Argh

Some dire things

That I fear

Like losing

You my dear

Snaps behind

My left ear

More wary

Of the mere

Thought of you

Not found here

Beside me

Makes me hear

Crazy things,

Makes me swear

Crazy things,

Might as well

Drown in beer.

Some key things

I hold dear,

Losing you

I most fear,

I peek through

The veneer

See if you

Have come here,

Praying you’re

Coming here,

But you are

Nowhere near.

Let me grab

One more beer.

Residence

Hi. Welcome
to my home
where a cat
imprints on
the leather
ottoman
her own sui
generis 
signature
scratched beside
my penciled
version of
that lucky,
auspicious
Tree of Life;
a turtle
paints green trails
of himself
on the smooth
white-tiled floor;
how the dank
toilet room
has passed days
untidy,
molds forming
strange colors
where water
used to drench;
and up there, 
the bedroom’s
grayed ceiling,
a spider
weaves a thin
prismatic
most fragile
expression
of herself.

There’s not much
space to run
and let dreams
wildly fly
and the paint
on the walls
have all gone
brittle with
traitor time.
But please do
come in. Please,
I insist.
I have chairs,
some corners,
dainty cups
for coffee
or hot tea,
a window 
with a view
of city
and a mind
that’s brimming
with stories,
poesies,
heresies.

A Brown Bird

A brown bird
perched atop
a wizened
brittle branch,
trusted all
of its weight
on the gnarled
forgotten
thin fingers
of an old
sycamore.

The wind snapped
the branch from
its comfort,
broke the weak
dying stem
and blew it
on the gray
hot pavement.

Left dead at
the asphalt,
that old branch
forsook its
hopeful wish
to ever
grow its own
small green leaves.

Hastily
the brown bird
flew away
with its wings.

At Eastwood

Well, problems
tastes better
with gulped beers,
hot noodles,
crispy-fried
kangkong leaves,
more at home
with kind friends
who'd really
sincerely
be all ears.
Some empty
wooden chairs
around us
I wish were
occupied,
more open
hearts and minds
to give some
kind advice,
carry up
that heavy
weight of your
current world,
heavy as
the March heat
on our heads.
I might have
stayed longer
after shots
with faved stars,
but sorry
I have skipped
more stories
from your tongue
for your voice
can't compete
through the blare
that loud blare
I barely
heard you well.

Oh Brother

i.  
It’s obvious: truth’s little fingers comb
the inner walls of her growing womb.
No use for secret.  Secret is a hypocrite.
It would rather dwell in the dark.
Secret transfigures into truth.
Truth desires to see light,
learn to walk on its two feet, learn to speak.
Don’t wait for truth to point it’s finger at you
and scream. Words are more painful than fists.
The universe conspires for a flourishing, healthy truth.
If you need to explain, explain it to the truth.
Make your explanations easier to swallow.
Roll and fry a meatball of a joke.  Truth might laugh.
Unplanned situations demand unplanned laughter.


ii.
Truth grew up, your spit and image.
His little sister blossomed - has your smile.
Burly as your dream, he’d search
The fats of your memory, bits of your love,
On toys that came in boxes.
She’d be bright as lanterns
Reed thin with delight
the gleam in her eyes gone.
They grew older than their ages
Permitting emptiness’ presence
In their lives, tired of asking questions
on Christmas, on birthdays,
because nobody answers,
nobody comes.


iii.
I'm telling it as it is. 
She pretended to be you behind the glowing screen.
I pretended to know her like I know my brother.
And when the words quivered, trembled
too much with the invisible, unsure electric
that brought the message over, I knew
some cords have already been cut, contracts
burned in the heat of the desert sun,
and the world you left to make better
completely gone.  You bit the apple
and you're not even in the garden,
the original trajectory of your life deserted
for the desert. And in her emptiness you found
the fruit tasted sweeter. 
And I comprehend the travails of a fellow weak creature.
And I'm telling it as it is.


iv.

We're all made evil by this act -
sins of anger, sins of avarice
your fruits bear heavily in their hearts,
sins of rumors, sins of lies
flying constantly in the emails, in our minds
haplessly snatching which words,
which stories are true anymore.
Now we all bit the apple from the tree
the lecherous snake coiling around our heads
its tail stretching further from your thumping fingers,
arcane Facebook accounts, sly messages
constant absences, delayed supports.
Look, there's a hole beneath our feet.
We're digging it from both ends of the world.
The devil is waiting with fiery hate
we can't help burning from the hearths of our hearts.

New Year's Eve

New year's eve.
The drizzle
has filled up
the gutters.
Firecrackers
are all wet
for bursting,
no sparkles
to garden
our front lawn.

The kitchen
is in great
dire state of
disrepair.
The worn sink
is molding
where the white
dry cement
used to fill.
We do with
the measly
morsels we
preciously
have cooked for
our pleasure.

In his room,
Papa's cough
is our sole
noisemaker
in the house
to ward off
the past year's
odious ghosts.
He tries hard
to be man
of the house
one more time
with what's left
of spaces
in his lungs,
energy
to heave from
his belly
all his last
convincing,
fatherly
final boom.

Jom and Mei
keep themselves
in the room
recalling
past new years
were better
than this one.

My brothers,
we blow out
those trumpets,
wake what new
tales will come
breezing through
our small house,
but our house
tells us now
that it's tired,
waiting which
old stories
are ready
to be shelved.
It has lost
some hopeful
perspectives
this first step
of the year
while the sky
is keeping
behind deep
mats of clouds
all its stars.

Drought

The water turned itself to heat
leaving the land flaking to dust.
He wonders how the crops will grow
emerald and robust
when the brown color of burning
has crawled its way from the tips
of leaves down to the stem,
the demarcation of struggling
to survive has become smaller
and smaller as summer progresses.

Resolute he will never be
broken and seeking refuge
in an onomatopeic, scalding city
subjugated to a career
having the sun-loved backs of his palms
parallel to the ground.
He prays for something biblical
to redirect a river's flow
and quench the acres of dried
desertifying land.

But the river itself is thirsty
having lost its being a river -
So he ponders displacing to somewhere
water is still water.
Then again, there's nowhere to go
when the heat, cloudless and unyielding,
burning slowly whatever it touches,
bearing the heavy belly of its air
over the earth, borderless as the wind,
smugly blows around his archipelago.



San Pablo, Laguna
March 12, 2010