do not blame me for
simply telling you stories
i am nothing
but a storyteller
in my own time

do not blame me for not
having to hold your arms
i too, am air, like you,
too temporary
arriving now and soon leaving
in a span of seconds

do not blame me for forgetting you
as early as now
do not be angry
for i am like you,
the one that assumes a name
shakes your hand
and then goes away
shut out
from any enclosure of
a memory

i have not seen you
you are air
that passes me by
you are invisible and you
want to teach my heart
to love
so you ask the help of the
scented flower
and you made the petals dance
the buds open
and you have finally taught my
heart to sing
the songs of love
under the fullness of the moon

i feel you then...

can i change you into something that i can kiss
and touch and sleep with?
you are air still,
you are invisible,
i feel your essence but i cannot touch
your presence
my arms are empty
and longings still haunt me
you are still a certain space
that is never filled up
by any substance

you will pass me by
and i will feel the absence later
and this will amount to nothing but pain

more pain and so
i have decided for once
on a shorter notice
that as early as noontime
i shall forget you then
completely
when sunset comes.

to both of you
i shall not be at the middle
of this mess

the song that you shall hear
from the bottom of my heart
is for someone
who is not here with us.

there is only one flower that i have
i am hiding it behind my back
and it is not for you

it is for someone else..

i am hiding it behind my back
so you may not see what it is
so you may not quarrel about it

it is for someone else...

i have only one flower in my hand
behind my back
it does not have complete petals
it is wilted and does not have any scent
it is dead
it is a dead flower and it am hiding it behind my back

it is for someone else....

this is an old flower that i have taken
from my antique trunk
tonight i shall burn it
and it shall have the smoke
which shall tell my story
to the cold moon.

naked shall you see me
dressed in twilight

do you see the truth in me now?
you are wrong
for my thoughts are still covered thickly
and each letter
still tries to conceal what my words
shall try to speak

everyday i write the words
the poems that you read
do you claim to see the truths in me now?
you are wrong again
for what i am still belongs to those
unspoken

and in my silence i shower you
with its emptiness
do you see my truths now?
you are wrong again
my silence does not speak everything
there is still the hush of the wind
the chimes of wood and metal
this silence runs and does not stop
and you flag it
and talk to it

do you hear my truths? do you see them now?
you are wrong again
for i have buried all of them in their niches
when you open each
you will find no door
when you go over the windows
you will see what truths might still be there

those dried petals of a rose
those letters with words faded like sunsets
those broken pieces of porcelain and glass
those jigsaw puzzles still
unfilled
those chains with missing links
those buttons that do not fit

do you see my truths now?
i agree, on those dusts, they have now become yours
visible to the caution of
your heart.

when the well is full
the water gets free and can
soon make choices
away from that dark
hole of its
existence,

it can choose the canal
and be with the river's
conduit
or it can choose to seep back
and be with the
silence of the bottom
reunited

there is the kind
that confronts the heat
and evaporates
to join the gods in heaven
and be the
pure rain again

somehow it gets heavy
in there
and here it is
inside my palm
to fill the thirst
of my tongue

a house is built
made of bricks, red as blood
at the center of the island
black as a mole
at the middle of your right
cheek

it is fenced by the locks of
your hair
it is guarded by the cautious
tongue of your face

at the other side
bounded by a big brown river
is a cottage
no living room, no kitchen
not even a restroom
it is just a square cottage
with roof leaking
where i can see the stars

if you know me well enough
for years that i have been with you
and for days that i have left you
you shall know where i live
and if you love me well enough
you'll take nothing with you
to follow me

and i know you will never be lost
until you find
the place where my heart sings

there is this desert
which is full of love
there is nothing in there
except the ostracized
ostrich
you like it somehow
saying, ah, love is still
the answer

there is this paradise
full of greens and reds
fenced by the rules
loveless,
you do not like to live there
despite the
comfort of the
apple trees
and the scents of the pines
and the coolness of
the blueness of the
coves and
the clouds

now you must make the choice
which one? i have chosen mine.

i shall make choices
black or white
there are no shades
for qualifications
i choose this dog
two tails and three ears
long tongue and blind
and sense of smell
taken off
whatever it is
it is still a dog
the color does not matter
the hilarity of combined
silly imaginations
is the irrelevance of
my dictated freedom
good for you
you love dogs and know
the intricacies of
their seasons

we all have these foxes
we choose whom to feed
we decide which must live
inside our heart
the mind is a total stranger
there are no names
but all the masked feelings
dancing to the sound
of loneliness

back to the desert
finding out that the only dater palm is dead
the oasis is gone
the caravan of camels and Bedouins
fade in the distance
the woman in silky veil
rides in her black horse
in the opposite direction
the howling sound of the night
shakes the full moon

i know the spring.
i have traced the source of this water
that i drink everyday
that which gives me
inspiration because all my veins
let through the blood

and the water seeps through
the softness of my skin
the labyrinths of my intestines

i know spring
the source is here
not in the heart where drought
lies, not in the convolutions of my brains
where confusion reigns at times
overpowering the stillness of
my secret pond,

on the darkness of my night
i know the source
it is not evil, it does not have horns
but there is fire that burns me
like a bush and i am
unconsumed
it is eternal
not this damnation that kills the lives
of those who remain to be alone
in their messy rooms
on their windows that do not allow
the light of the moon
the advices of the breeze
the comforting messages of the
newly hatched eggs on the nests
of the trees

it is not in the heart
it is right here where my hands grope
for meaning
where my fingers glide
where my solitude rests
the hammock
of my humanity
as i run to and fro
because i do not want to be detached
to leave
it is here where i stay
and write some more
it is where where i do not want to be understood
by anybody
this secret pond
blind fish mute moss
bubble free
an insect with undeveloped wings
walk on the mirror
water.

