a big cockroach
is tasting my toothbrush
in my comfort room
licking it

got a Baygon spray
and there it falls
like a sunny side up
fried egg on
the floor
a bigger cockroach
appears from the wall
same thing happens
and then the tiny one
comes from the same wall
without fear of
dying
a family of cockroaches
is murdered at 10:10 in the evening
just because mama cockroach
touches the tip of an overused toothbrush
in the comfort room
and who cares about a family of
roaches
anyway

because we are so small
we always feel the need to have a master
we tell ourselves, please understand
this is how the game of this world is played

but come to think of it
why is it that the pit-bull has never ruled the fleas?
or that parasite residing in your balls
why can't you just pinch it to death?
the chickens too have no say on the
fleas ruling on their feathers
have you ever heard about the perfect
annihilation of the mosquitoes?
who in the world is too powerful enough to completely
wipe out the population of the flies?

there is a story that we tell
to old people and to make them happy
we do not mention the
end-line of the story as we try to make
them believe
that after you have told them
the story of the river there is simply
no end to its flowing
even if it reaches the sea
the waves still take them somewhere
and the shores seem
endless until they all sleep and
dream about eternity

when i left the pond
it was placid. It did not
accommodate even
one fish, or frog
just the moss and ferns
and a rock.

the dragonfly sometimes
rests on one of the twigs
by the side
where a tree died
the pond is making peace
with a blue butterfly
it lives at the back of a fern
leaf and sometimes
lays its eggs there
it is my secret and as a friend
i told you about this pond
and since you are seeking
peace
i told the pond about you and
one day the pond allowed
you to meditate there
there was peace until you
picked up a pebble and
created the ripples
the blue butterfly, the dragonfly
with a red tail
hurriedly left in fear.

one lie
we can tolerate
hoping that you will stay
and there will
be peace

another lie, we are still
silent about it,
and then another and then another,
and so burn you
and hide you as an ash
to become the
truth
in our urn.

A CASE OF UPROOTING


you have rooted much
and to take you out of this plot

this earthen jar,
there is this fear that you may die
but i take you just the same
to test
if i too, may also know how is it
to be empty
and still live.

it does not always follow
that the house where your live
is your home,
that your home is in the heart
need not be what you call
it is. sometimes, it is not just that.
a house can be a home
the home is also a necessity
and throughout your life
you never lived there perhaps
a home need not be here
those who lived better say so
and just like love and marriage and
living and loving,
these matters can be interpolated and
and need not be even interlaced
in one fabric that you make into
a dress for the best occasion of your life
someone you miss, something you need
something you take, someone you dispense
there is someone there who says that his life
is perfect that he has already everything
it is so sad, he is dead.

thrown into the water
who cannot learn how to swim
if the only choice left is to drown.
thrown into this world
there is then only one conclusion left
if the only choice left is that you die anyway,
you better choose living.

a stone however learns nothing,
thrown into the air or water or anywhere
it remains what it is: a stone always
you catch it, you hurt your hand, you hold it
for a while, and then take a closer look and
even ask it how it feels,
did you see its eyes? it has no reaction at all.
it teases you, as though saying, "release me, you fool!"

tonight, when you are ready,
for love's next episode, let us dance the samba
on the veranda,
we'll have a few drinks, cognac or vodka, or
a lot of bloodier mary's
and we will talk softly
under the moon, and i'll be a little bit
naughtier, asking you if
if you need more screws,
or oiling, and you'd be more witty,
asking if i'd be one love machine
without need of a rewinding,
but i will be quick to hold your hand
kiss your fingers,
and ask you to dance the samba with
me again, under the moon,
our bodies, getting closer, feeling
more the warmth that the night
wants to deny us,
tonight, we'll finally put off the candle
and love
the sweat of darkness again
for the second episode
of this
love triangle.

oh forget it, we can manage somehow
just the two of us now,
writing love on a brand new slate
in bed.

this new shirt which i have never worn
which i have outgrown
which i just kept in my aparador for years
since then,
i let go...

and what did i really let go? and what did i really give up?
since there is no pain in giving it up, then i have never
really given up anything.
it is just one happening where you have done literally nothing
and hence i have no right to say that this world owes me
something.
a little higher now.
this body, i have worn it for 53 years now, it is just kept within my skin,
i am outgrowing it as always, it has no use somehow, and humanity,
and civilization is asking, if i too can let it go?
you want an answer?

this act
sucks my soul out of my body
emaciated, and left out, and exhausted
meanwhile the soul becomes fire, changes from time to time
into metaphors of bird, stone, cloud,
and even a river,

there is always a flow, a flux, a rising,
from a falling and stagnancy,
like a stirring rod in cold water inside a glass
putting a whirlpool of possibilities.
this is art, life, transcendence,
this is us
souls always searching for other souls
our eyes dispensed.

i am making markers
i drop a stone and leave it there
when i do not do that
i will soon forget and it will be too

unfair for that flint, that spark,
that distant star, muted in the sky,
i should have been sleeping by now
beside her snore, but there is a firefly
lost in the space between my blanket and
the ceiling. It has no power to speak.
it glitters like a diamond in distress,
if i catch it, it will be dead, if i don't
it will just fly away, find an exit somewhere,
and i will be at a loss, destined to
be forgotten. And so here i am with a
stone, marking the spaces, hoping
that when i wake up, upon a dream,
i shall remember. And then i will soon
very very soon, write it. I know this
stone. I have mastered its stoic silence.

we speak in riddles
what option do we have after all?
if we speak in plain language,
this language of the law and the books,

what do we get? oh, she is frank to say,
you shall be next.
so, you speak so that you
cannot be understood and
people become blind and deaf
and mute
and there will be a big feast in the
city,
power will say, " come, celebrate with us!
we know what is right!"
and never mind if it is unjust.

a dot is a runner
making a line, and it ends
it rests for a while, it is there
where our silence lies,

after a night, it runs again
the whole day i suppose,
and that is where our life
moves on,
it runs and stops and runs,
to make a figure, a landscape,
and that is where we enter,
as we ourselves make the doors,
the exits, the bridges, and pools,
and rivers,
as we go along this running,
when we stop, when we are so silent,
we go back to this life of a dot,
how small we are, how insignificant.

it told her
that time when we were sixteen
that there is a place where the moon is orange and full,
and she believed me
and so we went there and she asked what do we do here
and i did not answer.

so many things happened then
time is and had always been another magician
the illusionist in us
cannot but love it just the same.
we thought we have forgotten our own chosen madness
which was too delicious on something too sumptuous
a party for two, a drink for one, and a smoke in circles
inside a room of secrets.
someday we shall master time
make it come back and then make us see how sweet we were
that time when we were sixteen
in that place where the moon was an orange and so full.

your greatness is only in the hearing and then on the retelling,
all stories where you are never a part, not even one of those minor
characters there, you are not in the picture not even as a dog waiting by the door,
or a sparrow by the window pecking upon a rumor,
you wanted to be irresponsible about what happened, a shadow arrived
opened the gate and waited for hours for its body of lies,
and then the party began, drunken bastards, bitching dogs,
spoiled brats, and a landscape of desert and rocks and a whole stretch
of sands to a seeming eternity of emptiness,
you are a good storyteller from the beginning of the party till it ended
at midnight,
someone is dragged and drugged and dead.
and all you say is, i do not know, i have nothing to do with this,
i am not even there, i am only narrating it.

if i were history, i would have smashed you like a bad potato.

