has anybody told you
that there at the end part
of this journey
is only a certain height
a depth that you can see like
a chasm of
fading darkness
down to the earth
and then to the highest
sky

that when you arrive there
there is only a sky of
cotton
made of all the elements of
air
which when your finger touches
touches only
nothing?

they all made it up
so that you can be like them
hoping against hope
dressed
and heavy with their thick
clothing
to solve a coldness
to walk more miles
to have a basket of nothing
but
metaphors

a garden of eden
an ark of triumph
a manger of humility
a revelation of
fear
the much awaited next
book of
light and glory


one should not be mindful

let us try to see
a window open
a dove with a green leaf
on its beak
an eagle lost in the wild
feasting on
the flesh of the dead

seasons of love

dainty white daisies
spread over a hill
dancing with the wind
under the sun

dainty white daisies
wilting upon the hill
wet with the rain
dead and rotten

wilting time

it's is wilting time
says the flower

seduce the sun
let there be conflagration

on the leaves
let all these yield to

the drying of veins
and dehydration

the sun comes
and the flower bows down

it is wilting time
& Love says

it's a lovely day
just perfect for me

alien song

in a song
which he felt
alien as
he is to the language
yet his
heart
completely
understands

wedding notes (Planta, Bacolod)

 i

from the heart
she sings
her passion to
the groom
who
surprised in
such joy
profusedly
tears fall
like pearls
on the
floor

ii

the food perhaps
fall short
the simplicity
was
enough
to quell the
longings of the heart
it was her passion
above all
that made the occasion
more
memorable

iii

when passions reach
the heights of
flames
when the heart burns
like
a ball of fire
we have no more words
we can offer
only bouquets of magnificent
silence

smoke , alcohol and talk

something in us
feels the need
for smoke for
alcohol
for talk

it is not at all
times
that talk is there
so we
compromise
with
smoke and
alcohol

we must not expect
much from
talkers

they too need to
talk
somewhere
and with
someone else
other
than us

smoke gives you
the idea
about how is it
to float
and be gone

alcohol
illustrates
the value of
loss
the need
to take in something
without
gaining
anything

at Karl's

that evening
i smoked three packs
of winston cigarettes

i love the menthol
soothing in my
nostrils

i did not refuse
the bottles of beer
i was taken by
the bottles

cosme thrived
on glasses of coffee
and stood up
to sing
a bocelli


i have the manners
of the drunkard

no one noticed
that
all those were
my first
time

oh i love it
and no one noticed
how
malfunctioned
had my nerves
become

the following day
i never had
the hangover

i longed for evenings
and i want
these evenings
repeated

lovely drinking
sipping
evenings forever

these my youth
missed.

love has nothing to do with virgins

i have long
discarded
unicorns

love has
nothing to do
with the
virgins

it has something
to do
with the usual
things that we
do

making everything
unusual
familiar

nothing to surprise
us
nothing painful
because
we have become
used to
all that is
there

an ode to loneliness

come
join me in my bed
of thorns

let us
both suffer
the
consequences
of the
reddest of
all roses

to depression

when you are
tipsy
i know what
you will
say

you're not
drunk

i have not
asked

the tryst under the full moon

how can
i forget the
full moon
on top of
me on top
of you

i am looking for the key to the door
of inner peace

i ask you and you do not know
you are busy with your grandchildren

i look at other people's faces
they do not look at me

i cannot find this key to any of your places
and faces

i look inside myself
open the door to myself

i live here now
away from all of you

for in truth what do you care about my place?
you have yours to cater

you have your own garden of
grandchildren and memories

mine is just today
and it shall make all my days busy.

talking has become a surplusage
when thoughts are like a gathering of
old friends in the university where
we finished college

there is always an ongoing exchange of
what if's
or oh my God
is that you?
what happened
to the standard bearer
of 1981?

the lips are like tombs whose openings are
closed
recently because the dead body is there
resting in eternal peace

the room has become a very big ocean for the two of us
boats without sails

in the middle of darkness going nowhere

of course i know what coldness is
apart from something that is cool

when mother died her hands were extremely cold
for my hold
i let them go
there was no sadness
there was that happiness of letting her rest
and giving myself a little space

for tomorrow
when coldness comes again in an empty room
with open windows
i know not what panic shall be

my hands are extremely cold these days
when i kiss them
my lips become frozen
they break like glasses

i cannot speak
there is no way that my tongue shall give in to
words
it cannot face coldness in the mirror
of my face

since you ask and you demand an explanation i open my hands
and i let your hands touch them

i cannot speak i am afraid i will be cruel
you must hold these extreme coldness for a long time
so you can all let them go
like white birds against a dark sky

so you can also experience what happiness
i had when i let go off
mama's fears

when mama closed her eyes
because what was important she knew
need not be said anymore

she brought them all kindly to her grave

there is no such thing as done
everything is always unfinished

you think a bud dies, it does not
you think that the twig that you cut
remains cut

like a dead end of the road
that is always not the case

you think that the body of the man that we buried
is all that is,
that is not the real case

a story shall be borne it gives a bud and a twig another start
a poem is written it marks a new understanding

and the grain of sand becomes another planet
a drift wood becomes another one's dream of a bridge

it is not just the seed it is also the covering
not just the ring that you see but another one's marriage

a view can be immortalized in a painting
or even when the painting rots itself all colors cracking

there is always something that remains unsaid
it is
what is always unfinished

the one that we know but which we never uttered
the one we uttered but which we start to doubt and not really know

