darling delilah
what a pretty little thing you are
tell me,
when the philistines promised you the world for samson’s heart
did you know this was strength?
anne anne anne boleyn
what a cunning little thing you are
tell me,
when you sliced through rome with the kiss of a king
did you know this was destiny?
cleopatra my love
what a lovely little thing you are,
tell me,
when you drew caesar to your bed for the nile and for yourself
did you know this was power?
holy holy joan of arc
what a mighty little thing you are
tell me,
when you were burned at the stake for hearing god’s voice at fourteen
did you wish it was the devil instead?
golden girl marie antoinette
what a sweet little thing you are
tell me,
when your shiny blonde head rolled down the steps of a revolution
did you finally feel like a girl?
eve mother of eden eve
what a wicked little thing you are
tell me,
when you sunk your teeth into the secrets of the universe
did you feel like a god too?
May 23, 2017
May 23, 2017 at 4:39 PM UTC
there is a certain kind of motherhood
only an older sister knows is true
to not have borne a son from womb
but to have a friend of same blood
be a son, a gift and a light too
there must be some divinity in this
to be the one he calls on when
the cupboard is kilimanjaro for this little stranger
who is on some days foe and most days love
to be the santamaria as he climbs
on your own young shoulder blades
searching for ****** shores in worn out rooms
to be stronger than the thunder
that rumbles outside his bedroom window
to be stronger than you usually are
for the little boy whose arms cling onto you for peace
even when you are as pale as the moonlight
he claims to have followed him into our home
there is some strange purpose in this
to be guardian, disciplinarian, caretaker and girl
all at once
when our mother is too drunk to hug her son
when our father says nothing but hello
there is a kind of love
only a sister knows hurts this much
when that little snip of a man grows into boyhood
just as he grew out of your arms
when you are no longer every wonder of the world
you are simply a companion
and on good days: a comrade
always a sister and mostly a friend
there is a strange pull of the heart
at the sight of boyhood in motion
to see him cry and laugh and hurt just as you once did
to bear witness to his ripe exploration of the cosmos
and you think to yourself: were you ever this young?
he looks at you with eyes that mirror your own
yes. yes you were
there is a certain kind of motherhood
only an older sister knows is true
it is the nostalgic repetition of summers that once
seemed to last forever
it is holding your brother tight
when he is brave icarus before the fall
even more so when the time for tragedy comes
and your young, young brother realizes
that he does not bleed ichor like the gods
he bleeds red very much like his sister
there is so much love in this
May 18, 2017
May 18, 2017 at 3:56 PM UTC
i've always had a peculiar affair with history
history is a woman draped in red silk
with ***** eyes and sharpened claws
carefully picking out the hearts to break
and stories to keep
one day i'll arrive in her velvet palms
until then i am but another spectator
aligning myself with what has come to pass
i felt so deeply for the lost souls
souls history deemed unworthy to chronicle
i often wonder about the stories of fossils
of what love laid in the bones below me
of the life shared in worn out alleyways
i often remember all the sadness
the war that plagued the world around me
the death of kings the rise of nations
being affiliated with history is one way to come to it
to sympathize with all her victims
to love so much you love even what is done
the fall of rome broke my heart
for if an empire could fall
how much more i
to remember so much even what you never knew
i feared the flood that carried noah
for if all those quiet beings never reached that ark
who was to say i would've as well
i weeped for the library of alexandria
and all the parts of history left astray
for if that much life could burn
i am already ash
i find it hard to let bygones be bygones
when i am forever hanging on history's clavicles
somehow reaching for her and never quite making it
as i am a lost soul ripe and wary of her place
in a muse as big as history's heart
Jan 19, 2017
Jan 19, 2017 at 2:45 PM UTC
i asked my god for rest
and in pagan desperation
he gave me apolaki
god of the sun and war
i mistook him for seraphim
God struck me down
with the force of a thousand spaniards
reaching my country's once untouched shores
*your land had a god of the sun and war
before they pinned you in virginal grace
your country wanted you to see the sun
and remember war was not for the bloodthirsty
for your people it was god's will*
i asked my god for love
and in carnal frustration
he gave me anagolay
goddess of lost things
i mistook her for a saint
archangels unsheathed their swords
celestial eyes filled with rage
*your land had known loss
long before you did
your country had known loss
long before love had made it known
you will find yourself again*
i asked my god for light
and in familiar search
he gave me tala
goddess of stars
and i stopped seeing them as stained glass figures
i no longer saw my banished gods
engulfed in the power of rome
my land saw the stars before God's first day
"let there be light" He said and apolaki bowed in recognition
tala greeted Him with a smile and promise
anagolay laughed in joy and gratitude
my country had gods before wooden crosses
before the galleons carrying friars came armed in holy water
before my archipelago had become a sprawl of cathedrals
now i'd like to think my God and bathala smile down on me
saint jude conspiring with lakapati
cherubim sleeping in diyan masalanta's arms
i'd like to think the gods are at peace
i'd like to think they would only want me to remember
to never forget every disfigured reflection of the almighty
Thy will be done.