You envy the lightness of air
The air tells you, it is easy.
Somehow you have to make little sacrifices.

Take off your shoes. Take off anything.
Take off yourself and every part of it.
Blend with light. You must also know
How to blend with the night.
You are now lighter than light.
And the air becomes you.

The world becomes too tight.
Crowded inside you.
Who likes to live in this kind
Of asphyxiation?

You must remember an
Open door.
That house with a garden.
A veranda.
An open back door when
A child can just
Go anywhere.
You heart aches. You unbutton
A shirt. Breathe.
You learn too well from a river
Without doors.
A mountain made of all
Windows.
A cloud that drifts like you.

You will be caught in that desire for
Fame.
Such a useless endeavor.
Such a base instinct.
What use can it give you?
Does it buy you rice and egg for
Breakfast?
When they write your name in the sand
You know that the waves come on time
To erase all the letters
When they put that in all the pages of a book
The fire soon shall burn it
Look! I am telling you
You tell it and when it is done
Come, come
There is still so much to be done
It has nothing to do with fame or money
Above all this
You have to save a soul
Your soul lost in the labyrinths of your caprices
And whim
And so the chance have become so slim
I am telling you
You need to trim
Trim, trim, and leave off that surplus skin
Retreat into silence
You gonna need some more of this
Thinking.

You wonder
Why is it that every part of the one you love
Looks well to you
A time comes when you want to junk
All these
Foolishness that mankind has forced upon so
Many people
To keep this life away from extinction
The sweat smells like sweet wine
And the dirty all around the skin tastes
Like a chocolate cake
You have never learned the lesson
The art of unlearning
Of letting love go and letting you forget
Yourself
You have tried it once
It never worked and now you are facing
A beloved
Speechless you bow before this magic
And then you surrender again
Into such a worship

it does not always follow
that the house where your live
is your home,
that your home is in the heart
need not be what you call
it is. sometimes, it is not just that.

a house can be a home
the home is also a necessity
and throughout your life
you never lived there perhaps
a home need not be here
those who lived better say so
and just like love and marriage and
living and loving,
these matters can be interpolated and
and need not be even interlaced
in one fabric that you make into
a dress for the best occasion of your life
someone you miss, something you need
something you take, someone you dispense
there is someone there who says that his life
is perfect that he has already everything
it is so sad, he is dead.
.

he tells heaven
sorry, heaven, i have been verbose
to you.

he closes his eyes and listens attentively like a child asking forgiveness
to mama,

or perhaps like a puppy spying upon a cat or like a kitten wondering what is cheese all about,

and he recovers his thoughts in prayer and when done he steps outside the
enclosure, walks farther, passes the crowd of gossips, and about to meet
a group of kids playing hide and seek....

"but is verbosity a sin?", this he asks to the wind which he thinks is
a goddess.

you write for nothing.
kill a fly for nothing. You have nothing.
You are nothing.
In fact, everything is nothing.
You keep nothing.
You are proud of nothing else.

I understand it easily.
Years of practice. Of giving and having
nothing left
Nothing valued. Nothing lost.
You keep it most: happiness.

when we were kids
we never had the chance of
catching Easter eggs
it is a shame perhaps,
we never had Easter.

Our lives are different.
We had chickens,
Less the eggs, so
we never argued
Which really came
first. We just had
fun. We learned
how to please ourselves,
We had only chickens,
Nothing about eggs.
We are here &
To fragility, clueless.

when you feel like the sun
and think like the sun, and
behave like the sun,
look, the sunflowers are
looking at you, kid!

PRECOCIOUS

the little girl is washing herself with sea water
by the beach she watches the other girls swimming
despite their calls, she refuses the offer, wanting instead
solitude, building her tiny sand castles, letting the waves
do the deconstruction for her, but she is quick to
reconstruct whatever she loses, and she is enjoying
what is happening, as her smiles show it.

the story is that her mother and father split years ago.
the former was a battered woman, the latter a philanderer.
in some ways, the two never transcended their immature manners.
both found another love as they call it, needing more space
and time to reconstruct their lives again, new beginnings,
new foxholes where they can hide their heads with comfort.
the little girl does not understand all these sad events yet.
her grandma has to become her mama, and so with grandpa.
today grandma is not here and she is deceived by grandpa
that soon she will be coming to join her in the beach.
she does not know about a lie. And i watch her closely if, by
her precocious mind, she soon will easily learn this matter
and accept this as a fact. People lie to you, to make you live.

here, the gift of the night
is the silence, which i may
take as a ritual,
a cleansing of the stains
that the noise left inside my
thoughts,
like dusts settling peacefully
upon a chair,
thin crust, that i barely notice
until the wind comes and
blows it away,
as i pollute this room with
the restrained sneeze
and then the cough
this sickness
this harmony shaken a
bit, because
the smell of the one i love
has come again
uninvited.

FOOTNOTE TO MANAWAN


when the mouth of the river
ebbed, when the sea receded
farther,
a long time ago, when sea urchins,
snails and seaweeds teemed
the place,
papa took us all,
to gather what we love to eat
for supper,
since i was the youngest, and the
most frail, my sister would take me
as a burden,
at that early age, i had mistaken
seaweeds as snakes,
the snails as stones,
and the urchins as
pricks
like grandma's pins
traumatic to
kids who, at the first meeting
she had already shown
a heavy dislike.

CYNICISM AND IRONY

a dog joins a race
and a rat eats a rat
and a dog too eats
another dog
and the frog watches
them all
under the rain singing:

what a wonderful world!

