how did poetry change our
taste?

well something bitter has become
sweet.

we have converted hell into
heaven.

an abandoned thought into a crowded
street.

the face of noise has been transfigured into
a face of a church made of silent bricks
and indifferent lime.

our sorrows? oh yes, they have become ours.
we assume that we also know how to make their sorrows as our sorrows.
Life likes it. You are good. Thumbs up.

our house of stone
has become a page in poetry

our daily routine of boredom
has become one kingdom of excitements
as to what word to put next
on the coming line
of our morning literary rituals

chants, more chants, om, om, om,

oh my god. They're coming. I am coming.
And here i come.

What? What are you talking about?
Oh yes, I am talking to myself.

That is the beginning of my journey to poetry.
Talking to myself and not trying to understand any sound.

Illogical even. But when i write them,
well, there is some form, sound, scent,

and then i honestly declare. This is what
i really like doing.

No signboard. Just plain going.

For Sara Kaye

it is good to see you begin to write,
assure me that it is not your suffering but those of other people
that it is not your hell but theirs,
and too i assure you that i am living in paradise
that i am still trying to know what is hell all about
that my suffering need not be my own but those who are merely called as
subjects of our literary styles,

why are you afraid to tell our story? why is there fear in confessional poetry?

was the flower afraid to show its petals to the sun and then
hesitant to show how it dies in the afternoon
when it sheds off all its personal treasures in the counted
petals of its existence?

show me that you can write a poem.
just one. And do not fear, i will assume that it is not about you.

charge it to empathy. Let us begin with the euphemism of internalization.
Putting our feet on the shoes of those who do not know how to walk.

Or let us say, we are just writing for writing's sake.
Pure imagination. Astral travel. Talking in our sleep.

Hmm, let us see. How your poetry speaks? How your short stories can tell
the most beautiful lie possible on this planet of the apes.

looking back at sagada mountain

the mountain
looks so cold with
its hood of fog

the flowers are curious
the houses mum

we take the early walk
shivering on such a beauty

you are beautiful.

white butterfly fluttering
and hovering one moment
to another moment,
to the flower of time,
sipping a little nectar
to wet its proboscis,
tasting sweetness and
then dying in another
minute,

in another parallel universe,
she goes from one mall to
another, windows shopping,
men, lots of men, tasting
each fluid muscle and
solid arms, and then dying
in another minute,

you are beautiful.

Her coffin is pink.
Her hair is fake.
Her face is reassembled.
Her body now filled with
noxious preservatives,
her mother attends
to guests who, a day
before despised her.

early morning a fish vendor
shouts his fresh fish on the streets.

very cheap he advertises.
Very fresh. Buy it, and you will
not regret.

i sometimes imagine if like him
i shout about some poems. For sale.
Very cheap. You will like it. And you
well never regret the boring days
of your life.

Sometimes, poets are pitiful in this
sense.
To an extent of going into advertising.
Love me. Love my poems.
Buy me. Buy my words.

Sad state. Twisted. I don't do it.
And to a certain extent all races for words
arrive at shameful victories.

That thirst for honor. That wild quest for
fame. Bukowski died. We all die, to quote him.
We share nothing. And nothing eats all of us.

So what for? It is just defecating and sweating it
out. Just to live.

in 1978 i remember Susan
she is shy, reserved and what
makes her mad is when you
crack green jokes and
talk about sex in the car
and she is ready with her
hands to slap you if you go
on with your dirty mouth,

we fear her tantrums and
so we avoided her: immaculate
woman from basilan, i guess.

in the middle of the semester
she quit. She lost her scholarship,
and was advised to go back home.

it was not our green jokes, not
our dirty sex talks which made
her pregnant. I am sure about
that.

She is an ovum and our sex jokes
are not sperms. I am sure of that.

when the runners stop
i keep on running.

when they are fed up,
i still munch.

when they declare everything
as tiresome and telling me that
i am one kind of impossible
(lost and vengeful guy) i
still go on being
one raging and
surging self like
a storm

for i don't really care.
I move and keep on moving
for if i stay, and be still,
i know what happens: i will
fall &

tumble down like a test tube,
and if it is not my lucky day,
i break into pieces and all of you
shall
look at me with all dismay:

he is mad, he breaks when he
is doing nothing. He is silent
when everyone screams.
He leaves when everyone
has arrived. And on a very
cold day, he goes naked and then
write a poem for summer.

you will feel the loss,

the usual sands slipping from your fingers,
love's departure, much painful than love's death,
a dog run-over by a car, your dog,
not much about a bad debt, or a friend betraying you,
or someone you have not even met but
somehow you have felt from far,
silly matters make you feel it too,
opportunities not grabbed, doors you have not
even knocked, a would be lover whom you
have decided to forgo,
so many losses, yet one thing that you must
never lose,
yourself, because when you lose it,
you will never feel it again.

you feel the loss of a falling leaf,
say to yourself, it is usual and it is just a leaf anyway.
or that key which fell on the canal, that bird which you let go,
that food which you did not eat, that
new shirt which does not really feet because you now
have a big tummy, and so on and so forth,
yet one thing i must tell you, be responsible on these losses,
ignore, and forget, you must learn
this choices.

otherwise, you will lose yourself, and that will be the last
thing to lose and never find again

there is a point of our
closer encounters when you
finally decide to move
back

one step back to
saying No. We don't jibe.

you know me and i do
not know you

meeting each
other and then
out of fear,

part ways, hoping
to meet each other again,

some other year perhaps,
as sweet strangers again.

tell me how is it to live on tiptoes
afraid to make a mistake and be beaten by grandpa

tell me again about how you ran away from the house
and cried the whole night and slept on the cogon grass on that moonless night

tell me more about how afraid you are to go to hell because they are telling you
that everything that you are doing is sinful

tell me about your suppressed life how you have become related to a
bonsai

how many days have you skipped lunch and then dinner and then wake up in the morning and looking for a friend to give you breakfast

that time when you were dumped by a lover whom you cannot take anymore
you never knew what love is all about

it is all about survival, and escape and fantasy and monologues
for future revenge

for that coming back and be someone else,
tell me, and i will tell you, you are not alone.

a pig in the pigsty
fat and dirty is
beautiful.

a butterfly in the
garden, black one,
with only one wing
left, dead on the
grass, is also
beautiful. Though
sad. It is also
beautiful in itself.

a man beating his
wife, using his fists,
standing by the door
of the house,
cursing himself,
lacking still in
understanding
and contemplating
of ending his life,
is also a thrill,
and thrill is also
beautiful,

and the wife still
bleeding to death
on the floor, on
the side of a
wooden bed,
crying but not
asking for help,
missing her kids
taken by her mother-in-law
same thing,
wanting to end all
these miseries,
is also beautiful.

everything happens
no matter how we
detest, ...that, that
is also beautiful.

