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