Luisa


the advice is to accept
because to accept is to free yourself,

from what? he asks
it is obvious he says
and what is obvious need not be stated
what is it that need not be stated? he asks again
he looks at him straight in his eyes
with that stare that stabs him right in his heart
and then blurts, " are you stupid?"
and that is what he states, and perhaps must not
be obvious therefore and he thanks him for that
and he leaves dancing his way
to his heart.

there is always a way to twist words
like a dance step
another way to bend it like a comb
or the holder of an eyeglass
to fit, either your hair or
your ear,
there is always a way to a will,
firm, and not beholden,
there is always a way to open a door
and close it again behind you,
a way to end towards another end
a means to what you want to mean,
there is always a way to party
a gathering of predicaments,
a way to teach people to smile despite
the unspeakable plunder,
there is always always, a way to
another way, twisting words and bending
them to compose,
and when it is done, you do not know
where you are
and you cannot tell what happens
or even describe what is there
or what is next.

here is a man in his fifties
whose fondness is to ride a bus to
a long journey
(ten hours he says)
where he chooses a seat beside
a woman with a heavily tinted glass
and wearing a bandana
with red lips and curly black hair
and in that long trip
when everyone is tired and fast
asleep
the beautiful woman rests her
head on his shoulders and
finally on his chest
and what satisfies him most is
the memory that
once when he was eighteen and
rode that past bus
toward love and life.

and how did you pray?
you work all day
and when the night comes
you are all pretty
tired
bones crack and muscles
stretch
pain maximized and which
sleep, and only sleep
has become your
remedy

you work for food
you work for a piece of cloth
and church is far
and you've got no money left
for fare
you arrive in the house
this bare house of dreams
you close the door behind you
open a window and
take a peep to the sky
where the stars still
glitter

how do you own God?
he did it.
He took away the cross,
just one cross,
and disappointed a lot
of Christians
in town.
No one can kiss
the cross. If you kiss it
you must follow strictly the
instruction.

Only one line.
Just one line.
If you do not follow,
so be it.
He takes away God
Keeps it inside his room
and so the whole
town has become
godless.
In some ways,
Still happy, saying
It is not their fault.

i turn the faucet on
and let the water flow
and that is how i touch
water
it passes through
my fingers cannot store
not even a drop

and then i ponder about
life
who wants to turn the faucet
off?
no one.

VENDING


there is a flea market in this
city. The vendors are young.
They walk on ropes. They jump
higher on roofs.

They sell poems. Lots of poems.
Magical ones. With rainbows in
between the well counted lines.
Each word is weighed. Each
syllable is like a diamond.
When you go there, they will
look at you from head to foot.
Assess if you can afford to buy
a poem.
They know if you are poor
enough. The moment you arrive
they pack their wares, fold their
stanzas, and then leave.
They are fleas.

on good Friday
you write poems.
you did not visit
the church to see
Christ crucified

if your papa were
alive he would beat
you with the stingray's
dried tail
and your mama will
not be there to stop
him and you will hear
her cry again
that time it was
Good Friday when
you first know what
a poem is all about.
words like crosses rise
from the barren land
and blood as red as
roses flowed from those
beautiful wounds that
still refuse to heal.

the music runs through the empty streets
of this town,
the singer is singing a tagalog song of longing
the woman left him
for another man in another city and he is overwhelmed with
so much grief that this morning he sings too early when
breakfast is still not available in the nearby
carinderia

rain has arrived finally
and umbrella becomes an important item for women who
ready themselves for the usual haggling
wanting always a discounted buy
of almost everything
a native woman sells onions harvested from the foot of a hill
after three months under the sun
the mornings there are as cold as a dead fish from the river
a day has its own way of making things happen
a song of sorrow splits the mind not knowing how to choose
the right thing to do under the given circumstance
an unpredictable weather: rain on a black Saturday
and a native woman who does not get what she deserves
injustice, that feeling of " i do not deserve this"
is an eternal longing, a song of sorrow that floats in the air
as always,clouds, clouding.

AFTER READING THE HANDSOMEST DROWNED MAN
by MARQUEZ

it rains upon me
that some men are more gifted
women filled with longings still look for
the handsomest, the biggest, the brightest, and when they find
that one day, all they can find is only a drowned man,
dead,

and only looks at them
with cold indifference, somehow, it rains on them too,
that happiness lies in those deep oceans,
where the fish are blind,
where even submarines crumple like paper
because there is
so much pressure in there,
deadly
as though, it is only when they are dead, like that
drowned man,
can happiness be
completely attained.

how many nights have you spent
sleepless,
anxious, too much has been poured
on that piece,
a recollection of youth,
remembering a cave, and a mountain
and a dead bird in the sky,
shot,
lifeless upon a rock,
how many empty spaces
sharp stones, bee stings,
blanket spread near the river
under the bamboo trees,
drowning boy, unsaved by
papa, and mother not wanting
to eat anything after
wanting to die,

the swift tiger, in the forest of time,
the cool shades of the lion's beard,
eagle's with sharp eyes
preying upon a new born chick
a proud hen,
how many more? a lot a lot
countless stories and you end up
not choosing any item,
and then the 30th of April passed.
Night, oh, it is dark, the moon is not here.
"It's ok" you said to yourself.
There is another way to make a king of myself.
The masses. Nothing about laurel leaves.
Fat.

you write for nothing.
kill a fly for nothing. You have nothing.
You are nothing.
In fact, everything is nothing.
You keep nothing.
You are proud of nothing else.

I understand it easily.
Years of practice. Of giving and having
nothing left
Nothing valued. Nothing lost.
You keep it most: happiness.

my poems look better
when decapitated.
It looks sexy without a head,
because,

it has a beautiful body,
a tail of a past, like the myriad
tails of
a peacock, strutting its way along
a garden
early morning under the mellow sun,
headlessly, i mean, it goes for all,
no specific direction, catches all, and throws all away.
just like that. A wink, a snap,
a dream,
decapitated.

in a wise fabrication, we only suggest.
What happens is what we suggest.
We take no part in it, except to suggest.
One picks up the idea and makes it happen.

we do not judge what is done. We only
suggest that it could be immoral, or moral,
without prejudice to the amorality of an act
too.
however, given the circumstances of the power
of our suggestions, when it was done pursuant
to our liking, and without our transparent
participation, we go to the veranda,
with our bottle of wine, and some glass,
and some silent friends, and then we keep
on pondering
we made things happen. no one sees the
criminal mind inside our skulls.

beside our veranda is a coconut tree
which i planted sometime in 1998.
An old and crazy dog, which had been tied
in a nearby tree, almost killed it.
That dog escaped and had a liking of the tree
and ate its bark, until i tied it back there.
A neighbor who had become impatient of
its barking at night finally shot it to death.
We did not complain. He did what we think
we like to happen.