EXPECTATIONS

Sane enough
expect nothing,

a river cannot
divide itself, neither
can a waterfall
cease flowing,

expect nothing,
on the other hand,
nothing is
always a beautiful
mystery

the much talked
urchin in philosophy.

no one is sane
enough not to
know it. It is
in fact, us.

melancholy

there is food on the table
no one eats,
there is music in the room
no one is listening
the car is covered with dust
and the dog is barking mad

there is faith that has proven itself
in moving a mountain
transferring it to the center of the lake

there is your faith that has all the answers
to all the questions
which i cannot ever question
there is this faith that you want me to have
which can save my soul
without any sacrifice at all

so far,i have preferred doubt
so many doubts, and i tremble in my path
of thorns
bleed on my crosses of split bamboos

and you ask me why? i have no answers
my mouth is dry, my eyes are hazy,
my hands are open but they have chosen
not to touch anything
from you

i am trying to write a love poem

it is about my ring finger
manipulating my right nipple
and i am imagining
more than what i can
to save me from another
sleepless night

soon i will have just what i need
a satisfaction without having to molest someone else
not to despise

this love poem is a fake.
it is utilitarian, narcissistic, and too unkind.
i refuse to understand it

our negligence is mutual.
you are sleeping in bed, snoring, and embracing yourself
feeling cold and coping up with anything to warm you
your own hands folded on your sagging
breasts.

i am writing a love poem with my shoes still
not detached from my feet.
i am imagining someone else.
Erotic like my own ring finger
pressing my nipple.

i may sleep beside you,
and you may, in sleep embrace me, and savor the warmth
of my torso,

but i am no longer yours. I am someone else.
I am an erection to the pillow
No more, no less.

TOGETHERNESS

for once
just for once
we are
having no fears
a chain of hands
like daisies on
your hair
a link to another
link
like roads all
connecting
like rivers all
surrendering to
one
common sea
to one common
dead-end

no one weeps
no one laughs
no one is left out
and no one comes
out first.

empty heads,
lighter than a tissue,
empty hearts,
emptied of blood
and love,
empty hands,
removed of any
offering,
empty mouths
devoid of tongues
empty rooms,
emptied of people
who leave in order
to find life somewhere,
empty space
you doubt air,
all these gather in
one place
scrutinizing one
another
identifying one
with the other
misery upon misery
sorrow upon
sorrow
like dominoes
and when one falls
over the other
the rest shall follow
suit
and they call
it
a festival,
a feast,
the most
meaningful chaos
of their lives

together.

A HAPPY ISOLATION

in the dining room
which is not so well lighted
like a movie house
there she is
with a plate of sliced fried bananas
beside tomato catchup and
lots of cheddar cheese
joyfully nipping each
tidbits of a happy
isolation.

Just holding hands in el nido
Sunbathing and strolling
On cold evenings by the sea
Barbecue and rice and a few
Drinks

Sweet nothingness
In a brief togetherness

Just one room in Marina
One bed
Nothing penetrating
Just feeling the
Skin surfaces

To avoid the most painful
Thing
About the sure thing that
Happens next

Another annihilating
Titillating
Parting

And this happens
All the times in their
Lives

UPON A SERIOUS MATTER

there are perforations
upon a plastic sheet which you touch
with your finger and you like the manner
by which each shall burst
you like the sound and it pleases
your mind
this is a serious matter, this explosion
in some ways
also misunderstood as taboo,
as something that only the mouth of
your bathroom
can tell,
for instance what happens in bed
what was sucked then like
one vacuum cleaner though there is no sign
of dust or dirt but only some kind of a flirt
and skirt on the floor,
it is getting complicated far away from
that promised simplicity
that there should only be two things to
be done,
entering the door and then
swtiching off the lights.

to soar upon
an aria
to be a bird again
once again
from that very distant
past of
your evolution,
to have wings
and lots of winds and skies
and dive again
back into
the nostalgia
of nowhere.

a niece promised
to write me a poem,
two nights passed already,
and she tells me that she
is working on a short story
instead,
i like what is crisp and
yet concisely compressed
in a line or two,
i only like to have a
chair
under the sky
not a roof neither
a house.

A brief introduction

hi, i am kermit
a talking frog,
articulate, and
single.

now i know
why you do not learn anything
from me

merlita, stop looking at my
zipper!

every day i hone a knife.
i have a stone. I make sparks.
And the knife gets sharper
and it even shines against
the sun.

everyday, i view the knife.
i have learned to love it.
I have nobody to stab.
I just like the art of honing
a knife. Its sharpness has
no use for me. It is just
having it and not using it
to do something bad.

And i tell you, this is art.

every day i hone a knife.
i have a stone. I make sparks.
And the knife gets sharper
and it even shines against
the sun.

everyday, i view the knife.
i have learned to love it.
I have nobody to stab.
I just like the art of honing
a knife. Its sharpness has
no use for me. It is just
having it and not using it
to do something bad.

And i tell you, this is art.

we make food wait
on the table
even money
we make it wait
on the terrace
they think we are
rich and
spoiled

that is not actually
the point

we are more important
than the two combined
food is not our
idol
neither is money
our master

let them both wait
while we talk

you are the point
and more important

IN A RELATIONSHIP

you must have noticed
you do not have to understand the other
in order to really love
for it is just a matter of being near
and then touch and be touched in return

feeling
hearing the beatings of the heart
like listening to a song
played from afar
the lyrics sounding like faded fabrics
the music still
playing too well in the corners of our ears

O THE WOMAN WHO SLEPT AT THE LIBRARY STUDYING LAW

as i see it
your left brain has been left out
it is that part of the boat
without a passenger
or a cargo

your right brain is fully loaded
with almost everything
bread and butter thing
career, studies, plans,
it is even carrying the future
of all of you there
son and husband and dreams
what to do next in the next
few months

the boat leans on the right side
and it is about to sink

do something, now.

when you write
do not mind what other writers say.

