Ordinary Words

(DRAFT)

Ordinary Words
By Regino Joel B. Josol
Compiled 2012

Ordinary Words

Ordinary Words
INTRODUCTION

I have never considered myself a poet, just someone who writes poems. My first try was in my teen years. It was more like an outlet for me to release anger or love bottled up inside. I would later discover such exercises were more cathartic rather than art. Then, the world of the web came. I chose to meet with other people who write poems. The online workshop helped me mature my writing from what it was until then cathartic. I associated online and offline with the PinoyPoet Yahoo! group who cared about their writing and whose individual members received recognition for their writing. It was this association that help defined what I wanted to do with my writing. I consider my pieces as work in progress. I tried to write about anything that provoked me. But mostly they were just exercises. I wrote them for what I felt then was the beauty I found in it. There were many times I was lazy and did not have anything specific to say or wanted to say in a poem. They ended up in the trash bin. In fact, a lot did. Of the pieces I felt were worthy to be compiled, these were mostly experiences that had some significance in my life. For ease of recognition by readers, I categorized the compilation into categories. I dont have formal education in this. But I did educate myself from books of several authors and critics of anthologies, and history and philosophy of writing in literature.

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Contents
Sections ........................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Word Play ........................................................................................................................................................................ 6 About Poems ..................................................................................................................................................................13 Sex, Love & Marriage ......................................................................................................................................................16 Death ..............................................................................................................................................................................42 Images ............................................................................................................................................................................52 Others.............................................................................................................................................................................59 Index...............................................................................................................................................................................63

Ordinary Words

Sections
Word play About poems Sex, love and marriage Death Images Others

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Word Play

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A Matter of Fact*
Waking up is greater than walking up, if and only if the length of arms else reach out to get ration. What if they were reduced to fractionsarms, legs, eyes, heads- can blood drops re-assemble the whole from a pool? Fool! It is the number that counts. To kill or keel over is just semantics. Watch closely the substitutions. Sorry, the final answer has been rigged. The equation was just to distract from the matter of fact.

Straight Lines*
But the shortest path between any two points is not the point. A straight path does not exist for all surfaces. Sour faces are not attractive. In fact, no face exists for the humiliated But that is pointless despite the pores. The bottom line is a collection of points under the table, a flat surface generous with straight lines. Are there gay lines?

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No Rule of Three
To get a message across a screen using bullets, follow the rule of three. The rule of thirds keeps subjects in focus too. But, there are supposed to be exceptions. A riddle may not subscribe to rules. A bullet-riddled body violates this rule. To count is a basic skill. Can you reach beyond 56? What is the sound of 100 guns each firing three bullets? and more? You would have discovered no new rules. There are no women or children to isolate. There are only objectives. Even in peace time, the earth is wet with bloodied bodies.

Intersection
Not wanting to lose his way in the labyrinth of lines, an intersection offers a distraction from semantics and antics, of word picks complying with rules, assuming roles coerced on them, as symbols or signs isolated from this and that. But, how does one move away off the fringes of a Venn diagram?

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Your exit
You are here. There is no site map as guide to find the nearest exit. A scan for the familiar (I am no liar) will not yield the path. Stay and check each word instead. Get drenched in the meaninglessness. Don't look at your watch wondering when will I point the way out. How much time do you have? I only have one period left.

Fly*
There are lies and there are flies. These will not take you to the moon or flay you before the stars. Interestingly, like parent-birds, the instinct is to fight back, kamikaze-like: fly to the depths and crash. But, the advertised phytochemicals aren't scraping the fat off my veins: Come on, burn, baby, burn. What do I do with you now and how? Look, the plate left unfinished, has a fly feasting on it.

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Black Sky*
There is no visible city crow circling this sky, blackened by smog, by night. But I am here. Are the little wings crippled or is this the loneliness of my pillows? I demand your daily tribute of smiles when the sun is up high, in that skyscraper. That window glass cleaner is blocking my sight. Yet, she does not care, of the printer's being out of paper. If the power goes out while in a lift, don't panic. I will enjoy the drift. Who knows? This could be my black sky.

Silence
surrounds me, irritating your inability to fill in between the sound from lips that wishes to open up, to send v i and jar br a t ion s,

the shield of yellow light where I am- a coffee-table book, closed.

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Puppet
What if gestures incline a word, how much weight is there before dropping out of view? Saliva drips ________________over ________________the _______f ________a __________l ____________ling _____________word but gravity is a separate influence. The ground offers no affinity. The black, inclined _______________word ___________is a puppet controlled by key-strokes.

Insight
The enlightenment desired when reading lines lies in control, purely arbitrary, and ergonomic. Reach out to that knob, turn it clockwise and see the brightness rise and pupils dilate in search of meanings in b ______ r _______o ____ken lines. The only li__ m____ i_ t__ a___ t i o n is not in the ___________depth but the w_ i__ d_ t h of your screen. It could be w__ i___ d ____ e______ r. 11

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Seminar Notes
A lecture is the music in the room, but it is neither time for ringing alarms nor for the pop-up window offering a view of friends asking questions about lunch on the Chinese restaurant five blocks, all Lego, that a young boy found after riding a tuktuk whose driver charges fast forward, a media player on Windows, with bumpy DVD presentation. The screen blanked, the laptop powered down.