oh it is like a wheel of a bicycle
like the ring that you keep on wearing
like a hemisphere that you have traveled
over and over
as though you have known
it forever

between my house and my office
is a long road connecting both like a snake
it head to tail

quite a venomous image of my dwelling and existence
i could have used the word
toxic

inside the car the silence is like a carpet
silence is soft and perfumed this time
it has given an ambiance for a monologue

this time there are more of myself, three
it is not a monologue anymore, there are three persons arguing
against each other's principles

the first one is saying that the second is crazy
the crazy one retorts that the first one is the usual unhappy
and withdrawn type
the third is singing a song
thinking that there must be a way to solve problems
in the lyrics of a song

the first one claims ' Is there really a problem? '
the second one says, ' How stupid can you be not knowing that problems always exist? '
the third one stops singing and with dignity
recalls that there is always
pride in restraint and
sacrifice

'Only God knows how to sacrifice' he said

'Are you telling us that we are devils? You idiot! ' the two
exclaimed in unison.

Everything seems to boil down to morality
'why should it be? ' i ask myself.

and then the three decided to go
dissolve inside me. I lost the singer, the logician,
the realist.

They are like chunks of sugar, a pinch of salt,
a drop of vinegar, mixing themselves
in my cup of tea.

there is always something that happens
which i am trying to understand when i drive my car alone
between my house and my office

like a snake that is now forming a benzene
ring
its head trying to bite its own tail
tasting its own
blood.

before i sleep let me write this one

it has no meaning
it is but just a marker of what i feel

feelings are like water
with no monuments

boundaries always change
and so riparian feelers always quarrel

over nothing over something that simply comes
and goes and goes and comes like

a pendulum of floods and dry bed upon
a common river

what is see are dead woods drifting
old people holding their young crossing a river

boulders of stones on the side
a river bank without any growing plants

what i am marking is not even time
i do not know what it is

i write this one
when by chance i read this again

i know i will remember something or someone
or if at all i will remember a wall without words

a street without a name a pair of sleepers left on the sands
or i meet people who sound like me but whose faces are blank

you must know what remembering is
it is always incomplete

some details are missing but there is a shadow
a stroke an outline of what once made you happy

what once made you fly in the heavens or
what also one gave you all the pains of falling

a double edge sword that is what i am writing tonight
an i remember the face of truth

yes, it is a Picasso.
A paloma.
Labios. My corazon.

It is when i watch it
that i become free.

no doubt about it, i am
free,
i am freed from what i
am hiding

i am always hiding
away, i am freed

from the world that
i live in, i watch the world

i am far, faraway, it is
this distance that makes
me free,

i like it the way when i
do not touch any
part of this world,

i can feel a little dignity
of not having to touch it,

i just watch it, and i am
complete, it is only a matter

of time, i am uninvolved,
i pass away, i only stop here,

to watch, it is too messy,
it has no art of its own,

the disorder is like a pile
of dry leaves blown by the

strong wind from the sea,
there is always a scattering,

who can stop it? i wish i could,
but that is not what i can do,

all i can do is watch, and i become
perfect, and after that moment of

having seen the everyday show,
i walk away, i begin again in

another place, watching how days
go by, how people prove themselves,

how they can be right as they claim,
i listen, but i do not keep what is said,

i always go away, it is just this way,
a pair of eyes, a little blindness,

i choose, what to take with me,
now, i do not take any.

There is a door which you open

you enter, and then it closes you
behind you
forever,

there is no force here,
but only volition,

you enter it
with all the warnings,
that the
possibility that it will close forever
has been told to you
over and over
again,

somehow, you do not make it a problem
you like a closed door, and you hate it
when it opens,
you love it when it is closed forever,
the room is nice
there is a certain loveliness
in there,

it has shiny floors,
it has a bright ceiling,
the lights are lovely,
like stars
in an open dark sky

the air is fresh,
the walls are comfortable

who wants to take an exit?

no one.not you.

when the door knows this, it will open
forever,
it decides to open for you
and it will tell you to go out and be
an outsider again and
be gone
for good,

you insist that you own this room now,
that a closed door is not a serious matter
and there is no way that you have to
go out
or be ousted,

the door has a stair with strong hands
and it will drag you out
it will pull your hair and drag your body
like hell

the door has learned its lesson
when the room is not a prison to someone else
there is no use keeping him there forever
for in truth the reason of the door's
existence
is to make you feel the prison and to suffer

and you know your lesson too well
there is no prison to a mind that is an open window
there is no suffering
to a lover of suffering

you see, it takes a little reverse psychology
for closed doors to open
for men to know that suffering is not suffering
at all
when one loves is tripping

when one thinks
otherwise
when one loves whatever happens

when one accepts
the one that is there and not look for something
that is always missing

why go for the unreachable?
why suffer for long?

life is life, and death is death
you are here, grab this here.

most people suck one another,
civilization sucks, visions suck,
missions are sucked, there is
no shortage of what is sucked,

oh yes, society is a dismal failure.
you too,suck, ...don't be silly,

the universe is a big failure,
God is disappointed, People suck
Christ, Christians keep on killing
one another, Even those who
say there is only One God,
Creator of heaven and Earth also
suck, they destroy each other's
beliefs, they tell that they are
the only ones who go to heaven
the few chosen one, that they
can never be wrong, that they
are the only Right Race, ..they too
suck, God loves everyone, can He
afford to lose any one?

This world sucks because of
intolerance, because of self-righteousness,

God bless us all. God guide us.
Suck us from an impending Hell.