believe in yourself
you are the truest person
and you know what
you sincerely feel

it is the truth in yourself
that makes you shine
(if you really like and love to shine
and compete with the sun,
which i do not
advise)

you shine because
you too have light

from flint to firefly
to flame

do not mind them
for soon
they will mind you for not
minding them
somehow

glow like a star
distant and so silent

dirty talk

your drift this time
dirty talking

i realize i like it
when i am doing the talking
but surely not when i am
doing the listening

can't promise somehow
that i can keep this dirty mouth shut

REMEMBERING THE POPLAR TREES

we went inside the forbidden city
i was looking for poplars

none so far, until we went to the man-
made lake of the empress

where many workers died where many
soldiers died too after the siege of

the enemies of the emperor, and there
i saw the poplars lining the lake and there

i heard the sad song of the poplars
floating on the cold winds of November.

poetry to some is only
when there is time (

for what? for weeping
or for deeper
contemplation after
a certain loss,

the loss of self
and of the other self
the loss of
something
precious like
what?)

like sanity for instance
that moment when you tell yourself
i do not know anymore
how to handle this thing,

those who find time
choose each word
and those who do not have
enough

simply recall and
put things the way they see
them

more descriptive
rather than judgmental.

it is safe when
you are only descriptive

trees are trees sometimes
and trees as simple emotions

could be. It is safer that way
when you say it is green

and tall, and scented like a pine
and conversational like a friend

one morning during a walk
with a dog, and then

breathe its essence and then say
this is hope for me,

but keep yourself on line
with sincerity, only to the essence

it is just a tree and i
am just like everybody else

nothing special like that
tree which is too just itself.

do not hide ugliness
do not hide in the ugliness of ugliness,

adopt to it, and be there, and then see it well,
there is a way to rearrange its place

it is a matter of how we understand and put all of these
ugly pieces again, this one here, and that one there,

until, you begin to see what you really want to see,
and it elates you later, to see how you, in an ugly beginning

can change the world, or even just your place, into
a work of art, something beautiful and redeeming of us,

for that is the role of art, to change this place,
to put the pillows and blankets and comforters back

to their places, the first thing to do in the morning,
after a sleepless night. There must be order.

And propriety. And duty. And respect.
Then you can wash your face and do some other things

After.

try
eating a slice of my flesh
tell me how it
tastes

try cutting into
my skin
enter a vein and
get some blood
and drink it
and then tell me too
what is its
taste?

i will tell you
in advance: there is no salt in
both,
no sugar,
but it has taste

(as i have taste
or)

that i have
tasted it
myself when
i wanted to
be my own
cannibal,

when you
have done it
do not come to
me
and then tell me
that you
do not like
it and
that you regret
having
intruded into
the privacy
of my veins
into the silent
suffering of
my flesh

and it is just
a drop of blood
a slice
of my skin

when you do
it
i won't tell you
that it
hurts.

the hands of the
moment
hold me,

i am so light
and the moment
speaks,

" what emptiness
is this?"

I still
want to talk
about
it

how you
broke
my heart?

i love
that pain
i still love
this pain

when you come
back
let us talk
about it
again

how painful
was it?

i won't let the moment talk like a man

There is no sense for the dawn to be dressed like a woman and then she wakes up
and walks down the garden as though she will be wed to morning,

where morning is a groom, dressed by the fabrics of the sun, and looking like a
fool, handing light to dawn, and then, how do they make love at noon? Ah night.

Night is not an old woman.

Our poetry will make her a princess dressed in the regal colors of black. Not the spider. She must be ready for the next stanza.

A woman with
moon as crown and stars as earrings. She glows like the woman you love

once. Then she dies. Like the night. She dies to give way for another day to live.

she is black space giving way to another form of space.
Morning is a veranda. A lower garden where there is no bee.
Only butterflies allowed here, she says.
Living butterflies in true colors.

And what it is to live?
And to be true?

It is to suffer. It is the beginning of dying.
This is another face of
our poetry.
Paradox is truth
turning turtle.

And what about the turtle? It is animate. But it is. We attribute it to it. It used to live on fire. Philanderer.

The gods changed its taste. It now lives on water and happy on the coldness of the pond where the moss and pebbles serve him company. Nature gifted it a house which is a punishment for its escapades.

Well, imagination is spacious. You see that? That one. Yes that one. It is endless.

For Sara Kaye

it is good to see you begin to write,
assure me that it is not your suffering but those of other people
that it is not your hell but theirs,
and too i assure you that i am living in paradise
that i am still trying to know what is hell all about
that my suffering need not be my own but those who are merely called as
subjects of our literary styles,

why are you afraid to tell our story? why is there fear in confessional poetry?

was the flower afraid to show its petals to the sun and then
hesitant to show how it dies in the afternoon
when it sheds off all its personal treasures in the counted
petals of its existence?

show me that you can write a poem.
just one. And do not fear, i will assume that it is not about you.

charge it to empathy. Let us begin with the euphemism of internalization.
Putting our feet on the shoes of those who do not know how to walk.

Or let us say, we are just writing for writing's sake.
Pure imagination. Astral travel. Talking in our sleep.

Hmm, let us see. How your poetry speaks? How your short stories can tell
the most beautiful lie possible on this planet of the apes

we decide to play
a game
i start it first
i chase you
then you chase me
i hide
and you find me
and we laugh
and then you hide
and i find you
and so we laugh
again
and then i hide
and you cannot find
me anymore
and you too do
the same thing
we end a game
where we both
want to cry

at night we sleep
with distances
we wake up each
morning
and say

it is just a game
that children
play.

how did poetry change our
taste?

well something bitter has become
sweet.

we have converted hell into
heaven.

an abandoned thought into a crowded
street.

the face of noise has been transfigured into
a face of a church made of silent bricks
and indifferent lime.

our sorrows? oh yes, they have become ours.
we assume that we also know how to make their sorrows as our sorrows.
Life likes it. You are good. Thumbs up.

our house of stone
has become a page in poetry

our daily routine of boredom
has become one kingdom of excitements
as to what word to put next
on the coming line
of our morning literary rituals

chants, more chants, om, om, om,

oh my god. They're coming. I am coming.
And here i come.

What? What are you talking about?
Oh yes, I am talking to myself.

That is the beginning of my journey to poetry.
Talking to myself and not trying to understand any sound.

Illogical even. But when i write them,
well, there is some form, sound, scent,

and then i honestly declare. This is what
i really like doing.

No signboard. Just plain going.

TOO MUCH TOO MANY

the sweetest wine tastes
not sweet anymore

the most delicious food
does not make us salivate

happy are those without any
just a morsel makes them happy.

THE USUAL QUESTIONS

WHAT am i? why am i here?
where am i going? is a glass a glass?
am i just a body? do i have a soul?
am i me alone? am i not another?
do i flow like water to the sea?
from clouds to rain to sewage
is this my end or just a beginning?
i am sleepy. Let us talk about
ontology tomorrow morning,
when i am sober.

i am about to be filled, and i am shaken
and like a coca-cola, when you finally
open me, i burst.

the truth is
i am drunk.

