academic screaming.

she is sleepy
since she says she slept last night
at 2 a.m. already


what was it that
she was thinking?

i won't surmise.

i also slept at
12 midnight

i am not thinking
of any Cinderella

i wrote many poems
last night
now i cannot remember
what was each all about

i am pretty sure they are
all about boredom and
emptiness since the void
has become my own
goddess thinking that
perhaps it is more
beautiful than being filled
up with no space left
for me to move about

in this i can say that
emptiness has its own
indescribable weight

its own length that
can measure the depths
of the foxhole of my
soul

i am thinking a lot
unloading uploading
with only one thing in
mind that something
that is still hurting and
giving me fears shall
disappear

that perhaps hope
still lurks somewhere
in one of those hidden corners
of this empty heart

a fly hovers on my hand
i must have been smelling
like a spoiled fish because

i have not taken a bath
already for days and
breakfast has been so
irregularly eaten

i like it now, i am getting
thinner, and deeper now with
this dipper of hardly obtained
wisps of  wisdom.

i am talking to myself.
and i like this clarity now
amidst the noise of my
academic screaming.

I am healed.

i have a friend in virginia who is talking to his chihuahua
named Silver,





do not ask me,of course, he is lonely, and Tolstoy has described it once
when the only boy of the horse driver died in an accident one winter time
and he had a hard time accepting the loss, and lamented such fact that
he wanted to talk to anybody but then no one is there to listen, the snow
fell heavily, and the whole world is one thick covered sediment where
indifference was so thick that no empathy was possible to penetrate it.

this friend has white hair, wears thick glasses, and i haven't seen him reading
a book, but he has his wine, and TV, and some friends to see on some special
weekends,

he walks with his dog, and has a one way conversation with him because the
dog is not talking back


this i can say, i can relate, as i too, talk to the car when i drive long distance
just to divert my attention from what is found in the house, empty chairs,
milk boxes, medicine capsules, celery and lettuce and tomato salad on the
dining table inside a white porcelain plate, the scent of black pepper and
olive oil, turmeric and ginger juice for my morning ritual,

my wife has five dogs, which make us a big crowd in the house, but for one thing
i never bother talking to any one of them which has become a lot of noise for me

i love white cats but all these dogs drive them away. I like to go to the mountain
where Papa planted some trees surrounding an old cottage. No one stays there
because of the bandits who killed our caretaker . They  cut his penis and hanged
it on one of the beams of the old house. He was beheaded. There was hatred for
a very uncertain reason. The man was very old, he had ten grandchildren. They all
left the land.

i talk to my table when i am left alone in my office. I talk to the trees when i take
a walk on early mornings where i can fill my lungs with fresh air.

Talking to something inanimate is not uncommon. I remember this old man too in
Fiddler on the Roof.

i guess my friend who is childless like me who works as caregiver in the U.S. of A
is just coping up. Boredom is dangerous. Perhaps if he does not talk to his dog, or me
talking to a chair, the possibility that the Demons of our Minds will begin talking to us,
is not remote.

But there is one thing that i like to share. I was in the hospital for five days, isolated,
and drugged to sleep by my doctor, and then i still remember, i held the rosary, and
i begin talking to God, not the chair, not the table, not the bulb.

Whatever that is, call it a miracle.  I am healed.

in the poverty of their souls

there is noise in the silence of the room
it goes louder when the lights are turned off
i am trying to listen to it
what it is going to say but it is too crowded
like the biggest mall in the city filled with so many
people talking within themselves as they walk around
window shopping and just like anybody sufferer
in the poverty of their souls is buying nothing

i still listen attentively and hence not getting any sleep
till dawn breaks into a dimly lighted morning as outside
the world is still colored gray, shadows of trees etched
on the horizon, clouds are heavy and then as nature
so edicts, the rains begin to fall

and then i listen to the rain, its sonorous cadence
its monotonous tapping and dripping from the sky
down to the roof following the given rules of the gutter.

the noise subsides, the rain stops gently, the pond of water
slowly mirrors a gaping light, showing that hidden blue sky,
white cotton clouds like small ships coming in to the ports of
my newly found silence. Now, the noise resolves and so
i can soundly sleep alone in my room with a window open..

black spider i keep my silence.

