bluffing

there are always layers
of awareness
impression upon an impression
forms a face
and veil upon veil
one must figure out
what is next to what is seen

i keep this composure
there will be a lot of guesses
i must proclaim
there is only one truth
and well i must see to it
that you cannot
touch it

sometimes i show it to you
but then
familiarity takes you away from it
things that you take for granted
become truths
and i take refuge
on what you already know
on said confidence
you will miss the real show

talking to oneself

i arrived with a heavy heart
i was dragging my feet home
my arms seemingly lost their bones
i am weakened
uttered the words which should not have
been said
full of regrets
i reviewed every syllable
only to find
that they must be said
because they are
true

those who listened
behaved like mirrors
reflecting light
to each wall

some have become walls
actually
forming part of the room
shying away from
the eruption of
volcanic truths

i was justifying to the
window of the car
they were not ripe for
those lines

meanwhile i was left alone
at peace
with the noise of the
strong wind
the trees were about
to fall on me

but that time was not
an excuse anymore
it was enough
i said it all.... i said everything
and whatever regret
that this mind kept on repeating
could just be
a matter of opinion
that anyone
to include the one talking to me
now
that must be kept
unto itself
forever...

inside that dream that i do not wish to wake up again

i will speak simply.
i do not have to speak more.
perhaps, it is this silence that
speaks with more wisdom now.
words sleep, and dream,
inside those dreams
i never hear myself speak.
everything there is
an agreement to all that you
are doing to me
and to all that i do to you
sweet, so sweet
that i do not desire to wake up
again
it is where i am perfected
where what i deeply wish
is granted
there is only you and me,
no one sees and no one talks
no judgments
no nothing.

freedom to move in opposite directions

we need space
we are the free souls
every wall is a choking hand
we find it hard to breathe
we have been these two parallel lines
we converge and make outbursts of joys
we soon get tired
joys are boring too
we know it
we need space
we go in opposite directions now
trying to see what is there
in the world where we both do not live
i do not think of coming back
i think you think the same way
we are happier now
moving to another journey
we are not hurt
neither do we fear
the strangeness of freedom

self-discovery

life is only in the doing
those very unimportant matters
(shall i enumerate them?
they are not of your liking
you who love
highlights
fireworks
and what is on top
of the building
beside the
starry skies)

i do now the most simple
things: sleep, sit, stand
sit back, sleep again
walk, talk to you,
cook and eat
and defecate,

there is no more ambition
nothing of those
fame getting stuff

i just discovered it.
Less is more
Simplicity is beauty
Life is just a moment.

exploration

i explore
my own ocean alone
find some fountains
and hills without
paths yet

i cut no grass
i bring no sharpness
i pass this way and
never come back

do i know where to go really?
i don't.

our secret....

we can see them
climb the stairs we are on the ground
with the grass
we shall share the excitement of
the beginners
we pretend we have not gone there
we shall not tell them
what we found.

stages of discovery

soon the walls are no longer working,
the stairs are not worth the climb,
the skin no longer holds this flesh,
at first, you are naked and beautiful,
then you become those ugly bones,
and then you are gone
the place is without any mist
there is no air, and then
what irony is this, we are both complete
and happier, in this newly found
emptiness.

strong and alone

when i am taken
away
and you cannot do
anything
but stay

ah, you cannot but
learn the
tricks
of life's final
decision

you live alone
and strong on the waiting for the next trip

where your name is listed
on a yellow paper

the analogous

everything has
an analogy

for instance these hands
with fingers

are they not rivers and creeks
a source and
tributaries?

for instance this body
this temple
where my soul rests

this eye
this window of the house

the sun
the eye of the earth

a friend of the stars
the wonders of our longings

for instance
the silence
a dash in our talk
a space of our doubts

many more
for instance you and me
two hands in prayer

a vision

the world is so vast
the universe floating and so endless
there is always this
fluidity
no one knows what is there

we focus on the
garden of our heart

it is the only thing we
can do
till

tend what is present
go where we are taken

time
that is the waiting

that sense of this, that
there

but soon the change comes
the timelessness
and weightlessness of these
all

the sense of floating and
being endless

sunless horizons
edgeless spaces

at the tip of the icebergs
of our minds

along the peripheries of
our tattered hearts

soon there will be no burdens
on the wings of
spirits

on the feathers of angels
to the arms of gods....

signs?

you dream of the storm
last night

shaken
you go to church to pray

will there be
another catastrophe?