AT THE WRITER'S BLOCK

a tabula rasa?
what does it tell you?

you're back to
the womb of your mother

in the silent world
your words too are not yet born

you float in the dark
you speak to no one
you do not even know
who you are.

you tease me a lot
the moment i open the door
of my room
you escape and hide in
the same room

i know you are there
but just the same i am on
my usual lusting
i lay on my bed and
pretend that i am reading

TO THE OWNER OF THE RIVER

all rivers and brooks and ponds
soon, like all waters, always go to the sea

you are a stone, stay there.
keep the moss, it is all yours.

without the water, keep
everything. Keep it.

BEFORE THE FINAL INFIDELITY

he likes her
excuses
not to be with him
in the island

three days, and he finally
exploded

with or without her
he knows how to
manage

his own
weapon.

that feeling of rejection
is always understood

it is about the harshness
of what you cannot yet accept

soon we meet pretending
that there is no us around

it will be another beginning
that smile without meaning

the metaphors are
getting strange

the deep ocean
does not beg for understanding

without us it withstands
many lifetimes

the whales know better
having been in its womb

in this mimicry
no one must cry

there is no
rhyme as usual

the more one gets
to know one

the lonelier one
becomes

the one that sounds
like you

you leave
monotony is not a good company

like repeals
like

the oppression
begins with our
own kind

the most faithful company
in the dark with
a little light
from behind you,
it does not mimic you
it is you.

...and then the smoke
escapes

no matter how
you close the windows
and doors

the smoke rises to the
sky

so?

does the sky smile?
does the house change into a lullaby?

the firewood still burn themselves
on fire
and what is left is still
ash

same thing
same you

sorrows transform themselves only
from one form to another

never diminished
nothing added.

SCIENCE AND POETRY

a child catches a frog
and holds it in his hand without fear
all in the name of play

sometimes he lets the frog go
and he likes it the way it jumps and croaks
and likes its agility on the water

the next time he holds that frog
(not same frog however)
is when he becomes a biology student
aspiring soon to be a medical doctor
in the coming years

he holds the frog, inserts a needle to its spine
to remove the pain
he cuts through the stomach and begins to
remove the parts
seeing how the heart still beats
as the frog stares at him
cold and without meaning

he puts the frog in hot water
and when softened, he cools it to get identify the muscular system
and then the nerves and then the bones

the child in him does not remember
how the frog jumps how it croaks under the rain
how it swims agile and smooth on the water.

this is science, and the other is poetry.

TWO SEASONS OF A LIFETIME

there is a time for living
and the time for dying,

there is no need to think
and doubt,

life has come without our permission
and so does death

there is this bridge invisible to the human eyes
it waits for our treading

there is this boatman silent on the river bank with his boat waiting
there is no need for a ticket or a calling, you will be there

there is a time for so much fear, but there is also a time for silence
the one that moves you into that door of understanding

soon it will just be between you and God
so keep on praying. It is the soul that speaks, the body surrenders.

ex

she at first
is suspicious when
i a married
man tell her that
i will be
in Cebu to meet
my
ex-girlfriend
and make
love with
her

she finds it
revolting to her
morals
why should i
in a sense
commit such
a despicable act

i tell her
to dispel her
wrong judgment
that

"my wife is my
ex-girlfriend
my dear"

THERE is
always something to write

they keep on coming
lining on the stairs

begging on the door
of the house to be allowed to enter

there is another who breaks the roof
of the house

the writer somehow feels
that he is like another form of
Christ

there is this woman
who pushes others away just to touch his robe

a short man who goes his way climbing
the sycamore tree just to take a look at him

there is this prostitute
who washes his feet with expensive perfume

and finally before he gets executed
there is this friend beside him who keeps on saying

write, write,
keep on writing...

because you have finally reached the point that you cannot do anything regarding the
situation, you go home, sit on your chair
open the window
look at the view of a road that runs to the horizon and dissolves its body there

it is telling you, there is always an end to everything
both good and bad, the ones you like and you do not like
those that make you a rebel and those that make you surrender

you go beyond your gaze at that ending road
shift your gaze to the hills, and the haze where everything seems to be blotches
or smudges of fading colors, dark green
brownish, gray and then nothing

you call it transcendental, going beyond what can be seen,
until you close your eyes and simply feel that darkness within

you must tell them, there is nothing wrong with being simply
a thinker inside the house
where everyone left.

AFTER WRITING

you discover that you
have forgotten to wash your face
brush your teeth
and drink your meds

you look at time
it is already 9 o'clock in the morning
and you were here
at 4 a.m. yet

you turn off the computer
you rise from your hot chair

feeling so full
and beautiful.

...and then the stone begins to speak
about its silence

the duck that loves nothing but water
stops to admire a word

the birds sing not in notes but in words
that rhyme

the rain too drops haiku on the grass
and the grass creeps with its kept sonnet

...and i who watch all these regret nothing
my lips are sealed.

when we were just ordinary
workers
when we drive our car and
pass the river
over the bridge
we were thinking of nothing
but papers
and doors and itineraries

when we begin to ask why
is this thinking so confined
when we are beginning
to grow horns and thorns
we ask how cactus grows
so well in deserts and how
they even make tiny flowers

the next time we pass over
the same bridge
we notice new things then

the rusty posts,
the kite caught
the moss on the railing
a bird alone on the wire

and the memory of someone
who jumped over it and whose
name was never known.

well, something's changed.
you feel so light, like a bubble.

it's a foggy
morning

but it does not
mean that
my mind is foggy
too

the fog that
hangs over the
mountainsides
are like cottons

they are beautiful
with the mountains

and if you ask me
i feel the same way

even if you ask the
fog and the mountain
they must agree
or i close my eyes
and then they are
gone for good.

at the surface
we play, sand, and
chasing waves
laugh and
talk about anything
familiar,

then we
decide to swim
faraway
from the shore

deep blue
we dive, two of us,
deeper

we touch same
thing sand,
corals, but we
do not talk there
we make
signs

it is the nature
of this depth
inside water
where we cannot
talk

it is very deep
yet it is still the surface
if we begin
to talk about
death

something erotic
is at first gentle,

it is the mind which
works,

hands mislead
you focus on touch

tongue asserts
its power

lips cannot be
outdone

legs become
trusses of affections

abdomens jibe
with breasts

storms happen
earthquakes are

more than welcome
and aftershocks

the last calamity
is flood

and then you
are to tired to

wipe out
all of the humanity

in both of you.
Blind and all seeing.

two places:
subconscious island
and the conscious hall

when we arrive
in that island we know
no one,
and our greetings
are genuine
our laughter
uninhibited
it is the day one
of our lives
and too exciting
we go naked on the
pool
no one minds
someone begins to
like me and
i am thinking
without ifs and buts

we proceed to the
Conscious Hall
dressed for the
evening party
and to each table
is our name and
title,
the honorable
his excellency,
his eminence
and mr. whatever
and miss somebody
and mrs. reserved
and taken

dialogues are screened
movements are timed
gestures are restrained
and most of the time
our personalities are
edited, revised, and
if not diminished,
totally modified.

we are false and
dignified on one hand
and true and unrestrained
and so criticized on
the other.