Sometimes, we do not do what we like until
other people do it for us. It is welcome. And
then, as time, in its merciful slowness, make
the coconut grow into a healthy tree with lots
of nuts.
The old crazy dog was buried beside it.

one woman with a broken
heart
asks permission that she
will commit suicide

and cruel as i am, (too
tired of protecting people
from their miseries)
(may God forgive me,
this i casually said:)
go, girl, have fun.

i just asked,
just being a cat,
a curious cat,
but i didn't know
that my being
a cat can kill
a pink-feathered
owl like you,

and it was your
anger that killed
you. Not my
curiosity.
i just asked
and you may
not even answer.
Then you said
' i pretty well know
you."
Hoping that it
will hurt.
i choose not.
i just ask.

it is as always a lonely
path.
you tread upon a garden
the ants avoid you
you sit under a tree
the birds fly away
you wish upon the petals
the butterflies dislike you
you ask for air at the beach
you are given much salt
you like to hold a seaweed
the rocks cover the glow
it is as always a lonely path
you have been excluded
but then, was there such a
time that one of them ever
had you?
if you recall, never, there
was never an instance.
so why ask? right now
walk that path and
as usual with no questions
asked. That's better now.
Just feel good about it.
It's the only path designed
for your greatness.

he listened so well
when they told him that he has to open the window of the house
and all the doors and fences
he did as instructed

he was told that it was the only way to free himself from the house
so he could play all day in the yard and in the park and in the streets
when all the entrances were opened
the robbers came and took away everything in the house
including him and all about him and then he was soon found
dead in one of the streets where all those who counseled him always pass
no one minded him anymore
he had become like everybody else: opened and uninteresting
when they were finished with the house and scrutinized what is in there
they wrote about it for a while like a very fun-filled summer
like the first open house of an advertising sale
and then this what they did:
they all leave and do not mind what happens next
and you have become just another number of their novel....

loneliness is a virus
without a vaccine and
it lands on the hearts of everyone
stays there and then even
contaminates those who
do not know the most usual
ritual which is nothing but
the simplest washing of the
mind.

Ponder Heart
Listen carefully
Solitude
Be Mindful.
Let the emptiness
Empty
Do i need to close
the Window?

He was crucified.
Hammered in our
forgetful minds
is this yearly
reenactment designed
by Tradition
which has numbed our
minds
our feelings no longer
discriminate
about which is painful
and which is not.
It has become a routinary
ritual
less its cautionary tale
and this i have carefully
dealt with
in the recklessness of
ordinariness.
somehow there must
be another way to
refresh
God's love for
Humanity.

i was too thin
in that picture.
Too young to be
a picture of
sanctifying sacrifices.

Today's face
chubby and
cheerful makes
you ask:
which is better
today or the yesteryear?
quickly i answered,
no year is ugly
no day is not worth
any of our
chosen existences.
did we not live well
enough?
we did. we do.
and we shall.
and because we
did not really mind
that much
look into the mirror
find out if the wrinkle
kills.
it will not.
i have decided
long before
to choose happiness
over pain.

rise above the landscapes of the mind
you have wings
fly
fly, you must fly, rise above the desert of the mind
find the moon
and the stars

rise above the ugliness of the landscapes of the human mind
fly, fly away, beyond this breathlessness
beauty beatified, wander in wonder,
you are not what sadness is
and you do not belong here.

the fact is a rock in the middle of the river
a big boulder, stuck in the middle of a situation
it stares at you
without any intention at all
to be crushed

everyday the water of the rivers flow from far
arriving there, the waters split
avoiding it
but this rock, this big boulder is a fact
it stays there for years
without the intention that it will crack
even the air avoids it
the stars look at it with anger
the moon never goes near
the universe tells you, a fact is a fact is a fact
which you cannot change
you cry a river of tears, you sigh a thousand times,
you move around it like a whirlpool of water
nauseous, and about to surrender, to dry up like a river
to show a world of stones and sands
and some dead and stinking school of fish
dried moss, and sticks and persistent emptiness
and then the last chance comes with flowers in her hands
you marry acceptance, and walk in that aisle saying
"this is it, this is it, till death, till the end of time"
the priest of offers and acceptances blesses you
saying , "..live happily ever after. Live! Live!"
freedom comes in the face of promises
no matter what.

An image of Reflection


a dragonfly floats the whole day in air
when night comes it hovers upon one of the twigs
on a bamboo grass

alone,
it folds its wings
behind its back.

PONDERING ABOUT LIFE

...and then i think of the flood
of water on the floors
the way they think that water is
wasted
without much real use
the leak on the floor that goes
down the other room

the same question is asked:
will you turn the faucet off?
will you? will you really?
no answer.

if you look closely enough
and feel every face that you meet
each person is a crucifixion
everyday, mind you, is a Calvary,
no one wants to admit it somehow

flattered by the smiles of children,
the comfort of some possessions,
the illusions of some daily routine,
the joy of building a family, marriages
of youth, honeymooners struck
with that usual love which has not
changed for many centuries,
and then one day, you are left alone,
tending a broken heart, the bitterness
of many departures, losing everything
you wake up, and then become real.
you shake your own hand. Friends
just friends, till death, no attachments,
and then always, ready to go.

there is always a need
for duplication, like a key
to a vault, or a room,
like another key to an
enclosure, but that is not
what i mean here,

there is a need for more keys,
even when there is no room
anymore,
you look around and you see keys,
dangling, carried away, some even
are falling from their pockets,
and you wonder why of all the
species, you have none,
and then the heart begins to quiver,
" i need a key" and not stopping,
" i need more keys" which becomes
altogether another kind of nonsense,
some strangers look at you asking what
is happening about those keys,
" i did not lose them", and you put the
final word, " i am closed and i do not
have even a shadow of a key"
the man cannot breath, but he
continues to live. And they wonder why.

here we are
trying hard to get an explanation about everything
to soothe pain, to discard what we think we do not after all need,
here we are looking for excuses,
looking for those tiny pores of exits,
looking for that secret passage of the mind,
the labyrinths of the heart,
here we are
emptying, looking for sparks of light,
in this dark cave
of our
human existence. The years are wilting.

There is no flower yet that has promised you a bloom
This imagined winter. This offing of spring.
This coldest autumn.
The seasons of the heart.
Unfolding.

FROM your smoke
rising
i see two souls
one is pulling the
other towards
itself

the bigger one is
hesitant
which way
the other one
does not really know
what is this
all about
and then like all smoke
they dissolve
in the air
and then you puff
another smoke again
from your cigarette
a few smokes again
and again
until an anthology of
souls
is done

our daily anguish
years of longing
scores of waiting
our unanswered
questions our
untenanted petitions
our sundry sorrows
our confused continence
our boredom and
discontentment

Father we offer them.

you stared at
me when i lifted
my own chair
gitutukan mo ako
pag-ayo sa dihang
gialsa ko ang akong
kaugalingong bangko.

to be lost in translation
to contemplate upon this long lasting sadness
not that it be removed ( for it can't be and will never be
our human nature so considered)

but that we be stronger when old views resurrect
from the crosses of our sentient sentimentality
to just sit there and be numb (at least be deprived of
this pain, even for a minute)
to wait for another night and then be silent again
gazing at the stars.

a group of
well named writers
meet.
each reads his
poetry.
those who listen
clap after
same thing
through and through
they pronounce their names
as though they are made of a
very thin layered glass
tongue that must
only use the most fragile
words
even the consonants
are riddles that only
they know
what the answer is.
they only have hands
for themselves
exclusively
like birds of the same
species
they only identify
themselves
through their well
chosen sound
they believe that poetry
exists only for them and
the rest who make
attempts
are only scribbling
or writing
less the poetry that
is defined only by
their own
bookish version
they must not be understood
that is their rule
if you understand them
later
they are dismantled like
the plural form of sphinx.

drizzle of rain
washing away the dust
from a white car.

the tree has grown tall
the flower stays on its foot
giving a little bloom
this summer.

