my moon passes me by
i am not noticed
in my stillness the moon does not know
that in my own peace i still exist.

the irony however is this
the moment i utter your name
my silence leaves me
i love it this way
that you only exist in my mind

( i do not dream of taking you inside my heart
as i still respect its emptiness
which i have reserved for God)
i like it this way: you are a distant star and i am a traveler
on the desert
at night
and as there are so many stars in my sky
the sands too
shall never know who you really are)

three books lie on the headboard
the first is The Darkness After the Hour
the second is The Dreamweaver
and the last one talks about the Time of Olives

my eyes are tired, my heart is broken
my soul does not know the difference between
this brokenness and exhaustion
some things slip inside me
as i close my eyes, perhaps you know by now
what i have chosen.

our fellows are selfish ones
they only keep their words for themselves
read them aloud
in front of mirrors and then they close their books
and sleep
without telling you if you can have them
and feel
the softness of their syllables

they want the moon at night to be only by their windows
and they travel alone taking nothing of our faces and scents
our fellows are the most selfish ones
and they are not interested about our names
they only have theirs
carved in those walls of skies
i am glad i am not like any of them
i do not read and i do not close my books
i leave the pages open by the window
and i tell the moon to just pass me by
the rain is happy for me
i have allied myself with the damp and cold
and so my hands speak
for myself: the lines map for me.