Poetographie

To Chinese Guy

Bend to reach the book
to kiss wisdom and its forefathers
entering the labyrinth of symbols
and letters, of signs and intangibles

there ungraspable spaces,
thoughts,feelings
floating,
a woman singing
a damsel in despair
with a comb on her hand
without a baby, without a husband
alone
accompanying solitude

brainless humans,
dull,
dead,
beheaded, maimed
into abstraction-
nothingness

there only a man and a woman
face to face
speaking-
mute,
shameful faces peppered with
cracks of time

flourishing into a full bloom
no babies,
no seeds to harvest
empty barren lands
brown as death
filthy as a grease

there is no better understanding
with all of these,
only fragments,
signs,
and attempts
to bridge
indifference
in the
very depths
of cultural gaps

where the value of language
is a commodity-
no more,
no less
sweetly
spoken by a liar's tongue.

I knew she was a lesbian when I was ten
we were playing "balay-balay"
it was raining that time
but I begged her to stay, to play

I made the "balay-balay"
it was more of a miniature bedroom than a house,
there were pillows, junk foods,
and a borrowed lampshade

we were together inside
laughing, conversing as if all I heard
were jokes, lies
and broken promises

it was a fair game
the earth was freshly bathed
when she left

it was radiant outside
but i never thought
that a "balay-balay"
could be played without a father
that a girl
and a woman
could also dwell inside such
a virile structure.

Balay-balay: a Visayan term for a game where children make use of
bedsheets, pillows, cartons to build a house

To Vince

You sit there in your solitude
away from daily confrontations
of politics and life's drama
in the distance,
a 3 hour ride
away from your sister

The clock whispers immortality
each of which journeying
nature,
grasses,flowers, trees
and mountains possessing
all of you

none of the designs of your posts
and lintels ever tarnish
they live with the dead
cold
and remembered always
during All Saint's Day

you paint sadness in the corners
of your room
they glow
shining like diamonds
in a lonely
death-colored sky

rugged scribblings of your thoughts
empty my mind
thinking more and more
of poker,
of books
of people and togetherness

Your shy voice
I long to hear
they whisper immortality
like time scouring Nature
dwelling somewhere
in your starry night

far
and
distant

I sent you a red balloon today
a wish on your birthday
hope everything's okay
in the absence of gray

I'm sorry I lied
like a groom to her bride
chasing colorful butterflies
tasting honeys and eggpies

I know you've been very sad
things went wrong, few were mad
but worry no more dear God
we'll be good and so you'll nod

fly red balloon fly
reach the heavens and kiss the sky
journey up, try and try
'til the oceans run dry

We were strangers
Boarding a cruise

Faceless souls
With dry tears

It was the first night
We shared our lives

Cheers to solitude
Hail to Paradise

we journeyed under the umbrella
Of sadness

Our eyes the same
Dry, lonely

Then sunrise came
It was piercing

We hoed hands
The way your mother once held yours

You knew me back then
I was the boy

Whom you left alone in the lawn
To celebrate your 7th birthday

I waited
It took me hours

You were gone in the absence
Still I stood like a great man

There were only birds
the dance of the trees

the cold
and the stench of a fleeting yesterday

I was left
A victorious soldier

Among all my beaten
Comrades.

I licked my lollipop

in front of a girl,

She snickered-

I shuddered.

I plucked your aging guitar
the rhythm was still the same,
sad

it was the song I requested you to play
for my
20th birthday

I continued plucking,
eyes closed, fingers moving
to and fro the string

i stopped before the last stanza ended
the rhythm was incomplete
a note was lacking

there was your old guitar
there was the song I forgot
to sing on your 20th birthday

I should have sang the song
in your presence
with tears, flowers and cakes.

black & deep cat's eye
framing the picture of sky-
a world of a fly

I blew you kisses for your birthday
the ones I kept inside a box

you'll see none of them when you open
for they were sealed
and locked inside my heart

I blew kisses for your birthday
the ones I kept inside a jar

you'll see none of the when you uncork
for they were invisibly made
mimicking the absence

I blew you kisses for your birtday
you see none of them
inside my heart

they prefer to be invisible
so they could wander and go astray in the absence
mimicking what I truly feel.

my eyes surveying the corners of the room
wondering how Things exist inside the confined
small abode

whatelse do they do aside from
being dead
aside from being indifferent

they love to sleep in the silence
so tranquil,
deepest in sense

I wonder if they want to go outside
and play
together with the wind, trees and flowers

it's good to know that they exist
eventhough lifeless
and incapable to live

these mere objects,
i envy
their contentment

they stay awake
all the time
in the absence of time and memory

i sing to their souls
joyful but dead.