What is after forever?

The precision of a caliper is not in question. Regardless, old math counts in whole numbers much simpler than algebra. Is it definable by numerical positions relative to base 10? How distant can spaces be from each other? So, what's after forever lingering is a question mark.

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About Poems

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Like a dog
The poem hangs like a dog, its entire length suspends from the edge, held by a lanyard on its neck. The readers are like passers-by, watching the immobile body hang quietly, until the dog wags itself and wails. But the owner is not around, and the house is sealed; the entry is only by climbing to the front porch. No one feels it right to make the climb, and so they wait until its neck gets broken and leave. But, as fortune would have it, the writer pulls back the poem out of view.

Homecoming
The dinner is cold, a seat remains vacant. I wait like a wife for a knock on the door of my thoughts. Perhaps, tonight, like a husband words will come, to spill like seeds.

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Zero degrees Celsius
The weather forecast for the city is below zero degrees Celsius. But it was silent about the freezing rain over piled up snow, the sort that makes people fall asleep or warm themselves up with books, overhead lights, and colored blankets. My poem chills in the cold, the paper murkier than the road. I try to lead it somewhere but it didn't have winter clothes to bear with the rain and wind. With every word frostbitten, lines fall apart, words give up their spirit while coffee and melatonin deliver their coup de grace, leaving the TV set on all night.

A dead poem
His poem lifted my eyes to the ceiling of his ambition, from where his lines hang down to expose a body, twisted, breathless.

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Sex, Love & Marriage

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A love poem*
I will not give away that this is a love poem. Run it through a search engine but you will not find a lover's vocabulary in it. You'll be puzzled, disappointed and confused: lovelorn. The lines are deliberate to lead you on, to raise the hope that it is here somewhere. But, it is like courtship where the thrill is in the chase. The rule remains- haste makes waste. Stare at it long. You might chance to catch a glance, quick, elusive, intermittent. Be smitten with written words promising bonding with page. Maybe if the wonder remains, give me a second look.

Still Clear*
It's not exactly clear which words became the vow we made before God and men, but I do recall the only wild thought I kept: to run away with you. You worried too much about the cold air inside malls when strolling along its wide corridors. I only took notice of your hand, its weight, its texture. You enjoyed the mountain hikes, the sound of water falling from a height, and the thick crown canopy, but I only looked to the glow of your eyes. Your conversation recently has turned to therapies, of bottles and pills but hey, I only see a bride's face fair and unblemished as the day we said our vows.

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So Dry and Still*
In this summer heat, anything I touch is too warm. I miss the coolness of your skinmy fingers wrapped around your arms. I wish for your shade-like presence in this air so dry and still.

Distracted
To fall asleep on this seat, on a long haul flight, may appear to shake you off my thoughts, but the air turbulence will shake me awake instead. The airplane's ceiling lamps are all turned-off but you are my reading light, spot lit on the laptop, my fingers busy on the keys. Maybe, it's the best way to ride this disturbance: youdistracting me.

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This is not a love poem (again)
The sort you'll find in bookstores and greeting card racks, with nice colors and illustrations, with words, simple and sweet. It doesn't have a dried rose petal with leaves and stem on the page. It doesn't come with a bouquet either wrapped with eucalyptus or rosemarys. It doesn't know how to start, and not sure how to end. It's like that nimbus hovering in your sky, but never letting go of the rain.

In the shadows*
To where shadows and road wind as one, I descend, testing my resolve against the steepness of the mountains, looking back at you, the sun gone leaving what we have between us obscured, those parts of you and me unenlightened.

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To return
To return is to shuffle recollections, to superimpose images against what is seen, what is felt under this different sky. Where we stood has been altered. Before us are rocks, black against an earth, browned by lack of grass and trees. I fear the rains took away whatever is left between us. I can plant seeds here and there, if you let me. This side of the mountain can return its color once again, its past and present will be one, if you just say so.

Have you seen love?

Is it something we can speak about or pass over in silence? Is it warm like a poem on paper lying on the pavement at noon? Can it be contained in a bottle and instructed how to spring from it? Can it be measured like a meter in rhythmic pulses along a line? If I say 'I love you' is there a picture in your mind? Is it the same as mine?

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Starboard*
Tonight my eyes chance upon, on this starry night, your star's glow just above the horizon of this plain heart. You fell onto this orbit, my love's weight denting space where you spin. I studied you with maps, to predict your journey across my sky while sleep agreed to let me be intoxicated by your sight. Your reflection starboard side, made me grip the railings lest I fall, into love's unmeasured depths.

A Promise to Keep
The heart is treacherous, but by it our love we pledged, wary of its fickleness unraveling what we held. So, I promise this as God demands of me to love you with all my mind, will, and integrity. A poet wrote, 'i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)'. I will carry yours in mine so you can fill up all the space. So, declare to me thisDilectus meus mihi et ego illi qui.

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Half-Open Door
I do not know what to expect standing before this old house. The dust, rocks, and leaves of my memory are no longer here. The breeze is still cold, on what is now a paved road, clean but stiff like your eyes. Your welcome is only for the pet dog. Soon, it is going to rain and I am still here looking at you. I can still see some trees left from my childhood but without fruit. The breeze has gotten stronger, slapping me outright, as if demanding why I had not moved on instead of lingering by the half-open door. It's alright. I will leave, you can close the door.