I am seated at the
front row of Conscious Hall.

yesterday the
banana vendor arrived late
something like 4 o'clock
we no longer buy from her
since we've taken
another

she said that her boy
fell from the carabao
had a fracture and
had to be sent to the
barangay clinic

there is no motorcycle
on the road and it is raining
cats and dogs

her fried bananas are cold
and never sold
and how much does she earn
on a day?

sixty-pesos at most
but today it's nothing

and then i remember napoles
& the rest of her gang

the rich and famous and
the honorable ones

sixty million in one blink
of the corrupt eye.

Fuckin' good.

THE QUICK BROWN FOX

it is more lovely
if words are set aside

eyes beg, and one nods,
caresses gently land on
each skin,
reverberating the
silence of desire

in explorations like these
the tongue is restless
and the lips keep on
closing some doors
and putting marks

there is so much giving
and understanding,
and then at the finale
when the love dance ends,
there is no need to say
thank you or i love you.

in times like these
they are unnecessary.

if there is tomorrow
let us go somewhere.
if there is none,
we are bound to
just forget.

i peep into the lives of
other people,
into another world
i plunge myself
like a rocket to a
cold planet
i thought we are different
each unique
as they want us to believe
now i say no,
in this coldness we still
seek warmth
we still long for ourselves
this
innate humanity
this
built-in goodness
this incompleteness
this wanting always
to say
and hear another
speak
same lines same greetings
same loneliness.

my lust is
zipped, and early morning
this thing gets furious
for being
zipped, and i oblige to set
it free for a while,
letting go, what it may
do
under the circumstances
and it begs for
a little freedom, a leeway,
an understanding
of its tight situation,
it says, i am what man is
all about,
do you want humanity
to drop dead in cold times
like these?
those who like me
are begging
to be
plundered and
pounced,
and so i opened the zipper
and let it see
what this world is all about

a shadow passes by,
asking, does a zipper have
reservations
about propriety?

tell that thing
that there is a proper time
a proper place
for everything.

and so i zipped it again
like a finch in my hand
like a word inside my mouth

if it is the edited
version of my life that
you love,

i may go back again
to the old self,
unadulterated.

it is my most lovable
self,

spotted cow,
stained glass,
the mirror
about to break
but still intact
against the
wind,

it was most tested
stone heart
steel mind
wooden body.

THE SADDEST PART

the last page
when she looks at him
and he looks at her
their eyes still full
in the flames of love

yet the car is waiting
and she must now go

and he takes the broom
back to his hand
to clean the street
where he is tasked
to be in all the days
of his life.

strip teasing is an
art. It is deeply religious for an ending.

First, you are fully dressed. Nice attire.
Then you give a flying kiss
and it is caught and
returned,
and then the music starts
you dance
and slowly, piece by piece
you remove
coverings,
until what is seen
is only the rawness of the
flesh
and those who watch you
shout and giggle
and demand for more
while putting money
all over your
tingling pieces, and
as they keep on demanding
for more
you slowly take off your skin
then your flesh
you pull out your veins and
nerves
and cartilages and then
what is left is just your
bone, connected to another
bone
and the people in the room
become so silent
saying, " it is just bones
and skull"
and that strip teaser is
but all about
us....assholes!

you see, at the end,
they see themselves and
then they begin to
ask for God.

a person lost in the forest
to find his way back need to
stop walking for a while,

he must think,
and proceed to his theories
of home again,

if it doesn't work,
he shall try all other beliefs
like removing his shirt
and putting it on
reverse,

if it still does not work,
he must begin to look
at the sun, and if the night
comes, to see
the moon,
and the stars,

when the morning comes,
and he is still in that forest,
still lost,
he must try
other ways, chant,
experiment,
and keep his
options open,

or he can just wait
till death

when he turns into
a soul

a bird in the sky
an atom

and sure, back to dust
where all the
tiniest particles

may with all possibility
can still find its way
back home

but then, with this
form,
where is home?
what is home?

all those who
are still there
must have forgotten
and could not
recognize you anymore.

to confuse the mask and the face

the face that you are
showing everyday has become
the mask
of daily
survival,

and the mask that
you wear
when you force a smile in
front of the mirror,
in
the privacy of your room
has become
the real face in your
mending for
meaning.

know when a poem curls
in irregular shape,
when you cannot figure out
what it is giving you,
it is taking the shape of air,
and in water, the
candle drops create in you
shapes of prophesies
a head, some hands,
upon a basin, you make
yourself relevant, insert yourself
to a story,
in this empty hours, you
ask for purpose, and if you
remember once, you left your
room, walk away, without
any place in mind, and you simply
keep on walking not
minding whom you meet
and someone greets you and you
do not hear anything,
until it rains, so hard, and
it is only you who did not
run for shelter.

a little boy, holding her mama's
hand, under an umbrella,
tells her, " what is he doing
under the rain?"

you notice it now, and you
think, did that boy think that
i am crazy, that there is something
so heavy, and that i do not
really care what happens next?

we were talking about
sex,
casual sex, (images, and
there's the bed, the clothes, and
....censored)

stop it!
this is too humiliating

we need to be serious,
serious about what?

someone is seriously ill,
ok,
what cancer?

cancer of
self-righteousness?

ok, there is no cure yet
for that,

sooner, the plaque
for you
shall be handed.

congratulations.

tell me what commandment
is best?

what have we violated
as always?

mortals are we,
bleed when pierced
fall when hit,
bloody when
shot,
screaming and
wild when
by grief stricken,
to greed and
power, must sometimes,
we succumb,
shattered when
hammered,

but gods shall we be
when we
from flesh rise
from dust
to spirit like birds
invisible, shall we,
fly,later,
to our destined
skies.

