in a dimly lit computer shop*.  

Hacker?
*no. ****** of infidel inboxes.

Wow. Computer genius
lucid dreamer, green-horn.

Mystic?
poet.

A lover then?
no. just a hacker of heart,
a  forsaken grass.

when every morning
the things that used to sooth
exhausted heart  
and hands become unwelcome
stalkers that assault
the mind like smog
and fumes bathing Manila;

when the obnoxious cycle
of age-old lies and greed
grows stronger every minute,
where can one find deliverance?

or is there such thing as deliverance
anymore? refuge of pen from pain?  
but it only accentuates the misery;

the faster the words
populate the page, the deeper
the memory stabs the heart;
yet, is there any other way
than this catharsis?

No safer shelter than the trigger.  
Training and trenches teach him: ****
Or get killed. So he masters the skill. He kills
Mosqitoes and cockroaches. He kills
Rats, cats, and chickens. One day he traps

A trembling pup. Gripping a dagger, he grabs
The dog’s nape and rips open its neck.  Warm
And sweet as wine – the blood.  And for blood
He craves. He strangles a suspected rebel before
His pregnant wife. Not a whimper escapes from her

Mouth. Her soul seethes as her eyes clasp the last gasp
Of  a baby lying between her legs – six months
In her womb. He ends her anguish by feeding her
Bullets.  He hacks the neck of  the moribund

Husband. He hangs the head on a pole and displays it
To rot  on the street. And for more blood his heart  
Aches.  He orders his men to burn the village of Las Navas
And shoots everyone that runs.  He chomps off
The ear of a poet and cracks open her skull. Her brain,

His dip. And he feasts on his skill. Until one twilight
A wayward bullet snatches the trigger from his finger,
Finds its nest in his chest. He marvels at how deep
His blood darkens, how fast his blood clots, how tight
His blood clings to life. Then he hears faint footfalls coming,  

Merging with the droning stream. Figures familiar to him,
Bare and brown as the earth  weave a web of shadows
Over his body. And he waits for their hands to carry his own law
Down his skull. But something heavier befalls –
Gazing at the sky for the first time,  stunned by the bleeding

Colors of the twilight, he glimpses a pair of cupped
Hands dripping life into his wound. Into his trembling lips.

cast
                a stone
                       into the      sea
           and see
                    how the salt
gasps
              into a   gaping

wound.

    don’t blink;
it heals quicker
   than a wink.
                       not even its froth
can glance
at the magic.

last night
i dreamt of home –

as my soles kiss
the verdant hill
where i used to nurse
my bruised knees
and broken kites

the moon sings

and my shadow dances
with the blades of grass.

Salvador devotes the rest of  his life
praying to save the world from hunger and war
and pestilence.

He preaches to the  beggars: ignore
hunger, thank God for the beauty of this smog-
infested sky where the moon and the stars
and the fireflies succumb to the blasts of  neon
lights and flares of profit.  

He preaches to the beggars:  endure  
life as you sleep in pavements among blots
of bubble gum and dirt and spit and morsels
of  pity. This hell tempers your faith.

He preaches to the beggars: learn
the ways of gadflies -- know with pinpoint precision
where to look for carcass to feast on.

But the beggars gather away from Salvador’s
prayers. Cradled by  their pus and grime
and  lice and love of  life;  with their hard-bitten  
fingers and sermon-broken eardrums and
bleeding hearts, they
heave the birthing of their own salvation.

Your teacher’s wrath
bleeding in your  poem
crashes your heart;

Your teacher’s blood
throbbing in your poem
crashes your soul.