U & I

you burst first
and then surrender
to the soft pillow
of the bed

i didn't have that
magma
the volcano in my
mind
sleeps and the
eruption
was just a word
that came out
unrestrained so
you hear it giving
you the pleasure
of some stars

i wake up
looking at my own
body
the terrains of my
abdomen
show an abandoned
land

my eyes are clouds
hanging on the black sky
and then it rains
once again satisfying the
thirst of grass
the longing of the river
the bareness of
land.

THE FATHER OF MAN

THERE was this child
whom Mama shooed
away when the doctor of
the village comes once
in a while

he was the same child
whom Papa left home
when he went away on
a hunting trip for days
and comes back with the
head of wild deer

his eyes are lonely peeping
upon a hole of the wall where
the termites live for years
silently consuming everything
that was built there

no one is lonely forever
sometimes loneliness grows
an edifice
and then a fence
where that lonely smile is
kept away
from everybody

when both Mama and Papa
passed away
when the doctor met his
untimely death
when the head of the deer
was stolen away
when the termites came
triumphantly

when everything that hurt him
becomes forever
forgotten

this child has become the father
of man
who now writes you
this poem

i can have at my command.

i've read the story about
that half-woman half-fish

so sad to know that a man
had been taken deep down

the blue sea and was never
seen again because of a

deception which stirred the
minds of  kin and skin

now i must confront you
about what i must say & do

i can't take both, i can
discard the half of that woman

& i can take the fish for
my viand tonight  good for

my body and soul, i am
not hungry for tales i am

hungry for salt and sea and
fins and tails and what is

not found in that woman
which i can have at my command.

a date one day in april

first time for me to be
inside a jacuzzi

nice place with an
ambiance of bonsai pines

a rock garden beside us
and a fountain singing the

tune of water at the other
side of the glass window

where the sun just set and
then the fading color of orange

permeates the room when
you said that it is time to light

the lamp of Aladdin which
you bought from Siem Riep

you undress and then join
me in the bubbling water

i couldn't help but
jack off too early

as you landed the first kiss
in the wet planks of my lips

that port of my being
where lonely ships take rest.

and then you are nothing.

yes it is all in the mind
writing without hands
pens are dispensed like
an outmoded tool and
here you are facing no
screen even

the fingers lose their
directions, because it
is all in the mind, in a
dream where you can
no longer tell who is the
dream and the dreamer.

wherever you are 
know this, it is the breathing
it is the taking in, that
really matters.

remember, when all these
come out from your
mouth, you are no
longer its owner, and then
you are nothing.

two rocks speechless.

Buddha
you sit there
the usual silence
lovelier
always lovelier
ever
to the utmost
solitude

i am incensed.
i keep on burning
with a flicker and
then i thin out
until all the smoke in
me is consumed
by air
that permeates the
whole empty body
of this room

this is my sweetest
loss

i empty myself so
that i will be gone
into nothingness
so that i can be
an incense again in
my own
sacred place of
silence

with Buddha beside me
two rocks speechless.

like a chopper to the blue skies.

i may lose you.
in exchange of that loss
is this silly feeling

they will say you are
my everything
my existence is inside
your world
and i do not have
my own
except this simple word

perhaps love, but i doubt
it at times, for it makes me
feel silly, most often and

to lose you someday may
not be difficult at all, since
i already felt that years
back

when we keep on talking
about same things same people
everyday for the rest of our
lives and you sometime

walk alone, and do not answer
my cellphone ringing and then
turned off, i

understand, this silly feeling,
this anticipation of a break-up
this painless set-up of you
losing me and i losing you

to lose you can be a triumph
towards a gate where i can
shout to the cliffs and my
echoes will be that of  a

song, yes a song, of echoes
that uplift me like a chopper
to the blue skies.

UP IN THE MIDDLE AND DOWN UNDER

as it is in the sky
it shall be too on
earth and it shall
be too underneath.

The analogy is in
the roots of trees
and your hairtips
and follicles.

It shall be in the
fungus of our
existence. It shall
be in the nerves of
mankind.

Heaven, Man, and
Earth. Planes and
cars and submarines.

away from the madhouse of the chattering crowd.

i just read about the 20
most interesting people to
watch and read for 2013.

amazing. really amazing.
one feels like a dead jellyfish
the other says life is a shore
with lots of waves and the
other says he eats cannibals.

i shiver. One feels autumn in
summer. I can't relate. Going
back to my room and facing
the same screen, i face
my own blankness.In the mirror
at this moment i am a man without
a face. I feel like i am not
interesting at all.

well everyone feels this. A speck
of dust a grain of rice, indistinct
upon a big bowl. The shore is
endless, and the sky is limitless.

but i never want fame. I like it
this way. I go out of my door
walk alone, and the crowd sees
no one. I see all of them, and
that is enough to make life
so interesting.Animals in the zoo.
Stuffed toys in the store.
A dress shop. A show of guns
and bullets. And then another
explosion headlining the most
famous people entangled in
that ending.

I'm lucky. I am not in the headline.
I am back home, watch the news.
Eyes get tired and then have some
sleep on an hour without restrictions.

No one tells me that in this broad
daylight, it is not good to have sleep.
As others work themselves to death,
i rest at my own choice. I am nothing
After all, this is nobody at his utmost
luxury, in privacy, in seclusion, happily
situated away from the madhouse of
the chattering crowd.

and where i shall go after?

we are two who have become one
because of the law, we thought it was
because of love, too late we found it
not to be that,

too late, for us who find ourselves
naked in bed, and then find nothing
desirable at the end, our eyes stare
at the ceiling finding no stars, no moon,
but just wood, and yes this bulb which
i bought at a cheaper price, and now
about to flicker,

you say, we shall endure, what will
others say? shall we break an oath?
shall we put ourselves to the shame
of our elders and the law? i say
nothing. i am worried about the flicker.
Soon it will end. And this room will
be dark, and i won't hold your hand
neither will i embrace your body.

i put my hands above my abdomen
in prayer and you see me before that
light dies, and you smile, as i pretend
that i am dead.

