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.

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?

A sudden hiss on the grass
and there she was – her eyes
plumbing the pit of my fear,
her tongue – like jealousy – licking
the distance between us. My fingers gripped
the ***’s handle, and a **** whipped
through the air; then a thud muted  
whatever she wanted to portend;  not
even a faint moan seeped
from  her mouth. My knees trembled
as my eyes cast a final kiss on her
broken skull.

gaze into me not with the eyes that fortress
a lie, just like the glint of dew that conceals
the tinge of dark in a dying petal;

gaze into me with the heart that bares
every faltering breath, just like the bud that bursts
into a flower in the silence of dawn.

there is no other choice, as long
as we long for an everbloom
of love.

How can this rage not explode? Her eyes
looking but  not seeing, glued yet
wandering.  She’s everywhere, she’s
nowhere, seeking refuge where
I don’t exist or where I
am dead or just a twig  she feeds
to the flame, blue with her
wrath. She has mastered the contours of
my anger and I still ***** along
the fence of  her defense. Isn’t silence
sweet?  Why  then the muteness  
my voice has summoned deafens  me
now? Where is the shore of this howling
sea of  reticence? How can a clever  
plan fail? – trap her in a minor
encounter.  Squeeze out from her
throat a meow to unlock her
lies, and trigger the torrent of dia-
tribes I have long nurtured.  But how
can I  bear her empty stare?  Her
frozen gaze that sets me ablaze?

Sinewed by the the ancient art
of tai chi, he forged the forces of  the universe
to lure a dreamer  into his lair. He stayed
silent as a spider; and with seamless
gliding of  limbs and fingers,
he entrapped  his prey like a moth
entangled in a cobweb. The sky
was bleeding then when she asked:  “How
can I walk  through the dusk?” “Just
follow me, I’m a pathfinder,” said
he. He whispered to her ear:  “Close
your eyes my child and trust your heart.”  
And to the tremor of  his voice he danced
her, deeper and deeper  into the night. Soon  
his lips dripped with her muffled sobs, the stench
of  his slobber drifted  into her pristine dream;
and he confessed:  “She came to me;
I’m innocent.”

Assure your child she is
safe within the confines
of your embrace; tell her  she is
free from fright within the bounds
of your  sight. Convince her  that
a voice  as sweet as hers deserves
no other ears than yours;  let her
feel that to be  free, safe, and sweet she
needs no noise, she needs not
speak. Make her believe that
silence is the air she must
breathe; then show her your candor --
cut her tongue.

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.

Every time our family comes
together,  he who gathers us drops
from our roll -- he can't  sit and chat
with us anymore. From the weight of nights
without sleep, his eyes are saved; from
the toll of vigil and funeral, his shoulders
are freed. Once again, we are united
by absence; and just like when our other kindred  
died, our wallets wail, our guts grieve. Do we need
to mention?  Everyone of us is mired in the abyss
of debt; especially that we now atone for what
we failed to give to the one we  lament. His casket
must bear our pride;  as seamless as our  keening,
biscuits, coffee, and cigarettes should stream;
on funeral's eve, the karaoke must croon from dusk
to dawn. Do we need to mention?  We mourn not
because we've lost a kin.  Death is trite. What rouses
our tears is the loss  we shall  live with back home
when we part. Luckily, it's not a disgrace to cry
in public -- our brother dear is resting in peace.  
But deep is the wound his death has left  
in our pockets. So let us all sorrow, let us sob,  let us  
weep;  well,  who can feel the real fount of
our grief?  We are mourning for our beloved dead.

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.

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

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

i’m about to retire
and i will surely miss
the blackboard
and the chalk,

the faces
and the eyes
and the hands
and the voices

of my students
who always talk
about the latest trends
in twitters and facebook

while my mouth bubbles
with poetry and revolution.

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.

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.