The shortest distance between you and me

I once read a poet who wrote a brief poem he said something like the shortest distance between two points is love. Were those points eyes I would have believed him. But mathematicians will disagree, citing Euclid's axiom number one. So, I tried again, one more time approaching the water crashing by the boat's side with its thousand moving points. Tap my shoulder and turn my face towards you. Do I see an end-point in your eyes? I think I like what I see.

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After the rain*
While the downpour blurs the colors outside the window pane, you alone appear like a torrent washing down my face. I let you cling to me as if to drench my shirt, but you left so soon, the sky breaking out in blue and here I am still soaking from you.

Cold breakfast
With half-engaged brain, I woke up to this day. The cup of hot coffee can't sip away the cold space between you and me. The warmth from my omelet did not reach you to thaw the icy silence from your lips. I wished I had remained in some dream scape where stories can be altered to bring up better endings. Instead, I have a pair of shoulders served cold for breakfast.

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Bleeding wound
Like a bleeding wound from bullet holes of the ambushed soldier in the street of Mogadishu, passion pours out from love. The black Mogadishu boy smiled, firing his rifle at the right moment, his target within range, a different Cupid but as sharp. Like black smoke ascending from the military jeep, burning, with rebels dancing around him, love knows when to claim victory. Like burns from explosives, love can scorch your heart with passion, leaving behind scars. You will remember even after wounds heal.

Lumphuni Lotus Flower

It was overcast in Bangkok the day we met, light rain was falling on Ploenchit Road. Your Chinese skin was the only bright thing next to the white coffee cup. Your eyes seemed brown as they studied mine but really, you were gazing at the Powerpoint slide. Your lips squint like your eyes, your accent Thai, Your fingers keep sweeping through your black hair. Your eyes were sharper than my glasses, tapping my shoulder for each visual lapse. You have my respect, beautiful lotus flower afloat in the waters of Lumphuni. I smile recalling the laughter in your eyes as rain drops drip on the jumbo jet's window pane.

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This bed*
This bed is different without you. I'm not used to its silence, inactivity nor to its bed sheets and pillows over it, well-arranged. My body sinking into it is not the same as yours sinking into it too. I prefer it to be creaking, overflowing with sensual sounds, while the full moon peeks through our curtain, perhaps wondering what we are up to. I prefer it to be disorderly when we play love's games, the blanket removed, exposing our skin to the moon, so that she may envy us, as she outlines your desirable curves. I prefer that you fill it with your sound bite in every corner, in the pillows, in the bed sheet, with each space locking your scent, your laughter. Let us fill it with groans mixing with the embers of your passion heating up mine, as we ignite a brilliant glow. This bed is different without you. I am not used to space draped with loneliness. The blanket is not as warm as you, from where you would have been staring at me with the moon in your eyes.

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Cold weather
I whispered, "The cold weather is upon us." The cold breeze breathed to my face when I opened the fridge's door. Can chocolates really make me happy? But what if they are cold and stiff like a wife? Can my palms melt her? I went back up the stairs into a room, dark, quiet. The blanket parried against the cold; you, curled up into a fetal posture. Were you conserving whatever remained of your love's heat? I slide back into our marriage to exchange body heat with you. There you are with eyes rapidly moving, were you dreaming of someone else keeping you warm?

After Dinner
I caught her gaze across the table, her eyes lingering in mine. Her lips lighter than the cabernet sauvignon. I wished I were the glass she sips from and that she would sip from it often while her hands envelop the glass, holding it firmly, tight, bringing it close to her breasts, as her eyes remain fully-locked on mine. The entre is served as I glanced down her thighs, both of us anxious to be satisfied.

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Your absence bites
Your absence bites like ants that swarm on my skin, overloads my nervous system, holding it captive. The longing lingers in every synapse where you used to be. I tried the shower to wash away bites of longing for you, to cool it down, drain it off from consciousness like water to the sink. But your absence left its marks all over my mind, painful and itchy.

When the saxophone moans

Melancholy fills the wine glass, while despair hogs the seats around me. He is playing Mangione like a broken-hearts groan. The saxophone moans, its cry lingering filling me up with notes, drifting high, low, then back as I drink the wine. If I were the saxophone, agile fingers would caress me, echoing ripples of rhythm across my length And I would not let go of passionate lips blowing solitude away from me until the sax and I groan as one. Instead, I sit here with the wailing tunes listening to a lady bawl her lines as if they were mine.

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Worth more than twenty-one roses
The flower vendor called up today, asking for my order of twenty-one roses, one rose for each year. The first rose came with a promise of longevity in its long, deep green stalkmy simple, unadorned vow. I learned to evade the thorns of life while I held you, my red rose, sprinkled with little white flowers, like children and mother. We were bound together like a bouquet of twenty-one roses, artfully hiding the complexities and compromises of our lives. Twenty-one years is a long journey from 'I do' to I still do, our very own endurance race. You went from lovely to lovelier. I will join you to loveliest with this hand and eyes for you to hold and behold. I thanked the vendor for remembering: our twenty-one years is worth more than twenty-one roses.