APRIL

the sea comes always with the news of big waves
kissing the sandy beach and
then leaves.

the rain showers softly upon
the leaves of the orchids that give an
opulent bloom
as i silently stand and softly speak
inside myself
this early morning

THE GOAT


there is no thorn
enough to pain the numbness of
your horns

THE WOMAN OF SORROW AND THE RAIN
two people sleeping together are not necessarily at home.
someone will confess love, but the other has already fallen asleep.
the night is too long for meditation.
morning arrives too late.

the eyes are swollen and she goes on the usual routine of service and
silence.
she goes to the comfort of another room. Turns on the shower.
Feels the water. Soaps her whole body. Wish that things are washed
away.
Sorrow. Regret. Dirt are not the same.
Love asks.
The days run like wild deers. The forest of innocence
gone.
At a certain moon, all begin to speak to her. Leaves.
Dry air.
The curtains are taken off the window. The window undressed
Looks bare. Too unlike of her bareness. She dreams of an emptiness
that is as silent as her agony.
She opens the door of the house. She lets the wind in.
She walks under the rain. She does not know where she is going.

so why sophisti
cate? so i cannot unders
tand, and
i will be imp
ressed?

our thoughts
unra
vel us finally.
opting for nothing
but the simplicity of
what is there.
for years we have learned
to love this
so how can we forget
the basics?
back home then
a stair is a stair is a stair.
which you have sophisticated
into a stare.

the more you calculate risks
the more risky things become.
measure too much depth
check if you can ever breathe.

what did hamlet do? he struts.
he measures the length of his
foot. Ratio to his head. His hand
hides in his pocket. And in the
end he has done nothing. That
was too calculated.

The end


took him.

slow turtles on sand
but fast on the river.
silent cocoons later on
flying.

rivers flow soon dry up.
mountains level.
nothing changes. So keep
it up. Accept and just believe.
Things rolling. Unfold.
Things fall and settle.
A landscape. A fog hangs
itself. Then the peak of a
mountain speaks to you,
That is how it goes.
On and on.

alone in his room
he thinks no one needs him.
the bed where he is sleeping
squeaks.

love is creepy sometimes.
alone, the hands are taking lives.
and love.

summer, rice fields.
golden. chili hot.
the fields begin to crack.

we choose what to mind.
the white herons are flying.
the trees have given their leaves.
away.
There is this joyful giving.
This golden mirage
the summer and love and chili hot
nights.
you are fond. Heart fonder.
This time. Meet you again.
Same spot. Love, love. love.
Repeating itself. As hot
syllables. The consonants continue
to chirp. New birds.
Like ssshh. And ahhhh.

blue jays on a wire.
white clouds. Lighter horizon.
white herons. Soft winds.
Bloody thoughts.
How is it that we have decided to love in circles?

can't wait that long to find an end.
To this circle where
I can escape.

when both of us
are going in the same direction
at the same speed
we are actually staying.
we want to leave each other.
we can't. So we do it.
Leaving together. And
stopping together.

a circle brings
misery
when all of them
are there
and you find yourself
outside it

you are ready
somehow.
make your
own.

Talk to me. Talk to me. Please.

the conversation is highly exclusive.
inside the silence, the exchange of words
continue. There is an emporium of a
chest. All treasures are there. The map
is old and found. And the pirates are
coming.

Another war of words. Guns and
gums. Chew and fire. And do not
be noticed. They are watching now.
You are looking like a whale. And
there is a boat somewhere and
hunters.

Find peace. Go out of this safehouse
it is not safe anymore. The convoluted
thoughts are hunters and without mercy
eat their own kind. Sun be kind.
Spread.

There is only one thing that you can
do to save me from this highy destructive
monologue.

Talk to me. Talk to me. Please.

a doggerel

inspirations come around.
they are so many but they are
all lonely.
they speak together and
endlessly and
so you are like a
a sprinter of a pen
to a paper.


how can you stop?
ah, only if you die.
how can you die?
i am cutting my hands
off my body.
you cannot die.
the unfinished business
will sue you.
The Furies will not
allow it.

stay there. Dogged dog.
Admire yourself
Like the leash.

a poem for maningning

shiny star at night
i remember your story
i shudder upon that
journey from the
faculty lounge to the
stair, more steps and
then you enter a room
and open a window and
you climb slowly until
you have seen the
whole city and then
you jump from the
7th floor and then

end of the story.

two speakers
are arguing, who
carried maningning
from the faculty lounge
to the 7th floor?

herself? but who is
she? two? spirit and
body? which carried
which?
the feet walked
the hands held the
door jam and the
feet jumped, and
then who died?

it is the body.
not the spirit.

who died? who walked?
who jumped? who came
from the
faculty lounge?

it is the body and
not the spirit

for the spirit was
weak and the
body was strong.

guilty as condemned
it is the body.

how nice can poverty look
on that respect
singing, and singing with
Kathy
because they were poor

a time to sing your most
neurotic song
this early morning
when birds
are not yet getting
restless on
the tree

( i thought you like a rock song,
something that rocks, not the one the cradles us
back to sleep,
but now i am getting it right,
you like the cliche of an existence
yes, we are still rocks,
correct me, you are still the same island
that i have sailed to
years ago. seventeen years ago.
when we said we felt no pain. no pain)

a note for j.
perhaps i like to be alone
but it could be, i like to be alone with you,
but how can that be? i am always alone and i want it always to be that way,
i cannot be alone with you, as you are never alone with everybody,

i stop for a while asking, and saying oh yeah, there was a time when you said
that, that you are alone, all so alone still with everybody and i begin to
empathize with you
i tried to wear one of your shoes, trying to fit in there, but it is not helping,
i could have told you, write me a letter, imitate my voice, use the sentences i left in your door,
but how can that be? you were here first, and i am too young to feel your
sorrow
sorry, i prefer to be left alone.
just the way, i think, God, also prefers it to be.
by the way, did not God say he loves man?
i mean, yes, humanity, that frailness that He does not have.
But which he understands.

