Mar 21, 2009
Marriage is not finding someone to own
but someone to hold. It’s about finding
that missing part of you at the right moment
you realize you were not meant to be alone.
It’s the part where we connect, soldering our souls
to the universe so we see each other
every time we look at the stars, reminding us why
we want to stretch our arms and reach.
I know there will be days where reaching might be a little too much,
or we think that it may not be enough to forgive our little faults.
But, I promise you that if you could just let me be
your anchor to hold you through all the storms,
I will be still.
I will be satisfied.
I will bring you to the sea
that is and will be my love.
Although sometimes it may recede from the shore,
I can promise it will always return—stronger and intent
on being that expanse, that adventure, that horizon for you
That line that swallows darkness to reveal the sun
Because love is all about the time we find to give away;
taking baby steps by first watching then doing,
learning to build paths between your universe and mine
even when there are none to follow,
just so we can lead each other home.
Nov 9, 2008
I've walked the plank so many times,
I could have been a ballerina―
dancing on guilt trip wires because
I'm graceful when head over heels,
tumbling. "Look Ma! no hands!"
Look what he did, Ma, they're broken:
promises written on bones
too heavy to carry this far
out to sea. So I drop anchor
where dreams go to die.
I lie, dead still,
his name chiseled off my back
with an ice pick― because
I needed to make holes
to breathe again.
Perhaps if he had a backbone
I would not need to carve my own.
It costs too much and I should be
saving the tears inside cups
for him to drink; and forget
the time the water broke
me open, spilling hopes when
no hands were on deck to stop
memories from seeping through
the cracks where our smiles used to
be.
Update: Have go-see at the interesting poem-reactions this piece has churned @ SL Corsua's blog, Unguarded Utterance - "Postcard-Sign (Off) Language" and Blue Rogue's "Dive" @ Extraplanar.
Aug 11, 2008
All over my fridge are magnets,
keepsakes from the places I've been.
In San Francisco, I bought the Golden
Gate the moment my 13 hour flight landed.
I don't have one for Tucson,
where I met you for the first time.
As if you, too, couldn't see beyond
just in front of us.
I didn't get one in Nogales, though
we went to many gift shops.
About hunger: I've known it,
and I've been told to bear with it.
As the days passed, my Arizona
collection grew: Wupatki Ruins, Sunset
Crater and yes, the Grand Canyon,
bought the week before I had to leave.
In Manila, I arranged them on
my fridge, a souvenir shrine
to remind me of what
I could not bring home.
Jul 13, 2008
They do it, the ones who love
without making love, by dancing with words
that reach out to each other, falling short
over the glass, fingers pressed
against monitor screens, curved
over keyboard bodies, faces
red as the sun, one setting the other rising
at the other end of the world, wet as the
oceans that come between their need to
come to, come to come to God come to
each other. They do it without kissing
the love that gave birth to their poetry, whispers
spreading steady like warmth from heated
laptops. These are the true romantics,
the dreamers, the mystics, the ones who
have accepted the logic of distance,
the mathematics of bridges and yet
don’t turn back at the sight of the gap, for
they are the greatest gymnasts: ones who
arch their backs over the globe, flipping
electrical switches to cross the synapses
of their bodies, neurons shuddering
in rhyme—these factors, like the bed
never been to, is the solution, to the
problem of souls divided by 2, reaching
over the universe defying
their lack of owned time.
At the mental seams
you and I were conceived,
(stitched from the rags
of empty arms)
souls joined at the hips,
grinding against each other’s need
to be. Above the bed lay
its parallel line (contract, horizon,
point of rest) where slept
the discovery that you and I
were not supposed to meet
in this illusion of a future woven
into our past-entangled arms.
Jul 7, 2008
The morning after
he took one of his cigarettes and lit it
with what might have been a pistol.
The floor had been swept
of the garbage
spilled on its cement tiles.
The sink that was piled with dishes
was clean. no remnants
jammed in the drain,
the bathroom reeked of antiseptic.
Smells like the hospital, she whispered.
He helped her lie down
and kissed her forehead,
knowing how
her eyes resembled
Quiapo stalls and sampaguitas,
memories seeping through
like her monthly stains.