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This heaven
This morning I was lifted up to heaven at a speed of 500 miles an hour, piercing the massive clouds to where the sun shines with clarity at 31,000 feetif these were ordinary strings they would have snapped, but they remained tied up to you, my heart's thoughts with yours. The wine didn't weaken the threads weaving in my head about you. Up here, the sun is unhindered, blue skies stretch all over. Ten hours in heaven did not do me good, the isolation kept me anxious of our fragile link that held on like sunlight to the window.

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Empty Space
The sensuality of the curve flowing downward, touching the stiff black arms, on its two sides, is undiminished by the checkered, grey and black fabric hiding the strength of steel partly exposed underneath its structure. It remained still, stowed under your desk. No sound from the rollers pressing on the carpet every time you shifted your weight, nor a squeak from the metal support whenever you turned around my way. But unlike me, it doesn't care for your absence nor for the silence of the space where you once were.

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Vanishing point
The jet engines' increasing decibels fill up the runway while the body of the plane shakes, the earth expelling it into the air. I want to roar, to boom myself, to dislodge the loneliness draping my heart, to let go, like the earth the plane. I look down at earthly objects vanishing to a point, but my attachments stall my lift. Above the clouds I see stars appearing. I waited for a star to look into my eyes, to tell her my good-bye. I unlock the belt that held my thoughts that could stagger in the corridor while the safety-belt warning sign flashes in the ceiling. The blanket did not warm me the way her smiles or the light from her eyes would have. The featured movie played, ended but I didn't care. Sleep came over to turn off the lights while all my thoughts scampered away into its own skycloudy and black- where she probably hides.

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When wounds heal
Do you recall? you asked pointing to the scar on your knee. The moment flashes back: First out of the boat, the view distracted mea green sea of shrubs and grass mixing with blue of mountains while ocean waves break up into white foam stumbling on the beach. I hear people raise their voices: Turning around I seeyou, fallen on the pier, lost your balance when the boat moved and all your weight was carried by your knee, now bloodied. Yes, I recall. You didn't cry nor wince. Your eyes were drained of tears long before by countless wounds from tripping over unsteady hearts. It doesn't feel anything, you noted. Something else dies when wounds heal, I sighed.

Internal Fracture
I thought denials would not wear me down like metals straining against load but their repetition pressed my endurance to its limit. It fractured me in ways invisible to you spreading like a crack until we are pulled apart like metals tired of each other where the sex hurts like the weight of a jet engine sheared from the wing, then free falls. 32

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In the New Station
The transit time was brief as promised. The window offered only blurs of colors and shapes for distraction. You either move forward across this haze or watch her diminishing in importance, anchored in the past with eyes still legible despite the tears and rain. That turn, a mild jolt, finally moved the train away from her. But your sigh is too far from the window to smear it with doors now closed to any afterthought. Arriving in the new station, doors open again. If only one's heart could quickly do the same.

Raining in Orchard Road*

Though an alien to Singapore weather, I went ahead like other tourists to Orchard Road, pretending to rush to dinner and meet a friend, while everyone else hurried to MRT or a bus terminal as the rain poured. I crossed Orchard Road in the rain without my rain coat, left behind like someone I wished should have been here.

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On Valentines Day*
He returns the card to its display row as if letting go a spent balloon. His eyes did sparkle like a soda drink before the acid strikes a hungry stomach. Picking up another one, he studies it like a pretty face in a coffee-drinking crowd, then shakes his head.

Home*
He has never done thistrust her memory that when her wings get tired from wandering and looking down she sees the houses and recognize this nest, she will choose to land. The distinct sound of her wings, whistling, confirms her reprise.

Parousia*
He waits by the table like a disciple, keeping watch for signs of her arrivalher feet shuffling, her shadow sliding underneath the wooden door until a knock ruptures his silence-she calling out his name.

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Centerfold
She is not done yet browsing his thoughts like she does his magazines, scanning each one from his eyes, determined to find an image of herself in the centerfold of his mind.

Miniloc Waters*
She is the dawn striking tent off the waters leaving behind the crags, each one aloof. At the pier's platform, the horizon remains sunless, withdrawn like a lamp's glow, reduced. Her stay is quickly dispersed but her blue cast on his face lingers.

Starting Over
Like a thick smoke, the clouds dim the tinted window glass. His image appearing before wind-sent rains splash on its pane, breaking up his thoughts. But he knew this storm could drench him. Its flood waters take him away, unable to find a high ground from her good-bye.

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Unrestrained
The warm fluid swirls, surrounds like a tight knot breaking into, opening access to depths where breaths are pushed like rapids among rocks.

Detox
You don't come home to my embrace, wanting instead the bed, sinking into it like a cut-down log, face down. Tired to say hello or share an evening meal, you know I don't mind missing another one. After all, fasting sheds weight of anxieties. But I am past the fog induced by your abstention. My craving disappeared. The new clarity is as striking as the gap between us in the bed. In a couple more weeks, the detox will complete purging us of each other.

