ONCE I PASSED THROUGH A POPULOUS CITY

by Walt Whitman

Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future

use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,

Yet now of all that city I remember only a man I casually met

there who detain'd me for love of me,

Day by day and night by night we were together--all else has long

been forgotten by me,

I remember I say only that man who passionately clung to me,

Again we wander, we love, we separate again,

Again he holds me by the hand, I must not go,

I see him close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.

the bad eggs go to war
the good eggs rot and suffer.

things that i imagine
and want them to be true: a small room
enough for our two bodies
airconned, insulated,
a conversation for a while,
a touch here and there
a little laughter, a kiss once in a while
and then
i turn off the light and keep
the tv talking and on its
streams of colors and light
we make love.

before all these, i keep
praying that i could be  a train
not on its wrong tracks
where
ahead is that deadly collision
causing so many
deaths
including us.

at that time
she concluded, "this matter is not our bread and
butter thing
and we can do something apart from these
somehow we
are not the literati who make those split-ends
scurry, hurry and
bury"

and looking far into that island behind us
where we are seated upon a beach bench
comfortable with our pizza and beer and
coffee and that background music of jazz
and wind and coldness of the place under
the trees

our feet buried on the sands, she finally
blurted " we must be kind and patient
we shall encourage those who have
yet to start their life
in poetry and let them explore some more
the world
where we do not intend to
live for a while and then die
unnoticed"

this of course, i do not very well understand.
i dare myself, i have come this far
to understand my life and live it to the full.

Confronted with an either/or
early morning one must choose.

you think that choosing is easy
and a privilege.

one sometimes is given a he or she
but not both
now you have a problem since
sometimes
you want both

do not give me that wrong notion
by all means
you need a peahen and a peacock
a lock and key
a peg and a hole
you cannot just have one
to really be
complete or successful

a race may die and then leave all
behind its tracks
humanity is an endangered virtue
without the yin and yang or both
in one empty hand

now it is either you or her
but not both
that is the human condition
but we can talk and bargain for time
and energy

money talks they say
and the ways and means of fate are always unpredictable
for in the end
it all depends
upon the agreements of hands and mouths
for in this world it is all about you and me and us
depending on how
we really understand the fans of happiness
the forks of despair
the furloughs of chaos and order
we, for most, may conjure, injure and
perjure and then
if we have the courage
all these, endure
what this either/or in the future
brings.

neither

after the early morning mass
i walk towards home ahead
of the crowd.

alone i see for another time
the leaves of the mahogany trees
falling

the strong wind comes in
a sudden
i even had the fear that
one of the branches
may break and fall heavily
on the cemented pavement

i stop for a while watching
how the leaves fall
flip flopping
somersaulting
and finally landing on the
pavement
and still blown to the farther
side of the
road

i am reminded of so many things:

so many leaves, so many lives.
zamboanga seige, colliding boats
at sea in talisay,
landslide in sagada
bus falling in a ravine somewhere
in negros
gas poisoning in syria
helpless children
collateral damages on innocent
civilians
twisted governments serving for
the selfish ends of their leaders

so many things

and then i think that i do not
really belong here
i am not one of those who
plan an attack and make it appear
that it is necessary
for mankind to survive
neither am i one of those victims
who can do nothing but
cry in helplessness
and in due time
choose no action but simply to
forget

and begin again as though
nothing bad really happened.

something in me is stirred
for i can still be unhappy if among
the 99 who are pleased
one is still there
angered by the word that i have
uttered

nevertheless there is still time
to recompense
either that i be silent for a while
face a blank wall
and stare at it with wonder
looking for a leak
for the light to get in

i may go somewhere else
reinvent myself and come back
with the gentleness of wind
come the first day of august
when i have to rethink
what word is proper
what seed to give
to that little bird in pain.

i have a poem
in my mouth

the tongue is
eager to say it

it is like a bird
that is about to
fly to the
sky

if you want to hear
a song
the bird requires
that there will
be no
rules for the
tongue

and the mouth
need not be tight-lipped

it must
more of
like the mouth
of your river

there is a door
inside us
which we do not want
to open

there is a room there
where the ceiling
has no star

we want to keep that
door closed
forever

we wish we cannot
enter that room anymore

yet it is simply not possible
if i won't go in there
something inside me
dies

and something outside
myself
does not know how to
live anymore

and off they go
to that old bareback
mountain

far from us
we who believe
that love is
otherwise

love is still forever
regardless of gender.

when i was young
father bought me a bike

i bought a poetry book
sleep on the grass

and begin to read
what now i too write

it is about the sea and
the sand

it has the taste of salt
and blandness

it smells like the cogon
grass that they just cut

the words stay
on memories built

inside my heart
beyond this mind.

i offer today
in my hands
a bud, a raw fruit,
a tendril,
a fledgling

all small, and
dainty
young and
hopeful

take them all
from me

and what is left
of me
are these empty
hands

tomorrow i
will offer a hatchet
a scissor
and a knife


take them all
please

if you will not
do not blame me
i will do
what now i will.