i know how it feels like to be in a narrow alley
there is no rope but the feeling of being choked is always there
in such a way that you cannot utter the necessary words calling for help

you fear the coming of the night because there are no more people talking
and silence seems to be another cruel stranger without a face and fingers

the weirdness of these all
underlies a throbbing of the heart drums without music but all palpitations of an abnormality which you know exists but which you cannot drive away like unwanted birds pecking on your hair as though they are grains
as you see yourself getting bald and bloody

there is no screaming now, people won't hear anyway or if they hear they will think that you are being haunted by
invisible demons, which you yourself cannot figure out which is the head and which is the tail
and you move your arms in circles trying to locate which is the point of an ending

that happily ever after that you like to write which cannot be written because now you cannot pinpoint
the cause from the effect and the effect from the cause like a wedding ring which has become too tight in your finger

you like to throw it away but it is not that simple. People are complicated. Events are either lawful or unlawful and you are given the choice whether to go to prison or die.

the deep blue sea and the devil. you or I, either and neither, puzzling bitch surrounded by dogs like a lake surrounded by small shores, like a mouth mumbling for syllables which still remain irresponsible  and
hence incomprehensible

but i know each like the fingers in my hand, and to avoid death of the black spider i keep my silence.

the escape door

i want an escape and so i run away
towards a door which has writing hands
overlooking a pathway of oceans where
imagination looks like it, vast expanse of
a dark blue
field
filled  with monsters.

the oxymorons in action

you are supposed to act
naturally, in the most random order,
and bring out the original copy
of that painting which was found
missing, true myth, sweet agony,
growing smaller as pretty cruel's
only choice

what a conspicuous absence
alone together with the crowd
beautifully painful running slowly
as though you are a walking dead
appearing invisible in that tiny
elephant suit as an unpopular
celebrity waiting in a short while
in our criminal justice system

old news, that deafening silence
with a certain definite possibility
which has terribly pleased the
student teacher of the small crowd
breathlessly loose tights,
and hence so clearly
misunderstood.

THE POETIC CORNER

This is the place where money
has no value,

where work is always free because it is
loved,

because love is always one with its beloved
expecting nothing in return

loving without measure

always priceless
more than a gem
beyond gold
transcending the fences
of our being

despite the tiredness of our hands,
despite the drying of the
rivers of the
mind

imagination always flies

like birds
outside the matrix
of
the boundaries of
migration

a diaspora of metaphors
clinging to nothing but its
faith to
the ecstasy of
the most common words
the diaphragm of
syllables
the bugle of sentences

press the keys
you can write some more

face the screen
and
bleed.

IN POETRY

the soul weeps
stripped of its wings
it falls upon an
abyss

it is dark there
and it is struggling
to get out
from its prison

the soul howls
like a dog in the
night
as though
it lost its
master

thus it is in
poetry

the soul calls for
God
who is not
there anymore.

FOR YOU WHO CLAIM TO BE THE OWNER OF MYSELF

it is shallow
i know, it is only skin deep

to be godly
i could have immersed myself
in that deep river
of blood where i could be
shaken
totally and panic calling for
help

but i like it here
sitting on the shallow part of this river
thinking only
about how drowning could be such a
horrible experience

since
(anyhow) the inevitable always comes
anyway
and for the meantime let me have my own time
relaxing myself

before you finally come
on time as
always.

A POEM ABOUT DEATH

is still early

the sun is still crazy

over aridity

one gets bored with a hat

and uneasy now with the usual shade of an old tree

what choice is there?

that desert has killed so many travelers

and no one came back to tell the exact story

how it happened

the usual thing is curiosity

and restlessness

and then finally because of too much loneliness

one finally ignores the sun

and embarks on the unanswered questions that lie in that desert

where death tells its own story

and then you will like it

and so like the rest

you too, do not come back

and when finally the sun sets

and darkness comes

there is peace in those lights that spring

from the windows of houses

and then after a moment

too, die, in the serenity of the silence

of the night.