That is your dream i know. And mine
too, perhaps. How i wish i'd been
clear to myself, who i am, what to do,
and where i shall go after?

my shadow

follow me, follow me
do not look back, keep on following me
move one step and be with me
hold my hand, hold it tighter
look at me, we'll stop, i'll kiss you
kiss you hard, i'll make love to you

my shadow.

i shall not run away from myself

to tell you the truth
i keep on writing to make myself live

if i stop, i die, and if i die
no one lives for me

for i am alone by myself
in all these

i do not die neither to i wish
to have it myself
done, for that would be
cowardice at its most

one who loves oneself does no
lose oneself
for what choice do i have?
except to live and show the
courage that i still know how

you may be happy now in
another lover's arms
what choice do i have?
no one bears all my regrets for
me except myself

i am brave, brave as a thousand
lonely men who know how to fight
and not run

away from myself.

how time really swiftly passes by

again i see this movie
i look around me
i close the window panes
and then the door
and then i go within
the movie in one of those
characters
that keep on chiding me
that i have done nothing
to make that love come true

it keeps on laughing at me
saying
"how time swiftly passed
and you are left alone
still tending to your wounds
as she had sent her boy into
manhood and now waits with
him at the altar for his bride"

bad character i supposed
but i am worse
i know how to jump
into mud into the situation
and tell myself
" Go, go away
i have more loves
to tend and tender
for another day!"

what we did in bed

if only the bed has a
tongue of its own and can
speak the words

it would have spoken
endlessly
all the stories about us
always
unfinished

if it has a tongue
i'd cut it.

academic screaming.

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


what was it that
she was thinking?

i won't surmise.

i also slept at
12 midnight

i am not thinking
of any Cinderella

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am healed.

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





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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

in the poverty of their souls

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

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

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

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

black spider i keep my silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the escape door

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

the oxymorons in action

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

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

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

THE POETIC CORNER

This is the place where money
has no value,

where work is always free because it is
loved,

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

loving without measure

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

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

imagination always flies

like birds
outside the matrix
of
the boundaries of
migration

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

press the keys
you can write some more

face the screen
and
bleed.

IN POETRY

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

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

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

thus it is in
poetry

the soul calls for
God
who is not
there anymore.

FOR YOU WHO CLAIM TO BE THE OWNER OF MYSELF

it is shallow
i know, it is only skin deep

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

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

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

before you finally come
on time as
always.

A POEM ABOUT DEATH

is still early

the sun is still crazy

over aridity

one gets bored with a hat

and uneasy now with the usual shade of an old tree

what choice is there?

that desert has killed so many travelers

and no one came back to tell the exact story

how it happened

the usual thing is curiosity

and restlessness

and then finally because of too much loneliness

one finally ignores the sun

and embarks on the unanswered questions that lie in that desert

where death tells its own story

and then you will like it

and so like the rest

you too, do not come back

and when finally the sun sets

and darkness comes

there is peace in those lights that spring

from the windows of houses

and then after a moment

too, die, in the serenity of the silence

of the night.

 

DUMB & DULL

going back to
old places is depressing

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

you walk some more
and no one remembers you
anymore

the woman who cooked for
the family
died as a spinster

the church is still alive
but the bell has been changed

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

Billy (Collins) & Alfredo (Navarro Salanga)

sitting here
i am reading Billy's
silence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEGGING FOR AFFECTION

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

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

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

same answer. " Does he have a wife?"

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

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

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

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

like a cat and never like a rat that takes away

some of their trash.

and so i learned my lesson now

i dislike other people houses' doors

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

where people like my sensitivity

simply move away and never stay.

every moment every color

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

will i be happier with what
i see?

i can always be a prism or
you can be mine

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

every moment every color

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

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

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

mourn for me
exude all the colors
my prism..

the truth always comes out

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

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

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

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

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

if you just believe it.

like a jar in a vacuum.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a door closed

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

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

i left the place
carrying nothing &
i am going somewhere

where i can be another
interesting
virgin again

i am human and i am king

i sometimes think that the tree loves me
i look at the leaves
find hope in its buds, until all these
leaves, buds,
die,
until all the leaves fall and scatter all its dead self
on the ground
where the roots have no reaction at all,
until the buds are nipped and
the world speaks nothing about it,
since, destruction and death are nothing but
normal occurrences somehow
that everything around it, the air included,
has nothing to express,
i listen, i scrutinize what is happening to me
thinking that this tree which has no preoccupation but to grow taller
and look for sunlight
is in love with me,
this mind that makes inventions, that fabricates things that
must make it a survivor,
oh well, i can think i want and leave this tree upon its
mindless existence,
after all, i am human and i am king.

the window that finally blinks

there is something in me that wants to be true
like a window that stares to a road where women pass by
covering their mouths from a dusty road
there is no blinking
every detail about the color of each woman's scarf is duly taken

but there is a boy who comes from the bushes and carries a brown ball
and throws it at me and then i close this window in me and i turn into myself
coiling like a wounded snake

that snake within us
it does not hiss anymore but in this hurting hours our eyes are like lamps glaring in the dark
thirsting for vengeance

the hurt is long and winding like a road to the cliff
and it has no ending except an abyss

from then on
one takes the truth lightly like a feather plucked from a hen
twisting a neck and planning for a fried dinner

from hence
i laugh
i laugh out loudly so that you can hear and think finally that i am all right
and that i have survived
you.

