The pavement glistens
While the taho vendor meanders
Answering the sun.
Four sparrows (or finches?)
Jump instead of fly, nonchalant,
While I look at them.
A bottle of water
Plants its feet at the intersecting
streets leading to white flowers:
Garlic flowers
Prodding me, Eat your breakfast.

Hide us in that box,
That rectangle of a box,
Our little box of threads and needles.
Stitch us on the seams, our dreams.
Sink us under your sole, our voices.
Hide us in that barrels, our troubles.
Distill our spirits, wash us pure.
Age us,
Open our souls after the war.

Imagine my surprise
Seeing you
Yesterday.

How often do
Our friends visit us
If at all

There you are
In silence
In the side walk

A wild
Green In the city

How did you come here,
My healer?

The last time I saw you
You were there
Near our river

Where the mountains
Meet the sea

Is it really you?
Or just a spitting image
Of a daughter?

Touch my nostalgic wounds
Can you heal them?

Bleed if you must
Please
So I can be there

In your blood
Once more

I planted a kitten
Inside a milk can
I waited for it to grow.
I waited
And waited.
I went to church.
Dressed pure in white.
Pray for it, said my grandmother.
I did.
I poked the eyes of the Father
In his picture frame
With his fingers crossed.
I crossed my fingers too &
Painted them purple, his eyes.
And waited
For the leaves to spring
Instead of fur
I looked inside the milk can
A pair of eyes I saw
Not the kitten's.
His body not moving
Dressed in gray.

Every morning when I wake up
Two sieves catch my eyes
With their blinking tiny eyes.

The metal one bears
Seven stars on its bottom
Where seven dreams are sitting.

The other one is made of fine-meshed plastic  
Bearing a lone hexagonal star
Where I lump my questions

Of whys:
why we dream
and why we aspire.

THE FLOWERS I SAW EVERY MORNING WERE CUT DOWN TO THEIR BULBS,
THEIR STEMS TWO OR THREE INCHES JUST ABOVE THE GROUND.
TWO OR THREE DAYS BEFORE,  I SAW THEIR WHITE FLOWERS,
LIKE SUPPLICANT HANDS, THEIR ARMS RAISED TO THE SKIES.

IT IS RAINING OUTSIDE. IT IS RAINING OUTSIDE.

A DECISION WAS READ TO A MAN, YES, TO A MAN.
WHY DO PEOPLE HAMMER THE WRONG NAILS?
OR NAILING THE WRONG MAN?

I drank a glass of water.
I thirst.

I drank a glass of water.
I thirst—
A woman’s tear in my throat.

I thirst.
A river is inside me.
I am river.

I am river – meeting two seas
Beside me.

I didn't know you have asked mother
when will my return be
I just heard it whispered by the cold wind
this morning when
I opened the door
I see the plants were wilting
I could have come if you've told me earlier
I could have let myself slip from the typing of these keys
for I know you'll be there in your favorite spot, sitting on that flat of an upturned stone, not moving, not waving,
just seeing me get on the bus
I will visit you stealthily like you did when you hand me that 5-peso coin and telling me not to show it to my siblings, my cousins, with that
smiling smile, hiding your eyes, hiding me from their eyes.
I can tell that I'm not your favorite. You don't play favorites, you said
I believed you.

I will visit you I promised the cold wind
But it told me that you already hid yourself
Sleeping below that flat of an upturned stone
I opened the door the cold wind was still there
I watered the plants they were wilting still
I, moving, waving but you already got on the bus
I saw the 5-peso coin in my palm earlier, now it was gone
I told my siblings, my cousins, about it, but they didn't believe me
Just a figment of the mind, they said, they smiled the smiling smile
I hid in your eyes while you in mine
I wanted to tell the cold wind:
The game had ended years ago
But you're still hiding, sleeping below
The upturned stone.

Is a curious little girl
Who loves to collect
Shells & pebbles
Of people & events
Discarded by Time
Along the shores

The woman walked.
She, with hair locks
Of silver laughter
& smiles & mischief
Hid on photographs
Hid & framed by Time
On sepia boxes
Kept by an old dust,

My grandmother :
A golden native
Of photographs
Hanging on our wall,
A narrative donning
Her black and white.

(for her; she who suffers silently)

It’s not just a river
But a river bending through
Pain and a road forking.

It’s not a stem of tender
But a branch of summer leaves
Branching out to the sun
Wilt further dry and dry
She did.

It’s the bone-dry hands
A cup to plead --
A cup to contain sky’s tears:
April’s first refuse.

It’s the barren soil she
Whose face is drought
Awaiting river’s touch:
A profuse of fresh blood.


Nothing’s left.
No more days spared
To find you.