at that instance when
love requires me to beg
i quit
for i don't beg
i don't stoop

i do not undress to
include at the last end
the last covering of my
dignity
if i love i have
to be
intact
whole like a squash
in the field where we both
squander
the seeds of our wrath
our wars

we are always
confronted with facades
just as the first thing that the body
shows is the face,

we know the rules of engagement
we go on the surface first
take things at face value
we know how time goes by like another stranger
inside that bus that comes out with us
together
speechless, thinking about other things
moving towards another private destination
and so it is true we only get what we see
the sad truth however is
we are not taking anything
not even our own.

the house will always have a
framed door,
a framed window
and

another framed exit
when you go there
you too
must take the shape of
that frame,
squarish,
like some equals,
you wish these things are
irregulars
parabolic perhaps
or a jagged
edge
there is no such thing
he had been there
went inside and stayed
but not for long
unhappy as he was.

it starts with what you cannot keep
something that can be given but no one is willing to take it
you have no choice but to keep it
"for a while, only for a while", that is how hope starts too,
but time travels so fast, the moment you switch off the light
before the darkness sits in bed, another day has awakened,
"it is sad, it is very sad", you learn how to smoke and
makes circles in the air, a plan for death is made,
this must be disposed, but secretly,
and that is how you learn the language of some
metaphors, you want to state an idea but it must be said
in some other form, only a few will understand,
and what is for a while has become an eternity,
it goes beyond you, your death is another story
told in one party, women drink a lot, they want to be drunk,
while the men stay outside, breathing.

ROMANCE IN E-minor

you wet
me
oh my god!
you wet
me

am i your
dream?

things are not what they
seem
familiarly like the way you
have mistaken the sun
as not one of the stars because
it is nearer
to your heart

when you are told of the truth finally
you refuse to embrace it
because you have loved what it is not
because what it is not is sweeter than what it really is
and they who feel you
had so easily forgiven
this error of love
this wrong that makes us
all live
this mistake that used to be
a good beginning
and must hopefully be the best
of all our endings.

it is sad
but let there be no tears
you are looking for me
i heard
but you are finding me in the wrong places

you think that i am but a body
and so you look for me with your hands
as a body has
arms and as hands look for their arms
i am not what you think i am
the premises have all been wrong
i am not a place that you can find
i am not a date that you can remember
i am not even a why that you can reason out
correctly and then
if you think that you can find the one that is reasonable
and logical then
you can declare that you have found me
but i am not logic, i am not a number, i am not
a reason
if you say that finally you are uncertain
then you have become so beautiful to me
more likely i am.
for i have never agreed on something so certain
it deceives. And i am not a deceiver.
let me be the most beautiful uncertainty in your life
and if you love me
be uncertain about us
and that is where we meet.

sub lingual



it is a quick fix
you want to revive me
you put it inside my
mouth
just under my tongue
and then it melts
there and penetrated
the capillaries of my
gums
too pleasing to my
nerves
and making me
live.

sub rosa


it is all about
a red rose that you put
beside my door
saying that now
you are
available.

past love

tonight
there is no full moon

in the dark
you make me feel
the wetness of your smile
inside my mouth

your tongue is a
wild dancer
on top of mine

we are foolish to
believe
that with all these
we soon
will forget

you call my name
in one of my nights
you feel me i am
cold.

it is dark and you
begin to measure
my voice.
and you tell the
stars
i fall short of the
required length.
i do not speak to
be measured like
a mete like a boundary
of land.
the next time you come
here
and then call my name
again
i will no longer be around.
i sing because i want
to fill this void.
I stay the whole night
long
to know what is
dark and cold.

you are quite a paper they need
the one
stamped with violet ink which
says
"i am authenticated"

you are the one which i do not
want to see
a paper with a blankness wasted
which screams,
" validate me, validate me"
i am not a paper without it.
Stamping pad, come, come,
I am without you, less than what
i could be.
i deny myself that fame that they
destroy others upon,
for i like the wind, and the stars,
and to them,
i am a wolf that howls
the beauty of dissent
the freedom of indifference.

the lady has long hair
longer than what others wear
she earns a name
eyes slit like a bamboo scarred
with a knife
a wound which eyes dare not see
tearless are dawn,
she writes a poem inside a box
there is no hole where light leaks
tendrils cut, roots without land,
leaves of darkness,
but just the same the seed grows,

early morning she goes out from a door
i do not call it a house
it gives that sense of prison
but the warden is a friend
she smiles at you and then walks away.
she challenges you with that feeling that
you are never a part of what she boxes in.
and you are hurt and then you tell yourself
" i am busy too, and sorry i can't love you"

there is no direction
the conversation goes anywhere
we do not take it
it takes us all into an oblivion

this one makes us forget what
we have become
apart from what we were
the face we love
without a scratch
without a scar
we gather upon the same places
of our old longings
we are never satisfied because
we never had it in the first place
we were denied of our own doors
our worlds are crumpled by their dirty hands
we stay here
without dreams to even have just
a wink and a wing
we have compensated for this lack
we look at them with pity
they carry their chains and they
think that we are unhappy

a rolling stone catches no moss,
the intelligent moss, the scheming ones,
shall catch the stone, dress it up,
make it feel cool, drench its body
with sprinkles of dew,
hoping to soften it a bit,

but as you must know, and
do not oppose this tradition,
and by all means must all
disappoint you, the kindness of
the moss sums up to nothing,
a stone is a stone
and will always be a stone
numb, dumb, and despite
everything
will never know how to hum.

there is a way to save
a very fragile kitchen plate
this gift of
marriage
when conversations turn
too stormy on the
table
when you fear that she will
throw a plate at you and
soon the plate will be shattered
and you can do nothing
anymore

there is always a escape to
all these
go away from the kitchen for
a while
you do not have to take the plate
with you
leave it to her
so she can remember.

there are so many ways of looking
at the same thing
some may
on the other hand
not care to look at all
but that is one of the best ways to
look at a thing
a slight gaze and then
completely ignore
because some things are not worth
looking anymore
when you glance at it you feel
that your entire life
is wasted.

we always have a way with words
like the way we create new paths where
others think otherwise and say
that this is not the one that they will walk upon

when we go
silent we feel sick
when we are silenced
we know how to rebel
we always have a way to speak
like the way we babble when we were children
but which we do not really remember
only our mother
but then she died that early and
father has no way of
knowing it since he is engulfed by his own
madness
the picture on his chest
his hand wiping his eyes
beclouding what could have been
the best truth there is.
now i must embrace silence
words hide. my tongue sleeps.