11:26

when i tell you that i have loved you since i first saw you,
i know what you will give me: a quizzical look, a sense of disbelief,
it will be milder, but i expect greater than that: that shock in war,
that vomit in gluttony, that feeling of having a snake in your bed,
i must have overate this, but i know what consequences are there:
like a mother you will cut an umbilical cord that connects me to you,
i am that helpless premature baby inside your womb,
i will die and you will like seeing that slow death like a boa
constricting my body,

i can imagine the horror of the vietnam war, the massacre of
innocent lives, blood is the river, bodies rotting on the banks,
worms everywhere, a no man's island,

you will laugh, and you will see the frankenstein in me loving
screws and bolts, and junks and rusts and useless parts

i always look at myself in the mirror of your eyes, i see that i am
a gentle moon traversing the placid lake of our junctures,

i do not wish to disturb the peace between our two countries,
i remain a diplomat in my own chosen field of silence.

soft winds blowing the reeds upon the Nile
shadows of pyramids fading with the sun and now embracing the golden
like of the moon
a bedouin riding on his camel still dreaming of a home
of oasis in the desert of his
unrequited love, an emptiness unfilled, a self unrealized
agonizing in the silence of the tumor
that keeps growing inside his head.
 

11:12

inside our pockets
is the privacy of our own stones

outside our faces are the familiarities of
our traditions

when we party
we say the same words actually
we fear
other people's anger
we cannot afford to disappoint the
visitors of our
common faith

the usual mess will be there
part of the party you know
sometimes we let go
we let loose what is too tight in our necks
we spit what is bitter outside the windows of our
tongues

there is always time for restraint in a few glasses of
alcohol
there is a time to make our mouths shut up
tying our tongues like ropes on
the railings of the house
of civility

personally i do not like this party where we become
decent fools
choosing the words
afraid of the truth
always fearing that we should have broken some rules
of engagements

most of the time we deny what our hearts are looking for
cold hands hold another set of cold hands
empty heads bang with other empty heads
on hollow sounds of flattery

one time i left the room where the party is going on
it is 11:10 in the evening and it has become too intolerable

i need to be alone inorder to be free
i imagine you and i love this atonement when you still do not mind
how i feel

i am complicating it so much restraint
because even if i am now outside everybody
i still retain
the decency of what is right and wrong which i always
carry around.

11:04

there is a coat
that covers a seed

it is thick
and dry and the seed is
safe inside it

the seasons are
inviting
one time, there is so much
rain

and it would have been a good time
to throw the seed and let
it grow

but you have decided not to

it is not the kind of seed that they know
by tradition

it did not come from their
own familiar farms established with
strict adherence to rules
and penalties

you keep the seed as a symbol of
your
eternal restraint

you are a good man
and they think of you and will always do
until you die

the seed is in your body
swallowed
like your pride in self-denial

because you will always be a good man
until they die.

10:56

you brag that life is not complicated
everything is simple

like, baring yourself, nothing hidden,
speaking, shying away from silence
because silence is strange
it is not named specifically like
a goat with horns,  a bird with claws
a fish with fins,

you speak your mind,
a square is a square
a spade is a spade
not a thing is the same,
everything unique
simplify, simplify, is that a hard
thing to do? i say it is not.

you grow, you experience pain,
you shed tears on people they do not really
consider important

time and pressure are two twins now
you like to die, you once tell me
as candid as tomorrow you will take your like away

like jumping from the 12th floor or
simply, as you put, withholding breath
or pulling the trigger
"bang!" is that complicated? i say it is not
since life, your life, is always your hands


there is meaning to all these, i tell you,
you look for it like standing by and looking at the faces of people
who suffer like us,

then life unfolds with so many petals,
it becomes a tree with so many rings worn inside its body
so many twigs, branching out as though it is following an edict

you follow the veins of a dried leaf
or listen to the stories of the child
you begin to count the stars in the dark skies
or lull yourself with the eternal numbers that the waves of the sea
are carrying to the shore

endless, moon to moon, sun to sun, horizons that tire your eyes
deserts that make you feel the thirst
numerous deaths, births and rebirths of thoughts and
memories of windchimes

it is now simple to accept, sometimes one cannot tell a person that
you love and that your love is something that you cannot really grasp
beyond speech,
beyond hold,
beyond feeling, it is what you see at noon when you stare at the sun

hurting, you cannot attack that long,
lest you get blinded by so much light

now i know how is it to write to someone and you try hard that you cannot be understood
because

life is not simple, and saying i love you is not just to utter the word and then
everything turns to be alright

it is more than that
honestly, until now, i cannot say it, or if i say it, until now i have never understood it

do not attempt to understand what i too have not understood
it is like this: when i tell you that i love you, everything in me vanishes
day turns to night, and i will be lost forever
denying what i am
destroying what i have built from the beginning

my love is a nihilist.
you, as always, can be my sun, without you
feeling it.

10:39

imagine a face
a silhouette of nose and eyelashes and forehead
black shadow against the afternoon sun
dark orange turning into
black
a journey towards a night

all the birds in your hair have gone
they are all home now
in the place that you want to remember
but you
just can't

because the word departure which was once too painful
has been erased in the glossary of your memories

but you remember
as always home

arms, and breasts and the silence of
togetherness
because you are home now and it is as always
sweet and
peaceful

10:32

i've read your poem.
had a hard time understanding it.
 i feel like wasting my time.
perhaps i am too shallow
i do not have your depth.
you are deep and i do not
have those gears and
other props
or perhaps i am just too
lazy to jump into your
water
or perhaps i just want to
have fun
reading

the words you use are
bellicose, too much
blood in there, the scenes
are deadly
so many are drowning,
and no help is coming

getting to know you
is cumbersome
you are trying to confuse
my state of hibernation
am but a simple
catfish frozen in mud
it is drought time here
and everybody is
leaving

i do not have your feet
i have my own fins
caught in suspension
i feel like a block of
soil, pushed and
abandoned

i may envy you but
i do not understand why

you are new, and original
i am old and wobbled
i am frozen in my own
hibernating world of
a block of soil, solidified
petrified, but in peace.

