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Dec 2023 · 96
Epitaphs
The sun & why lilies are at peace
in its passing.
The sea & where it keeps
all of the fallen stars.
The trees & the names
we named them with
for our children to call them by.
Questions like,
would it lead me to a *** of golds, or
would I stand before fields of forsythias
on the chance that I'd follow
where this rainbow ends.
The moths & what draws them into
the flame of the wavering candlelight
as we read verses in fluttering pages
of books we will close for a long while.
The ones we leave behind
for the ones who would also soon go
without us.
The stones by the flower beds
we mark with sorrow & love.
Their names we will hum like aubades
for skylarks to warble on glades
even doves can never reach.
What for do all these we bound ourselves with
in the transcendent wake of time
tell us of the meaning
of life?
Feb 2021 · 977
The Wildflower Reminisces
reminiscing youβ€”

back to the dawn when you unclothed all of the petals

so you can see what kind of love
he's made of & if he can
make the same love with you;

he would want to feel anytime again every touch
that scorched his skin that gave him
the wintry chill of fire

when you breathed him in it felt like an undaunted caress
of sea breeze to his soul & he carelessly
opened to your stranglehold
unafraid to die but also unafraid
that it was how it feels to be alive

like a sea on full tide
you love to drown whatever is on your hands;

wildflowers blossomed in the silent breaking of dawn
when he surrendered to you
by the rural seaside where
you plucked him

into stenchless strips that you laid on his palms when you were ready to leave with feelings he can't keep
& give,

strips you can never put back
once you unclothe a flower
of everything;

π‘«π’Šπ’… π’šπ’π’– 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 π’Šπ’•, you asked him with a gaze that

would make him want to be with you
but wildflowers don't belong to the sea

𝑨𝒓𝒆 π’šπ’π’– π’“π’†π’‚π’…π’š 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 π’π’π’˜, you held his hand

& he's suddenly desperate to fall in love
that before you could ask, he lets you go;

this time by the seaside, it's sunny without you; with eyes closed
he stares into the blue
wondering where would he be now

β€”if he hadn't said no.
when a one-night stand finally happens between two people who are more than just friends but less than being lovers
#bl
Feb 2021 · 594
Haiku
πšŠΒ Β πšπšŠπš‹πšŽπš‹πšžπš’πšŠ
πš‹πšžπš›πšœπšπšœΒ Β πšœπš˜πšπšπš•πš’Β Β πš’πš—Β Β πšŠΒ Β πšŒπš’πšπš’
πš˜πšΒ Β πšœπš”πš’πšœπšŒπš›πšŠπš™πš’πš—πšΒ Β πšœπšπšŽπšŽπš•
A π’•π’‚π’ƒπ’†π’ƒπ’–π’Šπ’‚ is a flower I really am fond with because of its delicate paperlike petals; in the rural downtown where I used to live, these are common flowers that come in a variety of colors. But here in the city it mostly grows as a flower-tree. The one I saw the day I made this haiku was that with pink blossoms, by the sidewalk & near the pedestrian lane. As I was waiting for the green light, I remembered there were just buds the last time I glimpsed on it but most of those buds have blossomed into pink bells around that time already. And in the backdrop were the city skyscrapers. It just struck to me how such imagery can be so poetic too. Thinking of a very delicate-looking flower to open not to a rural meadow, or the seaside, but instead in a bustling city where indifference is an element of survival to a life that's as hard as steel.

Haiku1[290121]
Jan 2021 · 188
The Lotus Beneath The Ice
the midnight wind howls

a petal is plucked
from the lotus' heart

it drifts away

the reflection of the moon
snow-white
on the frozen pondβ€”

illuminates
the lotus beneath the ice

it's stonecold lonely
when you're only a touch away
but we're forever apart

when there's no ripple anymore
but blossoming thorns of ice;

as the midnight wind lulls

the last shred of hope fluttered
from the frozen, sullen heart

it withers away

across the sky-deep, empty hollow
to the infinite darkness beneath

scentless

& snow-white
I hope I have sufficiently portrayed the imagery I wanted to express here.
Jan 2021 · 196
Diamonds
your wounds glistened in the moonlight

the pain wreathed the shards of a glass heart
all together & the depth of the fall
was enough to break the wings of an angel
into pieces

but as the hope inside you crumbles into ashes
while all of the feathers slip away from you
into flames & smokes
will you find a moment to close your eyes

look at how we were made to fall
so we could find peace in the pain

would you listen so you could see deep down
there's a diamond now
of what used to be a shattered hollow