sugdan ta ang baso
nga hapit na mapuno sa tubig
ang wa mitoo moingon nga kini
hapit na mahurot

ang uban moingon
katunga lang
medya medya lang gayod kini
ambot kon mapuno ba
o mahurot
kinsa ba gayod ang nasayod?
dili nato lalisan
anaa ang tubig sulod sa baso
unya ang baso
anaa gituntong sa tunga sa
lamesa
unya ang atong mga mata
wala maglantaw kanato
dayon ang panahon milabay
kon manamin kita
kitang tanan nangatigulang
kinsa bay ganahan moihap
aning atong mga kunot sa agtang?

it begins to show itself behind mirrors
as mist becomes its background
it has a face that you do not like to see
and to avoid it
you take old pictures and read its caption
to please your heart
you do a lot of throwbacks even on Mondays

sooner the face becomes concrete and clear
and you begin to grow the fear of being alone again
that fact that when you were born you were with no one else
except your laminated skin which they with rush
go on washing
the sooner you realize that face is better
it is no stranger to you and when the day is clear
when mists are gone
when the mirror appears like the crystal sea
early morning
when the winds are still and the boats have left
you will see that that face is
yours.

you have a pet
a small bird
it was given to you
but you do not remember

it does not know how to sing
and lives in a cage
as it had lived there
with familiarity
you share it with the one
you think you love
exclusively
you have never shown it
to anyone else
it is an ordinary thing
some people tired of its silence
wanted to set it free
but this one loves to be in the
privacy of your prison
nothing is surprising
it is yours and not meant to be given
and in your goodness
you keep it as it is.
it shall die with you
and the one you love soon
shall find another
and you shall be forgotten
for there are so many of them
if you only listened.

i have a flower in my garden
it is ordinary too
it is fenced as though
special
as i have treated it to be
so

it smells like a fish
and wants to have scales
it dreams of the sea
but it will never have fins
ordinary people pass by the garden
and identifies with its dreams
someone is asking
if i am willing to give it away
like your pet bird
i, too, can't, even if it is not
as significant as the moon and
stars
i have a flower in my garden
and it shall die with me too
no one will miss us
and too, we will be forgotten
but it will always be a flower in
my garden
which i have not shared with
anyone
this flower is ordinary but it
will never trust anyone
but me.

the motive has always been
to take you there and then leave you
and you will be lost and alone
as i will not be around as i will be
preoccupied too with the new forest of
my own

you will have anger at first and then
the usual stage of denial
but soon you will send me a note
from a place which i have not been too
thanking me for that lost mind which has
found itself
a new home.

i went back to an old river
where once a crocodile used to live
where a friend was eaten
where it was gone

there was once a old tree there
where spirits of old used to dwell
where a sad song used to be sang
by the old river and a man
the old river has turned into a dry land
the tree died and not a stump remained
no one lives there anymore
its banks turning into some patches of
young grass
the sun sets there
and then i left.

there is always something to write
if you think there is none
look around you, sit by the window
see the world
framed by wood and fenced by
glass

there is always something to write
but if you think there is none
close your eyes, feel your fullness
and if you are full ( as you may always think)
empty yourself
like a sack of rice and spill the grains
upon solid grounds
under the hot sun this cruel summer.
if you still think that there is nothing to write
leave and go elsewhere
sit inside the bus, do not think
let your mind flow with the streets and the trees
and the dust that hits your face
yes the dust, just the dust, and then you will remember
and then you have everything to write
back home.

a white heron
yellow beak and
black legs
a toad in the garden
mute
with golden paint
beside a palm that
stretches its head like
a giraffe above the
fence of
the house

all made of stones.

some stories i make are made of
stones
and if you know what it really means
you might be poking it against
your head
and when you are hit
you will like it. What hurts sometimes
if you wouldn't mind (the other psychological implication)
soon makes us feel good.
the bad feeling (if you can relate well enough)
does not last that long.
It is the feeling of goodness after
that we are seeking
but the door is there, closed, and if you open it,
you need to show a little puncture in your
ring finger,
blood flows, drops on the carpet of the floor,
seeped and becomes invisible,
and to stop all these, (which you think is nothing but foolishness
a day before that)
you raise your arm, and people opening their doors
like to understand that sweetness of surrender.

and like them, when they go back to their rooms
(in the luxury of their privacy) they will read their books
and say, "that man will live"

someone sweeps the floor
washes the car
someone opens the window
another one cooks for you

someone takes the bicycle
someone rides in tandem
someone waters the garden
feeds the birds and dogs
someone leaves without
any notice
as you write what you have
always wanted to write.

a man sails alone with his boat
in a blue river
beside the river bank an old
huge tree grows

above his head a white moon
and then around all these
that canvass of space that
still bearable emptiness....

Actually there is nothing to be afraid
of.
If you deeply know everybody here
and if they are honest to admit, most of their lives have been overspent on
fears.

the majority is afraid.
the minority of the minority, seldom discovers that there is nothing to fear
except fear itself. And you do not even know who said that.
it is funny when all the fearful people come to an assembly
the whole people's park will be filled with trembling hands,
scattered minds, out of focus,
always, always, it is the future that seems to be the preoccupation
spilled milk, money that was lost and beyond recovery,
bad debts, uncertain goals,
so many termites eating wooden brains,
aphids on illusions of leaves,
worms on rotten projections,
if you put them all together
it is not a very healthy picture of what we want to paint society to be
in a canvass of hope
trembling hands of sick people
fit for a mental asylum
dump trucks of daily medications
those every young
who could be children of yours
surely would not like it.

some sheets of paper
are scattered on the floor
someone must have been here
and purposely did this
to create a drama between
paper and wood
but what is really the point to all
these?

there is something common somehow
between the paper and the wooden floor
nothing is written.

i read you and you
read me
it is mutually satisfying
it is like
i undress myself before
you and then you too
undress
and then we read each
line of our body
touch every syllable
enjoy the
nuances of our
reading under the same
moon

it is mutually satisfying
when we get tired
reading each word in
our skin
we retire
on the same grass
helpless with
an ending.

For Gil R.
there is a way to living life
and loving it much beyond what life can give us

we must love it just the way it ends too
i remember him praying for a happy death and he had it.
white niche, white flowers, white sky,
the day he was buried
there was so much beautiful music within.

when her mama was about to die as shown by the cobwebs
in her eyes
he touched her hands
he told her, " mama don't you worry, an angel waits for you
and she will guide you there"
and then she closed her eyes and he closed his too
trying to figure out if he can see what he had imagined
purposely so her mother may not fear
her next journey still unknown to him.

the next night, after that, he overslept.
inside a dream his mother was there showing the most beautiful smile
ever.
he believed her since then.

when his first son falls asleep
soundly upon a fabricated crib
in the small house that they are
renting
as he hums a lullaby his mind travels
far away
and the future looks like a bridge without
a land to finally unload all moving cars therein
and then it is night where a new moon appears.