to bacteria,
i, am, bacteria,
to virus, i go
too, viral,
to clouds,
with clouds,
i, hangout and
manage,
to rivers, i am
water, and
go with its
murmur and
flow,
to air, am to,
take space,
and distance,
to love, am, i
to love, and to
indifference, am,
arm to arm,
walk with, and
cross the boundaries,
of men and gods,
for without being
insect, and germ,
and bird, and
orchid,
where can
full enlightenment
be?

steady, steady,
stand still, boat be kind,
arms be wings,
feet be cat,
eyes be the eagle
of the sky,
ears be Venus
basket of sponge,
absorb absurd,
do not be unkind,
to reject one and
the other,
take all, embrace,
made your arms
a fence,
your body earth,
your hands spreading
like grass,
occupy all, be with all,
eel and sperm,
ova and vulva,
there is nothing to
lose, in just being,
one of them,
and then when
all these shows are
over,
undress, and dismantle,
reconstruct,
there you are,
self,
individual,
whole,
unperturbed,
indestructible.

you.

the animal in us
can be tamed, like
dogs in the house,
man can be
domesticated,
we have learned
how chains fetter,
how narrow alleys
choke our throats,
how our lower tastes
sometimes demean us,
how our choices
make us feel too small
like nits, or sluts,
fruitflies to rotten
sweetness,
parasites of our
precious flesh, wasted,
to cheap lusts,

this animal in me
writes. I am transcending
what cannot be written.
I am not good, but i
am trying to be,
one good animal that
you can tame,
a dog thankful to you
my master as
you touch my head
and caress my body,
as you let me walk beside
you, a friend to
a god, an ally to
an imperative.

TWO REINCARNATES

what is at the end of this
journey? you ask me now.
but i tell you, we have just began.
this is the first terminal, and
there will be more,
terminals,
believe me, i like to remember,
but i can't,
we were once together there,
but we no longer know who we
were,
when was that? a long time ago,
there were meteors in space
and there was a big bang
followed by so many showers
of light,
now we are here again,
we feel so close,
and yet still far, our shapes and
forms, and
thoughts, are not accurate
anymore.

it made me proud
of us,
given me the lightness
of my being,
it is as if i have
grown wings
on my feet,

this poetic
pursuits
this feeling
that with words
and images,
i am no longer
alone

TRYST

you have arrived here
too fast,

yes i am just excited

for what?

for anything,

for anything?

yes for anything.

in between creations
there are pauses too,

you look down,
your left hand covers your mouth

as though you want it closed
for a while

like a door, as though someone
is there and you do not want it to come out for a while

your right hand lifts the left,
protesting the gag,

when the mouth opens
it says nothing, this is the pause

when words like ghosts come
out again,

these are not meant to be spoken
they are simply written.

nothing happens
by random
everything happens
for a purpose
there is reason
for everything
and whatever happens
it is always
for your own good
because
the Owner of the Stars
has allowed it.

every ticking of the clock
tells you
you are getting near
there
the landscapes of trees
and hills
and houses and cows
fade into the shadows of
colors
like a rainbow
by the falls of
Sungkilaw.

this is always about life
pulsations of the heart
the flowing of blood that you
feel in every vein
of your arms
the blinking of your eyes
the movements of your fingers
even the way how your eyes
stare at the rain drenched garden
by the window of the house

death is always far away like
the horizon that you see when you once sailed
the sea
when you traversed the dreams of your feet
it is when you feel life the most
beside your beloved
that death becomes an illusion
a black bird of the night
soundlessly asleep in the stillness of
the trees.

WE SHALL join them all now
in one altar of sacrifice.

kahlil, ernest, maya,
they had it all: understood their joys and sorrow,
never kept a record of their pains,
never owned anything even their children are not theirs

they arrive naked and naked shall they go

if we take their voices
as our own

so shall we be,
same dusts in that altar of sacrifice.

VARIATIONS OF THE TRICKY LINES

i
when the angel of death comes
may it take the pig rather than the man

ii

may it take the pig in man
and put back the lamb instead

iii

may the angel of death be so kind
when it finally takes the man rather than the pig

iv

may death be a festivity of pigs rather than
those pigs dwelling in the hearts of men

v

may all the lambs soon turn to sheep
and may all good men remain in sheepskin.

love is not
water to take the shape
of any container

neither is it air
hot or cold it remains
love
same form
old temperature

they say
it is not just feeling
but in the
doing

they say it is
a decision that
time cannot
bend

ask me not
if i have loved at all

reality is always
reality

sometimes to beautify it
(most of the time it is
uglier than what we color it
to be)

we build a system in our mind
and make categories like
an index of a book

or a table of contents
where
we can skip the chapters
that we hate
the pages which we think
we have mastered
the cover which had already
turned too dusty
because
we did not mind it
it was left in one of those
shelves
where cobwebs
begin to weave stories of
their own

reality is real.
if we do not mind it well,
it can be vindictive at times
in the palaces of our
illusions
it cannot be found anymore.

it is nice to be a black cat
in a moonless night

it is so dark and you close your
eyes and it is a nice feeling

when no one knows that you
exist

that you are a black cat in
the middle of the night

and when another black cat comes along
well, i guess, it will be exciting!

it is a nice feeling that two black cats
are making it in the moonless night

and no one knows that both of these
cats still exist at all.

they will not like
what you have written,

Egyptian hieroglyphics
speaking in tongues
fires in your hair
fireflies in your hands
now they have seen
those written in the
black sea scrolls

it is deep, deeper than
deep,

it is raining and they just like
to have fun
coffee on the table
on the side of the house
at the veranda
where they can see
people passing by
drenched by rain
colorful umbrellas
and wet clothes
bodies outlined by
water

do not slit your throat
it is not so good to look at
and for your eyes
let us have the sutures

the clarity of the mind
is what shows clarity in the way we look at things

a white sheet of paper on a clean table
no scattered staple wires
nothing of those crumpled papers
or scattered coins

nothing of those thoughts without something
specific
focus, focus, put a specimen on the slides
and have a microscope ready
draw the minutest detail of reality

a flagellum, a nit, an atom, a grain of sand,
a morsel, an anopheles mosquito's sting
a lock of hair,

we have a world, we stay there.

reproduction of a love story

i have ended it.
you cannot believe it.
you keep on writing
love is unfair.

and this is the song: where do i begin?

what is there in this
expression?

this entering into a confessional box
and saying bless me poem for
i have sinned
poem these are my sins.....

what is this that makes us all grow roots in our chairs
and makes our hands less of the arms but turning into ten fingers
and wanting more

just to press the keys and write the words and be more of ourselves?

have we become better to each poem? have we added more
substance to our brains?

are we pouring out what can no longer be repressed inside our hearts?
our souls are shouting: we are here you have never
cared so much for what we can say?
unlike your body, we have no mouths, we are your ghosts

so what is this really? this is more of listening, and listening and listening
all night, so many ghosts are speaking inside us

and we are but fingers at their command.
This is not a game not a race not even a class in English composition.

this is an opening of a flower to the sun
and without regret fold itself to death again in the afternoon

this is an opening of a road that leads us to ourselves
we are there, we are never here, and we want to meet that stranger waiting

this is a monologue. I speak to be heard by myself.
This is sickness. High temperatures. Chill and trembling.
We write seeking a cure.
Comfort is not here yet. But soon, it will be.

