WHAT I DID TODAY

I went to our old house.
Papa built it for us all five.

The old santol tree is
teeming with fruits.

All Bangkok, sweet,
huge and pulpy.

When i was a young boy
then
I watered it. It was not
a tree yet.

All my other siblings
went their own ways.

I am left going back
to my past. And trying

to convince myself that
now, I am reaping what

i watered. The old house
is falling. Papa and Mama

are all dead. And i am
their childless son.

I am eating too much
santol. Look what envy

and that feeling of being
wasted can do to trees.

I just did it to myself.
But don't worry.

I have this feeling.
everyday. And i love it

somehow. Angst and
Anger sounding like

brothers bonding
like long lost friends.

WACKY

i am 52, reserved,
refined, and
serious.

i am more of a teddy
bear
in your cabinet

but when you said
"go wacky"

like the rest i jumped
and stretched my arms

forgot the teddy bear
in me

and well, i was wacky
and wants to be wacky

for once. But tomorrow
i want you to do the same

"shout at me, GO wacky!!"

i guess at 52 i can still
jump a hundred times

but how about you,
Mr. 70? Can you go

wacky too? How about
you Ms. Broken Heart

Ms. Forlorn, Mr. Insolvent
Mrs. Unpaid Credit Card

Mr. Failure, Ms. Cauldron
Mr and Mrs. Casserole

Do you like to go wacky too?

at any rate, ...hmm
"what is wacky?"

we're all put
aflame
we shine in
the dark

we are all
consumed
not by fear.

friendship
sometimes is

"i scratch your back
and you scratch mine"

someone asks
"what does that
solve?"

one responds
"what is your
problem?"

none, none

that is what
friendship sometimes is

none, none,
nothing

it just makes you
feel at home.

what comes to my
mind often when i look
out the window is
this flowerpicker pecking
upon a ripe guava on that
early morning

now i remember
what happiness is

THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

with your praying
hands
you can catch the
dancing sun
you can even eat
and swallow all,
all light
and keep it to
yourself alone

but can you
afford a sunless
world
for everyone?

there is a big separate
wall between myself and
my poem

you may cry on those
sad ones
but you cannot equate
that as me

i may have written a
love poem
but it may not after all
refer you you

do not be disappointed
but realize that poetry is but
a creation of an
imagination

it can be empathy, or
a shot in the wind using
the universal arrow of humanity
from one who feels
that the angst must be expressed
because there are those
without the courage to do so
without the words to say
without the privilege of having
been educated in universities like you

so calm down, read and feel and
take what affects you

do not put me there. I live somewhere else
and live a life that is still to be
created by me.

in life
there is more to being a frog relaxing upon a lotus leaf
there is more to being a ripple on the pond
there is more to being a shadow of the morning light
there is more to peace
there is more to a newly-found solitude

there must be more to life in life
because if there isn't

what can life be?

IN MEMORY OF THE PLAY "NO EXIT"

A woman is in love with the clouds
The clouds elope with the sunset
The man's heart is broken having
loved the woman for years
The sea is seduced by the sand
But the sand is attracted to the trees

what you do not see here is another
man in love with a broken heart
things are linked but all in chains
each link is a suffering link to another
suffering without end.

whether laughter
comes from a baby
or a lady or
a middle aged man
or an old woman
one thing is sure:
it is still contagious.

a heart that loves is a smiling child who leaps with joy
it is warm-blooded and spreads all the warmth therein
its eyes see a world so colorful and feel the freshness of air
it has scented palms with hands always out there reaching

I WANT to make a poem
that must rhyme
spicy like a thyme
with value like
a dime
without much words
like a mime.

a chicken's life
is measured by its power to scratch
for grains

how it  lays eggs
and feeds its chicks
until they all get to be chickens like her

but not all
are bound to follow her cycle

not those
who are better shaped than her

because they are bound
for the knife in the
kitchen

i am back
to open a closed door
to begin anew
starting with the stairs and the floor
of an old house
where memories are stored like
dusts and
spider webs of some tales
still untold.