revenge

i am indifferent
greater than that i am angry
but nothing in my face shall show it
this anger that
spreads inside like a polluted
mining pool
to the river
this stored fear
like yeast in poisoned bread
which soon
you all shall
eat

fast, and flashing

for those that i have not
spoken
they shall continue to be
so

the bus is coming and it
will not make any difference
whether i
come in or jump out

you will wave your hand
someone will remove his hat as a gesture of honor
i like to think that i shall take a look
but it will not matter

i am inside this bus and
it is
fast and everything flashes
like
drawings erased
on that
blackboard

my promise

i promised myself
i speak what i want to say
relentlessly

even if it should result in my own
alienation

i will be free as a fallen leaf
surrendering to the grounds of my
beginning

acknowledging that on the same spot
i shall rot
and end.

coming back

it's been quite a time
abandon is such a very sad word

neglect has become
important
and every word here mourns
for the demise
of a beloved
craft

i am back and you shall take
revenge
nights are sleepless
days are restless

life becomes one strange cat
with only
one life left

to come back and be
a slave again
on this
page

on stevenson syndrome

lowly
writer are you
dwelling
in an indistinct island
namelessly

if you write about
the rain
it is nothing but simply
rain

your sea is not
their kind of sea
though
its blueness
is same without
shame

unless you are a
Louise
when he writes about
the rain
and the sea
and then
suddenly everyone
becomes
crazy
figuring out meaning
where
actually
there is none

has anybody told you
that there at the end part
of this journey
is only a certain height
a depth that you can see like
a chasm of
fading darkness
down to the earth
and then to the highest
sky

that when you arrive there
there is only a sky of
cotton
made of all the elements of
air
which when your finger touches
touches only
nothing?

they all made it up
so that you can be like them
hoping against hope
dressed
and heavy with their thick
clothing
to solve a coldness
to walk more miles
to have a basket of nothing
but
metaphors

a garden of eden
an ark of triumph
a manger of humility
a revelation of
fear
the much awaited next
book of
light and glory


one should not be mindful

let us try to see
a window open
a dove with a green leaf
on its beak
an eagle lost in the wild
feasting on
the flesh of the dead

seasons of love

dainty white daisies
spread over a hill
dancing with the wind
under the sun

dainty white daisies
wilting upon the hill
wet with the rain
dead and rotten

wilting time

it's is wilting time
says the flower

seduce the sun
let there be conflagration

on the leaves
let all these yield to

the drying of veins
and dehydration

the sun comes
and the flower bows down

it is wilting time
& Love says

it's a lovely day
just perfect for me

alien song

in a song
which he felt
alien as
he is to the language
yet his
heart
completely
understands

wedding notes (Planta, Bacolod)

 i

from the heart
she sings
her passion to
the groom
who
surprised in
such joy
profusedly
tears fall
like pearls
on the
floor

ii

the food perhaps
fall short
the simplicity
was
enough
to quell the
longings of the heart
it was her passion
above all
that made the occasion
more
memorable

iii

when passions reach
the heights of
flames
when the heart burns
like
a ball of fire
we have no more words
we can offer
only bouquets of magnificent
silence

smoke , alcohol and talk

something in us
feels the need
for smoke for
alcohol
for talk

it is not at all
times
that talk is there
so we
compromise
with
smoke and
alcohol

we must not expect
much from
talkers

they too need to
talk
somewhere
and with
someone else
other
than us

smoke gives you
the idea
about how is it
to float
and be gone

alcohol
illustrates
the value of
loss
the need
to take in something
without
gaining
anything

at Karl's

that evening
i smoked three packs
of winston cigarettes

i love the menthol
soothing in my
nostrils

i did not refuse
the bottles of beer
i was taken by
the bottles

cosme thrived
on glasses of coffee
and stood up
to sing
a bocelli


i have the manners
of the drunkard

no one noticed
that
all those were
my first
time

oh i love it
and no one noticed
how
malfunctioned
had my nerves
become

the following day
i never had
the hangover

i longed for evenings
and i want
these evenings
repeated

lovely drinking
sipping
evenings forever

these my youth
missed.

love has nothing to do with virgins

i have long
discarded
unicorns

love has
nothing to do
with the
virgins

it has something
to do
with the usual
things that we
do

making everything
unusual
familiar

nothing to surprise
us
nothing painful
because
we have become
used to
all that is
there

an ode to loneliness

come
join me in my bed
of thorns

let us
both suffer
the
consequences
of the
reddest of
all roses

to depression

when you are
tipsy
i know what
you will
say

you're not
drunk

i have not
asked

the tryst under the full moon

how can
i forget the
full moon
on top of
me on top
of you

i am looking for the key to the door
of inner peace

i ask you and you do not know
you are busy with your grandchildren

i look at other people's faces
they do not look at me

i cannot find this key to any of your places
and faces

i look inside myself
open the door to myself

i live here now
away from all of you

for in truth what do you care about my place?
you have yours to cater

you have your own garden of
grandchildren and memories

mine is just today
and it shall make all my days busy.

talking has become a surplusage
when thoughts are like a gathering of
old friends in the university where
we finished college

there is always an ongoing exchange of
what if's
or oh my God
is that you?
what happened
to the standard bearer
of 1981?

