Onward, soldier.
Onward.

That’s what they all
tell me, but
let me
slow down for a moment.
There’s a little something I gotta
say,

Thank you.

To that swing set in Greenhills Music Studio
San Juan City,
without you,
I’d never have learned that sometimes
it’s the other way around—
feet in the sky and head on the ground.

Mrs. Arambulo, the swing set’s owner,
who made sure I was well versed in
sonatinas and arpeggio scales
before I found out they’d already made
a piano that didn’t need tuning, and

Ma, who’d test my memory by
asking me if I
could recite
whole paragraphs at age four,
she’s why I remember things like
the smell of pilmeni,
the color of our first house’s carpet,
and nine page spoken word poetry,

to everyone behind that old kids’ show, Bayani,
watching it in my
second grade HEKASI class
would bring me to tears each time — no kidding,
you all paved the way for my homeland’s history
to make its home in my heart,

my English teachers from
sixth all the way to eleventh grade,
who all believed and still believe in the words I put down on paper
and spew out on dark stages armed with imagery and the Spirit,
you made me fall deeper in love with the way words can be waves
or flames,

Dad, who taught me
to climb mountains, to read books,
to let myself run free among the nations
but to always remember to leave a part of my heart at home,

to the four little boys I met in Hong Kong,
if we meet again, I owe you a better explanation to your question,
“Why do you dance?”
thank you for asking me that, and I’m sorry for my cowardly answer back then
but I’m braver now, and
I promise it’s for more than just fun or exercise,
it’s for this God I hope you get to know,

and to every Philippine history teacher I’ve ever had,
keep teaching like that,
we need more young ones who’d be willing
to die for their homeland,
you taught me that there is so much more to this country
than its own people tell me, so
burn on.
and make sure they catch fire.

Onward, soldier.
Onward.*

I’m not sure where I’m headed,
but I’d rather be uncertain of the road ahead
than forget
where
I started.
I’ve told you mine, now

tell them yours.

It may seem insignificant
and it makes no difference.
Nothing has changed, I
still stand sentential to
my own heart.
But somehow my pen feels
lighter in hand, my words
sound softer in ear,
they look brighter on the page
and all because you read them.

In a room full of people I thought I'd met,
But fell in love because I lost a bet.
All these people, so many strangers,
Amazing that my family could be so many different dangers.
At least I have a soul to rely upon,
How can all the others be so far gone?
--Emily Rutledge

Still searching.
Not finding truth.
Forgetting how to spell.
Longing to dwell
In the sadness of my soul.
Forever reaching
For someone who is not there.
Remembering a youth-like
Resemblance of myself
That long ago conquered the world.
Past memories fading.
Distant, reversed thought and feelings
That life will not be my escape.

                            ...sm ((11.23.14)

I find my mother in the strawberry field
Not far from the river, kneeling in the dirt

the sun beats down her back
gray hair ruffling in a hot wind

It hasn’t rained in a month
and the earth is an old woman’s face,
cracked with longing

I kneel beside her, our hands on the dusty earth
This earth that she has dug every spring
kneeled upon every summer

Barefoot and sun burnt, plucking ripe red fruit
For pies and jams

Juice-stained lips and tired backs
My mother and her mother, on the porch
Sipping Sherry in sunsets of July’s and Augusts, year after year
Comparing blisters, freckles, wrinkles, lives
Buckets of strawberries overflowing in the kitchen sink

This year the strawberries are withered
*****, red raisins on my tongue
That taste bitter and sharp

I watch my mother, keening softly on the ground
Her heart peeled open and raw

I whisper to her, The dead don’t live very far away

Her swollen grey eyes search the field across the river
As if she expects to see Grandma standing there
Waving, mouthing soundless words on the air

I know when it’s her turn to change worlds, it will be me,
Kneeling here, in the sun’s bright assault
My own daughter by my side,
Witness to this grief,

Her soft, comforting voice, telling me,
The dead don’t live very far away.

Slow slowly time evades.
I can't escape the night
Or the feelings raging inside
So I muster through a bottle of wine
While my soul silently cries.
I continue along my way,
Content with the knowledge
That nothing is certain,
Ever ready to pull at my own curtain.

                                        ...sm

If you ever get close
to the fork in a path,
wander through the tectonics
that diverged the road
in the first place.

Every pixel of your being
is animated. Even the unlit
trap doors leaving pockmarks
on your mind's landscape
possess colors with no name.

Who knew electronic and acoustic
were just estranged family all along?
GENRE is a manmade affectation--
music appreciation for Jingoists.

If they feed you a raindrop,
swallow the entire ocean.

I am bored to death
Of this desire to play with
The heart of human child
For it has never given me  
Much amusement.

I am bored to death
And my soul, empty;
My soil vessel broken
When I wished to mend the splits
Lingering, lingering in your heart
Yet you stood up
Without my embrace.

I am bored to death
In this small town owned
By Mother Solitude where
Only angels speak to me,
Where I am hurt by my fault
My fear
My grace I have disdained;

I am bored to death
Of death; for the question repeated
For the blames I have done
For regrets, come at last
Redemption, sinned like ballad

I am bored to death
Of death
Whether it be hell;
Or heaven of days—
One I shall go
by the end of the day.

The wild bee reels from bough to bough
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,
Now in a lily-cup, and now
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
In his wandering;
Sit closer love:  it was here I trow
I made that vow,

Swore that two lives should be like one
As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,
As long as the sunflower sought the sun,—
It shall be, I said, for eternity
‘Twixt you and me!
Dear friend, those times are over and done;
Love’s web is spun.

Look upward where the poplar trees
Sway and sway in the summer air,
Here in the valley never a breeze
Scatters the thistledown, but there
Great winds blow fair
From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,
And the wave-lashed leas.

Look upward where the white gull screams,
What does it see that we do not see?
Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams
On some outward voyaging argosy,—
Ah! can it be
We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!
How sad it seems.

Sweet, there is nothing left to say
But this, that love is never lost,
Keen winter stabs the ******* of May
Whose crimson roses burst his frost,
Ships tempest-tossed
Will find a harbour in some bay,
And so we may.

And there is nothing left to do
But to kiss once again, and part,
Nay, there is nothing we should rue,
I have my beauty,—you your Art,
Nay, do not start,
One world was not enough for two
Like me and you.