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.