Unlit Road
Unable to hold my quench after the first sip, the taste of your love on my lips made me swerve on this road I thought I knew wellits curves, pot holes, and humpsunafraid of a little hassle on the wheel, foot on brake pedal, unwavering: I know when to stop. Tipsy, euphoric and red-faced yet my vision is still clear, speech still smooth. While car in full speed, you disappeared like a headlight failing on an unlit road-

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You
Are as quiet as a city street after the evening rains of September but prettier than this scene in black and white, the brilliance of lamp posts reflected on the pavement, wet with rain. You are far more beautiful than all the maple or birch trees here ablaze in reds and oranges, with mountains and snow to complete the photograph. I don't miss Boston looking at your photograph: Not its coffee shops, river, nor the shade of trees. But this I rememberyou on my camera viewfinder: your dew-glazed skin shimmering under autumn light; your long, ebony hair quietly fastened on your exposed shoulders, arms; your lips, pouting against the sun's red-purple light.

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Our Skies
As a pair, I feel unsure if we see the same sky. Mine is full of blue, and you are its sun but in yours, sunlight concedes its space to grey. Come, see your roses appear vibrant in this light if only you would leave your cloudful sky for mine.

The Train Ride is Over

The train ride is over like a love song slowing down, the time to part has drawn near. I mean to say good-bye like friends but you would not let me catch your eyes. Outside the train car I stand to gaze at you as the doors snap back: just like a refrain ending, sweet, sad.

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Cold Seat
The day's first rain restrains the morning light but the cold from the waiting area's metal bench, is amplified by faces and voices unfamiliar, distracting. She would have smiled across to him, said hello to raise body heat or kept her hair as cover for his armsthe things he needed to unlearn. The PA announces boarding time. The metal remains cold while daylight struggles to break out.

This New Years Eve

You used my pants' pocket as drop box, slipping into it a note (a raffle entry to win your heart?), signed with your name, I bet. It was New years eve when I pulled it out, in time for the fireworks. This new years eve it reads like an expired claim stub.

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A worded math problem
She is a worded math problem, a complex set of algebraic equations. Don't be distracted by her voluptuous data in long-winded clauses. Go ahead, simplify her complex polynomials, and break her down like a puzzle. Plot on paper what you foundpoints of tangency.

April Fools Day

I laughed when you said good-bye on April Fool's day, as sunlight broke through the trees dotting the expressway. I replied that I myself was leaving just biding my time expecting a screen full of smileys from your reply but all I got was you insistent like the sunlight flashing against my eyes on not being there when I get home tonight.

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Epilogue
She will let him go like a book, whose cover once attracted her, its pages once held down her gaze. She had moved on past his breadth, their time together flipping over like scanned pages towards the end. With her reading done, his laughters consumed, will she miss nights of him laying on her breasts, exhausted, under a lamp's glow? She takes note of what's left of his borrowed time.

Pieces
There is no bridge____________ nor causeway between your absence ____________and my desire. It is a heavy log to carry ____________whose weight will plunge it down my mental chasm, ____________to undefined depths of insanity, from where anguish ____________does not rise to be heard, but muted by ____________a thick air of uncertainty where love like a flame ____________ can only glow faintly. There is no reminder, ____________nor signal, nor smoke that can rise ____________to advertise my longing or traces of it in ____________burnt ashes or embers for you to look upon, ____________the monsoon rains drenched them, pushing them onto our gap, ____________crashing down on sharp surfaces to break up _________________________like pieces of myself.

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Death

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Not Being Here*
On the window panes, sunlight flashes on and off while clouds assemble overhead. Daylight, streaming through the curtains, is a false hope once overcast gets here. There is no breeze to cool the skin. It is likely too soon for a thunderstorm. But, what do I know? Your cancer spread like clouds in what had been a blue sky. At 8pm this evening, the rains came. It was a downpour.

A Box to Fill Up*

Once in this room, one afternoon, while rain water dripped on the window glass, and the room was deprived of daylight, I kept peering at the ceiling for no reason. Signs of you were in every corner: that small picture frame that kept your smile, those magazines you asked me to buy regularly, that graffiti you wrote on the wall with your lipstick, and the laptop full of logs of our chat. Today, at 36 degrees Centigrade, I've got a box I can't get myself to start filling up.

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This summer has ended
When reds, yellows and greens have lost their brilliance, and the lake's deep blue has turned into shades of grey While on this ground, brown and dry, falls the first rain showers mixing you, earth and tearsa good-bye to many shared summers.

Ripped Apart
This is a perilous season. Some content may not be suitableIn color or black-and-white, they are still dead. Why count bodies in peace time? Something about parts and whole. I agree. This is more than just an inconvenient fact: keeping your feet wet in disease-infested waters. Today, I asks, while watching early morning TVHave you found a newspaper to cover them?

In the calm morning

flexing his two arms, father lifts from the flood waters his dead son.

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To my brother, Jonathan*
'Tis not when a heart beat goes full stop and eyes then lose the power of its stare, Nor when the sheet is stretched to cover up your full length, no longer gasping for air, that my pain like skin scratched by thorns ignored when running away from hunters, can now rest, bleed and cry for attention. There never will be a good time ever. To nurse loneliness like a wound, and dress it every day until it dries, is to hope a healing can be found, to finally say my good-byeWe have few words for each other, but love is not bound by them or any other.

Rainy August
A sunny 8am did not come true, the sky looking grayish white, the color of the bed sheet. The weatherman did forecast lots of rain for August. As clouds keep shifting, a gust hits the window pane just when I looked away, your body still warm, after the doctor said you are gone.