I like to see hills. Meadows.
Blue skies. Blue birds.
Trees are lining like
confident soldiers.
This must be the Alps.
White caps on mountains.
A winding river. Pines and cones.
Rabbits and squirrels.

This is the Sound of Music.
A movie in my mind.
You come with your lonely boys and
girls. You are the mother of escapism.
They are the hope of lost fathers
of the wars that man has waged
against himself.

I like to see hills. But there are none.
I like to hear the sound of music.
But there is none.

I face another darkness.
Tense situations. Another struggle.
No conversations. Heavy with
Monotonous Silence.

Perhaps i will light a candle this time.
And inside the flame. I shall see hills again.

the wisdom of
a fly sometimes lies
on its capacity
to be
eliminated without
guilt by the
man who simply
swats the fly out
of life
because he is
on a moment of
his chosen pleasure
of sipping
his cup of coffee.

travel is a way of
forgetting that you are trapped
in an open place full of
chairs and tables which they
fail to see as
another prison of civilized
working people
in those rooms where the
walls are made of glass

the storm that you meet
and the hotel that holds you
for more days
are variations of another mode
of forgetting as a form of art
where to lessen the chill
you begin to compose
what you think is poetry to you.

For fear that it flies
away
over the fence
and be gone
the foot of
the red hen is
tied upon a bamboo
pole

the white dog which
ran wild yesterday at
the kiosk
which bit an old man
limping on his muddy
black sneakers
barks loudly at the
wrong tree

the two of us can make a good pair
we know it, we are just perfect for love
we feel it, we can make love grow as healthy as
the biggest squash of the county

only our hearts speak, our eyes oblige
for a stare then manage to blink for fear of shame

we are two stars in the heavens, close to each other
twinkling happily on these dark skies

when i see you, you say you are the moon,
and i for a defense, say that i am the sun

two heavenly bodies not meeting on the same hour
sad, unrequited, estranged, and always hurting.

I live next door
and i know you live next to mine
sometimes we meet
and i look at the floor
hiding from the beauty
of your eyes

i do not have the courage to say
that love exists in me
and that its life
is all for you

how sadness slowly kills us both
hiding inside the comforting
darkness of our doors

i live next door and you are next to mine
but we are so far away like star to sea.

how i wish to be eloquent in your language
so that i may be able to speak what i really mean
as a first attempt and then when
i master more its idioms i may begin speaking
what i do not really mean
so that you may look at me and i return your looks
with my stare that what i am telling you is far
from what i really want to say
because i have fears and that my life is in danger.

i am an alien to your land. I live here now. But my heart
is still there in my native land. Where the bush is still on fire.

truths hide. we know where they are.
their bodies buried but their heads are still in the open
grasping for air, hoping to live

truths scream. But we who watch truth die,
pretend that we have nothing to do with it

its death, its burial, its memory.
we are guilty but what can we do? we have suffered enough
and we cannot save ourselves.

we have thick sunglasses. The sun is too hot. Our fats melt.

i will forget the rhyme
and miss the rhythm, i am on a rush
looking for an ambulance
to save this dying poetry
from a world which is too busy
to just even mind
and read.

i stopped for a while
looked around and reflected upon
what really matters
even for today: it is not you anymore
something keeps bothering me
it has nothing to do with you anymore
i want to insist that it is still you
and i reflected some more
deep down, thinking like a hermit
honestly, i must admit,
this is all about me
and i have not really understood it.

What i lack, is perhaps,
what i have not understood fully well,
the bones are here
the flesh are growing smoothly,
and i feel just a little bit, weird
about where i am going,
there is pain, i can pinpoint it
with my finger, press
it with warm hands, hoping that
it will disappear,
i summon you, to tell me more
how pain is, what is its nature
and how to dislodged it,
but you are not here, you are always somewhere
in that island of pain too,
and so, i make comfort with my own mind,
stretch what lies dormant and
strangled, this neck, these limbs,
pull my hair, and knock my knuckles,
until i find peace within,
without you.

