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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

all those ingrates and
traitors grew like mushrooms
nearby

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

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

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

I saw a man in white, 
he looked quite a sight.
He was not old, 
but he stood in the cold. 
And when he felt the sun, 
he started to run. 
Who could he be? 
Please answer me. 

She'll make you feel
that you are weak and nothing better
than an empty shell
less the song
of the sea and sand.

You must understand her
Story. She's bitter as a witch
under the curse of her very own
mother who
finally disowned her as she keeps
herself intact
tight and compact
in the world that she created
with Sappho and the rest of the
girls in Lesbos.

Do not dare love her.
She cannot love you in return.

She makes poetry like a spinning
wheel. Threads into silk.
It is beautiful indeed it is.
But there is no place for you there
and if you come nearer
she'd spit on you.

Keep the thrill. Make your own
pottery.
Your poety to her is pottery.
Do not laugh at yourself. As i see it
in the name of Love you are doing
much better.

It is.And that is a fact.
The only way to love her and yourself
is to move on.
Find Another.

Forge this unrequited Love.
Love has many faces of Janus.
Do not worry.
There is a face suited for you
and do not be shocked.
It looks like you too. 

we are getting
older
and we have changed
a lot

at the store we
are not buying anything
at all

the house is full
and there is no place
for another 
furniture

the grasses have 
grown tall and the flowers
are choking
but who cares to weed 
what is evil now? 

it is like we're at
the pre-departure area
leaving for russia

or any place where we
have never been before
we like to feel this
excitement and leave
all the sadness behind

we have changed we cannot
distinguish anymore 
which is which.... 

others may have
come seeking pleasure
others merely
for the unleashing
of a burden
for so many reasons
there will be more
arrivals
and there will be
no more
leavings
no goodbyes
this is the place to
stay
and die....

nature does it best, without much fuss.

the river flows
it is not the way
the rocks want it,

the clouds float
perhaps the air carries
them but they choose
when to disappear

you have no control
for what all these natural
occurrences

everyday you try to
control yourself opting
to do what could have
been right

and then you go astray
and run towards those
mountains trying to figure
out why

and these you take upon
yourself: 

leaving them

i know how to leave
and so 
here i am i have
just arrived

for i have left them.

you know how is it
to be there
it is so stressful
i feel like i am shrinking
my dignity melts
and what i hear is only
their laughter

there is no use staying
there

that place is hell.

nine lives of a cat
eleven shall always be
less than a dozen
nine good people
will always be less
than those ten
devils
nine is never mine
and eleven
shall never be even
it is odd
and odder still to think
that vengeance is
yours and
never God's

once upon a time

the queen of happiness walks in her garden
of love
the flowers of fulfillment bloom
the buds of desire and seeds of hope
the winds of wonder
the bees of believing
the butterflies of betterment
oh! they are all there

the king of dignity regales her with his sword of justice
his crown of authority
his ring of fidelity
his shield of joy

the prince of obedience
the princess of trust
the soldiers of valor
the advisers of compassion and truth

in the kingdom of prosperity
in the length of eternity

there they all live happily ever after

a chicken's life
is measured by its power to scratch
for grains
and then it lays eggs
and feed 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

this morning as i walk on the path
leading to the forest land
i see the greatest pearl
hanging on the cirrus sky

the moon still holding to the
arms of morning....

again and again
mornings are always filled with the chatter
of sparrows upon those branches of
almost dead trees,
a cemetery in air, and then what follows
are the clutters of the kitchen,
smell of fried fish and sunny side up
eggs on the table
steamed rice rising to the ceiling,
smoked sausages, and bread,
mornings are better now.

until you arrive and make promises again
that morning will be better now.

i remember you, old lady, when you were
younger, hair flowed freely down to your waist
and you breed children from many men,
and i had none of you, and when we talk you
have become another selfish woman who only
talks about the past,present and future men
of your life and then i start talking about your
house and kids and business and the talk on
that boat had become so endless, i got tire,
as i had always been tired in this lonely journery
to nowhere, and then i start to talk about myself
and you leave me. I am only interesting when
i am interested in you.
First lesson. Keep yourself and do not bother.

we were excited for this trip

another Hongkong this time

when we arrive at the airport

we rested for a while waiting for

our tour guide who shall take us

on the terms of our itinerary

i took some tour pamphlets

looked at the train maps

and tourist attractions

and when i came back to the waiting seat

i realized there are many women seated at the back

one told me that they are domestic helpers

waiting for their employers

she is a computer graduate from the Philippines

who is jobless in her country

and this time she is taking this work

as her family needs money

she is going to send her siblings to school

on the other line of seats are Indonesians

and Pakistanis

still young and with their looks

could serve well their new masters

i could not tell her that i am a tourist in Hongkong

with my wife who shall go shopping again

and enjoy life as much as she could

her employer arrives and i waive my hand at her

as she left carrying her her new luggage and her

handbook as overseas worker

gripped by her left hand.