God, please
protect us
helpless, and
innocent

unable to see what
lies beyond
this storm and darkness

as you are praying
a black butterfly passes by
and it is
so sudden

last night

the boat was small
the glass window is round
like an eyeball
looking out to the
vast sea

it is dark

the black shark is a shadow
inside the dark
blueness of the
night water

there is a storm

a man stands
waiting for what comes next
he must jump
to the water
if needs be

the big eye of the fish
stares at him
with fury

that night
they were eye to eye
and then the fish
passes away
opposite the boat's
direction

when you write
when you are sick and having fever throughout the night
there is no one beside you
there is no electricity, and there is a storm raging on your roof
the house is shaking

you feel that in a short while this house will be blown away
and you just do not know what happens in mid-air

when you write these lines
you hear voices asking for help as though they are buried by the waves
twirled and taken to the bottom of that deep and dark ocean
some bodies
of children and women
some still holding each others' hands
lay dead beside the black corrals and the sea porcupines and urchins

finally, you are carried by this horror
your body shakes in terror like the house shaking its beams and walls in mid-air
you give up the pen
let go off the paper
you give up that consciousness

what you have and what you are now
is air,
strangled like a throat
all breaths finally
sucked
in a vacuum

they say
a full stomach cannot make the brain
think,
they say too much thinking can be dangerous
for the mind
is one labyrinth that does not stop
the exit is hidden
and all you meet are walls
within walls
they say
in this world there are so many unhappy people
some for a lot of reason
a loved one taken so early
a home that breaks
a love that is wasted
hearts bleeding stabbed by the cruel dagger
of the playful
there are those who say
some people grieve over nothing and this is the saddest part of all
when reason is shattered
when that naked body runs away
a mad man
they say there are those who lie and kill and rob
inorder to survive
they say there are people without conscience anymore
too many of them

i completely agree.

there is this garden that you tend
you put the seeds and they all sprout in time
time waters it
the changes take place
soon the flowers bloom and
you watch all these
with patience
there is this light feeling that comes
like butterfly wings
white against the dusk

there is nothing new in that garden
you are sick and takes the rest
you sit by the window
the same window all these 50 years
time is you boring attendant
independent from your grasp
it can exist without you

you sit and watch the world passing by
like a flower slowly unfolding
and you never notice it
you go out
you have recovered from a disease
you
take a walk
visit some friends
come back in the afternoon
you watch the view from the window
again
this you do perhaps for another 50 years
of your life
setting aside fears of not having to
step upon 60
life is short for those who have no one to love

it is the same field same mountain
bald and brown
same clouds
pale blue and drifting
same fog
fading like a magical show

same window
that you close again
because it is dark
and cold inside
your old wooden bed
that you have
inherited from your
forefathers

as usual
you take your sleep
time passes you by
the room is so silent
as though
it is the home for
the dead

you do not plant
trees in the big forest
neither shall you sell
ice drops in the
north pole

in tropical paradise
we are the lazy people who
spend most of our time
sun bathing in the beach
watching sea gulls
breathing the salt of the air
sipping cold mango juice
painting yachts
burying our bodies under the
comfort of the the white sands....

diha sa abri nga bintana sa imong kasingkasing lantawa ang mga bulak nga nanayaw sa hardin

butangi og bangko
ayaw lingkori
pagkuha og lain
nga imong lingkoran
hatagi og luna nga
makalingkod
ang Ginoo...

never had the chance
to visit Gethsemane
the thorns of the crown
on my head, never felt,
did not see the carrying of
the cross,
that darkest night of the
crucifixion, never been
there

in this middle of my
reflection
couldn't wait to see
Christ in His
Resurrection

i'd give up sorrow, grief,
lament, in exchange of
joy
it's the redemption that
matters most
our way of moving on
this long yet
unfinished journey

same boredom

in vietnam or in hongkong
it is the same road that i walk
same lengths of
arms to reach another
wall
it is the same salt of the
sea
on a beach holiday
same coldness of the shades
of trees
along some boulevards
same noise
in malls and repeated
lyrics
sounds of love
and indifference
same menu on restaurants
and sometimes
same talk even

that strangest boredom
seems to be too insensitive
to leave me
at least for once