I do not ask why
babies grow old
blooming of flowers
butterflies, metamorphosis
precipitation of rain
drying of clothes
earth's rotation
revolution around the sun

Time teaches wisdom.
Wisdom is time.
Time and Wisdom will answer
And I will not ask why.

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.

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

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.

When the old man
Married the fair lady,
He sold and lost
His sense of touch.

Fifty golden calves --
For his sense’s valves.

Stardust from the skies
Were golden showers
On their banquet's eve,
Blinding old man's hands
& losing the lady's eyes.

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.

Explain it to me:
You  love  me,
Yet  you  chose  Him.

For  loving  you  is  an  Original  Sin.

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.

~~A poem for a friend trapped inside a box~~

I’m a bird, said the woman.
And so I grew my feathers,
Then Wings, then blue eyes,
Then flew so high and kissed the sky.

I’m a fish, said the woman.
And so I grew scales,
Then gills, then long blue tail.
Then swam so deep and caressed the sea.

I’m a rainbow, said the woman.
And so I leapt and reached the clouds
Then gathered colors for my clothes
From feathers, from wings, from eyes,
From skies
From gills, from tails
From oceans

Then came the man
I’m a man, said the man
A man like me
Move like a man
Like me

I’m a seed, I said
And I shrank instantly
Withered, dried
Returning to my box
Boxed the box inside a sack
Then tied the knot
Then tied to a ceiling

I’m a hope, said the seed
Waiting for the woman
To open the box inside the sack
Inside the knot inside the ceiling

Bury me, said the seed,
In silver dust, inside your palm
And in your heart I will grow.

I'm a moon.

A czarina sits a-throne
Atop my desk.

Silent yet her scent
Screams sweetly.

Bursting sun, her skin
Little bruises and spots,

Perfectly imperfect.

Sap, dried, kisses skin,
Smooth, smoothie.

Water and ice, await you
While I,  await none.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Man offers his son
instead of lamb
for Him.

The Woman offers to man
serpent's laughter
for all.

The Child offers the man
marries the woman
for himself.

The Man offers his daughters
instead of salt
for them.

The Woman offers her child
adds two men
for all.

The Child offers his brother
not salt, not lamb
for himself.

Peace be with you,
Peace be with you.

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.

The sky
Is a book

I read
At night

And open
In the morning.

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.

Or,  The Poor Man's Bread*

Three pieces
Of pandesal to begin a day.

Where’s the salt in here? I ask.

Then came three beads of sweat
Trailing my face after a walk

On three streets:
Valero, Leviste and Dela Costa.

I climb on the 9th Floor,
Of Liberty Centre Building,*
To make salt.

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.)

Last night it dawned on me
That rain and music can meld
That rain and music are one
The notes and quavers of music
Companions to patters of rain
It is your half-note
That flies me to the Moon
Your steady rhythm
Plays with me among the Stars.
And when all is done
Wake me up by your rest
And the rain is gone.

Sitting by my window
I see the grasses grow
The sun in hiding tells
It's my silence that feeds

Them.

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.

(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?

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

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.

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.

Dirham comes from Greek coin, drachma
While the Abu Dhabi man hailed from Valderrama

I looked at the paper money you gave me
Its color, a mixture of green and earth

Reminding me of El Nido’s green waters
And the earth our bare feet walked

See the eagle, the mini- Burj Al Arab!
Eagle's the keeper, the other: glass of memories

Perhaps, ten dirhams were ten little Indians
Made of us -- six, three beds and a moon, gone.

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.

Seeing things in pairs:
Two laborers waiting,
Puffing cigarettes,
Early for work.
Conversing behind the glass,
A couple sits face-to-face
At a convenient store.
Their hands, each hold a cup of coffee.
I saw a sign:
Half human, half horse.
I know I am near.
I see two “Caution” signs
Set aside, inside our building.
In my presence, the door slide
Opens, and then close.
The way I open myself
To the possibility (thus waiting)
To that day
When both our days open,
Then close.

The day I lost my voice
I did not cry
I rejoiced.

The day I lost my voice
I gained an ear
I listened.

I listened to flowers’ whispers
To bees’ chatters
To bamboos’ laughter
To children’s banters and giggles
To moon’s  cries
To sun’s admonishments

If now, you plead me: speak
Please,
Don’t cry for me
Rejoice
Gain an ear
Listen

If now, you plead me: speak
Please,
Allow my heart to do it.

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.

While I wait for the first raindrop
Of the day, you are there in the silence
Of the aquarium, placid, not moving, waiting to be seen.

While I wait for the elevator to open,
You caught my attention
By the colors of your body, neon
Blue crisscrossing the yellow
Tang of orange sprinkled on the dorsal fin, with linings of black
To a puzzle, a maze, a labyrinth

Reminding me of a cartoon movie I saw yesterday
While my nephew is being bathed
By my brother and his wife.

The blue tang finds her own parents
The gist was beyond that,  I think:
It’s about finding one’s self amidst oblivion
When our dear memory forgets
Its own memory.

The red round fruits of the tree,
where the roots I saw
hanging on its branches
yesterday,
are strewn all over the ground:
little, plump and round,
like the smile of the sun
gently breaking
to greet you.

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

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

The Child awaits the Woman's return.

The gate of the chocolate house
Opened, and its windows of truth
Were opened to all.
The speckled bird from
The sea has just arrived.
It flew around the backyard tree,
Sizing up at which branch
He will take his rest.
My eyes rove like the bird’s eye
Shifting views:
From the gate,
To the windows,
To the speckled bird,
To the sea,
To the branch,
To the tree,
And to the bird’s eye on the mirror.

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
.

Last night
I dreamt a dream that should not be dreamt
It was desire having a face
Saw two faces
One unfamiliar
One I knew


This morning
I saw my request to be a friend was accepted
Saw two common friends
One unfamiliar
One was you

Later
I read a poem
For a Japanese woodblock print
Of a woman and the two octopi
It was a dream of the fisherman’s wife.

Crepuscular creatures bow their heads to dusk,
Licking the blood of their wounds, the sun stanches
The thousand faces of the moon, waiting,
For our cries, trapped by the mountains in our west.
Hands have eyes gazing the desert of a sea,
Hands have their own odes, so don’t teach them.
Waves cradling their souls. Undulating darkness
stare at them face-to-face, black and cold.
In their town, fishes feed on lights,
While their people feed on winds, the amihan.
Fishes paraded, muted by embers of the coals.
Women, children, singing, waiting for men
to unload their boxes, those bañeras of golden fish scales,
Pull each fish, peel their scales gently, there
There, they  hide.

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

War is not a game
among chessmen
pawned into death
but to the hands
that move  them.

From the tree you curse
Came your cross

While I looked for your
burning bush, forbidden

Tree was found.

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.

I walked towards the sun
and realized,
I am the sun.

The day started with a night,
and the moon
at sun's grasp.

The night ran with the sun,
and I waited,
and was lost.

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."