β€”it's fire is burning you back to life

as you bathe in the warmth of all the blood
your wounds glistened like starlight

so why don't you show the night sky
that in its darkest
diamonds bleed the brightest
& in the darkness
something it can never have back
is reborn

why don't you show all of the stars
who's the brightest
how gracefully you can burn
for freedom;

when they finally know
what their ever-burning fire can defy
they will fall

because the gravity of beauty is cruel

but broken angels, with the cost of our wings
these hearts of diamond is why we're
unbreakable people

so what's there to fear in falling

we're not as gorgeous as the stars
without all of our scars;

without loving the fire that burns us
it would turn us into ashes
Oct 2019 · 198
~
~
arrow-sharp
thousands
from a shallow sky
my arms
couldn't have been
any vast
for the hollow
inside

β€”long drops of rain
Aug 2019 · 466
β€”
You look through the mirror
through yourself, β€”smile
say you're amazing
say you're marvelous & kind
when it doesn't work
and you couldn't find
clench your pulse & break
that glass of deceit
you are more when
you're broken
& you are already beyond
breaking.
Aug 2019 · 581
-
-
the pond moth flaunted its wings
in the remorseless water
wider than it would
when in the meadow sky
there dead-white it laid
like an opened orchid
just a fragment of another unfinished poem in my notebook
Aug 2019 · 211
Mother Remember
the more I cry, the more
I miss you mother
but I wonder if you are
crying just as the same
how I wish the warm tears
weren't for a broken nest
breaking again
how much longer
would we have to endure
mother, remember
when you said falling stars are sorrowed angels with
hollowed wings and
broken hearts?
β€”help me
Aug 2019 · 240
_____
In love,
there are no pedestrian lanes.
β€”β€”β€”β€”
Aug 2019 · 215
I
I
ʷᡃ˒ ᡃ˒ ˑᡉ˒˒ α΅—α΅’ ΚΈα΅’α΅˜
ᡃ˒ Κ°α΅’Κ· ᡐᡘᢜʰ
ΚΈα΅’α΅˜ ʷᡉʳᡉ
α΅—α΅’ ᡐᡉ
.
✿
Aug 2019 · 477
Fireworks
the fireworks trapped in his eyes
freed by the tears rustling
dried out within me
spark by dying spark
all had fell the same
& here we are tonight, one
not-long-ago night
we were here
you looked through me
as if I'm an everbright light
& our firefly hearts
ignited into the wildest
of fireworks
we surrendered
all our withheld lights
to a shallow sky
the way you faded shadow-dark
in the stonecold
of a hollow fire
while I'm still here
we're but back here
where we fell in love
then out of it & now
I look like the brightest light
running out of you
we were but just mere men
who fell in love it was
when we fell in love
that we fell in love only to tell
goodbye
Just this for now. I'm still trying to contemplate.
Aug 2019 · 297
β€”
I thought I saw
a seven-petaled periwinkle
until two fell off
& flew up
into a π‘π‘’π‘‘π‘‘π‘’π‘Ÿπ‘“π‘™π‘¦.
Aug 2019 · 201
β€”
I know you have to say goodbye
to me one day
but that's okay.
I didn't ask for you to stay
anyway.
Aug 2019 · 289
Starfish
The sea
is a keeper
of lost things
from the sky.
When the tide is low, I wade in waters and fascinate myself with the starfishes
Aug 2019 · 255
β€”
The tulip blossomed
to a night sky
like mother's palms
cupping a flame
but couldn't catch a shooting star.
a fragment of an unwritten poem
Jul 2019 · 252
Letter to the Lost
Dear Janry,

You're not the most deprived.
So grasp what's left of you
and carry on.
You may be by the ocean in your eyes. But that ocean is you.
So don't drown. But dive deep.
And breatheβ€”
breathe through you.
Don't pray to wake up in a different morning because it will always be the same sun.
Someday you'll be in a sky of
flower trees when time comes your wings are full.
But though you aren't there yet dreams mean your wings are starting to grow.
And though the world is running out of meadows,
You still have an open sky.
So hope
because the world will not change for you.
That is why the lack of wonder gives butterflies the liberty to fly.
And if you feel like you don't know who you are anymore,
just remember that the greatest part of the walk is losing the path.
For sometimes, somehow
you have to lose yourself
to be found.

Love,
The Universe
an open letter ~
Jul 2019 · 258
~
~
Sometimes I wake up in a morning of deep-orange
peach burnt sunrise skies
only to see a stranger
in the mirror
with eyes that
don't translate his soul
anymore.
Jul 2019 · 472
~
~
On moonburnt bays
He sat with his very shadow.
The illuminating light crept
And pierced him deep
And the shadow he wasβ€”
was a ghost within.
Jul 2019 · 261
°°°
I was a moonburnt shadow
under stars
burning like a dying ember
in the darkest of the dark.
random
Jul 2019 · 355
°°°
Jul 2019 · 7.3k
Duyog/Accompaniment
[Cebuano]