i am wondering if we survive the heat,
if the cold having been neglected, and its fading
of grays, remaining unexplained by the
roughness of those stones,
i am wondering what is this wandering all about,
moving from one mountain to another,
crossing another streams of
thoughts, jumping from one border to another
and marking the seas we left with the
strokes of our fingers
i am wondering what will become of us
stuffed, wooded, anesthetized
skeletal, deprived of our dreams of
skin, and fresh flesh,
i am wondering what becomes of these arms,
unable to hold you once again
like once when the fish inhabit the pond,
when the lotuses bloom and give the colors of
its hollowed flowers to the
moon
i am wondering if wonder still saves us
from this desert of
affections,
i ask a diminishing, i forgive nothingness,
i am scheming a plan for escape
a dignified departure, and you smile, not knowing
what goes really inside this tunnel
pretending still to have light at the end
when there is none
when nothingness is still full of its
uncommitted contents.

i am about to sleep.
my eyes droop like an old man
defective spinal cord restless on the furrowed muscles
the arm lifeless, the head bowed,
the hips on painful joints,
i couldn't take the thoughts of
dry river beds and what the women
who want to wash their old clothes
could have done without the
usual running rivers,
and i ask myself what's next to the
pebbles, and the scorching sun at midday,
what's deep down under the
dead moss, the fish
without their usual flesh,
the bones all white and
sharp, what's next to the warmest
day, when all the laundry women
have gone away?
yes, what's next to us
dichotomous concepts
of tradition?
what is next to these flailing legs,
those rusty earrings not made of
gold?
what is next to the coldness of our
words? our selves on arms raised
wanting an eventual surrender
those kept and remaining
unsaid.

as you, foolish dog of my life,
my life in utter peace, a pond of less ripples,
as you, stupid dog of my life
barks at my feet, and tries to distract my own
solitude, that of the candle still in the middle
of my room, the blankets soft on my bed,
the pillows all too silent like flower petals
on a dew filled morning leaf,
as you, twitchy wicked witch
calls my name, i finally give up and
face myself, and leave you, all cracked up,
and i go inside my room and lock my door
and tell my windows, to shut you up,
do not ruin my life, do not ever attempt to do
that which creases my blankets and
stabs my pillows,
for i shall return to you and burn your
furrowed faces, dissolve you in the acids
of my test tubes,
erase you like some misspelled words,
i am a man of peace, and i am stone.

and why should the pen keep walking
and the paper keep expanding? why should they
all become human, soft and fragile,
and too accommodating for all these
restlessness of the spirit?
they are our friends, all these poems
they are our circle of acquaintances
passengers all, waiting on the train station
for another transport,
to where? that is the surprise
today.

and so to level up
at a certain compromisable comfort
i settled for less, do not be dismayed.
between the strictness of the mind
and the unreasonableness of the heart
halfway, there is this couch
made of softest bird
feathers, pastel blue, lighter green,
shallow orange, dimmer yellow,
between their hushes and my
whispers,
i hum.

the forbidden touch...

watching you somehow
makes me alive, just watching you,
what i do not wish is having to touch you,
for i know the rules of our place,
when i touch you, i am condemned.

this is the place,
you were born here
marked by the planting of the
banana shrub on the side of the hill,
things are not complicated here
things turn out as expected
events are predictable
there is nothing to worry
nothing changes here
the stones are stones
and rivers are rivers
the hills do not grow anymore
except some vines
that the old people readily cut
for they said the tendrils are touching
the heavens
offending the sensibilities of the the
gods and goddesses
here,
you left on the third full moon
and you left a note
written in red ink, you declare
hey guys, i am complicated
i don't belong here
and they all hated you and promise
to kill you when you come back
they wish you ill

inside myself, i could have done the same
for i am more complicated than you,
but i am beside her
and the pictures of my ancestors
smile at me
at the altar perfumed by daily
incenses

good luck, i am staying
i am more complicated than you
but i do not have the guts
i am frail as the afternoon,
i am soft as the earth where i still belong.

what did i say to love?
that i do not believe in you anymore.
what did i say at the end of love?
i shall find another.
i set aside my heart
and welcome the waking of the mind
for love does nothing but hurt and hide
what the mind does not,
logical, consequential, cautious,
and walks with the head as crown
the heart controlled
still on the ground floor
wondering what the mind
can do next time.