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Lost*
He confides 'She only has a few days left.' Fighting the loss of breath I ask, 'So, what is up next?' As he lays out what to expect, I lost you in the details of many new morningsmourning. The day you leave I will be somewhere else looking for you in places we have been.

W(Age)s*
"Stipendia enim peccati mors gratia autem." Breath-deprived, the marriage is given up like doves let go on wedding day. Where before the bride wears white, now black is the motif, the sun eclipsed by clouds. Soon, we'll reach the terminal (si non sola mors me et te separaverit) but the road is still bumpy up ahead. We haven't paid ours but the debt collector will soon find our address and he might not care about the house or the old car.

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Threads
If life were measured like a thread, who will cut off the fly from a spider's fiber, dead and swinging like a pendulum? How many threads can bury a spider with legs dismembered by soldier ants crawling over his upside-down body? Stirring the mud, the rain digs on the earth a shallow grave.

You left before I could

I miss you mom whenever I am happy. I did run to you, sought your warm embrace, and wasted your time with my crazy lines. I miss you whenever I am sad or lonely, recalling times I rested my head on your slim shoulders. I miss you mom whenever I felt returning all the love you gave and shared. You know I would but you left before i could. I miss you mom whenever I felt like saying 'thank you' for standing up beside me, for the choices I made that differed from yours, made you sigh, and broke your heart. You know I would but you left before I could.

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Knife in my throat
The sharp knife pierces through as it were my malfunctioning mind where once inside, the opening encloses an anger that has ruptured as violent as the blood filling up my lungs to an overflow, crowding out the life-force until choked, the gasping for breath as if drowning, all entry points sealed, all doors opening to life locked, the warm sensation of finality, as the full blade goes through my throat.

Macabebe
The landscape has changed after Apo Omeng died. Lahar came to bury the memories in mud, sun-dried. Where is the "magtitinapay's" honking horn, in his morning ride? It used to be the day's call, a summer morn' has begun. The landscape has changed after Apo Omeng died. Where now is the "aplaya" that was green far and wide, and the lass with her lad, both in bloom? Lahar came to bury the memories in mud, sun-dried. Where will the "anaks" play under the watchful guide of an apo calling each back when the day is done? The landscape has changed after Apo Omeng died. The old river carrying the motor bancas lost its pride. In the mud, heartaches, frustrations took residence. Lahar came to bury the memories in mud, sun-dried. The landscape has changed after Apo Omeng died.

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No Better Time*
It was a matter of bad timing. Einstein asserted enough about spaces and for you it meant no vacancy. Death happens here regularly. In this vacuum, there is no room for the sound of your agony. In a purposeless universe, disappearances are just too far away from us, like nebulas signing off above our night sky beyond my span of attention as your dust is dispersed in this air, demonstrating Einstein, his physical laws. There is no better time for gravity to bring you back to me.

Green Grass
I watch the flowers fall between the small spaces of earth surrounding your new home before my tears blur my sight as I look down, but the earth's embrace keeps you from us, on this sunny day with the grass all green.

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Simple Statements
It started with your simple disclosure: 'I have a tumor in my lymph nodes.' I looked at you then, calculating my words, their tone, their weight, to match yours. 'It has not reached Stage 1.' I thought I saw something in your eyes that reminded me of mornings after my wife and I had quarreled- a search for hope, a different life. 'The chemo is not working. One gallon of liquid was taken out of my lungs.' So you went on like husbands and wives do, except from this you couldn't divorce. I heard your violent coughing, echoing the pain I never knew. Today, a brief statement was sent out to all of us friends, that you passed away 8:30 amthe moment when death did us part.

Rightist Burial
When you're dead and grass has sprouted off your grave with flash flood rushing to pile mud over you again, only the agent of coercionthe one who bored a hole into your head, who tried to make your blood spill to the right instead of leftwill remember this place, how they dragged you away from your routine. When the earth dries up and the grass over you withers then perhaps one stray dog's nose will help us find your skull with a hole that the bullet pierced.

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Instructions for Timothy
She lifts him up, holds him tight, and keeps him warm, daylight fading, the cold advancing to this moment. She kisses him as morphine flows, before complying with doctor's orders to remove him from equipment. The stars come out in the autumn sky to be her witnesses when the nurse pulls away the tubes from him. Thoughts of another morning make her cry. The clouds came like a blanket over him, the cold completing its embrace.

Craftsmanship
Violence has levels of craftsmanship, displayed in the bodies destroyed. She was like a fortress broken through. They pulled down her underwear like walls, stormed through doors as it were to expose her vagina, slit her throat, and leave blood under her nape. The old man is like a tower fallen on the pavement. Grease, dirt stuck on his skin like ruins of a fallen city. His tormentors fried up his brain, his wide-open eyes confirm. The young man is the look of a city destroyed. His tongue was cut, teeth broken, an eye bored through, finger nails pulled. His head was severed off, for their collection.

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Images

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New Year Fragments
Darkness breaks up into colors then black. The ears catch first the silence, then the blast. He carries on between the presence and absence. You are still here, in his thoughts, blinking off and on in his memory, like a New Year's eve fireworks.

Violent waters
Her finger met the steam half-way, as it plunges into the cup. It could break an ear drum, the shrill bouncing on the walls.