If by this time
you still have nothing to write
try getting out of the house
see the world
walk its paths
without any conceived thoughts
free and open
to what this world can give you
see the forests and the trees
wander, wander
do not stop, walk farther,
until the day is over
rest upon a rock on top of the cliff
see the stars and the moon
breathe that cold air
and let it stay
inside your heart.

Been searching for the thrill
imagining what is next to happen
lusty thoughts, rusting soul.

The magic of Now is here
it is taking away my sorrows.
it has a Wand that erases what
pains are there in the past
saying that those are not longer
important, nay,
not even relevant, for what is here
and now is always new
and interesting

It IS, Exciting!

the fog and the pine trees

slowly the fog
blankets the
pine trees

at night the coldness
creeps
in every pore of the
skin

like thoughts that
cover our hair and
creepy too in our
spine

wake up in the morning
see how the fog leaves
the pine trees

see how our minds
clear

thoughts leaving
like birds perched
last night
in the branches of our
minds

DAMA DE NOCHE

that flower blooms only
at night

perhaps afraid of the
light

or just shy of the
sun's light

in darkness it spreads
its scent

nearby a man
embraces its own shadow

in bed
another man cannot
sleep

meanwhile the dama
de noche
continues to be enchanting

FROM THE INSULAR HOTEL

i watch them, father and son
sailing on a boat, selling shells and
pearls upon a sea of green salty
surface

i stand upon planks of wood of
that resort where the rich are taking
their time weaving words to depict
what power they have what emptiness
is there

the boy holds the paddle as the
father tempts me with the shell and
the pearl

someone muttered from behind me
those are fakes which i have equated too
with the way how we see their poverty
and chances for prosperity

Ateneo de Davao U.

I only remember books and
silent nooks
i can smell the odor of
dead bugs embedded
in the seams of my sweatshirt
i've had a dose of Sartre
and Sophocles

tragedies from which
in my barren mountains
and dry plains i have
sowed seeds and from
henceforth grew
towers with rapunzels
and dragons which
St. George did not really
slay

i remember that maiden
bathing in the river
diving deep and rising
with the droplets of brackish water
caught in her navel
singing all the songs of
my self-inflicted academic
loneliness

i remember the chapel
with succinct sermons of Fr. Dot
a few churchgoers
praying for a sunny day
of September

it was lonely and i was thin
like a fisherman's pole
my bones rattle like an old
bicycle

i was hiding with a book
to keep me sane....

i've been cheated
five times and five times
i have to assure myself
that nothing's wrong
with their cheating

they get what they want
and they punish themselves
after.

i am not diminished
by their evil deeds
i am not envious of
their success.

i close my eyes on the
night of my defeat
and chant my mantra:
" i am great. i am good.
i am honest. I am not
evil".

to sound sleep i go.
mornings are great.
sun is brighter.
birds sing. air so
fresh. I am new.

CHATMATE

i may desire you
in my dreams
but i am at most
hesitant if this will
be the same thing
when we finally
meet and feel each
other's presence

how do you smell?
what kind of smile
can you give?
how does your hand
gesture
when i call your
name?

i like to feel the
beatings of your heart
skin to skin
heart to heart
butt to butt

if it clicks
then we go to
bed.

i cannot wait
for you any
longer

it's been a
time for
my restlessness

soon i must
forget you

i am already
familiar with
this game

of betrayals
and
instant substitutions

if i must delay it
i may not
live for the next
moment

in that hour
glass
i have only
one grain
of sand
left

a reminder for Nur

how many lives
shall be taken
as offering to
your altar simply
because not
enough attention
has been showered
in you
when you arrive
in that overcrowded
hall?

why?

why is it that the squeaking
machine gets the oil?

why is it that this screaming
faggot gets all the attention?

why is it that the hardworking
guy is simply taken for granted
working in the most unholy hours
of the day and even on the
sleepy hours of the night
only to be scolded because
he is not good enough for the
master who is afraid that
the violence of the terrorist
shall smother him?

saturn

so you fill yourself
with food and drink
and with a bloated tummy
you lie in bed
spinning, spinning like
a Saturn, huge, in your
own planetary system
content with your
rings of ice
not worrying where
you are going
confident upon the
flight where stars and
meteors go together
in the blindness of
the laws of
silence.

we do not make a difference at all

some of us who do not know
anymore how to live
find the issue of wars irrelevant

if it comes, it comes,
we are dying slowly anyway
and tomorrow's instant death
because two powers blow each
other by a nuclear annihilation
does not really make
a difference.

zamboanga

a spoiled brother
who gets what he wants
as always
has made you a ghost
town again.