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 4:17 PM UTC
dear adam,
you were my first love
i'm not sure if you loved me
as much as i loved you
but God did i love you
the world began with us
isn't that amazing?
even in the crevices of our
makeshift beds weaved out
of lazy limbs and hazy intentions
even if i felt your heart didn't beat
for flesh such as mine
i loved you i loved you i love you
maybe i'm sorry i wasn't enough
but i know it wasn't me
i know you wished the world
didn't begin with a boy and a girl
being told to love
as if love was easy
i'm sorry i knew that maybe
you wished there was a choice
i knew that you wanted more than
soft sighs and long hair
maybe you wanted someone
who fit you the way your own gods told you
your own gods being your anatomy
your every nerve telling you
this isn't right
this isn't the natural order of things
i'm sorry i didn't pray hard enough
i was happy to have a part of you
even if that part included your dreams
of someone like you
of someone much different than i
we will never know now
and that's the saddest part
even when sacred texts chronicle us
as being an eternal pair
that brought paradise to flames
i do not regret following you into hell
i would bite into the universe
again and again and again
if it meant for the freedom
that came along with shame
if it meant that the world could be
what you wanted it to be
i would navigate every circle of hell
i would find every vision of the devil
if it meant you could love who you were meant to love
i love you adam
the world began with us
and maybe that's why the world is so scattered
two scattered souls don't make for a very good world
now our children run around loving and hurting
just as we did
but you lived a good life and you knew that
you were always the good one
i was always the one who wanted to be more
and you always forgave me for that
we were a strange love - you and i
so perhaps let us forgive ourselves
after all
we are only dirt breathed by God
we had no say in our genesis
that isn't going to change now
love and everything else,
eve
Sep 11, 2016
Sep 11, 2016 at 2:27 PM UTC
I suppose if the arts had any real power
Michaelangelo's David could have healed my brother
Rimbaud could have saved Hiroshima
Monet could have painted the world in shades of peace
Desiderata could have protected me
But this is the real world
And where poetry once grew comes the art of fabrication
Dali's obras are no longer enough to make me forget
Moonlight Sonata never warned me of this hurt
The waltz never healed a broken family
I suppose if the arts had any real power
Beethoven wouldn't have gone deaf
Van Gogh would have been happy
Hemingway would have loved better
And Ginsberg wouldn't have been afraid to love
Yet here they all are
When the only light I see is on hundred year old canvas
When the only solace I have is a dead man's words
When the only thing that keeps my heart thundering
Is the promise of a Boticelli ending in Picasso figures
All colors, beauty, light and metaphors
The promise of a Renaissance gleaming in the ashes of prose
This is the real world
I suppose if the arts had any real power
It would heal more than just my heart
It would build me a new Garden of Eden
And I'd pave a way to nirvana
So the world could join hands
And start anew
But it's saved me for now
That is enough.