A NEW FAIRY TALE ABOUT A MAGIC WAND
i tell myself
for once
i will make other people's dreams
come true

and then i assure myself
once, twice,
i will never let
anyone
know

educating Rita
Rita starts to know
the letters
listening to the sound
of your vowels
amazed at the
restraints of some
consonants

later Rita begins to
write
words, and sentences
to create sense
as Rita grows
she sheds of pains
and wonders
why is this happening
to her?
Rita, for the first time,
learns to write.

writing is just remembering
a word may trigger
a memory

just a finger
and a short hand
gun that you press
and then
read tomorrow's
headline

the smallness of the house
somewhere in Cavite
does not matter to Lea
what matters is that Leo
loves her

what matters is that their
bodies fit in bed
what matters is she can sleep
anytime she likes
without another woman telling
her that she is
one kind of a lazy bone
for Lea making love is so tiresome
and breakfast is forgiven.

how did you
ever like it?
i understand
that perhaps because
you cannot fathom
it yet
then you say that it
is deep

and deep is always
beautiful.

the parakeet
looks beautiful in her white cage
it keeps on repeating
something that it cannot understand

and we who understand that a parakeet is a parakeet is
always a parakeet
simply ignore what is going on
and we
how can we ever say that the parakeet
is not adorable?
the parakeet does not mean anything at all
except that seldom from their
species
know how to really speak
and understand what they are
talking
that life after all is like a parakeet
world
meaningless from the start and consistently
meaningless
at the end..........
so if you are a parakeet
don't worry
keep talking while we busy with what
we really want to hear....

patience
is the one that waits until you change
into something
unforgettable

not because you are beautiful
but because we have learned how to wait
beyond our
expectations.

in the same manner
it was not the diamond that matters
it was the reason
why you finally threw the diamond away
that we are
most interested in.

i am looking at the ribbon
on the child's right chest
pinned on his pocket,
and i remember myself
and mama
and how i worked hard
to please everyone,

the honors reaped and
the praises gathered
on the merits they said
but only for a while
soon we all wake up to an
age
where merit is useless
where politics come like
a book that we really have to
read again
to unlearn what values we
obtained
back in grade school then
when your teacher told you
that you were the best and
the ribbon you got was
one so well-deserved.

then it has become
more of an excuse
and she is silent.

write in bits
like a little bite
on one small side
of an apple

trying to savor
but you spit, Amor.

HE does not beg to be understood
so he is chased
when he goes in a remote place
the questions are already there
waiting
the bench is taken and the park is
filled
he looks at the sky to become another
bird again
and all they find are puffs
and huffs
and they all
becloud them .

a child plays with the life of the
spider
putting it on a stick and manipulating
how it must move
or take a fight with its
own kind

no child ever asks if the spider likes it.

now you
know
this thing is only for the elite
those who can buy
the ticket
and may not even decide
to fly
who may call you
i am turning off and
i am staying put
and i am doing something
else
which you cannot
afford
this art
that frame of mind
that state of
affairs
fit only for the
filthy rich

you
look at them
with awe
and soon there will
be
envy
and envy my dear
is not
a good theme
to write.

most trees
do not bear fruit
it dawns upon
us
as we walk tall
upon
this new metaphor

this new rationalization
that some
survive upon a grafted
idea
marconi
was said to be a marcot
but he is
never a bigot
some species
are not meant to be
multiplied
those rare ones
that God so loved
that He does not
want
them
copied some
more.

true, i must
agree
that money is still
the root
of all our evils

not my fault
though
you borrowed and
you did not
pay
you faulted
memory
you blame
a receipt forgotten
you always find
an excuse
where there is none

this is supposedly
the only escape
it is taking us nowhere
and it is good enough.

water and gasoline
made love
it was only gasoline which
had fire

but just the same the water
made it
the fire of one consumed
too the other
despite the coldness
of the other's fluidity

in a moment luck
arrives
you wait for a while
but soon
you do not need luck
at all
and when it comes
you disregard it

still looking for the
click
which shows that
things fit
still dreaming for
the feeling
that this is good
beautiful and
true

something's missing
and i can't feel it.

politics closes a road
for the use of one person in power
and in one road where there is heavy traffic
where you can't breathe

jam-packed the traffic police keeps looking closely
for the possible violator.

symbiosis
consists always
of two pages of an open book
when one is opened
the other is opened too

in the same manner
they close together
under the old rules
it seems logical that i like you because
you like me too
that is of course
a very nice beginning of a lasting friendship.

someone will tell you that
you are hopeless
that you need to stop what you are doing right now
that someone believes that he has the only
divine right to be
another god
omniscient

you look at him
you read him
and then finally you ask
who in hell is he?
you don't even know his name
and he doe not even know you too
so why bother?

For A.R. E.


the night is cold
you have been friends for long
tonight one bed is just a meter apart from
yours
this sleeper has a face
lighted by the moon
golden beauty
you adore

you cannot even utter
a name
you are prohibited even to
use the correct pronoun
you cannot touch any part
ah, love unrequited
nature has its own strong reasons
sun to moon, stars to sea,
sands to foam
water and oil
fish without water.

For Lulu
it is true
water seeks its own level

but
love is not water.

he is sad
and sits on the porch
it is twelve noon
and there is
a leak of water
from the tank on the
roof

water drops that
five birds with yellow breasts
are bathing
spattering water on the
window
sadness somehow
diminishes itself

sex
mishear it as tattoo
actually it is still a taboo

lots of it
make you feel like a cranky old man
counting his slow steps
into a vegetable garden
a dog follows mistaking him
as another bone.

it is not the body
you can buy bodies
it is not the hand
there are so many hands
it is not even the smile
or the thought
or the care that someone
pours on you
it is something that you want
to defy
and hope that it will still
love you
someone that you love and
you want that someone
to hate you

if there is love
you are turned off
like another moonless
night
if the sun is there
fiery
it is just another
ordinary day
trace it when you were
once a boy
when father left you
when time was never on your
side
when love was as empty
a vase without a flower

you are simply
impossible
you want to love someone
who does not love you
you are into seduction mode
and when someone is seduced
and learns to love you

you packed up and leave
a note saying:
i am not meant for love
i am meant for some journeys
i am a traveler and
a traveler loves no one
no place
nothing
not even this self or this world
so where can you be?

i have since then
stopped intervening at other
people' stupidity
it is contagious
it spreads like a rumor
inside me

people will know
really how to take care of themselves
as i unlearn how pleasant is it
at times
to be insufficient
to need less and
be happy
to live in one's
own world
and just be
left alone

how can a man be a beaker
a glass
or any receptacle?
he is and will always be a
stirring rod, a boat, a river,
sun,

a tree, a knife, a child with
all his toys,
a sound and not a cave.