The Sun and Moon, In Those Soul Of Stars

the two of us can make a good pair
we know it, we are just perfect for love
we feel it, we can make love grow as healthy as
the biggest squash of the county

only our hearts speak, our eyes oblige
for a stare then manage to blink for fear of shame

we are two stars in the heavens, close to each other
twinkling happily on these dark skies

when i see you, you say you are the moon,
and i for a defense, say that i am the sun

two heavenly bodies not meeting on the same hour
sad, unrequited, estranged, and always hurting.

Like star to the sea

I live next door
and i know you live next to mine
sometimes we meet
and i look at the floor
hiding from the beauty
of your eyes

i do not have the courage to say
that love exists in me
and that its life
is all for you

how sadness slowly kills us both
hiding inside the comforting
darkness of our doors

i live next door and you are next to mine
but we are so far away like star to sea.

Where the bush is still on fire.

how i wish to be eloquent in your language
so that i may be able to speak what i really mean
as a first attempt and then when
i master more its idioms i may begin speaking
what i do not really mean
so that you may look at me and i return your looks
with my stare that what i am telling you is far
from what i really want to say
because i have fears and that my life is in danger.

i am an alien to your land. I live here now. But my heart
is still there in my native land. Where the bush is still on fire.

We Have Thick Sunglasses

truths hide. we know where they are.
their bodies buried but their heads are still in the open
grasping for air, hoping to live

truths scream. But we who watch truth die,
pretend that we have nothing to do with it

its death, its burial, its memory.
we are guilty but what can we do? we have suffered enough
and we cannot save ourselves.

we have thick sunglasses. The sun is too hot. Our fats melt.

A World Which Is Too Busy

i will forget the rhyme
and miss the rhythm, i am on a rush
looking for an ambulance
to save this dying poetry
from a world which is too busy
to just even mind
and read.

this is all about me

i stopped for a while
looked around and reflected upon
what really matters
even for today: it is not you anymore
something keeps bothering me
it has nothing to do with you anymore
i want to insist that it is still you
and i reflected some more
deep down, thinking like a hermit
honestly, i must admit,
this is all about me
and i have not really understood it.

the magic of Now is here
it is taking away my sorrows.
it has a Wand that erases what
pains are there in the past
saying that those are not longer
important, nay,
not even relevant, for what is here
and now is always new
and interesting

It IS, Exciting!

until i find peace within

What i lack, is perhaps,
what i have not understood fully well,
the bones are here
the flesh are growing smoothly,
and i feel just a little bit, weird
about where i am going,
there is pain, i can pinpoint it
with my finger, press
it with warm hands, hoping that
it will disappear,
i summon you, to tell me more
how pain is, what is its nature
and how to dislodged it,
but you are not here, you are always somewhere
in that island of pain too,
and so, i make comfort with my own mind,
stretch what lies dormant and
strangled, this neck, these limbs,
pull my hair, and knock my knuckles,
until i find peace within,
without you.

another bright day
for all of us
somehow i choose
to be happy
it is the final decision
reached
without much thinking

to get more
of this life
one must try
restraint

eat little
to live longer
a little fun
over there
a smile here
a tiny kiss
in the corner
a touch of
the moment
a not so distant
walk
a short hello
brief goodbye
a patch of happiness
an island of
solitude perhaps
a streak of light
a crack for
a mirror
to create
a reflection
transmit what
is only necessary
for this
fraction of
my day.

events seem to have
lives of their own
no matter how you
control dates and
moments
some go astray
and you shake you head
unbelieving
why it happened

you too have your
own expectations
on personal hands
on fingers that point
where
but never reached
just the same

this is life, specks of dust
spreading in a space of
light in motion
how time travels and
where it is heading
is still beyond our
limited calculations.

INTELLIGENCE

knowing that some things
are not really meant for you
that somehow no matter how
to try to reach that summit
it is still unreachable for the
moment and yet you keep on
trying and trying and trying
not giving up because you
know you can do it.

MATURITY

how well can you heal
a wound
in such a short time
how well you can swallow
the bitter pill
of a failure
how well you can accept
whoever you are
the earlier you know
that life can be unfair
and that yet you must
move on
because that is what
life is all about
always always moving on
moving out
always in the mood for
what unexpectedly comes
next

bored na bored ka
pag 3 o clock na
ayaw mo namang kumain
baka tumaba ka pa
ayaw mo namang manood
ng tv kasi masakit na ang
mata mo sa kababasa sa
mga balitang nakakapayat sa
puso ng ulyaning taong
kagaya mo

lalabas ka sa bahay
patingin-tingin sa mga
punongkahoy
nakikinig sa awit ng
hangin at paakyat-akyat
sa may bangin

wala na talagang
magawa
balik sa bahay
mag-compose ng tula
o ng isang munting
kwento

tungkol sa taong
muntik ng tumalon
sa bangin
at magpakamatay

dahil bored na bored
na siya
pag 3'clock na ng
hapong hapong hapo na
sya.