White sands on the beach. You sit there. Watch sunset.

there is something so beautiful
at that precise moment when the rain stops

it is like you have cried all night
and then you are relieved not because the sorrow stops
but because you fall short of tears

sorrow is a train
it stops in certain destinations but it is always designed to run
otherwise it loses its essence

otherwise you too
arrive at nowhere.

2013 you say was a year
of all dismay

you did not get what you want
the glass that you put on the table fell
broke itself
yet no one touched it

fate, yes, we ask the stars
but even without answers,
clear answers, we trust, and
blame no one

for fate is trust, and trust
is simply being blind and still
continue walking
and not stumbling or if stumbled
continue rising
fate teaches
things happen and they happen
because it is always good for you

2013 was a year of dismay
it happened
and on that premise
it happened because it is always
good for you

it is always good.
Good God!

"AH AMBOT!", a collaboration.

the man that you once
loved
had the sweetest winks
you can still giggle
when you were close together
cheek to cheek
at the palace of the sky

friend, you did not make it
at the end
split like two pieces of wood
cut like head and tail of a red dragonfly
snapped like thread stretched beyond
its limits

exploded like short-circuited bulb
you had mourning for
forty days and forty nights
like a widow

but then
all people recover
back to your feet
your hands stretch to the sky
reaching God
and feeling his
hands

then one day
as face book would have it
you see his picture
his back arched like a
bow
without an arrow
his eyes like caves
his skin wrinkling like lettuce
on salt water

and you say, omg! he has become too
old for his age
he looks sick and needing help
is he dying?

flashbacks, and flashbacks
you were at the peak, or the ridge
he wants to take the bus
and you want to go to crater of
Taal
taking a boat by the lake
and hiking
towards its peak
to see the
world

love ended.

kimi no hitomi ni kampai,

what Bogart felt
tell me
when he raised his glass
for a toast
for the beautiful eyes of
his love
(who loves another)

kimi no
hitomi ni kampai

and then
he said goodbye.

"This world is an inn.
Here, I can drink and be merry."
- Shiva

please tell the
innkeeper

i have no
money to pay.

Ajurn

i stretch my hand to you.
You corrected me. There is no I or You.
There is no and, even.

It is just an It.

What is it? An it to it.
Sensing nothing.

There is a blurt. It is not nothing.
It is.

on this day
i am alone.

haven't washed my face
neither brushed my teeth
had breakfast before 7
just coffee and bread
without butter

the whole night i listened
to the rain
i sleep like a puppy

it bothers me
why my Sunday is like this

why poetry keeps on
falling like rain

why sometimes i feel
that nobody seems to be listening

i am alone
on this day of my own reckoning....

SOON

they will know what poetry is.
soon we will destroy their pedestals in three days
and then put ours in same three days.
soon, we will show, that poetry is not that hard to do.
it is like breathing, and there is air everywhere.
it is like walking, and there always roads and roads, and never ending

in fact, it is like defecating every morning
because you are so full
and if you don't you will surely die.

listening to vivaldi's
nisi dominus

feeling redeemed from
the monotony of this room's silence

i follow every note in the air
feeling like a feather

run chicken run, run chicken run
or you will be featherless under the sun

like you when i was young
i like being alone. I like the adventure
and i do not want anyone
to know, what happened there.
Ermita and Cafe Adriatico, then
Tagaytay, lots of Taal, and so many
interesting secrets in Benguet,
in Samal island.

then the shadow of loneliness hovered over me
and i begin to chill,
sick of myself, and wanting to be with another.

sometimes no one talks to you.
and you do not like to talk to anybody.

no man is an island. You remember that.
so i look for someone. Whoever arrives in my life
with a white rose in her dress
i will marry.

no wooing. Just an agreement.
Then it happened. One day you wake up
with someone beside you and you are both too tired and
naked.

Then you stick it out together.
As though you are one melon.
When you are sliced
You already look the same.
Red all over. Inside and out.

nature selects
what to preserve
it knows
what to destroy
who is fit
to inherit
its treasures
what is the age
of this earth?
if you are still
here
you must be
the most fit.

EXCLUSIVELY YOURS

no one sleeps eats thinks
lives
and dies for you.

this
is something
too personal

the rich and the poor
alike
have no quarrel.

ALWAYS THE LONGING FOR HOME

one likes to take
a non-stop ride
many people want
events to happen
that fast
and arrive first
and finish
and say it's all done

inside that bus
by the window
somehow you
could have slowed down
and even stay
in what you always miss:

home.

these morning
poems
are gifts i receive
from the
sky
through the wind
by the window
to my bed to my
breakfast table

i posses
no rights
they are not
mine

now it is
my turn to offer
them to you

lonely brother
suffer if you must
but
beautifully
always

art
has purpose

it is like when you
enter a room and
everything is a mess

pillows on the floor
soda spilled on
the blanket

stain on the linen
and
an apple beside
the door

half orange by
the window
black ants on
the toilet bowl

what art can do?
rearrange
and trying to put
all these things
these disorder into
peaceful
places

the pillow back
on bed
flushing the toilet
removing
stains
it hurts the
mind why an apple
should lie
on the floor

you make
a livable room
put things back
in their proper
places
and when all these
are done
you leave
and then write a note
in bed

sleep well
have peace
dream

she at first
is suspicious when
i a married
man tell her that
i will be
in Cebu to meet
my
ex-girlfriend
and make
love with
her

she finds it
revolting to her
morals
why should i
in a sense
commit such
a despicable act

i tell her
to dispel her
wrong judgment
that

"my wife is my
ex-girlfriend
my dear"

