JUST BEING FAIR

it would have been
a nice, easy walk, in the park, 
or in the mountain trails, 
or on the shore, 
or just along the countryside
pathways, leading to a river, 
crossing it, and taking the
walk on deserted lands, 
it would have been more healthful
with sweat coming out
taking away the toxins from this
sedentary lifestyle, 
but here you are facing the 
screen, pressing the keys, 
into a more pondering state, 
deep thoughts, winding and rewinding
some tapes of regrets and
disappointments that most of your
friends do not know or if they
know, they won't bother, for this is
what it is about, living your life as
they also live theirs, taking
your burdens with you as they
also lift theirs, 
for in the actual state of affairs
we only have to care about 
ourselves, learning how to live
how to survive, how to project
that image of happiness hoping
to help them too cope with theirs.

the convolutions of thoughts
in the brain, going somewhere, 
far away, returning still at
the break of morning, 
steady on a chair, easy and fair.

to get closer to you i will make sacrifices

to the goat goddess
to the siren shrimp
to the white crow
to the coral saint

there will be so many denials

i will deny my humanity
she will deny her engagement
they will deny who they are
the world must deny its
shape and color

i have to get closer to you
skin to skin
eye to eye
hand to hand clasping like
a prayer

for there is one thing that i so
badly need

the truth....

mama was silent about it
till she died 
grandma says there are things
that one takes to the grave as a matter
of necessity

there are words which need not be said
even if true

because like love when you take it
you can always let it

kill you. 

welcome back
my friend you have come
home again

this is home
this is our beautiful home
the flowers know your name
the bushes miss your hair
the trees keep talking
about you

we miss you from this glass
to the teapot
we have heard a lot about
your past
the present blurred that
much

now sit with us
let us sip coffee and have our
cookies
the ones that we love when we
were once children at heart

you belong to us
tell us the truth. 

when you begin to write something
true and real
you cannot escape that little fear
that somehow
you have opened yourself unnecessarily
to an indifferent world
an unbelieving pack of wolves
ready to eat you when you are caught
unaware to the horrors of reality

it is as if the world has no time
to listen to your woes, your having
loved and hated, eaten and vomited

your guitar has gathered dusted
not a hand had strummed it for years


it is as if you have no other means to live
but to strip on this stage in front of a
lusting audience
as piece by piece you detach each part of
you baring the last inch
and there you are naked and helpless to all
their stares

somehow you do not mind at all at the end
of this stripping show
you assure yourself that you have so much
beauty to share and if there is that
ugliness, and on such equality you argue, 
they all have it anyway

and as you go back to your seclusion you 
keep chanting: we are all the same, we are
all the same, we are all the same and
you belong to them and they belong to you
to the exactness that the Creator has
designed it to be. 

we had a simple
gathering of friends and
relatives in the beach today
where food and drinks are
served
where talks are free flowing
taking us
anywhere bringing us to
any place that we imagine 
still exists or even if they
don't we dreamed to be, 

they say they've been 
to america
and they miss this kind of
gathering, 

no timetable, no rushing, 
no limits, no bars, 
we all know what this is, 

realizing that depression
costs us much
psychiatric sessions are
getting trendy
most people commit suicide
and we wonder 
what is happening 
why

we have this antidote to
suffering
this cure for loneliness
we talk without sense
we laugh for no reason at all
we recall the past which
you think is unnecessary
we use our bare hands while eating
we drink water from the spring
we walk instead of ride
we empty instead of filling
we lose rather than win
we give rather than receive
we are going home 
to regain this faith to family
and friends and relatives
well knit, supportive and strong. 

the multi eyed
creature did not escape
from my
trap of silent fingers

i caught it during my childhood

i took its head off
pulled its red tail away from its body
and cut its wings into
pieces

how cruel indeed is this
lack of education... 

it does not end because we do not want it to
end.

we cannot stop either because we cannot just do
it.

so i keep writing whatever comes in my mind at this hour
of the night

as you haggle for the sleep goddess to give you some gifts
of sleep

you do not like books you like to simply iron the clothes
which other hands wash and dry on the clothesline

i listen to Handel's messiah as you turn off the study lamp
which you too dislike

we know that love has diminished we are afraid to say it categorically that it is gone

it cannot end we have already built a house, brought the furniture, 
created a garden of roses, raised some pigs and dogs, 

so we live without love, others do the same, we still have
conversations during breakfast, entertain some nasty rumors, 
watch morning TV, share opinions on politics and trade, and
then we go each way

to each his own life for the whole day and then come back at night
sleeping far apart, unmoved by distance, 

accepting tradition, sticking it out, like sealed letters. 

it can be beautiful along the way
riding a bus in the countryside going back home.

flashes of ricefields, and shorelines, on one side and
on the other, then some forest trees and flock of birds
migrating to the other country, 

on some bus stops, you buy delicacies and hear
another language of commerce 
feel the pulses of humanity

you sit there in silence not talking to the man beside you
just gazing as the bus begins to move faster

towards home.... 

the old
grandfather's clock is still alive
standing on the corridor of the house
swinging
making most of the time despite its
steady position which perhaps i cannot 
do unless i am inanimate just like it.

a child soon shall come and hit it with
a baseball.

history is made here. Others who want to keep their mouth shut
left and will not be returning.

a generation of geckos 
and dogs and snakes and ticks and mites.

the one that you kissed
was a stone
the one whom you slept with
was a dead wood
what you once touched
was already cold ice under the
sun,

the house where you lived
had ashed
the fences flew away like leaves
the yard where you once sat on grass
and smoked Marlboro
had become a pool of mud

the way going there had turned
into a snake ready to bite you
when you turn back

there are no more reasons
to make a case
no arguments are strong enough
all the conclusions are wrong

the dog i had did not remember me
anymore
it had become rabid and died

the cat could not wait for i
am not a fish to its liking,

all those ingrates and
traitors grew like mushrooms
nearby

mother had her hair cut and
she left as another vagabond
in the desert.

i had not a word for father.
i do not want to remember that
smells like him.

i too just like the rest had
turned to dust moving on to the
next endless road....