THE POET FROM OSLOB

with poetry how can he
survive
these harsh times
when prices for gas, water
and electricity are always
on the rise?

how can he feed his two
kids and a wife with
no work?

his is not the
suffering of the thespian
whom he says
is on
pseudo-suffering
like a soap opera
or that serial on
tv every day where crying
is non-stop and
slapping is
forever

the latest from him is that
now he is in manila
applying for a construction
job in Dubai

and hence has quit
poetry for good.

i'd like to advise
my friend obama not
to attack syria

like: hey Mr Friend president
war is not good

why interfere on the private
affairs of another

like: why can't you let
Syria be herself
and leave her alone
in her private room?

but all i got is a spit
from Obama saying

hey, you, idiot Filipino,
mind your own portfolio!!

you see, i am an idiot
Filipino, and (best?) friend
of Obama, the president
of the United States
of America

at best, i keep my mouth
shut

p.s.
I need him because
china is pissing.

they say
this little mess in zamboanga is
a stage play written
by a man who has something better
for the future of our
country

it is scripted and rehearsed
and to make it appear real
some people have to play deaf
and blind and mute

and those unfortunate ones
do not have to play dead

they are
dead,
they have to die
needlessly,
and must be buried
at once

lest they will rise up from their graves
and speak
the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but
the truth.

try to increase my friend
your scores on how to pass the test of
loneliness
earn the medals and learn to live well
unaffected

for most in life we are downtrodden
feeling useless
from the rest of those unkind

we're all rats in a race forgetting our
gentle human faces
striving to be on top
and yet not finding what we really
want there

believe in yourself and don't mind what the wind
whispers
hold your hand
put them in your breast
warm yourself
learn the games
and play it well

when the heart is full
the mouth shall begin to speak

albeit, the letters
spell loneliness
the song a sigh
settling upon
an empty space

like a star that you
once hang
upon a cloud
at dawn

as we grow older
the monster of nothingness comes with very sharp teeth and thick skin
and tongues of fire

many are swallowed by it, feeling so useless that they lose their names
and identities, nowhere to go on addresses forgotten

the monster of nothingness has claimed lives and lives on islands not connected by
any bridge
no boats sail there
nothing to connect meaning to another meaning
losing the fullness of life, they succor to sudden deaths
to the chasms of void cliffs
falling, falling, fading, losing every sound of
life which can only be heard in youth

now, i am too confronted with this monster
but i have already prepared my defenses

i turn into a rock obstructing its path
hard as steel, its teeth break into glass fragments, its thick skin pierced by
the sharpness of my walls
i shut my eyes, memorize my name, kept a home
the address of my being

this is the Rock, i am it, and i am perfectly protected.
For now, to be a rock is to be alive again
and defeat the monster of nothingness.

I'd sleep for hours
and you worry why
at noon i haven't
awakened

i am a fish hibernating
in the winter of my life

don't you worry
come summer I'll be
with you again
alive and human still

by that time the ice has melted
and a pond is made and
we shall wade in the water
that we fill again with our laughter

darkness is not
alone

it is with me
and i am with it

with us together
we make the beautiful song
of our solitudes

it is still and calm
slowly i move deep
into its bosom.

to be amazed
to be a small fragment of
God's marvelous creation
to see a world in wonder
to be a grain of sand
in the vastness of the shores
to see & feel the magic light of
a rising sun
to feel the softness of clouds
in the stiffness of our bodies and
minds

i guess, this must be
what life is all about.

there is no reason to be sad
others are merry making and living and loving
life
even, and to a certain disagreeable extent
of exploiting and manipulating the life of others

here you are
honest to yourself, making life slowly and gently
wooing nature
appreciating God's little graces
why still be sad? why still be silent? why still
be restless?

too much drifting, living on clouds, hanging yourself to
the indecision of air,
try sticking it out with the flesh and bones
of reality

land your feet to what is real and touchable
not to the invincible promises of a future that
may never come

live life dude. touch the river. walk the earth.

what he did was giving way for the enemy to occupy
his place
he gave them time to strengthen their hold, he gave them
money to buy what they need, he gave them all the opportunities
to kill his people

the enemy says that now they will have peace
but where are we now?