THERE is
always something to write

they keep on coming
lining on the stairs

begging on the door
of the house to be allowed to enter

there is another who breaks the roof
of the house

the writer somehow feels
that he is like another form of
Christ

there is this woman
who pushes others away just to touch his robe

a short man who goes his way climbing
the sycamore tree just to take a look at him

there is this prostitute
who washes his feet with expensive perfume

and finally before he gets executed
there is this friend beside him who keeps on saying

write, write,
keep on writing....

because you have finally reached the point that you cannot do anything regarding the
situation, you go home, sit on your chair
open the window
look at the view of a road that runs to the horizon and dissolves its body there

it is telling you, there is always an end to everything
both good and bad, the ones you like and you do not like
those that make you a rebel and those that make you surrender

you go beyond your gaze at that ending road
shift your gaze to the hills, and the haze where everything seems to be blotches
or smudges of fading colors, dark green
brownish, gray and then nothing

you call it transcendental, going beyond what can be seen,
until you close your eyes and simply feel that darkness within

you must tell them, there is nothing wrong with being simply
a thinker inside the house
where everyone left.

the life of a poet is a collateral
form of evidence

the rule is its inadmissibility unless
it tends to prove something later
you say
i will make the connection later
when we get there

let us try specifics, as generalities are
inadmissible too

take the housewife, rumored to have
been so bored with a husband who makes love to her only once a month
she is asking, what is the matter? where did she go wrong?
is he having another affair? or i am just paranoid about my
loneliness? midlife crisis huh? or do i have to see my doctor
why do i feel like being neglected and sex-starved...
she works too as an accountant, and always busy with lots of numbers
and balances, but she is having imbalances now..
to regain balance, since has nobody to open up this corked matter like
a champagne wanting to be opened with a loud noise at the party,
she begins to write. Poetry 101. She remembers college days.
She was charming. Her poems were published. And men talk about her
magic.
Now everything seems to be twisted.

take this English teacher. Young and vibrant. Girls take time to be with him.
There is a secret in his life. He is seeing an older guy. He is gay.
No one knows. He is living in a closet.
He is choking. Saturdays and Sundays are trysts, bareback blues,
deep throat conquests.
Mondays are formalities. Grammar and syntax. Ethics.
School manual.
Every night alone in his room he begins to reflect.
Where is this life going? Religious scruples. Have we sinned?
Can't love be religion?
He wakes up at 3 a.m. and then he writes. Back to poetry.
Images. He cannot just say in his poem that he is gay and
that he has lot of fears. The closet is getting to be hell.
He is fucked up.
Poetry 101. Talk to himself. Write.

Cancer also makes you write. And societal defects. And oppression.
And the corruption of our senators.
Presidential ineptness. Powerlessness in Power.
The past, the future, the present. These are the three torturers
and sometimes no matter how we try to paint and repaint them
They still hurt and you do not know the whys.

Poetry 101. People begin to write. Sometimes they begin to question
why do we have three meals a day? Why do we sleep too early?

Why can't we die?

there will be regrets
but let them wait
i am busy with
happiness,

for the meantime
i'll take this and that
and these and those

when evening comes
when i sleep
let all the regrets come
inside my dreams

when i wake up
the following morning
i do not know
any of their names.

it is the rain

sorrow is not
a monotone

beauty is
a fire inside

it is the rain
not the sunshine

it is the dusk
not noon

it is at your
worst

your lowest
point

where words
are sweetest

where wisdom
shines the most

where God
speaks the loudest

it is like the
race to the beach

you remove
your shirt and pants

and underwear
and all naked

you dive into the
crystal clear sea

and alone
you swim because

no one swims
for you

it is like life
at the end

you are alone
swimming

to what
we all do not know

it is like the
race to the beach

you remove
your shirt and pants

and underwear
and all naked

you dive into the
crystal clear sea

and alone
you swim because

no one swims
for you

it is like life
at the end

you are alone
swimming

to what
we all do not know

a poem for Liz

learn to love the mask
if you still remember that day
when we visited the oldest church
in Laoag
you had seen the facade
of lime and moss and
stones
when you quipped that
ancient is beautiful
that time had a way of putting
value to
those that it left
in silence

time too has
a mask

we just did not
mind

how serenity
covers the
war of the mosses
over a piece
of lime

we are not that
sensitive enough

THOSE PINK FLAMINGOS

have you seen
those pink flamingos
they were here
a while ago
drinking on pink
colored ponds?

these pink flocks
when they go
they are gone
together

it is not more often
that when one is left
it is without mercy
murdered,

it is all about envy
and greed
where respect for
beauty and weakness
is always null.

FLAMENCO

girl, i like the way
you spread
your red
into my black.

MY SPECULATION ABOUT THE TWO OLD LADIES

two old ladies are looking
at what we have not seen

what is it that they know?
that has intrigued us too

did they not think that "here
they are, unfortunate ones!"

"we had passed the test,
let us see them fail"

THE TRIUMPHANT ONES

those who live in the privacy of their rooms
are those who have mastered the art of peeping

their lives are sheltered by the house of darkness
and the world is nothing but a window of the blinds

they do not speak much, they have nothing to say,
when you pass by, they have seen you, and
feasted at you, but you do not know this,

what is in them that makes them know much better?
they keep all the stories to themselves, and then
when they come out in the open, they insult what
light has been bragging. Those that take pride in the
light are charred and take the helplessness of the dead.

WHAT I REMEMBER ABOUT TITA

it was the first time for me to
see a sunflower
the first time really despite the fact
that in the barrio where i live
my mama had a sunflower garden,
and

it was Tita who made me see a
different sunflower, the one which
made me open my mouth wide as
though i were a kind of a whale,
sifting planktons in the deep,

the world is a sunflower, it is another
sunflower that van gogh painted,
it was so touching, as though someone
died in the mountain, killed without
mercy, waving a white flag for a
surrender,

and Tita spoke about a sunflower
and she was not looking at us, but
at the window, where a big wall
shut us all from the trees, a meter
away, a dead end of some shallow
interpretations about life, about who
we are, when we are not waking.

A SCULPTURE OF THE LIVING

from the mountains of
Antulanga
where even horses
have a hard time
climbing the
steep cliffs,

you are finally
transported to a museum
and frozen

you were not
given a seat
so you do
what you do usually
do
when you
were on a hill
waiting for
no one
putting your hands
above your hair
and looking at
the ants

i had wrinkles on
my forehead
as though the sun
is too strong
to my eyes

i can't say what
i feel but this
i am too certain

i have to talk to
the curator of the museum
if i have to bribe him
i have to
if my diplomacy does not
work at all
if my influence in society
fails

You must be returned
to where you belong
You must live
You must.