He knelt beside the bed,
knowing how
Septembers might've been a baby
one that could've been theirs
screaming for milk
they could not afford,
because only
when the neighbors couldn't sleep
would they ask him, why? how?
knowing how
he would've answered,
he couldn't do everything.
He watched her sleep and
put the pistol lighter down.
After all,
he saw too much not to feel
her silent cries through the
thin blankets she clutched
like they were the walls
of her own womb.
[old poem, might polish later when I have the time]
I don’t think I’ll make a real transvestite,
wear my heart in fire-engine heels,
and still walk straight, head high.
No, every morning, before I put on
my acceptable black pumps,
I cup the soles of my feet and
feel the weight of regret at
what I could never be: proud
and comfortable with my identity,
unafraid of being packed away in
the labels that would make
anyone craven, shirking
inside their own closets.
[this was a free write in gotpoetry.com’s tag-team-poem project the first line from lordfuznut]
Jul 5, 2008
It happened slowly, the gradual
stripping away of her beauty.
Some say she was,
some just shook their head
and refused to look at her eyes-
where it began.
stripping away of her beauty.
Some say she was,
some just shook their head
and refused to look at her eyes-
where it began.
I.
When young seedlings are plucked, uprooted and thrust upon the landfills, they learn to look at themselves from the grey reflections of sky in mud puddles. She reaches down and washes her face with the murky water from poisoned pools that branch out into the Pasig river, where she had found her memories washed up along its plastic ridden shores, coated with the oil and grime from the drainage of childhood. She wipes dry only her eyes, leaving a mask across her mouth to filter the city air before proceeding to walk along Taft Avenue barefoot, hips slowly taking the shape of her surroundings.
II.
The long route of wide winding roads will eventually lead her to the safety of the old city walls, but for now, she tells herself that we wear old habits like halos, circular patterns where we must look back to get ahead of ourselves. Born from the river, perhaps she was not one who believed in straight lines, knowing that at some point the path she treads will branch out again into sooty alleyways and back streets of Ermita where she will learn to dance along the cracks of her broken spirit, the music allowing her to hide them beneath her calloused soles.
III.
He came across her dancing, his eyes tracing the curved lines of her spine. A camote vine, with ends curled upward, seeking the sun, wrapped itself tightly around his hands. She was beautiful, like rose petals scattered along the pavement, thorns snapped off and pressed against skin flushed deep red from the stains he left on her eyesight. He kissed her eyelids shut and untangled the frayed vine that by now, only hung from one wrist, and let it fall on the asphalt, cheek first.
IV.
She lies on the ground on her side and thinks about how it happened quickly, the stripping away of her beauty. Some say she had forgotten how beautiful she was, others say she never knew. So they shake their heads and refuse to look at her eyes- where it ended. She smiles under her mask, knowing how it never really ends, knowing how all waters will eventually crawl their way back, even when bent and twisted with only one eye facing the sun it vowed to follow, to the sea.
*My first prose poem...woohoo!
Labels: ermita, intramuros, pasig, poetry, sun
May 23, 2008
I have replaced you so many times
In my mind, changed your age and face.
Today I imagined you five years old, wearing
one of my shirts that fell all the way down
to your knees. We watched TV for a while and
when a dog was shot in a movie you asked
“Is that puppy sleeping?” And I said, “Yes, for his own good.”
At nights I would tuck you in beside me,
watching you sleep softly still, until
I realized that whenever I stand still
the landscape stretches and reveals new things—
mountains, previously dots on the horizon,
loom and threaten to crush or force me to run;
and so I run in the other direction
forgetting, keeping the memories in the dark
closet, where the cat, Milky, liked to sleep.
Later, I asked you not to go near her as she had
Just given birth on my newly washed towels.
Later we found that the kittens were stillborn,
flesh stuck together, like a foreboding feeling
that couldn't be shaken off, only buried,
in a shoe box grave under a willow in the yard. Though
Milky came every night to look for them in the closet anyway.
