11:26

when i tell you that i have loved you since i first saw you,
i know what you will give me: a quizzical look, a sense of disbelief,
it will be milder, but i expect greater than that: that shock in war,
that vomit in gluttony, that feeling of having a snake in your bed,
i must have overate this, but i know what consequences are there:
like a mother you will cut an umbilical cord that connects me to you,
i am that helpless premature baby inside your womb,
i will die and you will like seeing that slow death like a boa
constricting my body,

i can imagine the horror of the vietnam war, the massacre of
innocent lives, blood is the river, bodies rotting on the banks,
worms everywhere, a no man's island,

you will laugh, and you will see the frankenstein in me loving
screws and bolts, and junks and rusts and useless parts

i always look at myself in the mirror of your eyes, i see that i am
a gentle moon traversing the placid lake of our junctures,

i do not wish to disturb the peace between our two countries,
i remain a diplomat in my own chosen field of silence.

soft winds blowing the reeds upon the Nile
shadows of pyramids fading with the sun and now embracing the golden
like of the moon
a bedouin riding on his camel still dreaming of a home
of oasis in the desert of his
unrequited love, an emptiness unfilled, a self unrealized
agonizing in the silence of the tumor
that keeps growing inside his head.
 

11:12

inside our pockets
is the privacy of our own stones

outside our faces are the familiarities of
our traditions

when we party
we say the same words actually
we fear
other people's anger
we cannot afford to disappoint the
visitors of our
common faith

the usual mess will be there
part of the party you know
sometimes we let go
we let loose what is too tight in our necks
we spit what is bitter outside the windows of our
tongues

there is always time for restraint in a few glasses of
alcohol
there is a time to make our mouths shut up
tying our tongues like ropes on
the railings of the house
of civility

personally i do not like this party where we become
decent fools
choosing the words
afraid of the truth
always fearing that we should have broken some rules
of engagements

most of the time we deny what our hearts are looking for
cold hands hold another set of cold hands
empty heads bang with other empty heads
on hollow sounds of flattery

one time i left the room where the party is going on
it is 11:10 in the evening and it has become too intolerable

i need to be alone inorder to be free
i imagine you and i love this atonement when you still do not mind
how i feel

i am complicating it so much restraint
because even if i am now outside everybody
i still retain
the decency of what is right and wrong which i always
carry around.

11:04

there is a coat
that covers a seed

it is thick
and dry and the seed is
safe inside it

the seasons are
inviting
one time, there is so much
rain

and it would have been a good time
to throw the seed and let
it grow

but you have decided not to

it is not the kind of seed that they know
by tradition

it did not come from their
own familiar farms established with
strict adherence to rules
and penalties

you keep the seed as a symbol of
your
eternal restraint

you are a good man
and they think of you and will always do
until you die

the seed is in your body
swallowed
like your pride in self-denial

because you will always be a good man
until they die.

10:56

you brag that life is not complicated
everything is simple

like, baring yourself, nothing hidden,
speaking, shying away from silence
because silence is strange
it is not named specifically like
a goat with horns,  a bird with claws
a fish with fins,

you speak your mind,
a square is a square
a spade is a spade
not a thing is the same,
everything unique
simplify, simplify, is that a hard
thing to do? i say it is not.

you grow, you experience pain,
you shed tears on people they do not really
consider important

time and pressure are two twins now
you like to die, you once tell me
as candid as tomorrow you will take your like away

like jumping from the 12th floor or
simply, as you put, withholding breath
or pulling the trigger
"bang!" is that complicated? i say it is not
since life, your life, is always your hands


there is meaning to all these, i tell you,
you look for it like standing by and looking at the faces of people
who suffer like us,

then life unfolds with so many petals,
it becomes a tree with so many rings worn inside its body
so many twigs, branching out as though it is following an edict

you follow the veins of a dried leaf
or listen to the stories of the child
you begin to count the stars in the dark skies
or lull yourself with the eternal numbers that the waves of the sea
are carrying to the shore

endless, moon to moon, sun to sun, horizons that tire your eyes
deserts that make you feel the thirst
numerous deaths, births and rebirths of thoughts and
memories of windchimes

it is now simple to accept, sometimes one cannot tell a person that
you love and that your love is something that you cannot really grasp
beyond speech,
beyond hold,
beyond feeling, it is what you see at noon when you stare at the sun

hurting, you cannot attack that long,
lest you get blinded by so much light

now i know how is it to write to someone and you try hard that you cannot be understood
because

life is not simple, and saying i love you is not just to utter the word and then
everything turns to be alright

it is more than that
honestly, until now, i cannot say it, or if i say it, until now i have never understood it

do not attempt to understand what i too have not understood
it is like this: when i tell you that i love you, everything in me vanishes
day turns to night, and i will be lost forever
denying what i am
destroying what i have built from the beginning

my love is a nihilist.
you, as always, can be my sun, without you
feeling it.

10:39

imagine a face
a silhouette of nose and eyelashes and forehead
black shadow against the afternoon sun
dark orange turning into
black
a journey towards a night

all the birds in your hair have gone
they are all home now
in the place that you want to remember
but you
just can't

because the word departure which was once too painful
has been erased in the glossary of your memories

but you remember
as always home

arms, and breasts and the silence of
togetherness
because you are home now and it is as always
sweet and
peaceful

10:32

i've read your poem.
had a hard time understanding it.
 i feel like wasting my time.
perhaps i am too shallow
i do not have your depth.
you are deep and i do not
have those gears and
other props
or perhaps i am just too
lazy to jump into your
water
or perhaps i just want to
have fun
reading

the words you use are
bellicose, too much
blood in there, the scenes
are deadly
so many are drowning,
and no help is coming

getting to know you
is cumbersome
you are trying to confuse
my state of hibernation
am but a simple
catfish frozen in mud
it is drought time here
and everybody is
leaving

i do not have your feet
i have my own fins
caught in suspension
i feel like a block of
soil, pushed and
abandoned

i may envy you but
i do not understand why

you are new, and original
i am old and wobbled
i am frozen in my own
hibernating world of
a block of soil, solidified
petrified, but in peace.

revenge

i am indifferent
greater than that i am angry
but nothing in my face shall show it
this anger that
spreads inside like a polluted
mining pool
to the river
this stored fear
like yeast in poisoned bread
which soon
you all shall
eat

fast, and flashing

for those that i have not
spoken
they shall continue to be
so

the bus is coming and it
will not make any difference
whether i
come in or jump out

you will wave your hand
someone will remove his hat as a gesture of honor
i like to think that i shall take a look
but it will not matter

i am inside this bus and
it is
fast and everything flashes
like
drawings erased
on that
blackboard

my promise

i promised myself
i speak what i want to say
relentlessly

even if it should result in my own
alienation

i will be free as a fallen leaf
surrendering to the grounds of my
beginning

acknowledging that on the same spot
i shall rot
and end.

coming back

it's been quite a time
abandon is such a very sad word

neglect has become
important
and every word here mourns
for the demise
of a beloved
craft

i am back and you shall take
revenge
nights are sleepless
days are restless

life becomes one strange cat
with only
one life left

to come back and be
a slave again
on this
page

on stevenson syndrome

lowly
writer are you
dwelling
in an indistinct island
namelessly

if you write about
the rain
it is nothing but simply
rain

your sea is not
their kind of sea
though
its blueness
is same without
shame

unless you are a
Louise
when he writes about
the rain
and the sea
and then
suddenly everyone
becomes
crazy
figuring out meaning
where
actually
there is none

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