I saw you talking to someone.
Then another came
Then another one.
One by one,
You received them all.
I told you
They will return,
One by one.

I told you.

That same story
That same book
Telling about a father
With open arms
Receiving
His returning son.

I am your new life, you say.
Every time one from your past returns
A part of me will disappear
Now, an eye
Then, an ear
Later, an arm
Then, a leg.
No violent tearing off of my body
But a voiceless disappearance of each part.
See how a puddle of water appears after the rain
Then disappears without a trace.
How an agreement though unwritten
Disappears.

That feeling.

I call your name…
You can hear me:
A whisper
Of
The
w
i
n
d
.

A Rorschach test
I took while on the car
On the window
Ink blots scattered
That need my gathering
Those memories
Are black pebbles
Along the seashore
Of nostalgia and mal de mer:
My self-portrait slowly fades
As the vehicle
Flies fast.

here’s your cup
you took a sip
then left
i'll just take a walk, you said
silence
i could see your back
garbed on old blue clothes you were
little by little
by distance, you went
faraway
fading
pale
blue turned white
into dust
lifted
by the wind
up, up, up
slowly, eaten by the  sun
blinded by light
i looked down
took your cup
sipped
to your immortality
i partook

See how the snake coils
Crushing tender

The bones
Of your own skin.

~after watching a news feature about the identical twins, named Prince Gerald and Prince Carl, diagnosed with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, an inherited condition causing increased fragility of bone.

a child tells

i see a ball
invisible threads, it was made of
light as gossamer connecting us
playmates of different worlds
unknown, unseen

i see three birds
trying the shoe
who owns it, asked the wolf
two were shot, one flew
songs and tears tied to its feet

i see a veil
by its slitting
laugh, commanded the king clothed in gold but none
huddled masses wept
prayers sealed their lips

i see a red cloak
deep red, fell on the ground
slowly, turning into ants, disrupted
displaced, dispersing
not so far away, a mound was forming

i see an old tree
gnarled, with long braid of hair
of ashen faces and fainting voices
in garbled words, this land we own
before its dying breath, whispering

tell, my child

Paris hurries to his proverbial apple
In my mind
While my own feet turn weary,
Giddy crossing the blue Rubicon --
"The die is cast," says Caesar
"The 'dye' was cast, says I.
A bettor I am, indelibly stained blue.

The Old Man asks,"When will He return?"
"Soon," replies the Woman.

The Child awaits the Woman's return.

The baby's asleep.
     Caterwauling cats, I heard:
         A life will be born?

Little people thrive in the dark, said the old man.
And so I told my cousin: “Turn the lights on.”
A stream of light washed us.
“There was no difference,” I told him.
We are still little people, living little lives.
And so I told him: “Put the lights off.”
“There was no difference."
Eagerly he obliged.
I closed my eyes. And so was he.

Darkness grows what the light cannot, added the old man.
I felt my hands lengthened and so my legs.
“Cousin, I’m growing, I’m growing,” I shouted,
Rousing my cousin to no avail for he’s on deep sleep.

The last thing I saw was the moonlight seeping in,
Revealing what I truly am, what the darkness cannot.

The morning is a white lily.
Five hands raised to the sky
Waiting for the rain's kiss.

Daffodil the color of the falling
Of talisay fruit from its mother
Tree kissing the pavement.

Raindrops kiss the pavement,
Circular ripples on a little pool,
Lilies blossoming in your eyes.

for Picasso*

The painter paints
a dove.
The moment he lifts
his brush
for the last stroke,
the dove flutters --
Flies --
Enlarges itself:
Her whiteness,
Her wings,
Her peace,
Covering the whole world,
Silencing the world
For a moment.
Then, it disappears
For a reason –
Why? Only the painter knows.
And the world rotates…
On its axis, rotating
And the world revolves…
Around the sun, revolving
And the world waits,
Waiting…
And waiting…
For the painter,
For another painter
To paint another dove.

are memories
of fading hurried love notes
old photographs, slow songs

and three full stops...

I looked for the stars
And was given the sun.

I looked for the stars
And was given the moon.

I asked the tree on my garden
Why the star lights are so elusive
This time of year.

Or was I just blinded by the sun’s glares
Or was I just lured by moon’s sweet talking

Immersed to sun’s grandness
Drunken to moon’s wine

Come here, said the fireflies,
Partake on our humble light.

News Item: Cold kills the poor in Brazil’s richest city
June 30, 2016*

Cold creeps again, pale as Death
Her long arms emaciated,
Bloodless.

Her sharp fingernails,
Dripping with dirt
Marking my skin, her territory.

My skin - a stranger’s skin
My blood, she draws
No blood. No longer mine.

