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.*
Jul 11, 2018
Jul 11, 2018 at 5:08 AM UTC
Blue blood names
I give you, as though
A medication, a palliative
To your sufferings; or
Perhaps, to gloss over:
The Imperfect.
Every crack, foreign.
A genesis, always
Awaiting that another crack.
Never ending.
Every day, twice-told:
Pain is pain, never
An ordinary thing
To fragile bodies
Not accustomed to it.
Jul 11, 2018
Jul 11, 2018 at 5:07 AM UTC
Fully aware or not, we survive
This life thriving on clues.
How a baby beaming means
An angel is coaxing him to smile,
The elders would say. Snap,
And there it is, his only photograph
As a baby, hanging on his mother’s
Bedside green wall. Asked or not,
We tend to offer evidence that we grow up;
That indeed, we started off as tiny things,
Later into trees with unruly branches.
We try to take a second look at the faces
We see. Perchance, to remind us: Where
Have we met the unfamiliar ones? Those
Not perfectly aligned; the photograph’s
Uncomfortably pegged to a rusty nail.
Meanwhile, our eyes are gravitated
To the smudges forming around
The edges of that photograph,
Made perhaps by the mixing
Of time & water, forming maps
Of places and distances, where
The this once-child would go.
Jul 11, 2018
Jul 11, 2018 at 5:02 AM UTC
(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.
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 9:07 PM UTC
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
.
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 9:07 PM UTC
A name and a name will soon be forgotten.
Change a name change a name, Baden-Baden
But what's behind remains forever begotten.
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 9:06 PM UTC
When the arrow strikes,
The heart breathes its last:
They will be one.
My legs are burning;
In cupped hands, the heart.
I am burning – the holder
Of the arrow
And I, will be one.
Sep 1, 2016
Sep 1, 2016 at 1:33 AM UTC
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
Aug 22, 2016
Aug 22, 2016 at 1:14 AM UTC
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 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
Aug 21, 2016
Aug 21, 2016 at 9:15 PM UTC
In Tibiao,
My childhood’s home
I remember riding on a karosa, a cart
Being pulled by my grandfather’s carabao
While watching the setting sun
As we go home
After his day’s work,
I, accompanying him.
Tonight,
Seeing vehicles
Plying EDSA, lugging tons of passengers,
With their back lights, neon red, glaring
I think of hundreds and hundreds of bull frogs
Being pulled on their hind legs
With their smoldering eyes
Looking at me.
The night
Is my grandfather
Walking me home.
Aug 19, 2016
Aug 19, 2016 at 2:30 AM UTC