POETRY is something
that you do
which most of the times
others do not really
share doing, for one thing
for most, it serves no purpose
perhaps, except to baffle

somehow i keep doing it
just like dropping a tiny stone
in that sleepy pond
to make a ripple where ripple
makes more ripples
and then a child begins to
see
and asks
if there is a fish that swims
in it.
then the fish story begins
to be told
until the child has grown up
to be a man
ready for more ripples.

nobody
wants to read and study the law
it if is a scene
it is nothing but snow and a roll
of mountains
roads closed and covered
and people prefer
to stay indoors
drinking coffee or
taking naps
the law does not mind
until something happens to
the numb until someone is
damned
perhaps there is a sudden
death
or a mysterious killing
or someone arrogant just
spit in you and you have no
way of getting even
somehow a rainbow appears
in the sky
after a bloody moon at
night
passed with so much
grieving
then you need the law but
it is too late
the night has come
and you do not know who
is there
on the street running away

noting that the venue
of the december reunion shall
be in Talim Island
(imagine the boat
and the breeze and
the usual cargoes of
basic necessities like
rice and noodles and
salt and sugar and
the chichirikas and

some spaghetti sause
and soap and laddles
and basins, notwithstanding
the underestimation of
the river foams and lilies)
i guess i must have been
spontaneous in saying,
with apologies to Norman,
originality-wise you will
love the smell of your roots
and the taste of old
salt....

how candles
consume themselves
is not really
dramatic, it's normal
for candles to light
themselves
eat themselves
and then
just like that
melt and just be
nobody or
nothing, and

kids pick them up
again
remelted and shaped
into new
entities for sale,
and the buyers
too are like candles
consume themselves
in routine
buy what was
wasted
move on with their
lives
borrow light
and then too
die not in
hopelessness
there's gonna be
eternal life
not just recycling

i wore this
black jacket
and underneath
is the blue
shirt with a hard
collar

and i pose at the
front of the church
and you may say
what is the big fuss?
well, it was taken
in Sofia, Bulgaria
and if you care enough
winter is coming
and the Syrian migrants
are still living
inside their small tents..

sa likod sa simbahan
misaad siya
gidawat niya ang iyang
saad sama sa bato
ang atubangan sa simbahan
maoy nahatag sa lain

love sometimes
is unrequited, and the best way to respond
to this matter
is to say that it is not love at all,

that this is just pure lust,
and every night that you cannot hold what you love most,
you always go into the labyrinths of
rationalization,
this is not love, it is not love
how can love be like this?
at the end you arrive at the threshold of pain,
where pain is not pain anymore
but a lesson learned,
and you still keep on saying
proving to yourself that you are right
it was love, yes it was the purest of love
felt,
but it was wrong and wrong is wrong
and nothing but wrong,
and you rest your head upon a pillow
beside no one,
declaring yourself as King
as survivor of the greatest misery of all,
love unrequited
as the king of love clapped by the pains
of the majority,
well, you ended it well,
you have a face, a body,
everything in you is intact
nothing diminished, nothing gained,
whole, and
still full of love, despite.

once, i was
a philosopher,
and by chance
i met an ex-disciple
in air
who says
that i was too
cruel to
twist her brain,
but i still
talk to myself
becoming proud
that at least
she still keeps
her brain,

though twisted
in some
sense.

as others work their way
bury themselves in the thick of the
paper forest
(in this place birds have
no place for nests
the ants have no sugar chunks
to carry)

i still find my way on top
to hum a song
to build a castle on the clouds
and drift

a lengthy poem is unfair.

it takes half of my coffee
and a fourth size of my cookie
deprives me of my morning walk
and makes me rush
and gives me shame why i
am late in my office
again

i blame it for my misery
when it could have been short
and yet provide
me for the much needed
ecstasy

you look good in white
more of
likeness to a white
official court paper
thirsty for
our integrity and
hard work,
this morning you are
ablaze in white
and i could have said
something more than
nice
but this is monday and
it is going manic
and it is singing what'
love got to do with it

to see the beauty of a journey
to feel the happiness of every step
one must follow
and think about a chain
of custody of all the relevant and
pertinent happy
artifacts of your life,
where you started you must go towards
a place and carry a memento
in your hand which you must close
from time to time to feel
what is warm and strong in there....

so here i am still thinking more.

