magic

cast 
             a stone 
          into the      sea
                      and see
              how the salt 	
  	                                          gasps 
                         into a  		gaping 

                      wound.

   		               don’t blink;
                               it heals quicker
                        than a wink.
                             not even its froth 
                                can glance 
                      at the magic. 

blots of blood

Blots of blood clot and cling
Upon the leaves of gray grass –
A sea of gun powder scent assaults
My dreams like mad soldiers
Trembling fingers trigger thunders
That burst skulls and splinter hearts
And crush dreams dreams dreams
Of silent seas, of green hills, of kites
Kissing rainbows arching over the hills.

Each morning I awake
The scent of gray grass
And blood tails my nostrils
Breathe deeply says my monk friend
And I do and bullets crisscross
in my chest. Come to me

Taste my blood come
Be with me in my dreams dreams dreams
Kites kiss clouds over the hills
O hills embrace me with your foggy green grain
O sea sing sing sing me a lullaby.

06feb2007/ 2:30pm

elusive death

Buried beneath the crevices of my hand
are million of lost laughter and broken kites
and tattered petals.
I can feel the crying bursting off my veins
popping out of my eyes
louder than the staccato of guns in the mountains.

This war is in my heart,
why can’t I kill you at once?
What prevents me from pulling the trigger?
Why can’t I kill you? What do I fear?

Nothing is sacred,
nothing can’t be traversed,
vengeance are spiky stares,
are barbed wires,
are thorns forced upon my head.

Why is it that when I look at you
I see my ferocious eyes,
I see my cowardice,
I see my sins.

Why do I hear pulse throbbing
each time I aim my gun at you?
Why am I so afraid to kill you/

LIFE HAS NO LIGHT without death.
I just want to spread light
so that we may know life better.

But why is death so elusive, why?

09feb2007/ 9am

i long for a dream

I’m in the middle of the road,
hundreds of cars buses trucks bicycles pass through me.
Thousands of people pass through me,
then I hear thunders from afar,
from Mindanao
and I see blood spattering, sputtering.
I see eyes wide open, dead.
I smell hatred, I smell bigotry, I feel the trees falling down,
I taste poison in the river once pristine,
once mother to us all, I hear volleys of gunfire,
in their voices I see doves falling, falling, their wings crimping.
I feel the bronze and the nickel bullets piercing through my heart,
I long for a flower that sways at the slightest whistle of wind,
I long for a dream, for a lucid dream in a moonlit night.

05feb2007

i see the sea in her eyes

like a bursting dawn she smiles at me
and I see the sea in her eyes, the serene sea
of childhood where she could have grown.
in her lashes flicker the days of playing
with the waves – rolling, riding, frothing
with the foams.  but why should a smile so sweet
so innocent be snatched by sea –
monsters? so serene, so tender, the sea –
why in this misty morning, when everything  is as quiet as a moss?
the grains of sand under my feet grieve,
but why they suck her blood so quick?
and why like a stain
her leaving leaves testimonies – shells sprinkled
with blood, crushed corals, blank bullets,
frayed fish nets.
‘why you my child?’ weeps her mother
as she with a stick slashes the combat boot prints
sneering at her in the sand.

14feb2007/8:35am

sweetness of silence

It’s dusk and it’s not raining but I want to stay with you under your umbrella. I want to gaze at its broken ribs; I want to hear the creaking of its joints. And I want to look at your eyes: something stings in the rust resting in your lashes. I hear waves roaring, I sense the songs of the sons and daughters of the sea.

Why should the children of fire seek the shed of an umbrella tree? Are they afraid of the smoldering breath of God? Lilies lie on the lapof the valley where volleys of mortars have never tasted the sweetness of silence.

I long for the lilies, for their lies: there’s not truth in flowers; not even in the soil their roots turn to dust. Open me, release my breath; let the wind recharge me with the scent of the lilies. Engulf my sorrow with the serenity of its petals

13feb2007/ 2:45pm

catharsis

when messiahs
become unwelcome stalkers
that assault the nose like smog
and fumes bathing Manila;

when the reeking cycle
of age-old lies and greed
grows stronger every minute,
where can one find deliverance?

or is there such thing as deliverance
anymore? refuge of pen from pain?
but it only accentuates the misery;

the faster the words populate the page,
the deeper the memory stabs the heart,
yet, is there any other way
than this catharsis?

29november2006

a sudden thud hit my groin

1.
A sudden thud hit my groin –
a nameless force so strong
that I lost the light.
And I lay there on the street,
baring my breast to the beast
roaming around in my dreams.
Why can’t I slay her? Why,
with all the powers of silence
and sighs, can’t I slay her?
The moment I think of defeating her,
she lurks with the fangs
that glitter under the wounded moon.

2.
No one needs death. Dying
is just a trickery of sorrow,
pretending to maim, to numb the senses.
But even in death, metaphors hover
and haunt the poet. Death,
therefore, never settles anything;
it only sharpens whatever dreams have blurred.
Symbols strike their targets so shortly
that they fade the moment they assume
meaning.

3.
Cotton candies taste like wine.
Try them with your eyes closed
and feel the clouds swirl into your throat.
Extend your hands sideways
and you’ll know how birds learn to fly.
Flap your arms and your face will bathe in fog –
so pure, so blue, bleeding like a bloodless corpse.

Imagination is not fond of mimicry;
it conjures only what is real but yet unrevealed.

4.
‘Why should your body lie on this forlorn street my child?’
God asked me. And I felt that my skin is of earth and on it
crisscross spiky beliefs and ideologies of self-righteousness
of bigotry, of maiming, of killing.

5.
Survive! you who fit this wretched world the most;
but bear the brunt of the scourge of impotency.
Emmanuel, your god is in you. Summon the demon,
let it prostrate before you, but bear in mind the bareness
and barrenness of this truth: prostate gland
can never desecrate what is sacred.

6.
Scared of scars and scarcity,
the economists hurl holy rocks
against the howling wilderness of hunger.
Why can’t they turn these stones into bread?
Why can’t they turn these wastes into waving
waistlines of wisemen who visited Jesus in the manger?

7.
I can no longer dream of a white christmas,
my measled toe is burning with love
of Africa. Mandela, how many prisons
does a man need to gain the world market of ideas
and orgasms? Why can’t we eject our souls like a cd?

8.
Spring sprouts like tubers, but plumbing needs tubes
and plastic straw through which the public trust
will be sucked and pubic hairs
will be hot oiled and groomed.

9.
Some of the giants are really gigantic,
like the tsunamis braved by muro ami’s.
But even then, the vase of roses still tantalize
the eyes of a lion. And the sea shells,
the sea shells just lie there like my body,
waiting but not expecting anyone.
Just there, ready to offer the songs of the sea
for those who understand why do an abandoned corpse
decompose while a moribund composition uplift the soul.

10.
Enlighten me my friend: is life really just a wink?

31 january/ 13 february 2007