you will the language
that i learn
when i speak you
it will only be myself
who shall understand

i fall upon a cliff
and dive upon the
sea
away from the rocks
i must survive

there is beauty here
from where i am lost
and then to where
i shall find
myself without you

the corals sing for me
the fish worship my body
the seaweeds too soft
and comforting
loneliness is a good
companion
together with solitude
mixed
completing me.

in the dream
we touch and i am
free
like rain falling
on everything

it is different
when i wake up
and you are gone

these guilt like
thorns
and i have become
its main rose

the tree is real
stable upon earth
confident of  its
leaves and trunk
rooted
and steady and
mindless
of the seasons
and the
travelers who
stop for a while
and then like you
gone forever.

we are walking up
towards the peak of
an old mountain, where

Papa before his demise
walked with me
to the top and told me
how beautiful life can
be when we are near
the clouds that dress
the trees with its
foggy days,

we have gotten heavy
on the plains and
our feet are not forgiving
us for our lousy days

when we reached the top
my world changed
as i remember what
hurts and having learned
the cause
i breathe life again
like a child.

who wants not
to slim a little
to simply whisper
make a hush
and live in peace?
who wants not to
go back
to a former body
of smooth and
tight skin and strong
arms and
muscled chest?
who wants not
to be beautiful again
and thirsty for love
and have those
dreams of youth
fulfilled?

time is so unforgiving.
fate is uncompromising.
here you are
waiting for the next bus
to your last destination.
you want not to look back.
everything is nice
it is over.

last night she woke up
to an unholy hour
felt my chest
and thought that i was dead
which i played
so willingly to test how she
reacts to said
circumstance

she loves me.

papa loved the poor and he let them live
in his land
there was this vagabond.
he said he knew how to fish and papa bought him a boat
and the net
and the man lived
on the shore of papa's land
where coconut trees grow beside the sea
for they love salt.

he did not live that long to hear from them
what happened after.
the poor sometimes are not correct.
they are bound by their poverty in spirit.
bound by their tragedy when they were once children.
their trauma are chains of their afflictions.
unable to rise from their calamitous past.
papa became an alcoholic.
mama did not understand how this matter came into being.
they were like a river which changed course and
split.
when papa was buried i prepared the eulogy.
not much people. the poor were not there.
we were not that rich but papa always shared what he had.
papa wanted to believe that everything done turned
out good.
i wanted to think that he was right.
look at me, i tell the children by the sea.
i am that empty shell. Press me to your ear.
My song is strange and you will ask me where i come from.
i am nowhere now.

how easy for you
to denounce the church for its frailties
how magnified are the errors of its priests
and how stupid you have named the lay workers
how blind are the thousand followers which you
faulted for calling one Father,

how blind are you to see your wrong desires too
how inconsistent are you with your love for the poor
as you brag about an imported coffee
which you want to share with your other blind friends
beside that mythical elephant
i have tolerated your giggles
your night trysts and you too
must think on this: to each his wrong
to each his own blind spots and g-spots too.

THE FINAL EXAM
I guess there will be no
written exam anymore
but a one on one interview

and it will be one about
a repentant asking for more
mercy and compassion

do you remember
that little boy who computed
the flux of electricity?
or that little girl who delivered
a speech on the inequality of
economies?

know what, they all gave me
goosebumps
and that feeling of loneliness
that sense of
"i like seeing them playing
in the park
playing hide and seek
chasing butterflies
doing the see-saw
or shouting it out
on the swing"

what hurts you is never sacred.
what does the sacred bush do to
the lost stranger? it catches him in awe
and wonder and thus he removes
his sleepers and bows his head down
in worship, until he forgets his misery.
the sacred bush burns but is never
consumed. There are no voices of
instructions. The self teaches itself
what to do under this holy circumstance.
The dogs of war yelps in peace.
The wolves turn into sheep.
If you ask the name, it is not given.
All the pain is gone. But then you
have to go and be on your own again.
For the journey is always wanting.

the morning comes
handing you the sun
at your command.
the sun shines
and your shoulders
bare what scratch
has that night given?
the flowers come not
in baskets
but in the arms of
its own petals.
the dog waits you
by the door.
It will be a walk of joy.

even fire produces
its best light before it dies,
the most beautiful petal
is the flower's last
the most beautiful part
of the film should be its
ending, and this i like
to happen in my life
with you.

