Waterwomb

How many swiddens must we scrounge before
we could find signs of water? The sun
seared my nape and sent sneering waves beneath

my gaze; sweat and dust turned my slippers into
a rain-soaked ricefield. Just below us,
the reservoir that has devoured our town lay

placid – an abundance, our thirst! Move fast
we must; the dusk never tarried nor rested. Soon
our neighboring towns would blast

with light; in our huts, atop the mountain overlooking
the lake, candles and kingke would flicker through
the night; I saw the turbines reeling light for Subic

and Clark. I saw the spillway sending every grass
abloom in the plains of Central Luzon. My lips and soles
cracked as we traversed hills upon hills in search

of waterwomb. My heart seethed with rage
as we tried to revive moribund brooks gradually
breaking into million mudcakes.

Growing Old

Before, when the scorpion
in my blood still

ached to sting, the rain of your hair
on my cheek, or the mere flicking

of your hip, or even just the tiny
triangle carved on your breast could

grub thirst in my throat; and, oh, how
many times did we paint Malacañang

wall red? Now that the scorpion
in my blood has already lain

limp, I just want to sit and listen
to your voice, I’m contented taking

a sip of nectar from your meta-
phors of love and revolution.

Killing a Mockingbird

Assure your child she is
safe within the confines
of your embrace; tell her she is

free from fright within the bounds
of your sight. Convince her that
a voice as sweet as hers deserves
no other ears than yours; let her

feel that to be free, safe, and sweet she
needs no noise, she needs not
speak. Make her believe that

silence is the air she must
breathe; then show her your candor –
cut her tongue.

Encountering Snake

A sudden hiss on the grass
and there she was – her eyes

plumbing the pit of my fear,
her tongue — like jealousy — licking

the distance between us. My fingers gripped
the hoe’s handle, and a whiz whipped

through the air; then, a thud muted
whatever she wanted to portend; not

even a faint moan seeped
from her mouth. My knees trembled

as my eyes cast a final kiss on her
broken skull.

Mourning

Everytime our family comes
together, he who gathers us drops
from our roll — he can’t sit and chat
with us anymore. From the weight of nights

without sleep, his eyes are saved; from
the toll of vigil and funeral, his shoulders
are freed. Once again, we are united
by absence; and just like when our other kindred

died, our wallets wail, our guts grieve. Do we need
to mention? Everyone of us is mired in the abyss
of debt; especially that we now atone for what
we failed to give to the one we lament. His casket

must bear our pride; as seamless as our keening,
biscuits, coffee, and cigarettes should stream;
on funeral’s eve, the karaoke must croon from dusk
to dawn. Do we need to mention? We mourn not

because we’ve lost a kin. Death is trite. What rouses
our tears is the loss we shall live with back home
when we part. Luckily, it’s not a disgrace to cry
in public — our brother dear is resting

in peace. But deep is the wound his death has
left in our pockets. So let us all sorrow — let us sob, let us
weep; well, who can feel the real fount of
our grief? We are mourning for our beloved dead.

 

Fathering

How can this rage not explode? Her eyes
looking but not seeing, glued yet

wandering. She’s nowhere, she’s
everywhere, seeking refuge where

I don’t exist or where I
am dead or just a twig she feeds

to the flame, blue with her
wrath. She has mastered the contours of

my anger and I still grope along
the fence of her defense. Isn’t silence

sweet? Then why the muteness my voice
has summoned deafens me now?

Where is the shore of this howling
sea of reticence? How can a clever

plan fail? – trap her in a minor
encounter where even her faintest

meow is enough to unlock her
lies and the torrent of diatribes I have

long nurtured. But how can
I bear her empty stare? Her
frozen gaze that sets me ablaze?

Innocence

Sinewed by the the ancient art
of tai chi, he forged the forces of the universe
to lure a dreamer into his lair. He stayed

silent as a spider; and with seamless
gliding of limbs and fingers,
he entrapped his prey like a moth

entangled in a cobweb. The sky
was bleeding then when she asked: “How
can I walk through the dusk?” “Just

follow me, I’m a pathfinder,” said
he. He whispered to her ear: “Close
your eyes my child and trust your heart.”

And to the tremor of his voice he danced
her, deeper and deeper into
the night. Soon his lips dripped with her

muffled sobs, the stench of his slobber
drifted into her pristine dream; and he
confessed: “She came to me; I’m innocent.”

Grooming

As he writes his name, his nails grate
against the blackboard; the chalk crumbles
between his fingers. Every bit of dust heralds

he is the boss – the deity that decides what is
beautiful, what merits a nod, what deserves an ire,
what warrants a ridicule. He squeezes

out from every bran of his students’ brain
the knack of chasing shadows that took him
a lifetime to learn. He orders them to spin

a yarn in a minute and shows that in a slash of whip
he can dissect their hearts, beat by beat. Blitzing
their ears with diatribes, searing their souls

with his devouring eyes, he makes them
tremble and pee their pants. His is the only way
to become, so he hammers into their heads that

they flop to flap because their idols and
ideals are idiots; making him appears not only
to be the boss but also to be the best. He never stops

tutoring them how to twitter his words, not
until they master his style of dribbling. Then,
like cows off for butchery, he brands them

with a seal of excellence. All for having
perfected the techniques of making their tongues
glib and stink of his spittle.

Salvation

Salvador devotes the rest of his life
praying to save the world from hunger and war
and pestilence. He preaches to the beggars: ignore

hunger. Thank God for the beauty of this smog-
infested sky where the moon and the stars
and the fireflies succumb to the blasts of neon

lights and flares of profit. He preaches
to the beggars: endure life as you sleep
in pavements among blots of bubble gum and dirt

and spit and morsels of pity. This hell tempers
your faith. He preaches to the beggars: learn
the ways of gadflies — know with pinpoint precision

where to look for carcass to feast on. But the beggars
gather away from Salvador’s prayers. Cradled by
their pus and grime and lice and love of life;

with their hard-bitten fingers and sermon-
broken eardrums and bleeding hearts, they
heave the birthing of their own salvation.