the lips are like tombs whose openings are
closed
recently because the dead body is there
resting in eternal peace

the room has become a very big ocean for the two of us
boats without sails

in the middle of darkness going nowhere

of course i know what coldness is
apart from something that is cool

when mother died her hands were extremely cold
for my hold
i let them go
there was no sadness
there was that happiness of letting her rest
and giving myself a little space

for tomorrow
when coldness comes again in an empty room
with open windows
i know not what panic shall be

my hands are extremely cold these days
when i kiss them
my lips become frozen
they break like glasses

i cannot speak
there is no way that my tongue shall give in to
words
it cannot face coldness in the mirror
of my face

since you ask and you demand an explanation i open my hands
and i let your hands touch them

i cannot speak i am afraid i will be cruel
you must hold these extreme coldness for a long time
so you can all let them go
like white birds against a dark sky

so you can also experience what happiness
i had when i let go off
mama's fears

when mama closed her eyes
because what was important she knew
need not be said anymore

she brought them all kindly to her grave

there is no such thing as done
everything is always unfinished

you think a bud dies, it does not
you think that the twig that you cut
remains cut

like a dead end of the road
that is always not the case

you think that the body of the man that we buried
is all that is,
that is not the real case

a story shall be borne it gives a bud and a twig another start
a poem is written it marks a new understanding

and the grain of sand becomes another planet
a drift wood becomes another one's dream of a bridge

it is not just the seed it is also the covering
not just the ring that you see but another one's marriage

a view can be immortalized in a painting
or even when the painting rots itself all colors cracking

there is always something that remains unsaid
it is
what is always unfinished

the one that we know but which we never uttered
the one we uttered but which we start to doubt and not really know

oh it is like a wheel of a bicycle
like the ring that you keep on wearing
like a hemisphere that you have traveled
over and over
as though you have known
it forever

between my house and my office
is a long road connecting both like a snake
it head to tail

quite a venomous image of my dwelling and existence
i could have used the word
toxic

inside the car the silence is like a carpet
silence is soft and perfumed this time
it has given an ambiance for a monologue

this time there are more of myself, three
it is not a monologue anymore, there are three persons arguing
against each other's principles

the first one is saying that the second is crazy
the crazy one retorts that the first one is the usual unhappy
and withdrawn type
the third is singing a song
thinking that there must be a way to solve problems
in the lyrics of a song

the first one claims ' Is there really a problem? '
the second one says, ' How stupid can you be not knowing that problems always exist? '
the third one stops singing and with dignity
recalls that there is always
pride in restraint and
sacrifice

'Only God knows how to sacrifice' he said

'Are you telling us that we are devils? You idiot! ' the two
exclaimed in unison.

Everything seems to boil down to morality
'why should it be? ' i ask myself.

and then the three decided to go
dissolve inside me. I lost the singer, the logician,
the realist.

They are like chunks of sugar, a pinch of salt,
a drop of vinegar, mixing themselves
in my cup of tea.

there is always something that happens
which i am trying to understand when i drive my car alone
between my house and my office

like a snake that is now forming a benzene
ring
its head trying to bite its own tail
tasting its own
blood.

before i sleep let me write this one

it has no meaning
it is but just a marker of what i feel

feelings are like water
with no monuments

boundaries always change
and so riparian feelers always quarrel

over nothing over something that simply comes
and goes and goes and comes like

a pendulum of floods and dry bed upon
a common river

what is see are dead woods drifting
old people holding their young crossing a river

boulders of stones on the side
a river bank without any growing plants

what i am marking is not even time
i do not know what it is

i write this one
when by chance i read this again

i know i will remember something or someone
or if at all i will remember a wall without words

a street without a name a pair of sleepers left on the sands
or i meet people who sound like me but whose faces are blank

you must know what remembering is
it is always incomplete

some details are missing but there is a shadow
a stroke an outline of what once made you happy

what once made you fly in the heavens or
what also one gave you all the pains of falling

a double edge sword that is what i am writing tonight
an i remember the face of truth

yes, it is a Picasso.
A paloma.
Labios. My corazon.

It is when i watch it
that i become free.

no doubt about it, i am
free,
i am freed from what i
am hiding

i am always hiding
away, i am freed

from the world that
i live in, i watch the world

i am far, faraway, it is
this distance that makes
me free,

i like it the way when i
do not touch any
part of this world,

i can feel a little dignity
of not having to touch it,

i just watch it, and i am
complete, it is only a matter

of time, i am uninvolved,
i pass away, i only stop here,

to watch, it is too messy,
it has no art of its own,

the disorder is like a pile
of dry leaves blown by the

strong wind from the sea,
there is always a scattering,

who can stop it? i wish i could,
but that is not what i can do,

all i can do is watch, and i become
perfect, and after that moment of

having seen the everyday show,
i walk away, i begin again in

another place, watching how days
go by, how people prove themselves,

how they can be right as they claim,
i listen, but i do not keep what is said,

i always go away, it is just this way,
a pair of eyes, a little blindness,

i choose, what to take with me,
now, i do not take any.

There is a door which you open

you enter, and then it closes you
behind you
forever,

there is no force here,
but only volition,

you enter it
with all the warnings,
that the
possibility that it will close forever
has been told to you
over and over
again,

somehow, you do not make it a problem
you like a closed door, and you hate it
when it opens,
you love it when it is closed forever,
the room is nice
there is a certain loveliness
in there,

it has shiny floors,
it has a bright ceiling,
the lights are lovely,
like stars
in an open dark sky

the air is fresh,
the walls are comfortable

who wants to take an exit?

no one.not you.