we are ousted. And they are now the kings.
Just because you are weak, my dear president.

to be happy you must know what you want and want it
till it lasts.
you must know the place, and time and moment till it
lasts.
you must know the beloved, ...and the beloved must love you
in return.
if not, it is like you are banging your own head on that hard wall,
repeatedly
till your head breaks, your heart bleeds, till you
last.

i give a toast for poetry today.
i give you my warmest cheers.

i did not know that you are part
of us. This world of words, of
overflowing emotions, this
world of scents and colors and
motion. You can dance here
i can build a fire, i can give you
my dark nights with a few stars
and a moon hanging upon a
cloud.

welcome love, goodbye selfishness.
come, let us drink, let us be drunk
and let us dance.Let us sing with
the winds and the sonorous sounds
of the waves of the seas.

Come and be with us. They think
that we are mourning? No, we are
not.

in that public high
school
his mama's attention
was called by the
principal
who noticed a torn
uniform which he
wore in school

"don't you have a
needle and thread
to patch
this torn cloth?"
she asked

his mother was
embarrassed for
such an accusation
of neglect

she had no time for
sewing and
patching

her husband died
five years ago
and she was the only
one raising
five kids

all her time was devoted
looking for money
to buy food, to pay
rent, electricity and
water bills.

JUST ASKING

i thought i had you as company for misery
but just the same, thanks, i had that slightest moment
Now, like an eagle you are going to soar the heights of a faraway mountain
Far from me
Your dreams fulfilled but for how long will the excitement last?
sometimes i wonder how the gods placed the minds of men and women
I've seen those who prayed with their prayers granted
Due to persistence and yet at the end regretted what they've got

Have the gods granted what people wish and pray as a form of
punishment too?

A family landmark

it did not start with us. we are smooth as the outer skin of porcelain.they did not make us their problems. we followed the rules. we bowed to the faces of authorities.

it was grandpa, who at the age of 79 decided to marry a woman of 19. She was not decent at all. Her hair hid some snakes. We saw it once when we had dinner together in that old house.

grandpa was blinded by his lust. we were patient for light. since he had the money and the power we did nothing but attend to his wedding ceremony.

the woman had black lips. her hands were gnarled so she kept on wearing gloves.
everyday she wore masks, always choosing the angry ones. I guess she was angry with her childhood and her family.

grandmother died early. She had fats all over her body, and then she lost her reason to live. When she died i was only 5 years old, but i had a sharp memory of her then when she kept all the best bread in her room.

after the marriage took place in the famous church of the city, we left the honeymooners in their chosen room. It was expensive.

Aunt who was from Manila decided that we better see the Shrine where Rizal was under the custody of a military general.

Then the news broke out. Grandpa was murdered by his second wife. Inside his room the woman was gone. Taking all the money and his shotgun.

Panit is the local word for skin. It was the name given to him by his father and mother.

It is not a common name. For who in this world will have a skin for a name? but for unknown reason, he got that name and he lived up to it with its significance.

He is a feeler. Like skin, he always reacts to a stimulus, such as cold beer and
warm fish soup.

His world changed from bad to worse when his father and mother quarreled everyday about money. What he saw was broken glasses, plated flying out of the window and landing on hard pavements, all broken into tiny pieces.

He walked away. He stayed in our place since he was my cousin and relatives always support each other.

He was short. There was scar on his face which looked like a miniature dragon.
He did not laugh much. Like those who are tortured by a broken family background
he was always silent facing a wall. I invited him to the sea but he refused.

Papa scolded him one day for forgetting to tie the carabao which escaped and was no longer found. He packed up his clothes and went back to the place where he was born.

After a week, we were invited to three funerals. It was a bizarre thing to think about.

He killed his father, then his mother, and then he killed himself.
That was the tragedy of Panit.

BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS

Father bought land. It was cheap, because you have to walk seven rivers, climb eight mountains, and walk another ten kilometers beside the forest where the monkeys keep on teasing passersby with their human appearances.

Father took me once there. We rode a white horse together. It was really exhaustive but upon reaching there you can see the world. You can even touch the sky.

There were horses there. Cows and goats, and fruit trees. It was a plateau with springs of water nearby. The ducks and chickens and pigs roam freely.

we stayed their for a month. I had dandruff because our viand everyday is native chicken. Chicken causes dandruff and i smell like chicken dung.

When father died, he left me that mountain as a secret. I am the only one who knows the way. I promised him that i will not tell my brother and four sisters.

