the young boy
runs to the sea

jumps in
complete glee

as a man he
comes back to
swim again

taking more time
to love
salt and foam

at midlife he
finds a chair and

sits there alone
longing for more

sunset comes
with so much
softness

warmth on his
shoulder

looking blankly
to an endless
horizon

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

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.

how i wish to be like the
mat weaver of our place

he is 95 years old and still
making mats dyed to pure
colors of art, nothing more
nothing less

his wife left him and his
kids named him irresponsible
he is alone in the old house that
his forefathers left him
eating out what is due to
legacy and inheritance

he does not speak much
preferring the silence of his
weaving as though they are
just words unspoken

"nothing is for sale" he writes
a note on the left side of the
door

we know his rules. You come
you go. Do not take anything
from me.

Back to his weaving. Mats,
and mats, nothing more and
nothing less.

No rewards. No praise.
Nothing more nothing less.

I couldn't help it. I write.

do not be
tempted to take this
matter
as a game of words

words are merely tools

boats where we take ride
for a while

wings which we wear
so we can be in places of
the heart

we do not wish to be birds
and be birds

neither do we take strengths
from rigs and
paddles

we are singers here
chanters

we are bringing with
us the clarity of
our destinations

we sing because there is
a need
we speak because our
silence needs
be broken sometimes

to comfort us
to bring us to places
we long
but we still do not really
know where

NO one comes here to vend wares
we are bringing nothing for sale

We have arrived because we want
to bring more life

we will not stay somehow to make
us fixed

there are paradoxes to cross
myths to either amaze us or
destroy us

No one comes here to make a show
far from it

what we want is to silence the scream
to settle for what is less and what is only essential

and then move on...

once in the garden of
a stir
i stare
attentively i listen to
the murmur of the
water
follow every ripple
and wait till the water
settles again
as transparent
gossamer
of my own dream

time is lost in the
stillness
and i feel like a god
not needing
any worshiper.

how can fun
be alone? how can one finger
clap?
how can love be just
a man?
how can this earth
be a mere stone?
how can i see this universe
as a grain
of sand?
how can running be just with
one foot?
how can i be happy
without you?

i can be.
sad in a room.
alone in a bus trip.
sleepy on the plane.
lost outside the hotel.
i can be.
myself, but it is
too
tight, and the pressure
gets too high
that i have to whistle
and then walk in the middle of
the night
to let go what clots
inside

just about her....

she is beautiful
i guess cancer is beautiful
she must perhaps
accept this idea that cancer is
beautiful for the soul
i have never seen her so frail

her fragility is so feminine
and so is pain
a woman

pain is as fragile as
a center piece
on the table, a tea cup perhaps
which no one wants to break
to hear that sound of
pain

i do not know when to stop
to tell that pain must be beautiful
and that the soul is becoming more
beautiful in that pain

she cannot complain
what she will leave is that happy feeling
that beauty and grace have been transmitted to
her grandchildren

if she dies, she is complete
she asks for nothing more

her children have given her more than a bouquet of fresh flowers from the garden
she is happy now and will be even happier for another hour perhaps

resting her tired body on that sofa looking at the kids playing
she rests her head upon a pillow
and then closes her eyes
not wishing to wake up anymore for
another painful day....

i have a red melon
which i put on the
table

i am concerned
about you
you must be hungry

i like you to eat
and be happy

if you are ready
please take the shadow

come to think
of it
i am just poetic

i sometimes think
like a gogh

violet clouds to
be alive and
beautiful must
whirl

mountains must
have bold black lines
as boundaries
like hunchbacks
of Notre dame

trees appear
truly powerful if they
are taller than
the moon or some
stars

and the world is
happier without
those other people

whom, by all,
wit, jean paul
has called Hell.

if the tree is there
and stands tall even
without leaves

and if the empty
bench is unmoved by
the coldness of the
wind

will you still write
a lonely poem?

sometimes
no eyes

incomplete
face

breasts are
erased

there are lips
but sealed

so many parts
missing

in a woman
named wife

VARIATIONS OF CHILDREN

• 
  
  i
  
  what they need is just
  a box of chocolates
  the cheapest that you
  can buy from that
  flea market
  
  if you give them money
  their father will spend it
  on cigarettes and bet on
  a cock derby this coming
  sunday
  
  ii
  
  the one with a blue shirt
  wants to play killing with guns
  the other one will play dead
  and the last one will, by
  statistical probability, like
  a barbie doll
  
  iii
  
  next month their mother will
  again be pregnant
  and then their father will
  be laid off from work
  
  iv
  
  The President of this country
  will build them a house for free,
  a lot too where the house shall stand
  He will also give money for them
  to cross the bridge of poverty
  and this three will not go to school
  and the mother will have another
  pregnancy and the father will have
  no plan of finding work
  
  they can thrive on charity,
  they will live on dole-outs
  and they will vote without
  thinking come election time
  
  and the same political dynasty shall win
  all over again
  
  v
  
  it will be the same mess
  the same hopeless case
  
  vi
  
  tomorrow a writer will change his
  point of view
  he will be cursed for his pessimism
  
  and these kids who will grow to become
  lazy bones
  will have wives who like to sleep and make
  more children
  
  whose picture will again be taken
  by another man who will say that the
  writer died at an early age and
  was proven wrong by the
  pages of history.
  
  vii
  
  fine. That is the ending of this
  fiction.
  
  Which i know, you never liked
  
  

  

her true name is
Gloria Villa

in english she is
the house of glory

at an early age
she was called
Bangengak by
her folks since
she is not white
and bucktoothed

when she grows up
she may continue
believing that she
is ugly and hence
she may act like
from an ugly duckling
to a full grown
ugly duck

if Gloria however
reads a lot and transcends
how people thought of
her

she may become
what she is in her mind

she may transform herself
into a beauty
from inside her guts
to outside the boundaries
of this world

who knows? she must.

BITS ABOUT A FAMILY TREE

the news came that there are people with same names as we have in that faraway island. I am curious.
I went to the place and introduced myself as a possible relative.
There is a need to trace our roots. My grandfather and his three sisters sailed
from Bohol to Zamboanga because they have no future in that rocky island.
They left taking only a few clothes and their dreams.

Their great grandfather was Juan and his wife is Maria.

When i went there, this i found: more or less there were 50 juans, and 100 marias.
They all look the same. Their faces are our faces too.

There were 3 politicians, 8 bandits, 2 at-large.
There is a priest. And there are 4 prostitutes.

I look at my list. It is same with who we are in faraway zamboanga.

I am not surprised. This is what a family is all about.

Scattered Leaves. Broken chains. Bricks that make a tower.
Black clouds. Storms.

Flickering Stars. And a big lighthouse.
There is a port there, abandoned by boats.

I took with me an exhibit of their poverty. Showed it to my arrogant sister
who hates kids. She looked at it with all contempt.

They are poor. They are not us. When you invite us they will not come.
I also have that contempt for poverty.

We are poorer. I concluded.We, too, must dislike them.

TYPING LESSON

the big brown dog rolls his body over a river of grass near the old table by the side of a bamboo pole.

the green green grass of home makes this typing lesson the loneliest of them all.

we can always have flowers
for a sky
and trees can be our
walls
we can then invite
others to sit
on the emptiness of
our chairs

she had a bad day.
That night she
did not sleep.
when she woke
up the following
morning
she did not touch
a plate of fish.

it was his fish
she missed.
The tail part
to be specific.