when the door knows this, it will open
forever,
it decides to open for you
and it will tell you to go out and be
an outsider again and
be gone
for good,

you insist that you own this room now,
that a closed door is not a serious matter
and there is no way that you have to
go out
or be ousted,

the door has a stair with strong hands
and it will drag you out
it will pull your hair and drag your body
like hell

the door has learned its lesson
when the room is not a prison to someone else
there is no use keeping him there forever
for in truth the reason of the door's
existence
is to make you feel the prison and to suffer

and you know your lesson too well
there is no prison to a mind that is an open window
there is no suffering
to a lover of suffering

you see, it takes a little reverse psychology
for closed doors to open
for men to know that suffering is not suffering
at all
when one loves is tripping

when one thinks
otherwise
when one loves whatever happens

when one accepts
the one that is there and not look for something
that is always missing

why go for the unreachable?
why suffer for long?

life is life, and death is death
you are here, grab this here.

most people suck one another,
civilization sucks, visions suck,
missions are sucked, there is
no shortage of what is sucked,

oh yes, society is a dismal failure.
you too,suck, ...don't be silly,

the universe is a big failure,
God is disappointed, People suck
Christ, Christians keep on killing
one another, Even those who
say there is only One God,
Creator of heaven and Earth also
suck, they destroy each other's
beliefs, they tell that they are
the only ones who go to heaven
the few chosen one, that they
can never be wrong, that they
are the only Right Race, ..they too
suck, God loves everyone, can He
afford to lose any one?

This world sucks because of
intolerance, because of self-righteousness,

God bless us all. God guide us.
Suck us from an impending Hell.

people are playing games
often they fight, the rules are
changed without notice,

people are killing each other,
the dead lose, the winner is
the living, there is no more
argument about this,
case is closed.

they play their games over
and over again, time is a
room, there are no referees,
no one is just, inherent is
the fraud, the swindler is
the hero, the rich ones have
always crimes behind their
great fortunes,

sometimes they go to court,
judges are made by them
in accordance with their genes,
and those who mold them from
their own clay, are those that
always win


such is the state of affairs,
to cover all these, these twisted
ways, those that have the gold,
invent religion, create society,
write their history, proclaim their
deities, codify their laws, print
the books, carpenter their
own kind of teachers, sculpt
a civilization,

i am a small man,i do not have
many years in my cells, i simply
watch, i do not say much, i keep
my mouth shut, i write a diary,
i keep a journal, i have a blog,
i do facebook, i fit in, i am not
that twisted somehow, i have
objections, i protest inside my
square head, i write in ciphers, i do
not want to be understood, neither
do i want myself to be used.

if you read me, you get nothing.

there is no getaway
from this need
do not mistake it
for love,
this is too shallow,
a comfort, for days
that are long and
hot,

i like it here, watching,
boats come and go,
waters are split,
skies are pierced by
sails, white & blue
with black and gray
linings

the spectator in me
feasts on sights and
sounds, the whole day,
i miss no one, i decide to forget
broken pieces of past
loves,

sin is a matter of
conditioning, a room of
per-arranged furniture
and bed and carpets
of cabinets with color
coding, i am a transcendent
i rearrange
everything, i like
a new way, of
putting propriety,
i love change, i go
for what i have not
seen and felt
experiment, experiment,
discover what
have been hidden
from the eyes,
approach a new day
with a new
perspective
make it 360 degrees
break a neck
throw a leg.

i climb fences and jump
over them all, i cross borders
to travel to another unknown
territory
i do not fear
enemies, i talk to strangers,
even to trees,

fully a stranger now, i do not
need a name, i cut cords,
i am a set of feet,
i leave tracks which
the storms erase moment
to moment, you see,
i am temporary and
no one follows me
precisely i tell you
i am unlikeable.

to see trees
thick barked, tall,
worshiping sky,

to stand beside one
huge trunk, lovely
age, circles,
feel the comfort of
its strength
in phloem,

tiny leaves that filter
mist
feelings that wing
like that of
birds, rains fall
like drum
beats
or heart
pumps

lights come like
slits, needles, soft
glows, unreachable,

a forest of emotions,
trying to understand
heights, penetration
of skies, heavy blackness,
cold rain, night stands
holy cows...

red dragonfly meets
blue dragonfly one bright

day for these
insignificant dragonflies
do their
tail to tail
love
in mid-air

explosions too
serially
beautiful
in their silent
flights

to be fathomed by
a beautiful woman
with long black hair
and well sculpted
pair of legs,

pressing her head
upon a muscular man's
handsome

chest, her hands on his
navel, his lips on her

flowing hair, softly the winds
caress
like butterflies slowly

fluttering from one flower
to another flower

fair and square, in circles
of eternal travels.

after a while, he is convinced
that the other playful one has,

experience, the softness of the
hands, the smoothness of lips,

the way the dance steps are
done by the tongue, one can

see how skilled can experience be
and so there is no need for words

on how to do love, how whispers
sweetly accomplish the need, the

luxury of simply having to wait,
to close one's eyes, to be carried

to the clouds, to dwell in the heavens
for a moment, without wasting

an eyelash, or any sign, how intimate
can loneliness be with the experience

of another loneliness, jibing fitting in,

ecstasy to ecstasy
fantasy to fantasy, and

then when it is over, you sigh,
you always know what you long for,

there is going to be another dance of
the tongues, the thrill of the lips,

on same place, same hour
with the same kindness of the same

person, the one who understands
you even without having the need

to know you, even without having
a name, or the background, the curtain

the need for floors, the demand for
ceilings, the closes of breaths, the need

for air, the size of nipples, the tenor of
the song, the lyrics of the same....

the net with lovely mesh
catches me breathlessly, i

am breathless in this
capture, and unlike those

who want to be free, i,
have learned to love

this captivity, this mesh,
the hands are ready to

take me out from here,
but i am refusing them,i,

love it here, my heart in
captivity has found meaning

i, am, growing the flowers
of lovely prison in my skin,

i am a captive scented
to the perfume of a affection

who is more willing to
preach that freedom

too, is a dangerous matter,
the choices too many to

behold, to be understood,
the responsibility too huge

thus, killing us slowly, here,
i am freed from duty, i,

am sitting on a sofa, with
nothing in my head but

the state of having nothing
of thinking and doing nothing.