A red rose
A red rose held in my hand caught my tears on its petals like dew shimmering from the sunlight's kiss, leaked by rain clouds above the garden where I stood.

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The Chinese sprinter
He lies on the ground, fallen like a house collapsed by a great quake, whose door was used for his makeshift bed, after clearing debris off him. The tremor sprinted past him, as his legs failed to deliver more, stumbled over the shaking earth and the tumbling concrete. His friend later found him among the rows of the dead, found him curled, as if running away stillwith white rubber shoes, jogging suit in red and blue, and a Chinese textbook over his face.

Morning after Halloween

The masks last night worn under the Halloween full moon Were kissing each other on the floor unmindful of the beer cans and confetti lying around them. Strange masks, each one celebrating death, blood, gore When the wearers meant to enjoy life to catch a glimpse of wandering eyes that may find themselves locked in yours. In this side of town, every night is Halloween As hands catch another, lips locked with another Sucking life in from each other. Every morning exposed by the window light are bodies littering the floor from another night of revelryBare and unmasked.

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Starry Nights
There is sadness in the midnight sky Starlight trapped within the circles of the night. Have I seen a bird fly on your canvas across the coarseness of your strokes? There is sadness in your midnight sky. You love stars to decorate your canvas White and blue against the orange lamp light, Starlight trapped within the circles of the night. Why so much red and green inside a cafe with roomful of folks, estranged under the stars? There is sadness in the midnight sky. Were you the lone, black tree on the canvas Strong, upright, touching the stars? Starlight trapped within the circles of the night. There is sadness in the midnight sky.

Fireworks
Fireworks rip this black sky to shreds of multi-colored streaks; its pieces fall, rain down through a powder-dense air; only to recollect and repair itself anew.

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Work space
He will miss this work space: a laminated desk, smooth, matte-yellow, a chair turned away from skyscrapers. From left to rightthe job, the customer, the deadline and a few other things placed there for a reasona framed family photograph, for example, where everyone smiles, proud of their white teeth, a fixture sitting there for years beside the clock. But, a work space is neither home nor family, despite the long hours, the friendships, the thousand meals. Another thing placed there for a reasonthat pink slip.

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Sacrilege
The children break out into laughter at the dining table turning his skin blood-red who holds sacred quiet communion meals as he raises his hand to break a bottle of ketchup on the nearest child's fair head.

Old Quezon Bridge

The network of steel trusses embed themselves on concrete like shadows of barbed wires and fences on protesters skin. Typhoons and earthquakes have not displaced them, their pillars immovable like trash stuck in the river bed by Malacanan.

This man
These punctures on the head, blood, dried, masked his face, was pierced by mockery and thousand insults weaved like spikes in thorn branches, his crown for his head. This skin, these lesions, sank death closer to the bones. These bruises came from lies so wicked enveloped in fists whose blows spared neither body nor limbs. This back was disfigured, lacerated, and torn open by sheep bones of hate. Each clawed itself into skin, into flesh with every flagellum's whip. These ribs, this open fissure, jabbed deep by a spear, poured forth water of forgiveness, streaming to cleanse an earth, blood-soaked. His time of death3 pm, Friday.

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Sketch
The sea water stumbles, falls on your thighs, the linen clinging tightly on your skin, sketching the shape of your flesh like fruits, dew-washed, in a glossy spread. The waves pound your thighs, glazed in this early light.

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Others

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Siesta
in the afternoon's siesta, head bowed and silentbreeze flips the book's pages.

Mobile Church
The jeepney has an entry way and corridor leading to an image of Christ above the windshield. Here, a poor boy serves like a sacristan. He cleans the passenger shoes as if to make them holy. When his service ends, he raises his palms not to pray but to collect for alms, Before his altar, he looks up at the Christ gazing down on those seated. He leaves but another passenger gets in with his own Bible and pouch.

Faulty Exegesis
Without a map, the next best thing when evening driving is to learn fast how to read signs, and even here critical thinking is key or be misled by false and make-shift signs some self-imposed authority, put up for his convenience. It can distract you like a high beam from an approaching car or much worse misread a Right-Turn traffic sign on the asphalt road, where the next thing you see is a policeman's hand waving, his stern look, a fair warning of an approaching discourse of a supposed error starting with definitions, then exegesis, to etymology of words, and its consequences.

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My friends ear
My friend's ear is my kitchen sink of stainless steel where I puke, bitter words pushing up like acid on my esophagus, rushing past the throat full of indigestible vocabulary others made me eat. I use it as my toilet bowl to defecate on, when spasms and cramps contract my abdomen, my bowels unable to halt fluid like secretion crashing against the white-glazed porcelain. My friend knows when to press the lever down on the pop-up drain, to clear himself of all my stains.

That Seemed Good

He found me wandering in Quiapo* and offered to take me home. That seemed good. He said, 'You need a good bath to remove all that grease off your body.' He led me into a room where there was water and a bucket. He cleaned me up with soap. His hands polished parts of me to his satisfaction. He led me to a bed and said, 'You need rest.' That seemed good. He laid me down. My hair still wet. He said, 'I will take care of you' as he undressed. First, he let go of the pants then underwear, dropping them on the floor. I watched him get close to me, his weight pressing heavily. Then, he got up. Leaving a twenty-peso bill he told me, 'Buy yourself some candy.' That seemed good.