“You are mine,” her whisper, cold.
Her eyes of death,
Piercing my soul

A single breath
I keep hidden under
My blanket, stripping me

Homeless.
“The security officers did it.” local media accused.
But I am homeless. Stripped.

“Please. Bring my blanket back first.
Please.
It's cold in here."

The sun is tired.
It sleeps while the sky bleeds.
Night creeps slowly
With the moon in tow
The old night
Stanches the sky's wounds
With patches of twinkling little stars.

How does a fire keep its memories?

When did he start to keep them?

Sitting by the fireside,

I talked to him.

To ashes inside the urn.

(Young Girl Jenny Guides Her Blind Father Dodong To Work Everyday)*

Before the dawn comes,
I sit on the shoulders

Of my blind father,
To be his eyes.

Today, like other days,
Heavy mountains

Will be my playground.
Coconut heads

He will gather
And I, the dried leaves.

He will not complain,
For I will sing to him.

“You are not heavy,”
He would say.

Father, will there be heavier
Than this world to bear?

But I can see the leaves fall --
Golden, red and brown.
The wind assists each leaf’s gentle descent
To the ground --
Wet from the midnight rain
Until dawn today
Before I walk among the leaves, crackling
And feel –
Ah, this could be autumn.

A name and a name will soon be forgotten.
Change a name change a name, Baden-Baden
But what's behind remains forever begotten.

The road where I passed today
Was not the same as yesterday.

The driver took the shortest route – the easiest.
Moulting:
The snake shedding its skin.

Changes, I said to myself. Changes.

There were three of us left inside the vehicle.
Two faces I am familiar with – that of a woman and a man.

Science’s skin  lapping that of religion’s

Stitching of the skin – woman.
Cutting of the skin – man.

Now, I’m thinking of Africa.
Now, I’m thinking of Jews.

I told the driver to stop on the other side.
I lifted the lock, raised the door open, and went out.

Waiting for an idea to struck:
An idea -- that a mouse should cross my path,
An idea -- that a cat would sit on its favorite spot.
And I would say: It’s too early.

The sky, after reading a letter from the sun, blushes pink.
“Look at her skin,” I would tell you, “pink.”

Reading is listening. We listen to what we read.
Reading and listening to their voices:
Their voices have their own skin.

Irezumi.
Traditional Japanese tattooing – an art.
I remembered you. And your skin.

She – the mountain woman.
Perhaps, they can make her a National Artist.

The living art.
The living skin.

written for a friend*

What’s in a name?
Is it the sweetness
under my tongue’s
cave? Or the name-
less thrill I feel
every time I roll
your name inside
my pocket and
you not knowing it?

written for a friend*

I let the butterflies out
From my chest
Willingly

And see them burn themselves
One by one
Just to write your name.

I followed you here.
I saw you.

The promise of eternity,
too tempting to decline.

The flowers of that caballero tree  I saw
earlier this morning

draping my way to your heart.

So inevitable their falling, one by one
those flowers, their petals.

Witnessing, conspiring,
Soldiering on!

Like true caballeros

Look!

They followed me here.
They saw you.

The sky
Is a book

I read
At night

And open
In the morning.

Irony.
Rain brings certain warmth to me.
Warmth, rain.
Sitting by the window,
looking at droplets descending
from the skies,
I count their tapping, one...
their rhythm, two...
their breaths, cool, three...
seeping my blanket, four...
then my skin.

How the wind aids their journey, waving its hands
how the wind bids me to join,
there, my dear, come here,
we'll go south,
then north.

Mother,
absorbed on what she reads,
oblivious to what was happening around her.

I wrap myself in a cocoon of warmth
dressed in rain, drenched in irony.

(Enchanted things,
visible only to me.)

The sky
cries again

not because
it has acquired an angel

but because
one has left (an angel)

the earth
wanting.

Please,
     Don't give me flowers.
          Give me water, so pure.
     That when I shed a tear,
The desert will cry.

Waiting for the waves of the sea,
White horses, you are.
Wet the insides of the jar, gently. Suddenly I found myself
Walled by a glass, (from within
Wolf it down), I mean, the anticipation, I mean, I’m anticipating..
Walk. Walk. Let us walk. Walk me home
When you’re ready…

should a sparrow sing
its apology every time
its neighbor retrieves
a bone of horror
interred on
its nest?

A nocturne sung by the humid air.
Eddies of kitten’s wailing
From the corner’s orange lamplight,
Waiting for the ochre skin
Hawked by black cat’s sinful eyes,
Its ragged tongue dampens the barter’s rites.
Of silhouettes dancing
To the fading innocence at sight.
To a cadence of their own,
Roaches creep to deep cracks of the night.