in that pit of sorrow
shall one descend

until his head is seen
no more

what is left is the plain
a desert if you mind

the sun is cruel
as seen on the skulls of goats

and men and children
but one cannot just descend

forever into the
grief that is so overwhelming

that is not the end
of this undertaking
for soon one who is scarred
& scared

with so much sadness
learns so carefully
how is to mend and repair
and the heart

that is broken soon shall
reconnect the strings that snapped

from its guitar body
and one's trembling fingers can still

figure music what just two strings
or even one

down to that grave of darkness
where shadows slowly speak

one day an eye looks for a leak
of light on the stone ceiling

and finding the  opening of a hint
wings its way outside

to the world of light where it
once lived

for it shall remember and rise
once again like a kite to the wind

as spirit as scent ascends to  calmness
and gentleness
& plenitude of hope
& if you believe that much
or completely
to the heights of morning
glory


the scars listen and the broken limbs
reshape what the spirits

reinvent: you see, you must have
felt it, because

it happens and we are still here
willing to speak and sing.

Everyone of us here is
in one way or another, and by all means,

exploited. Look at these bloated masters
for whom we
serve so blindly,

they have become coated with
fat
and they all look rich and
sick and
filthy and they pat our backs
and tell us that
we are all doing good

technically, we are,
fools, modern academic fools,
idiots,

we have made monsters
who leave us nothing to ourselves
but our
being undignified

your name is
analogous to
a tongue
in cheek, your favorite
figurative
language
for human relations

i do not have
an iota of
doubt over my past
stupidities

this kind that believes
right away
what every mouth
has to say

i guess i have
not yet learned the language
of the press

underneath the water
is a bed
of air

everything in this
planet of yours
float

nothing settles down
for the
truth

there is this song
which tackles about faith
this walking
faith
in your heart where
you shall never
then
walk alone

God is fair.
Your voice is
like the sound of
a broken bottle
but as
i told you
i admire your
spirit
that courage to
sing like
a defeated warrior
after
the war

years separated us
when we meet again there will
be usual questions like

how is life? did you marry?
how many kids? how old are they now?
where do you work?
where do you live now?

i am tired of all these questions,
frankly i am not interesting and nothing interests me
perhaps
i was made sour by all those years,
but sometimes i may compromise
( but not a civil as you may think me to be) and
so i have my answers now, like

life is not really that miserable.
i got married, no kids only dogs in the house
(not applicable),

oh i work with a gavel,
and i live in my navel.

perhaps i am just dissatisfied with what
life has given me,
and you who claim to have kids like grapes
work like heaven, house like a castle,
and you who is like a story with a
happily ever after ending,

well, thank God, you are like everybody else,
you own a wife, and kids and house,
yourself is multiplied, your face is xeroxed,
your wealth is not just well preserved but
progressed like
hell,

you have chattels and servants and perhaps slaves
and submarines and nuclear weapons,
you have a brand new car,
an excellent paycheck,
by all means, to my mind, you are a superhero
and you have everything
everything

and yet, oh well, just like rest of the people in this world
you are never, never contented, you still ask for more

how much? how long? how wide? no one knows.

on those
empty hours
those passengers fidgety on their seats
waiting
for the next boat

the time that pass
like seagulls without seeing any fish
on the surface of
the sea

that belly
with a protruding navel
borne out of
a sick
mother

the light that is on
at noon time
on a door closed
of an
abandoned house

two bodies making love
in the name of
emptiness

prostitutes without
customers
in a bar
so cold and a singer
that sings
a Whitney Houston

messy room
of a student hooked to drugs

kitchen filled with bugs
and toilets
unflushed for days

flies that invade
a rotten rat
competing with worms

Art thoust
serve

i shall satisfy you all
none shall go home without a gift

i give you the beauty of
a silent face

to another the fullness of
open arms

and to the most patient of them all
i shall give what i have always kept

for quite a time
this nothingness of the mind

this anticipations of the soul
this path that leads to more

gardens of flowers in that
fertile fields of free formations.

the balloon that you released in air
finally burst
and you know not where the rubber
has landed,

just like that old arrow that he shot into the air
you know not exactly where it fell,

just like the love that i am giving, it shall fall
(not for you, who shivers with its touch)
i better give it to the seagull instead

this love for a fish,
this fish that loves nothing but the sea....

in sleep
my lungs are trees
growing
more leaves

my hands are branches
bearing ripe fruits

my feet are roots
sucking nutrients
from my soiled
bed

falling short of words

from this window
glass i see narra trees

the leaves had fallen
it is cold

i am alone looking carefully at the details
of leafless twigs

branches are dry
barks are cracked

the grasses below are brown
beside the fence two boys are playing hide and seek

cars blue and white and black are parked
in one area like gossiping women

i am alone thinking about some details
falling short of words.

two sentences for the night

let us dance,

shall we make love tonight?

el merengue

Mexican clad horsemen
ladies in long skirts

circle dance, stretching hands
clapping of hands,

horses set free in the tundras
snow melting

at the cafe, a muscular man meets
a very feminine woman,

they talk a while , the woman giggles
the man holds her hands

they go for a walk
and it is getting dark

they go inside a copa cabana
drink wine

the moon is full and appears
sits upon a roof

the man pulls down his trouser
the woman undresses herself

he puts off the light
she closes the window.

cliches, disbelief, pretenses, words to avoid.

a bed of roses
mountain of gold
fountain of youth
shangrila,
magic potion
eternity,
love, martyrdom,
holiness,

charity, openness,
self-giving,

patriotism,
talent,
fidelity,

two glasses of red wine
a red carnation beside it

grapes of wrath
gone with the wind

apostle, crowning glory
sacrifice,

obeisance,
geisha, warrior king,
indulgence

did i imagine someone else that time?