Back to the mountain, like what father did, to have peace, I only have to speak to myself.

The winds at night shall hear me. And in the morning the mists and fog are my comfort. And then the mountains nearby shall be my echoes.

Despite father's cruelty, I still hold him with high esteem. He left me paradise. He
gave me the beauty of mountains, and the silence of the the peaceful nights away from the anxieties of the city and the troubles of the family.

Last night, I touched the sky.

i am learning this kind of game
which you taught me when i was

just leaning upon a wall and thinking
that it loves me

to meet you, and have a drink with you
and kiss you inside a dark room and

then speechless as we are, we take
turns leaving each other

with a note that soon this will happen
again, this story of hello, goodbye, hello

endless in the pages of your longings
and always anticipating that soon

everything in our backgrounds will be
ironed out by a god who has no other

concern but our happiness, freed from
the prison walls of selfishness and greed

and always open to other possibilities
to door that open by themselves when

we begin to utter those old words again
" i miss you" and the echo, "miss you too"

despite my
varied escapades

despite the numbers
in my mind

the nights and
dawns

the drinks and
the see through glasses

the mirrors and
shadows

i keep telling myself
i have so many things
to do

but to forget you
and not miss you

is still not possible
i need time

more time more
time

to make you
fade

what a night
on such a short hour

i never regret
though that once

i had you
on top of me.

everything that is repeated
is numbing the senses
flattens our energy into a plateau
where we then think that
there is nothing to challenge us
anymore

happiness can be boring too
and we travel to look for sorrow
and when sorrow is there
everyday in that plains where
there are only stones and grass
no signal for the phone

and even if you are with someone
who tickles your heels
where Achilles dwells
the stupor comes like an
enemy uninvited to your party
that night

sorrows come like a parade of
sad beauties and you begin to love
each of them

and there is a time when happiness
comes too

it is surprising, you don't like it
anymore

perhaps, you have changed
into a practical man now

delving on the reality of the masses
where you are a stone in that pavement
of everydayness.

the misery last night
crawls over the clean linens
without us

i sleep on the floor
as i humble myself to the goddess of
slumber

when i wake up
light pierces through the panes

let me tell you
that in my misery God touches me
deeply

in the layers of my emptiness
somehow

warmth is built
imitating the essence of your
thighs and breasts

...and so this is my song
i go for lust and not for love
for i haven't meet and known love that much
for what i had was lust, and lots of it,
and so here we are today,
if we feel like doing it, we do it,
sleep tonight, kiss today, and then leave tomorrow
always ready to face another mask of sorrow.

when i visited you
there were four masks on the wall

you said they are from Thailand
gathered from elephantine memories

i like masks. Life becomes a strain of
virus. There is always a choice
what to wear for the occasion.

i could have told you that what
you see now
is a mask of myself

and that all these years you have loved
the mask
rather than the face inside it

a little bird
has become one of your
cliches

overused, crass,
and sensitivities do
not mind it
at all

let it fly away from you
and feel the silence of
the iron rail
its coldness is like
the finger of
a dead man

now, let us talk a little bit
about the death of
justice

and the escape of that
little bird
as a beginning of our
chase.

well, at the start it was simply fun
a take it or leave it proposal
no bargains, no pleas, nothing
about haggling or talking but
only the whispering of a desire

then it was the acting part which
created the verbosity of the situation
the hands speak a lot, the lips are doing
the feeling and the arms and legs
taking the role of artists and acrobats

as a custom we come to the end part
curtains fall, pretensions close like doors
we go out, leave the dark room, and
the fading chatter, and we step out towards
a new direction

here i am, and you are there
we keep a pact: don't be that kiss and tell.
we didn't have love, we only played
our roles on that stage, we were not
our real selves, we are just acting
out lust and dreamy things.

outside it is dark
i am the only one
on that open road.

everyone is inside
their houses now
with their loved ones.

outside i am the only
one walking still looking
for a home.

my heart trembles for
this, my brains flying
like birds looking for
more edible grains.

time is warped
i still like the past
the future is a vague
misty colored window
where i only see
shadows of all of you.

we lived a life, repeated over and over again
on one code of restraint
coupled with the taboos of our traditions
made by no other legislators who are
humans like us

those ahead of us lived a very lonely life
sticking it out even on verges of depressions and
on the thin boundary line of sanity and
cleanliness

we are taking the same road, tired and helpless
and so predictable and those who swerved and
delineated from the line are turning into
ostriches with their muddy feet and useless wings
soon they will be slaughtered
their bones chopped into pieces
their flesh eaten by the bastards of our times

i am the suspicious man at the back seat of the car
i doubt the driver and i have questions for the man beside him
i like the view outside: green mountains and roadsides flowering
and bird flying low over the heads of hills
searching for their prey

soon i will demand that the car be stopped
i am getting out and be the master of the winds
i protest and summon all creatures
for the needed change.