there is something
so important that i want to tell you
but i just can't and knowing that
you insist, and you do not want to be
refused, and so i walk towards you
as though you are an open window
and i look at you and i see a night sky
without the moon and stars
and i am the candle light ---waning.....

the man aims a gun at me
who knows his name? but i know his eyes
bland, and tasteless
it is not seeing for itself
it is dead as stone
whose slave are you?
it does not mind and i look
straight to the gut of the barrel
if it bursts, -- i will say, thanks.

papa loved the poor and he let them live
in his land
there was this vagabond.
he said he knew how to fish and papa bought him a boat
and the net
and the man lived
on the shore of papa's land
where coconut trees grow beside the sea
for they love salt.

he did not live that long to hear from them
what happened after.
the poor sometimes are not correct.
they are bound by their poverty in spirit.
bound by their tragedy when they were once children.
their trauma are chains of their afflictions.
unable to rise from their calamitous past.
papa became an alcoholic.
mama did not understand how this matter came into being.
they were like a river which changed course and
split.
when papa was buried i prepared the eulogy.
not much people. the poor were not there.
we were not that rich but papa always shared what he had.
papa wanted to believe that everything done turned
out good.
i wanted to think that he was right.
look at me, i tell the children by the sea.
i am that empty shell. Press me to your ear.
My song is strange and you will ask me where i come from.
i am nowhere now.

i have a dog with
three feet
and with said lack
i always hide it
not that i pity it
but it can be of
interest to you and
you will steal it

some creatures
are unusual and are
meant to be hidden
more questions are
asked and we will
be all exhausted for
the answers
some selves too.

at the night when he was transformed into
a cockroach
the room has become too big for it
and when the morning comes
there is no one to open the door for him
the knob is too huge
and what he has are only its two useless
wings
at that time he turned turtle and cannot
set it body back to a runnable posture.

and then Kafka becomes famous.

pain is the seed
sown in the heart
time is the silence
which grows the root
of thirst for God
and patience twigs out
buds of hope that
finally brings the
flowers of our divinity

having known
that you love me
the surge of the sea
comes taking Samar
to Bohol where hills
grow mountains
touching clouds and
then all the fish jump
at night to kiss the moon

the cat is
a nonagon
it sits on the portal
of nine dimensions
it leaps and lands
gently unharmed
and we who watch
are amazed
for what it is.

we can be out of
touch sometimes and
people who see us
are so patient and with
so much understanding
dismiss the crazy idea
and say with comfort that
there is nothing wrong
with poetry --- just wait.

the one that makes us
feel good
must be too written
like floating birds in the sky
and swimming petals on the river
the dancing fish on the pool
the magician with his rabbit
why? we really have to.
we must still live.

there is a time when i
am a spinning top
conscious of the force
and the shortness of its
swirling moments.
and then the inevitable happens
everything in me stops
and there is no one there
to tie and throw me again.

i pass by the river
this morning and see
some children bathing
i hear the sounds and
the splash of the water
and the throwing of stones
and the loud laughter
and then i am taken away
flown to the farthest sea

while in the car
alone driving myself
towards home
slowly i take the road
with a song in my heart
"how great thou art
O Lord my God"---
fear turns itself off
hope flints, love's ablaze.

these are all experiences
like " I've been there"
and "here and even
gone tomorrow, like a dream
our love for illusions
what we become
a nostalgia
we like to hold like
frost and mist.

even fire produces
its best light before it dies,
the most beautiful petal
is the flower's last
the most beautiful part
of the film should be its
ending, and this i like
to happen in my life
with you.

in a situation like this,
you become a poet. It is
when the jar is emptied
and there is no water and
you are thirsty
and dying,

usually it happens that
way. I was once a child
frolicking. There was
poetry all around: sun rays,
beach balls, shore foams,
sands, and pebbles, soft feet,
and hermit crabs, corals and
seaweeds,

but i was not a poet,
it was beautiful then and
i was so innocent,

now, the road shortens,
my feet calloused, nothing
carousing, my lips crack,
my skin shedding off,
my bones hollow

time has a way of showing
a misfortune, and then you
write.

that is where everything
begins.

the coconut tree

i won't say that it is you. I always
hide things away from you. You see
it is the house where we live. It
is happy. You say i am not in my
mind. How can a house be happy?