we are here in this abandoned house

let us go inside and find out what is left here

the pillars are still tall and nailed to each other

time did not touch the stairs
perhaps they are so insignificant

there is that bed where we spent the moments of youth
your moans are missing

the head board is dusty and the termites ate the legs

it is uneven now, and to hold itself it leans on the side table

i see you on top of me when my eyes were closed.

revisiting our dreams

even in the room of my dreams
when i invited you in

you are till looking for that
squeaking bed

of long ago, when we were so young
and unrestrained

as the wind that gushes forth
from one window to another

i want to reinvent its softness
all its four legs

but the mistress of my sleep
dislikes it

what we have here are flat
uncatalogued floors

a room without walls
an empty space without stars

words flowed
like some reunited letters lately

the concepts come out
from the mind

still like words, syllables conjoining
there are no images still

i wait, i am waiting, i keep on waiting
like a commuter of a train

perhaps i have expected too much from
you
something graphic
like sun rising from a hill
in the full majesty of its
inborn light

after i have read
everything that you have written for years
following each like
the running ticking seconds
of the hour

i feel so disgusted

stalks without flowers
ladies stuffed like mummies

mountains bald deprived of the
green and yellows

there is a world without
sky and sun and sea and dolphins

a patch of light without
a hue

i want to see those prisms
refractions

interactions of colors inside
the depths of
our souls

perhaps i have expected too much from you
and so i am disgusted

give me your world
i will scatter it with stars tonight.

when you pose beside those flowers
and you tell me

it is spring! it is spring!

and that i should be happy
because it is spring time and all the flowers
are showing
their true colors

i stop right there
it is not actually the beauty that we are
caught inside
the prison of having to stay and
believe and
hold on to life with awe

it is the true colors
that i am stuck with

not even the spring that merely
springs it.

when you say that you love me
i do not really believe you

your hands wrap my neck like
some kind of steel chains

and then you plant a kiss on my hair
there is nothing there that grows

it is like a stone that you hit a bird with
and the bird falls from the branch of a tree

dead on the ground
and then you dismiss it as something

natural, birds die
stone hits.

there is a man inside the cage
but you cannot tell that he is a man
because

by all appearances of it
it has black wings, sharp claws, it is muted
by a beak
it can only sing in syllables
it is wrapped by
shiny feathers

it is a bird, a black bird and by all means
you cannot tell
that it is angry

because it sings.

you want me to make a love poem
i will write one
crisp and sweet
and intentionally true

then you will read it

and then you will ask what do i mean
by those images that
you have seen
but cannot figure out
since some hands come out
from the belly
some eyes are put at the
back of the head

i will not tell you

you have always misunderstood love

me.

the white pigeons
find their home inside
the ceiling of this
house

every night i hear their
moaning sounds

they're like the weeping willows
meeting the winds from the far away mountains

there is a packet of winds
trapped in this room

forming a whirl
soon the walls shall tremble

something must give way
to a storm

lest these windows break
frames dismantled

to give birth to a pair of eyes
that will not flicker when it starts

to stare to the sun
or waver to the salt of the earth

these tongues of the mind
these teething thoughts

as you open the door
i reflect upon the sound
of the banging
when you close it

somehow i must be
in the wrong place

but i am not doing anything.

there is something
in your smile
that hinges beyond
the shape of your
body
your arms
sculpt me
into human
form again
for years i
have been
turned into
a big
stone

god of the
walls
pillar of
my gods

when i look
at you
the world
blooms
into a flower

it is this want
and need

but reason is
a sword
that hits
from one side
of my body
to the other

i do not surrender
i am on my wings now
i am flying away
and you feel nothing
about my leaving

nothing's changed
your world is still
sea, sky, land.

dilemma

it is true
you make
my hands
alive
my heart beats
again
when i see
you
but when
i touch you
i will
be dead.

since i am
grappling in
the dark
and you too
lost inside
this room of
less air
and we are
all alone
trying to figure
out where to
take the
exit
the possibility
is
you may soon
touch me
and i may soon
find you
we are anxious
our fears are like
worms inside
our guts
but if i may soon
hold your hand
and touch your
face and your
body
who knows
if there is a switch
there
where i can
turn on
light
so much light
that will guide us
both
to another
world

find me
who knows i
am a switch myself
who knows
if i also own
light
so much light
untapped
undiscovered

discover me
i am waiting
in fear.

i must have
been a tiger
and yet i
did not know
it until you
hinted that
i have sharper
claws
that i roared
in your silence
that i look
so hungry
and you
are the
innocent prey
i have not really
known it
well until you
decided
to run away from
me.

the night is cold
inside the room
our bodies are colder
our emotions
frozen
and we are
like the cold cuts
of the Lord
served upon a
platter
with no one
picking.

if it is handed
to me,
sincerely, i will
take it,
if you close your
hand
and shake your
head,
and look at me
with a square face,
i will understand,
it is not mine
it is meant for
the other
and he deserves it
better
you see
i am a just man
i give in
to what is higher
i nod my head
and will always be
ready
to leave

in one instant
the thought arrives
as a firefly,
or a flash of light
a lightning by the
window that
misses you
as target
you could have died
you shudder
looking on the other
side of the
world
through your half
closed window

a second
sometimes can be fatal
life often
behaves that
way.

it is the detachment
that makes it more
visible,
one as near as your
heartbeat
becomes too familiar
and where it
could have been love
you mistake
as nothing but
a passing
encounter
until the void comes
expands
you you fall into the
hole that you dig
and only then
that you take a second look
of what just happened
regret fertilized
a mass of cells
and is born.