During fiestas you would speak to me as a pig would speak
before it was slaughtered. Your voice drowning the
busy chatter of relatives and friends preparing meals,
skinning sausages with sharp kitchen knives, slicing
fetal curves of garlic, crushing them into pepper, and I -
would choke on a throat full of water
and watch you trickle on the metal basin
full of raw dinuguan.*
*dinuguan - "pork blood stew" or "chocolate meat" or "chocolate pudding" in English, is a Filipino savory stew of blood sausage and offal simmered in a rich, spicy gravy of pig blood, garlic, chili and vinegar.(from wikipedia)
Labels: dark, death, female, poetry
May 17, 2008
you are the stone I swallowed
small and smooth because it fell
with rain I never saw coming
hard to catch in palms that bruise easy
the way it sat in my stomach long
after it slowly climbed up to sit
on top of the wall, a Humpty Dumpty
on a heart that needed
just one more
brick
small and smooth because it fell
with rain I never saw coming
hard to catch in palms that bruise easy
the way it sat in my stomach long
after it slowly climbed up to sit
on top of the wall, a Humpty Dumpty
on a heart that needed
just one more
brick
Labels: love, poetry, rain, stone
May 12, 2008
I found you in this mailbox
when my hand reached
inside to look for a laugh,
little did I know that
when I pulled you out,
you tickled my heart
so much, I just had to
keep you.
Labels: poetry
May 11, 2008
You must find it
fascinating how–
moths are riveted
to the flickering pyre
you dangle
in between fingertips.
Its wings dance
alongside silent, gray tendrils
escaping your breath.
Circling around,
irrevocably drawn
to the sighs
that kiss your lips.
Saltine beads,
tease your temple,
then your cheekbone,
curving around your jaw.
A faint smile shows
your minute amusement
at how this creature
will leave a field of flowers
for the scent of sweat.
This drab cousin
of the butterfly,
craves attention
and will stay still
on your palm
staring up
in simple-minded wonder
at the meteor
about to burn
its wings.
May 7, 2008
He is kneeling.
Joints locked in grief
as he looks ahead
to the altar where
he imagines Celtic knots
unwind from the crucifix
and begin to tie themselves
around his neck.
He reaches back
on the church bench,
fingertips finding it
suddenly riddled with scars-
names and serial numbers
that once belonged
on violet wrists.
His eyes close
as the requiem starts
to unravel the invisible
skein of a memory:
a red-hot iron branding
cold skin of a son
that could've been.
The bell tolls
for his last supper,
its mournful knell
breaking the glass casket,
spilling his conscience
like wine poured into chalices
that were her fingers.
His shaking hands clasp
in repetitive prayer for
his eyes to see in
shades of gray,
so he will not remember
the yellow ribbon his daughter
is tying around 88 stones
of an unmarked grave.
[This was written for a writing prompt in 
workshop forums on the subject of racism.]
workshop forums on the subject of racism.]
Labels: dark, death, poetry, sad
Apr 12, 2008
You were the mystery
I didn't care to solve.
A silicate myth from cosmic theories
born out of longing for proof. Any kind.
But when the umbilical cord
started to wrap around secrets
too cold to crack with bare hands,
one can only shiver with need-
to fill a void
after the sun died.
Labels: poetry
Dec 6, 2007
This morning I stir rain into my Starbucks cappuccino, angry foam running vertically up the cup's embankments. Businessmen scurry past with their polished briefcases, ties worn a little too tight. Cellphones ring and mine had my aunt on the other end. She was drowning. I tell her to write the credit card company back and ask for proof, "Oh and auntie, ask them to stop harassing you."
I would give anything to hear her breathe. She grieves water and I teach her how to swim the way she taught me when I was a child. A newspaper headline catches my eye: 12 year old girl commits suicide because of poverty. She had hung herself because her father could not give her 100 pesos for a school project. I look at my 120-peso cappuccino. Voice dry and unconvincing, I bid goodbye,"Ok auntie, don't worry."
Hope floats, I try to tell myself. Yet the coffee leaves froth on my mouth and for the life of me, I could not stop the rain.
I would give anything to hear her breathe. She grieves water and I teach her how to swim the way she taught me when I was a child. A newspaper headline catches my eye: 12 year old girl commits suicide because of poverty. She had hung herself because her father could not give her 100 pesos for a school project. I look at my 120-peso cappuccino. Voice dry and unconvincing, I bid goodbye,"Ok auntie, don't worry."