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Resignation Letter
He's browsing some papers on the table where I extended my hand last unacknowledged hanging like a bridge fracturedties, chords, beams severed when I disclosed my need to move on from all these manuals, row of thick books, Gantt chart and calendars on the white board. The letter is left unopened on his desk like metal-bending waters that stayed.

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Index
A Box to Fill Up* ..........................................................................................................................................................43 A dead poem...............................................................................................................................................................15 A love poem* ..............................................................................................................................................................17 A Matter of Fact* ......................................................................................................................................................... 7 A Promise to Keep.......................................................................................................................................................21 A red rose ...................................................................................................................................................................53 A worded math problem .............................................................................................................................................40 After Dinner ................................................................................................................................................................26 After the rain* ............................................................................................................................................................23 April Fools Day ...........................................................................................................................................................40 Black Sky* ...................................................................................................................................................................10 Bleeding wound ..........................................................................................................................................................24 Centerfold...................................................................................................................................................................35 Cold breakfast .............................................................................................................................................................23 Cold Seat.....................................................................................................................................................................39 Cold weather ..............................................................................................................................................................26 Craftsmanship .............................................................................................................................................................51 Detox ..........................................................................................................................................................................36 Distracted ...................................................................................................................................................................18 Empty Space ...............................................................................................................................................................30 Epilogue ......................................................................................................................................................................41 Faulty Exegesis ............................................................................................................................................................60 Fireworks ....................................................................................................................................................................55 63

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Fly* .............................................................................................................................................................................. 9 Green Grass ................................................................................................................................................................49 Half-Open Door ...........................................................................................................................................................22 Have you seen love? ...................................................................................................................................................20 Home* ........................................................................................................................................................................34 Homecoming...............................................................................................................................................................14 In the calm morning ....................................................................................................................................................44 In the New Station ......................................................................................................................................................33 In the shadows* ..........................................................................................................................................................19 Insight .........................................................................................................................................................................11 Instructions for Timothy ..............................................................................................................................................51 Internal Fracture .........................................................................................................................................................32 Intersection.................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Knife in my throat .......................................................................................................................................................48 Like a dog ....................................................................................................................................................................14 Lost* ...........................................................................................................................................................................46 Lumphuni Lotus Flower ...............................................................................................................................................24 Macabebe ...................................................................................................................................................................48 Miniloc Waters*..........................................................................................................................................................35 Mobile Church ............................................................................................................................................................60 Morning after Halloween ............................................................................................................................................54 My friends ear ............................................................................................................................................................61 New Year Fragments ...................................................................................................................................................53 No Better Time*..........................................................................................................................................................49 No Rule of Three .......................................................................................................................................................... 8 Not Being Here*..........................................................................................................................................................43 Old Quezon Bridge ......................................................................................................................................................57 On Valentines Day* ....................................................................................................................................................34 Our Skies .....................................................................................................................................................................38 Parousia* ....................................................................................................................................................................34 Pieces .........................................................................................................................................................................41 Puppet ........................................................................................................................................................................11 64

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Raining in Orchard Road* ............................................................................................................................................33 Rainy August ...............................................................................................................................................................45 Resignation Letter .......................................................................................................................................................62 Rightist Burial..............................................................................................................................................................50 Ripped Apart ...............................................................................................................................................................44 Sacrilege .....................................................................................................................................................................57 Seminar Notes ............................................................................................................................................................12 Siesta ..........................................................................................................................................................................60 Silence ........................................................................................................................................................................10 Simple Statements ......................................................................................................................................................50 Sketch .........................................................................................................................................................................58 So Dry and Still* ..........................................................................................................................................................18 Starboard* ..................................................................................................................................................................21 Starry Nights ...............................................................................................................................................................55 Starting Over ...............................................................................................................................................................35 Still Clear* ...................................................................................................................................................................17 Straight Lines* ............................................................................................................................................................. 7 That Seemed Good......................................................................................................................................................61 The Chinese sprinter ...................................................................................................................................................54 The shortest distance between you and me ................................................................................................................22 The Train Ride is Over .................................................................................................................................................38 This bed* ....................................................................................................................................................................25 This heaven .................................................................................................................................................................29 This is not a love poem (again) ....................................................................................................................................19 This man .....................................................................................................................................................................57 This New Years Eve ....................................................................................................................................................39 This summer has ended ..............................................................................................................................................44 Threads .......................................................................................................................................................................47 To my brother, Jonathan* ...........................................................................................................................................45 To return .....................................................................................................................................................................20 Unlit Road ...................................................................................................................................................................36 Unrestrained ...............................................................................................................................................................36 65

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Vanishing point ...........................................................................................................................................................31 Violent waters.............................................................................................................................................................53 W(Age)s* ....................................................................................................................................................................46 What is after forever? .................................................................................................................................................12 When the saxophone moans .......................................................................................................................................27 When wounds heal .....................................................................................................................................................32 Work space .................................................................................................................................................................56 Worth more than twenty-one roses ............................................................................................................................28 You left before I could .................................................................................................................................................47 You .............................................................................................................................................................................37 Your absence bites ......................................................................................................................................................27 Your exit ...................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Zero degrees Celsius ...................................................................................................................................................15

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