if i pay attention to all the details
i will not be where i am now
i would have been stranded in an island
surrounded by sharks

if i repeat every word you say
i would have been stuck on a cave
and i would not have lived
the life i love

you see, i must see the world as a whole
though vague, though far
i must always move towards a horizon
where perhaps i can find both my sun
and moon

i have listened more to the sound of my heart
though i have not followed most of its foolishness
i have restrained myself and fasted happiness
some things sweet shall destroy me
much of the time i have taken the bitter pill
and so here i am still thinking more.

to a swindling distant relative...

the reason why you
come is
my money.

you come limping
like a frog whose
hind foot is bitten
by a snake.

you show a face of
failure.
you lose some teeth.
your hair is becoming
grey.

you have always lied
to me.
But i never tire
giving you what you want.

when you leave this
room
i am relieved.

a thorn is lifted
from my brain.

i am happy
i am not like you.

that lady of judas....

what you do not know
shall not hurt you.

it is I, who know all
these. I am therefore hurt.

I am hurt, and i will
not tell you.

what i will not tell you
does not hurt you.

this is the real
justification for silence.

i never want to hurt you
and so i keep hurting myself.

this is the justification of my
love.

this love that keeps being
hurt.

and i will always be hurt.
and this is the justification of
my christianity.

to the dancing faithfuls of san vicente

i do not really know what was it that made me cry.
I stopped somewhere in the middle of the crowd
who were dancing to the gong beats of
senyor san vicente in olingan.

how can a very disappointing life make you dance?

there were stories of course.

that woman cannot bear a child,
that man had three kids who died in a car accident.
the hunchback of this town has a wish.
the old lady has no place to live.
and so on and so forth

these are all people with lamentations.
i am only knowing things on the surface.
they never allow me to go deeper because if i have
to go deeper
they bleed some more and their drops of blood
become dry on the pavement
which not all can see

meanwhile senyor san vicente keeps spreading its
plaster of paris wings, white with its new paint.

the dances perhaps do not know the story
that he can be in many places at the same hour.

what they know is that this saint is miraculous.
something amazing will happen in their lives
after the saddest sound of their dance steps.

sonorous, monotonous, by analogy it could be like
a scream for help, for justice, for understanding of what
is happening to their lives.

and the eventual acceptance of their fates.

i do not know why i am crying. I really do not know why.

For Janus in Lesbos

She'll make you feel
that you are weak and nothing better
than an empty shell
less the song
of the sea and sand.

You must understand her
Story. She's bitter as a witch
under the curse of her very own
mother who
finally disowned her as she keeps
herself intact
tight and compact
in the world that she created
with Sappho and the rest of the
girls in Lesbos.

Do not dare love her.
She cannot love you in return.

She makes poetry like a spinning
wheel. Threads into silk.
It is beautiful indeed it is.
But there is no place for  you there
and if you come nearer
she'd spit on you.

Keep the thrill. Make your own
pottery.
Your poety to her is pottery.
Do not laugh at yourself. As i see it
in the name of Love you are doing
much better.

It is.And that is a fact.
The only way to love her and yourself
is to move on.
Find Another.

Forge this unrequited Love.
Love has many faces of Janus.
Do not worry.
There is a face suited for you
and do not be shocked.
It looks like  you too.

ON to the FIFTIETH

It is on this day that the count of 50 days to  the Feast of Pentecost begins. The number 30 plus 20 equals 50, which points directly to the Feast of Pentecost. God promised Abraham that if he found only 50 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah he would not destroy both cities
There was a penalty in ancient Israel  if an unmarried man had sex with a  virgin who was not engaged to be married.  His penalty was to pay the woman's father 50 shekels of silver  AND he had to marry her King David paid 50 shekels of silver to purchase  the threshing floor where a death angel Fifty also symbolizes deliverance or freedom from a burden.

the way to my heart
she says is through my stomach

for years this will work
but soon it will not anymore

to live this life and never
finding true love

to die with all bitterness
and please the last worm

give the choice i shall choose
to be born again

hoping to find true love
hoping that it is still you

hoping still that i may know
what true love really is.....

