Poetographie

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 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.

send me to the heart of your poetry
to the deepest of their world
mirrors of pain should be broken
when i enter

poetic jesters
should speak of their epic poems
until i rest my eyes to sleep
i hear no laughter- all but poems and seriousness

lonely jovials
should serve my dinner in their most elegant attire
the night should be lovely,
adored like them

the holy servants should dance
the way you do
i want an arabesque,
a passionate rhumba

while doing all the show
i should abandon them
you should send me a cab playing a requiem
command him to your throne

a red carpet should welcome me
yes, purely the red carpet
none of the servants should be delivered
it's more private if we only have ourselves

send me to the heart of your poetry
to your holy master Shakespeare
and Aristotle
serve me the sweetest their sonnets and criticisms

I would love to dine with you
that is if you could bring me into the deepest of their world.

i can't give you letters
i'm selfish.
i can't offer you my words

i can't write poetry
none of which is fiction.
i know nothing of literature

i can't travel
my legs are weak
my mind's searching for something else

you always ask me to do this and that
but i always (as always) refuse
sorry.

i can't give you my poetry,
my words,
my treasures and my plans

but here's one thing,
i can give you cheesecake and a bottle of wine
the next time you ask me a thing i am incapable of doing

will you smile and eat the cake
or let it rot
or else days after you'll notice something
inside the mouth of your cat

(laughs)

let me tell you that we need to book our tickets as early as now
you need not worry for the expenses
dad will be giving me a lot of dough as promised

free of worries, away from responsibilities
we will be reading Paris in a week's time
or journey a cruise after a week or two

just tell me when you'll be ready
i'll pack our things one by one
thoroughly with our dreams

you love black, don't you,
how's that, white's mine
neutrals aren't they?

say yes always
never ever to no
we'll be together

lost in Paris
smiling with Mona Lisa
erecting our plans with some brilliant architectures

forget about worry first
let's kiss art
let's journey with our hearts

eyes closed-
dreaming that someday we will get to Paris
hand-reached.

compose a poem about death
even if you hate to discuss it

try to become funny so as not to
be drowned by the theme

crack jokes if you want
as long as they don't veer away

euphemism or irony
choose which one will work

the more honest it is
the more poetic it becomes

don't over do it
over sentimentalizing should be absent

a poem about death
should always be happy

jovial as the innocence of the children
they should talk about death

but never mourn for it,
never mourn for it

i know how you hate about death
so now

let me ask you a question
have you written your death poem

as spontaneous as mine?
or you just mourned over it

to the point that death
is still present in the last stanza

like how a sentence ends with
a period.

no one reads you poetry except him
when you beg her to skim through your poems
she refuses-
"not now, please?"

she knows you're writing for him
with the most grandiose language
in the light of elegance
he knows how to possess you

your hands scribble his muted love
the fantasy and the unreachable
you believe him,
you hear him speak of non sensical things

yet you still believe
he knows how to trick you with his magic
with his words, like a love potion
freed in the air

you dance together invisibly
like two timid eager souls
she knows all, all about you and him
but do you have even the slightest idea

that it is not him
but her
who sacrifices anything
just for the two of you?

like how you thirst for poetry
like how i eat you inside my head

like how i break a better line
like how you make simple sonnets

like how I value poets
like how you value Shakespeare

like how I love searching for lust
like how I dip hands to yours
like how I love your body curves whisper a silent poem

Like how I eat you inside my head

I saw you swimming like a dog

it was me who taught you the basics of swimming

you never learned

I saw you eating balut

it was me who taught you to break the shell

you never learned

I heard you singing like a star

we both sang the song, and we were out of tune

I felt the tears rolling from your eyes

(it was painful, it was you)

It was me who taught you not to cross beyond the line

It was me who taught you to save your heart

I said your heart not your love

(for it was easy, as simple

not like love

abstract and vague)

I told you before to keep yourself away from him

oh sorry,

i
was
about
to
say
keep yourself from any
harm

you NEVER learned.