flings are like
mushrooms that come only
once a year and
matching it with
thunder,

flings happen because
someone has become
too irresistibly
enticing

you wish you do not
like it you wish nothing
happens

oh. like the mushrooms
flings you harvest
a delicacy and cook it
yourself and then
eat with relish what the
other wants to refuse

but you are equally
irresistible and when
these two forces meet
they clash on whatever

they finish it off
down to the last drip

i've seen a beautiful woman
lonely on her chair, one hand
with a glass of wine while
the other with a cigarette

from time to time she throws
smoke into the air and it lands
on my hair, on my lips, and
then my thighs are trembling

how can she ever ask to
suggest that i too need love,
only for tonight?

we have
the same mind, and when
we did it, she walks away
first, uncombed hair,
forgetting her lipstick and
her underwear.

the tulips are
growing in our minds

the brightness and
redness provide
light and color to
our souls

to make these tulips
very real

give it meaning
by picking them and

offering them to the
one you love.

you must
remember still
how comfortable
was it
when you as a
baby
hugged the mattress
when they fooled
you that mama is
just right there
preparing your
milk in the
bottle.

the mountains
too have moods
in its shadows and
hues

and look at the mists
on its bodies
it could be their
souls

SELFIE

this is one of the newest words added to our dictionary.
we invented it. But before it became a word, we had it
already a long time ago. When you stroll on the shore
alone and thinking, when you travel alone and sit on the
bus and looking nowhere, or when you live alone in an
apartment and anticipating that someone soon will join
you to comfort you, to fill you with that emptiness, or when
you arrive in an abandoned house and you stand at the
front yard assessing the damage of the storm in your head,
when you walk around the plaza and no one recognizes you
anymore because you left the place 25 years ago and there
are now so many changes that fail to account you, and when
you know no one whom you can ask to take your picture of
all these,

by all means, these are all selfies.And you worry no more.
You admit that you're lonely at times. But you are happy.

There is not enough of you, in this long and lonely road.

i was naked
and i love it
when you clothed
me with your
gaze.

if you only see plain spring onions
put beside a plate with sunny side up
fried egg
by all means you are normal and
live simply like all the rest

but if you say otherwise: saying that it
is an ovum fertilized by sperms, and
make other stories like, a teenage girl
is having sex with her Philander, or
that Psyche had a love affair with Cupid,
or that to avoid unwanted pregnancies
the man should have used Trust condom
or that the woman should have used
pills, or that someone has been fooled
by another into meaningless sex,

if you have this sense of imagination,
then i have to welcome you here,
you are creative, and you are one of us.

i was too young then
gazing at the door
when you promised
that you will come.

we co-authored love
and we parted.

you got married and
i got married too.

so many events make
us forget, our paths
did not cross.

i am getting older and
i sit on the same bed
gazing at the door when
it shall be opened again
hoping that it will be
your hands again.

i am a silhouette of pain.

the peach tree
is luckiest when
it takes pride of
its many peaches

my darling has
two, only two

ripe for my mashing.

taste me and tell me
tell me more that i am
sweet

feel my comfort
sip my sap
my juices savor
down to its
last drop

then after all these
sleep and dream

i stay awake and
hide my sourness

for i am, despite these years,
a lemon still.

IT IS NOT JUST A FLOWER

the white petals are what
we think we really know

pure as we deem it to be
white as blinding as what we see

deep inside is this black hole
where we are all in and so lost.

i do not just imagine
things, because i have touched
every detail of it, and
squirmed,

i should have avoided the
flame for i know the consequences of
burning

but there i am again
a moth away from mother's
sayings

you ask me why i bet my body
and soul on those
games and chances, on those
unlucky ramblings

do i not believe in heaven and
hell at all?

avoiding fire is not complete wisdom
i am convinced i must touch and be burned

for how can i write you truly about burning
if i had not been burned at all?

a bloody door
i am not.

but i could be
that door knob

come, come
you have the key
to my heart

fit it in. Open me.
Repaint me to

the color of the
sky.

the sad bird who went voluntarily inside the cage and sang a song

i have seen a bird
which went inside a cage
and sings a very sad
song in there
for his dear beloved

it once died there
on a love unrequited.