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

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

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

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

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

it is different
when i wake up
and you are gone

these guilt like
thorns
and i have become
its main rose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

she loves me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and then Kafka becomes famous.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

that is where everything
begins.

the coconut tree

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

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

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

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

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

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

A lot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

in time's affluence
you become another
tanka poet,

slowly you slay the
monster growing on the
left side of your
shoulder

very much looking
like you

unable to write on your own
you shop

you read wanting to find for
answers

you do this most of the times
neglecting outside

you enter a cave and find some
shadows

you love it
now you have something to write

if you are lost
it does not matter

before you arrive here
you were nowhere to be found

one's pain
can be another one's pleasure
this sense of balance
what you take from one
is another person's addition

too much heat
makes this world vomit
fire
what to do then?
take a look, day and night
move.

an ode to numbness
it is just a game of words
i like to say it that way
when you ask me what this means
i candidly say it is nothing
like the way the wind whispers to the
ears of children
busily playing their games
along the streets outside the house
where their parents are always fighting

she slept upon a couch
and out of grief
deeper than she could endure
she forgets time
as morning light peeps upon her window
creeping through the venetian blinds
she utterly disregards it
preferring instead
the darkness where she lives.

septonisque
what they need is
nine, so, don't leave it at eight
it lacks the hour of one
do not be too early then
or too late
cater to what is required
otherwise it makes no sense
what is needed is nine
hence ten is unkind

nature is not pretentious:
take note, today's most beautiful sunny day
and tomorrow's storm
are its faces, nothing concealed sifted,
nothing is selected to show only what is best
the flower does not bloom to eternity

we all see what is wilted
what went rotten, what is coming
and what is finally gone.

the fan is like
a hand with fingers
that fuse themselves
to capture the wind
like the way we
grasp the truth
one in many manners
in many eyes
one face

he hates sleeping at eight
in the evening, it is just too early and
what he needs is not much sleep,
involuntarily, he wakes up at
3 am and he has no one to speak
and be familiar with

the hounding sound of silence is
like that of a dog, and the horror begins
if he covers his ears he may explode

that night
the image of an old church
arrives late
there is no priest
there

my gallbladder is full
and i let it go
i could be the groom
waiting for the bride
but it is only a wish
then the image of an
old house flashes in my
mind later
i wake up
switch on the light at the headboard
the clock reads
2 pm
i could have been
a black butterfly
the one the old women of the
house dread
but i cut if off
i promise them
i do not want to be
a pain
in their asses
anymore
i am not that good
enough
at killing them
with what i cannot be.

at the end it is just you
all goes away
there is no need
to enumerate
i have already forgotten
all of those and these

i get to correct this notion
at the end there is nothing
not even myself
or you

it is just fog
we do not even notice it
as it is
too slow and yet
too sudden

 i know that you are unhappy
i figure it out the first time i saw you
at the hotel cafe i ask you what you want to eat

you want to eat me but i could not be that
delicious to you so i set aside the wish
and offer you instead that carrot cake
and lemon juice

you look thin and hungry and i think those
stuff are better for you
oh, do not ask me i am not that really happy
i got all those old fears and the worst of me
still is yet to come

i will conceal all these things from you
as you want too to conceal all about you from me

oh, these make up called poetry
these masks with no eyes
these hollow sockets of our souls

i am a house
walled out from you

you are the black
goat grazing on herbs
on a foot of a hill

we almost had it
i was alone in my room
and i could have made you
come with me

you smiled thinking
perhaps that you can have
me too

i looked at the window
no one was coming
everything seemed to be
one perfect moment

but nothing happened
and i knew what the reason was
though i did not tell you

i did not really love you.

we want to make a poem
the two of us
my mind begins to burn
i'll take her under the moon
we start to make one
and it was really really
a big fun

it is not meant to be heard
it is meant to be done

so many things to see
to do, outside, the sun, and
trees, and
pathways, narrow alleys
some,
and eight-lane superhighways
inside a bus
one chooses the side of the
window
hoping to forget what hurts
still, as edges of roads come
and slice
your mind, but, and this is real,
as you close your eyes,
you go back to
yourself, and to that which still
hurts, which makes
an empty space in
your heart, as you feel the hollowness
of dreams
unfulfilled, of substances light as air,
and someone sees you

blank as paper, light as cloud,
hard as another wall,
a word misspelled,
a lapse, a limp, another slip,
and you do not mind, leave it,
there, you sleep.

outside the wind howls and the skies are dark
and the roads are empty
your window is open and you gaze into a world
abandoned and then you create what is not there
the stars appear and some birds are late for their
roosting pass you by like a group of leaves blown by
the western wind and then you make the rain
in your mind, as the frogs begin to croak as the
fireflies take shade around the tree facing your house
and the crickets too, on the bushes, make their songs.

what are pebbles? you know how to impress this kid
asking you to draw a rainbow that bridges two hills
on the foot of the hill is a child near the house playing
alone, and such loneliness makes this kid by your side
asks for flowers and birds and skies,

and you tell him, " kiddo, these pebbles are seeds" and
even if you throw them away because you do not like
their silence and hardness, they always grown on the
side of the hills bridged by this rainbow where the lonely
child of your sorrow dreams too of you to be with him
one day, when imagination and reality blends like body and
soul, like yeast and dough, like salt and water, like man and
woman, like roots and rocks.