 

DUMB & DULL

going back to
old places is depressing

your childhood friend
is dead
and the river where you
bathed
has become another
foul smelling canal

you walk some more
and no one remembers you
anymore

the woman who cooked for
the family
died as a spinster

the church is still alive
but the bell has been changed

the one you can hear now
is pretty
dumb and dull
sounding like you
who insists that
there is something
there still worth
coming back

Billy (Collins) & Alfredo (Navarro Salanga)

sitting here
i am reading Billy's
silence

superb, i say
that silence of the belt before it hit the boy in me,

too much drama i suppose
i do not need it for now
i like to live and so i
objectify
and ask the help of
the saving arms of
reason

with it i remember Alfredo today
he died when i first studied
metaphors in college

in the dark where he first read his poetry to us
he talked about the rain
there is no rain but i felt the chilling rain
inside my brain

rain is cool but that time
it wasn't
it felt like i could vomit
on the tiled floors of the hall
i did not finish
hearing him
i was shivering
in the cold that i only could imagine

he died young and he was so fat that he was having
a hard time carrying his body to the lecture hall
my professor

i wonder why he gained weight
despite the knowledge that it could kill him
he was not dumb

now i finished Billy
and i think Alfredo padded weight after weight
like layers and layers of club sandwich
for the simple reason
that after all he had no more valid reason to live
and the only option is
death.

BEGGING FOR AFFECTION

people will hate me if i go from one door to another begging for affection

they will ask, " does he have a mother?"

i did have a mother. "Where is his father?"

same answer. " Does he have a wife?"

that is the hard question now, because the answer is "yes"

but it will be a long story, and many will be asking more questions from me

when what i need is only a little rest and a variation of my life

by looking at the door of their houses and then after a few minutes i move away

like a cat and never like a rat that takes away

some of their trash.

and so i learned my lesson now

i dislike other people houses' doors

keep my own soft feet and just take my leisure at the park

where people like my sensitivity

simply move away and never stay.

every moment every color

i can be another person
through you
with your eyes as
mine
i can forget what
i have seen
from mine

will i be happier with what
i see?

i can always be a prism or
you can be mine

i look at you and pass through you
and then
the colors come and i shall love
it

every moment every color

but for how long? i am called by
by the voice of the wind
to be myself again

my eyes are tired but they are mine
this is home of age,
the house of debacle,
which i cannot piece out anymore
which is the door
and which is the floor

from where i come i shall return
for surely death is still the sweetest home

mourn for me
exude all the colors
my prism..

the truth always comes out

sometimes, two people live in the same house
and they behave like posts
always stoical in their maintained distances
just to make the house stand just to make
others who are there
live.

what the passersby hear are the sounds of
children chasing themselves in a game of chances
sometimes there is strumming of a guitar
but it is dark there and you cannot see someone singing

what you will hear are merely speculations of the song
the shadows on the walls also peep at you by the window
and they know that you are confused too
wanting to find out what is really going on in there

"there is a happy couple there making love perhaps"
that is what you suspect and since the house is always
closed and you hear the singing of some voices
in the dark, you often make the conclusion that
"they must be happy, they must be happy"
and happy people have a world of their own
always to the exclusion of other

you feel you are an exclusion, but don't you worry
the truth always comes out, and whatever that is, i am
telling you
"it is beautiful" always beautiful like what you can
always be

if you just believe it.

like a jar in a vacuum.

the words link us
and shadows begin to take the gestures of hands
opening into some tributaries of fingers
wanting to clasp the essence of water

the river is murky at first but the swimmers do not mind
it is summer and the sun is trying to kill us and so we like
to drift on the salt of our lost thoughts

but words as you know are always empty like jackets
hanging on the railings of the stairs
soon they fall and we want for more

"we shall meet sometime" we are meeting at this converging
wish, "there is an island and i have a house there where the flowers are dying"
you say sadly about how you miss a home

" i will travel for seven nights and days, just to see those dying flowers"
i responded
and " i will bring water" my heart is whispering

if this is true then this can be the beginning of a changed world for me
" i will wait", your voice is weak

for nights i've been thinking
i am hurt and the world is prepared for more dosage of pain
i know, when i will be there in that island

the flowers must have already died
and the cottage will be mute like a jar in a vacuum.

a door closed

that door closed
upon me and i am left out
with no one

i bleed but soon
this will stop
for i shall not die
or if i die
i must carry that
meaning
with me

i left the place
carrying nothing &
i am going somewhere

where i can be another
interesting
virgin again