There are so many things to do.
Dry leaves pile upon pile
and Trees are making the space smaller
and this place darker still.

I will be the light and the air.
Some have to be cut and taken away
Either into fire or into the garbage pit
of this unkind city.

I am back into this silence.
So much to think, to dig, and to bury.

De-list some friends
i am told

After all the simplicity of
the few

shall be the gauge of
beauty.

The flowers bloom alone
under the rain and sun.

The fields are green
from faraway.

The clouds drift and
does not mind where.

The wind blows and blows
wherever it shall be.

Let me have it my way
a Choice here and there

If you look for me
There is no way where you

can find me. I am distance
and what you shall see

Is the mirage, and the hoax
of what is real.

A long time ago
i have that fear that being alone can be a tragedy

For instance, who shall fetch me water from the well?
Who shall give me the glass? and serve me breakfast on the plate?

Sleeping alone can be insomniac
No placement of this body is giving me the soundness of sleep.

But people leave us, and we soon shall be left alone
To tend for ourselves what is left of us

This the reality of living.
I was not born with a twin. Or even if i had a twin

Soon there shall be quarrel, soon there will be parting.

So here i am, practicing how to be alone with myself again.
Reviewing that part when i was born, when i cried and when

I was slapped in order to check that i am fully alive.
The bed is my wife. The blanket is my dog. And my slippers my

children. The door is a watchdog. And the window is a cloud.

This sounds crazy. But these images create the crowd.
The people around for real are things. The kitchen is a show

Of male forks and female spoons. They hand me food. On the plate
is the stage where rice grains dance and pork chops do the circus

Upon the snow. Porcelain plates and coffee cups, talking like

TV hosts reading me the morning news. The Walls are Trees.

Deep down us
the courage is there
hidden from
our heaps of fears

the courage is a network
of roots
deep down under the
rocks and sand

deep down us lies the
secret of
how is it to be alone
and yet survive
and soon adapt what
is necessary for
living

Courage befriends the
worms
and gathers the wisdom
of humus

we go down under and
recall
and write again
what was there

as a reminder

for clouds still drift
and winds blow and leave us
hollow

turn this world upside down
blow the mind and burst
thereafter

so much to learn after the
explosion
courage comes up and
we muster.

SILENCE

I can't utter it
so i just write about
it but if you do not care
to read
i'll will let my
finger cut my
lips for you
to know

THE ANONYMOUS

someone's lips
had a compromise with
the unkindness of
a dark night
just to wait for you
plant a kiss on its
dryness.

AN OLD LONGING

a man with all the trimmings
of success
finds it hard to accept that he
is lonely
deep inside him

outside the roar of the city
drowns him no end
the lights blind him and he
rushes back to his room one
fine morning

to see his nudity again

on the floor worshiping the
souls of his feet he offers
tears again as the longing

of whom he truly loves
reverberates again like termites
coming out from the walls
creeping on his skin tasting
how delicious can he be
in this hour of reckoning

A LITTLE TRUTH, A LITTLE DIFFERENT THIS TIME

so many crave for freedom
many die in its name
so many young blood flow
under the old bridge of
adages and slogans

imagine a boat out at sea
and you are there alone paddling
alone with all your choices and
you have to think a longer time
just to decide which way to go

no island to see, no port to anchor,
no sound to hear, no body to touch

this is your freedom now. To choose
to die.

HAPPINESS IS LONGING FOR REPETITION

Repeat what? say you love me again.
Prove it again. Kiss me again and again.
Multiply the mirrors of mesmerizing munches
love, love, love, ...
make love to me for the nth time.

multiply the branches of the trees of desire
free those thousand birds of restraints.