( how can i tell you that i am
unhappy? i look for an island in this
house, and it is happy that i have
not found it here)

what is that island all about? it is
all about me. It is a small island,
with one coconut tree that i love.
It is touching the sky. And yet
it has no roots to make it stay.
Soon the wind comes and the
coconut tree shall be taken. I want
to hold on to that tree. But i cannot
find that island.

when i tell you this, you will say
you're crazy. You lied to me. If you
only tell me the truth

( if i tell you the truth i will find the
island but the tree that i love will no
longer be there. That is the curse.
When i find it, it will be gone.)

do you think that that tree has leaves
of gold, has trunks of silver? do not
accuse of me of greed. It is a tree
without roots. It has wings. And
this saddens me.

A lot.

there is a dark room
in our house
where we stay for
a while
to admire how strong
we are
how beautiful we feel
when are so alone
and quite

there is this corner
of the room where we lay
our bottoms
where we close our eyes
and rest
there is this window that we
keep closed
where we refuse to see the
world outside
where the winds are so cold
where leaves fall and blown
away
there is this self that you
want to meet and shake hands
with
ask its name again for the
nth time
and then you shake your
head
saying you do not remember

there are those
who flutter for a while
exist only for a while
yet how amazed we
are with their grace and
beauty,
like those butterflies,
we abstract from their
wings and the winds
we reduce it to time
how time too flies
and how we are finally
left out
how broken our wings
how fickle the winds
how fine are we
that others do not really see
what we really are
left-over existences
mere stories.

you are back from a trip
the dogs meet you
the house help serves the usual
food that you like: hot soup and some greens
you open the door of your room
the usual smell of wood and newly put linens
meet you

the trip has done you good
the casualness have changed for the better now
it is an old world right
but it makes sense now
the chairs dance, the table no longer tiptoes
the curtains unfold, the winds are fresh this time
the hinges sound differently
together they make an orchestra for you
as though saying: we are glad you're back
we are sad no more....

there are many of them
they are names, they have names,
but there is something in you
that sounds like me
and it has become too interesting
so i left my friends, followed the path
that leads to you
my mirror, my echo,
and then you ask me why?
i followed you, looked at the paths
you have taken, i listened to your
words, and then i see myself again

at last, i flatter myself this time
you are interesting because i am
interesting,
and this is the beginning
of a friendship, who knows?
i will learn to live again
love my image, and love at the end
all of humanity.

your favorite dog senses your arrival
waits at the gate, by the garage, and runs
to meet you
impatient about the meeting and
rushing to you it stumbles upon the path
where you drive your car
which runs over the dog
which gives its last yelp and
then dies.

there are those
who flutter for a while
exist only for a while
yet how amazed we
are with their grace and
beauty,
like those butterflies,
we abstract from their
wings and the winds
we reduce it to time
how time too flies
and how we are finally
left out
how broken our wings
how fickle the winds
how fine are we
that others do not really see
what we really are
left-over existences
mere stories.

i think much better in
english. sorry, but that is how i was
brought.
every hour, every book,
every lecture in school is in english.

now you are telling me to return to
my home.
be back in my house. familiarize
myself again with my childhood
bed. my wheelbarrow.
that slingshot, that river,
that swing.

i met old friends again back
in that barrio.
we have become strangers.
i have feelings that they simply
dismiss as overrated.
i am alone in the midst of my
memories.

i want to run away. But i have
nowhere to go.
i am back. I reinvent myself.
i have to grow my roots again.

i will be another tree in this forest.
let the monkeys come.

i see you write,
i listen to your voice
when you tell me that
what you have written
is a poem about your life,
i see you dance
and i thought you were all right
you never ask me to listen
while you cry
if you ask, i could have given
it time, and i could have given
you a hug,
the last thing i heard was that
you ran away, jump over the bridge
and there, you were gone.

your body was recovered and
prayers were offered.
i was there listening to the
prayers and their songs.

we lost you. we never had
the best of our times.

if you listen to me and my
poetry, which i have kept as
a secret from you,

you could have told yourself
that you can do much better than me.

well, i am not saying this with finality.
i am still alive, and still writing.

i will tell you perhaps,
when i cross my next bridge