Lives intertwined.
You are the flower that blooms,
amidst turmoil.
On azure skies of my morning,
you’re there.
Dawn welcomes you with fervor.

Intertwined lives.
You are a flower that blooms,
amongst great men, great lives.
Though sundown paints blood, spews out false promises
You’re there, unmoving.
Crepuscular creatures sing till dusk bows its head.

Death’s kiss is nothing.
Softness of your lips, fountain of youth
kissed by Death.
Counts,  3, 2, 1. Then you’re gone.
“No, I’m here,” say you.
“Hear me, I’m here”. Twice.

A child,  I see in that diaphanous veil.
Old age is nothing. We mastered it,
time and again, time.
Zephyr carries your smile, laughter, whispers
to me, on my rocking chair, cradling,
Truth lifting me,
“Yes, I heard you”.
“That’s why, I’m here”.
“I heard you”. Thrice.

Lives intertwined, intertwined lives.
Nothing is forever, but our love
Like that flower:
Eternal, undying.

Virtue in waiting:
Patience is tested, again,
hair cut, then go home.

’P’s don’t **** people.
Golds, gunmen do it for them.
Or, they let them die.

Can you hear them?
Yes, they are crying.
Can you see them?
Yes, the farmers, yes.
No, I mean,
The blood, the blood.
Each grain is pregnant.
With blood, with blood.
No! let’s fill the rice fields.
Let’s plant bullets.
No, with blood, with blood.
When will they learn?
Why? Is there something to learn?
Why is there something to learn?
Why, is there something--
They can no longer learn.
They can no longer hear.
They can no longer see.
Why? I demand an answer!
Why do I demand an answer?
Why?
You killed them.

We, three children,
bound by that gossamer of a weaving.
Oh, Mama’s moon.
“I’ll cook one for each of you, my triumvirate.”

“One I give to you, my Oldest”.
She clasps it to her heart.
The tide rises,
men fall.

“To you Middle One, this.”
She tinkers the heart that made it.
The world bleeds,
men fall.

What of mine?
To oblivion it is: I will stash.
I, Older than my grandmother, and to her.
But Oblivion’s easy,  a fish caught mine.

Mama sung, we slept.
“Hush, my dear triumvirate, tomorrow
we’ll cook again.”
Crescent smiles formed our lips.
Three moons, crushed to smithereens;
And so was her sanity, and ours.

The circle of life:
Rays of the sun
burnt the santol leaves that were
Dried, red, brown, in a mound
Acrid, pungent.
Jumping crustaceans play with
Sige-sige, puyo, fishes;
Screeching of kikik, on the background
That winged insect, luminous wings before
Trapped that kitten on Alaska can, 370 mL
I see the abandoned casing with a hacked back:
Red, brown, dried, clasping
the bark of that old mahogany tree,
Or santol, leaves
A mark on that childhood memory:

Mother screams
“Go home!”
Arms akimbo
You boil that tower of beer crowns and eat you will!, later
Sweats, sweltering sky
She’s towering.
***'s rim, circled, I opened.
Ah, the circle of life!

Oh gentle wind, kiss my beloved with these words:
Rainbow adorns the sky,
to pave my way
straight to the heart.

That the rain pattering, blotting the windowpane
are my tears.

Distance carved between us.

The thunder, hear!
I’m fighting with the gods,

The lightning that fetters me
Will unbound.

What’s impossible for two hearts unrelenting,
both love tempered by truth.

Together, we live love eternal.