THE CHAIR AND THE TREE

many hours
you sit there on that
chair beside
the tree and had
a monologue
telling yourself how
she breaks your
heart & causes
you so much pain

you go to bed
early
to dream and
hoping to forget
everything
wanting to begin
a new life
tomorrow morning

"one does not have
to live longer on that
pain
neither one has to
be overwhelmed with
sorrow
life moves on"
you write in your
diary

the whole night
the chair and the
tree have a
very serious talk

and they say
they have all
empathy for yo

the following morning
the ground is all wet
with tears
and what all the grass
blades have
are salt for dews

COFFEE TALK

i could have just written
about a hot coffee and that teaspoon of
brown sugar

and tell you that this is what is poetry
all about

one morning when it rains
so hard that we have no chance
to talk, and really talk
about it

but despite the rain
you leave just the same.

EMO #`1

your love
was true
you hid it
just the
same

there was
one which
was truer
than true and
you confessed
it only to
be rejected

now you ask
me, who would
want another
confession?

i say, love at
its truest will
still confess that
love...for such
love fears none
and knows
not what
rejection means.

to be a poet is to be
a soul

to deny the body
of
its place
on earth is what
the soul
asserts

to be a body
again
when you fall
short of
something divine
inside
you
that undeniable
force
that drives you crazy
when you write

in that trance the body
whips upon itself
the pain from which
the soul dances with
so much
joy

to write is to breathe

exhale, inhale, exhale,
inhale,

lungs always feeling
empty still

the day is about
to close

the light by the
window blinks

may it be a very
tiring day
without any
misgiving

may you be hurt
and yet still be
forgiving

may you have wounds
that knows how to heal
themselves

may you shake the hands
of the night
may you kiss its palms
with all gratitude

may your sleep be sound
may your heart be emptied
of all the fears
of all the worries that the
day has given you for all
its heavenly intentions.

i'll miss those days
when both of you and mom
are going together on a trip
and there is no more news
what is happening
in your destination

i like the silence for once
a news blackout
where i can also be left
alone
tending about how i am
going
with my own self

i will miss those moments
when you tell me that you are having
fun with mom
and telling me that she is one ideal
woman

...i like it

she is never my mom and
i erred having you

i think i miss myself with the
other woman
who left me with all her tears

LAZY MORNING

toothbrush is not cleaning
its bristles and the toothpaste
is not in the mood for the mint
in the gel,

water is too cold and the locks
of hair dislike wetting
the bed is still burning with fire
but doused with coughing

bones let go the sounds of cracking
roosters broke up with hens which
strut around with newly hatched
eggs

i am facing another morning's
blank screen and will not google.

A NOTE FROM SCOTERAS

you are all foolish

when it is now hot
you want it cold
when it was cold then
you want it hot again

always looking for what is not.

why complicate life?

too much for nothing
just do some believing
and always nodding
be wise keep pretending
no misgiving
plain surviving and
keep reviving
so many things so unreal
in happy living

MY IDOL

my idol is
still Mr bean
who does not
stalk
and most of
all
does not
talk

YOU can still be
a baby
even at seventy

you suck.

FLASH! FALSE

last night i dreamed
that some police officers
are surrounding my house
announcing my arrest
for human trafficking

they forced my door open
and killed my bodyguard

i guess it is high time now
not to believe in dreams.

the one and only eye
of the universe
looks down upon all of
us

its laughter is at a
vibration level which
we cannot hear

we are inside it
and we think that we too are eyes
who can see clearly
what is there and what is not there

we argue more than the
dusts
we like to compare ourselves
with the orbits of the planets
that move without
a thought

the one and only eye of the universe
does not blink
it moves and moves and moves
away

like the star ship of our movies
until we sleep
and too pass away

Like · · Unfoll

THE WILLING VICTIM OF THE JUSTICE SYSTEM

The two of you
watch me
how i meet death
how i look at it
in the confidence of
my eyes

there is no need for
both of you
no testimony shall be
taken

a dead man cannot file
his case in court
he had chosen to seal
his lips

HONESTLY

something in me
wants to go back
and want once more
to hear the sound of
your laughter

i want to imitate
what it really is
i want to show this
place where i come
from
i want to show you
now how disfigured
is my mouth
how this system
has done badly
for all the child in us.

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.

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