Hope floats, I try to tell myself. Yet the coffee leaves froth on my mouth and for the life of me, I could not stop the rain.
Nov 20, 2007
When he smiles in his sleep
I know he is dreaming of you together
in Hong Kong, in a sunny-colored house
he knew only from pictures
you sent when he was eight,
edges worn from tracing the inflatable slides
in the background, swimming pool
bringing droplets to his face.
You must have slung him on your hip,
I know this from the crush of his arms around
my waist every time I try to pull him awake.
We’ve never made love in the mornings.
He thinks I should make him breakfast.
He knows you did. But not for him.
He has only tasted your cooking
through phone calls telling him to eat more
so he would “grow to be a big and strong man.”
He has.
I don’t remember from where it was
that I took your place,
It must have been somewhere between
the sheets and the old shirt of yours
he insists I wear when I’d forget
to bring a change of clothes
whenever I spend the night.
The dryer isn't working again.
from the balcony, I hang his laundry
to dry by wind that carried you away.
Later when he asked me to marry him,
he told me to use clothespins
so I wouldn’t follow you.
I don’t remember from when it was
that I took your place,
perhaps it was sometime from when
his lips clung to my nipple until I
decided to slip an arm under his neck
and cradle him to sleep.
Nov 9, 2007
My mother, she taught me how to make it.
She used to prepare the materials
and lay them on the dining table for me.
Paper, ruler, scissors, cutter,
cup of tea- to warm my stomach
in the mornings when I tucked
these memories beneath the folds:
the color of her knuckles
prying my tiny hands off her leg,
the sound of my wails
bouncing off airport halls,
and the overhead cabin lights
that for the first time
I had to reach on my own.
I made slits for air and view
using angles that made flight possible-
for paper planes are better than real ones,
those made of steel, because no cup of tea
made by flight attendants
could ever warm my stomach.
But my mother taught me how to make it,
this speck of white that soared
in the expanse of blue,
a paper plane, a keepsake
trimmed and folded to make
an absence less than total.
Labels: childhood, paper planes, poetry
Aug 22, 2007
They serve Democracy
on a chess table
with Morton's Fork.
Pawns are skewered
this way, unevenly roasted
for the sake of majority rule:
"Political equality
are for those who belong
to the same rank and file."
Come Passover, rooks
are poised to take flight
by dessert, to storm
the endgame fortress
of fundamental freedoms
threatened to fall
to a Fool's mate
Labels: chess, law, philosophy, poetry, politics
Aug 15, 2007
inspired by lucid dreamer/poetess: soulless
He walks each day
from his dreams to hers
he really has no other choice-
fearful of the scenes
he might find her in, not knowing,
if tonight he would lose her
to ghosts that plague
her subconscious.
(Tonight she dreams
of her corpse hanging from
the acacia trees, time sobbing
from beneath the branches)
Perhaps it is out of these dreams
that our own ghosts walk amongst us
and listen to us sleep-talk, those
unguarded utterances woven from
sinew strands of lives that must take shape
despite the fact that we see them
waving at us and we
never wave back.
Labels: dreams, philosophy, poetry
Jul 19, 2007
For mayo
Tonight will be the autumn equinox.
I sit on my porch steps and listen.
I.
The october wind cackles a foreboding
through the wings of a tree sparrow
hopping along the ground in search
of orphaned twigs. As if accidentally
overhearing its thoughts, my skin prickles
with its low whistle: Soon, my phoenix, soon.
I will build a house big enough for both of us,
where we shall sleep cradled
in the scent of rosewood arms.
II.
A shivering maya perches on the rooftop
and watches him through the haze
of summer nights forgotten.
As he gets into his car
I sit beside her and ask:
wasn't it just yesterday
when he burned bright in your eyes?
She doesn't answer me, only flutters
her feathers in cloud-speak—
soft, cirrus whispers trailing
after his tail lights:
Icarus, come back.
III.
He was the man who walked you to your door, the one
who hummed winter breath on your nape, surrounding
you with the crisp scent of trees shedding leaves.
He held you once, the crook of his arm
a bird cage for keeping in what could fly away
at any moment, from stripped branches
the snow never dared to touch.