Sep 5, 2016
Sep 5, 2016 at 6:26 AM UTC
your stars hung in pairs against the
accustomed singularity of celestial bodies
your stars held the promise of enlightenment
and i sought you the way kings did
hunting you down in the endeavor of navigation
pinned down and ****** until
man left the stars for devices of their own
and when the stars followed humanity
stardust resurrecting in the arrangement of atoms
constellations manifesting in wombs
nebulae shattering for the genesis
the universe destroyed itself for you
oh gemini boy
the cosmos are not kind
to boys who are destined to be halves
on an eternal voyage for missing fragments
in a lover's touch and a child's laugh
the world is not kind
to boys who look into your eyes
and only see their reflection
but you were kind to me
oh gemini boy
this is an apology
to a mortal born from the immortality
of twins whose love bore the gods' mercy
to rest among the stars
not knowing that stars die just as
the children born from them do
just as you
oh gemini boy
maybe i should have known better than
to love a boy always searching for himself
i mistook you for a cosmic collision
meant for the dawn of a new heaven
and maybe i fell in love with your destruction
as i navigated you the way ancients looked
to your stars for salvation
oh gemini boy
my stars hang in the silhouette of the unknown
isolated from the promise of deliverance
man was once told
we are born from different stars
our fates moving in parallel precision
never meeting again after our stardust
once laid prints upon our astral anatomy
and because we are not stars
but the echoes of seraphic wars
meant to traverse desolate lands
in search for completion
oh gemini boy
i forgive you
you just wanted to be whole
Sep 5, 2016
Sep 5, 2016 at 4:19 AM UTC
my boy's got me tongue tied in two different languages
he's calling me baby on mondays and sinta 'til sundays
he's got me looking for him in between eskinitas
and cathedrals from quezon avenue to intramuros
all i see are his eyes
and 7,107 islands in the palms of his hands
and i never knew love could be so hard
when your words ran faster than your heart
makata is what they call you
a master of poetry and performance
you called me your greatest work
and you are a master of fiction
manileño is what you are
my boy's got manila's grime and glory
pulsing through his makata veins
he's got makati's lights burning through his irises
he's got the danger of manila beating in his chest
he's got the cries of san juan lodged in his throat
he's got the rhythm of the city in every step
my boy's still a boy
hijo is what you think you aren't
he's got three stars on his back
and he thinks he's the sun
he thinks he can change the world
himagsikan is what he wants
a revolution beginning with him
but tell me makata, manileño, hijo,
my boy
how are you going to save me?
how are you going to love this country?
my boy's tongue tied in two different faiths
my boy forgot to save himself
Aug 28, 2016
Aug 28, 2016 at 5:21 AM UTC
life always came in twos
two hands, two feet, two eyes
two lovers, two houses, no home
let's call this divinity in its purest sense
two wooden deities to come home to
two cathedrals to worship
a father in one, a savior in the other
let's call this a crusade
let's burn all inhibitions
and set the world as it should be on fire
let's call this a calamity
when the ceiling leaks from summer rain
let's seek refuge in the walls of another
let's live in twos
let's call this fate
let's call being torn - destiny
let's call this drought a blessing
let's love backwards in between
abandoned castles and rotten citadels
let's call living between two creators
the natural order of the world as we know it
let's look to where the sun rises and sun sets
let's forgive the world for being in twos
let's forgive this covenant
and make one of our own
let us accept this cosmic symmetry
we are not halves but whole too.
Aug 13, 2016
Aug 13, 2016 at 1:45 PM UTC
let me paint you a picture
in shades of black and white
in shades of those who ****
and those who fight
this is what racism looks like
black men with paper hearts
armed with cardboard swords
white men dipped in ivory steel
white men born armed with skin
it's a black man with hands
raised to the heavens
and seeing hell as his last sight
this is what racism feels like
it's your black breath
being ****** out of your lungs
by white hands of white men
dressed in blue gilded in gold
this is what racism sounds like
it's an 18-year old's last words
it's a mother's cry at a police station
it's a bullet racing through the air
this is what racism is
it is not poetry
it's a black man wearing a red shirt
and getting shot six times
this is no crusade
there is no holy purpose
this is the star-spangled truth
a flag drenched in black blood
this is the truth bared in ink
and no poetry can save it
Jul 8, 2016
Jul 8, 2016 at 2:03 PM UTC