Ikaw ang bahandi
dugay ko nang gihandum
Ikaw ang bituon
Sa ngit ngit kong baybayon

Ikaw lang akong
akong higugmaon
Ikaw lang ako
Ako matinud-anon

Ikaw akong hangin
Ikaw akong ulan
Ikaw akong langit
ug ang akong kalibutan

Ikaw lang akong higugmaon
Ikaw lang ako
Ako matinud-anon

Ikaw akong gahapon
Ikaw akong karon
Ikaw akong kanunay
Pulong ko tinud-anay
Kasing-kasing paminawa
dinuyugan ning gitara
wa ka nag inusara
kanimu nahigugma.
Ikaw

Ikaw ang katam-is
Kalipay na walay sama
Ikaw ba nasayod?
sa likod ning pahiyum

Ikaw lang akong
Akong higugmaon
Ikaw lang ako
Ako matinud anon

Ikaw akong gahapon
Ikaw akong karon
Ikaw akong kanunay
Pulong ko tinud anay
Kasing-kasing paminawa
dinuyugan ning gitara
wa ka nag inusara
kanimu nahigugma.

Tagohala na gibati sa akong kinabuhi
Ikaw lang ang bulawan na
gitipigan sa akong dughan
Mahanaw man ang adlaw
Magsubo man ang buwan
Dili ka gyud talikdan
Ug di gyud pasipad an.

Ikaw......


[English]

You are my treasure
I've ever wished for
You are the star
of my dark coasts

You are who I will
I will love
You are who I am
I am truthful.

You are my wind
You are my rain
You are my heaven
and my only world

You are who I will
I will love
You are who I am
I am truthful.

You are my yesterday
You are my now
You are my always
My words are ever true
Listen to the heart
Accompanied by this guitar
You are not alone
I am in love with you.
You

You are the sweetness
A one-of-a-kind euphoria
Do you even know?
Behind this smile

You are who I will
I will love
You are who I am
I am truthful.


You are my yesterday
You are my now
You are my always
My words are ever true
Listen to this heart
Accompanied by this guitar
You are not alone
I am in love with you.

The mystery I feel in my
life
You're the only gem
I hold dear in my chest
The sun may even die
Even the moon would cry
I'd never turn my back to you
And I would never hurt you.

You......
Just being random.
A simple Cebuano song Duyog by Jewel Flores which melody melts my heart everytime. Please listen to it if you can. Kind regards ~
Jul 2019 · 213
The Only Difference
The leaf has holes
The sunlight comes through.
The wind rustles
The leaf falls.

The heart has hollows
He comes through.
A feeling rustles
The heart falls.

But the only difference
there is to it is that
The leaf and the heart
never ever break the same.
°°°
Jul 2019 · 582
The Anthill
What the ants built overnight
I can destroy in a minute.
What the ants teach in a second
I can never learn in a lifetime.
°°°
Jul 2019 · 279
One July Afternoon
A sparrow flying free
blossoms before it's shot.
It falls like a flower from a tree.
Then the petals were feathers
warm with blood.

Then maybe that is happinessβ€”
always a sadness
away.
Jul 2019 · 365
Pyromaniac
Man starts dreamingβ€”
greedy dreaming.
He begins to burn
a different kind of fire.

His heart like an ember
can be fiery and fervent
can burn a silhouette
a shadow in love
a ghost in grief
all in his deep shades
of crimson blue.

Here he is
here he's been
here he will be
burning memories–
photographs and things in pages
curling into black
the stench of obliviun
is one with the smoke
that is how he builds
a different kind of fire.

Plunged his hand
it shines in his very eyes
dancing gracefully
like a wild gloriosa
rustled by the winds
restlessly,
like a scarlet swan
in a lake of stonecold ashes,
as if the only thing at peace
in a holocaust of memories.
Then stares back
before it sways back
into being the ordinary flame
it was.

If he would listen
the fire has a pulse
a flicker beat
almost like his.

The flame did not burn him
as if it has always been
a part from within
as if he was made out of it
as if it was made out of him.

He felt the soul of the fire.
It's pulseβ€”

felt like home.
Pyromania: the obsessive desire to set fire to things
Jul 2019 · 733
°°°
Sometimes the questions
are already the answers.
Jul 2019 · 288
Parting Time
But I wonder what you feel
as we left apart,
back to backβ€”
only falling leaves in between.
to the ones who can relate ~
Jul 2019 · 414
Grimheart
Even a full moon would shatter unto the surface of
a dark, deep sea.
Then what light could go through
when a deeper darkness
is in me?
On a bus late at night, while the fullness of the moon warped as it reflected on the sea, I think of the darkness in every one of us.
Jul 2019 · 420
Starfishes
Mother look.
Maybe I know where
all the fallen stars have gone
and where the falling stars go.

Maybe in the undersea,
becoming who they really
want to be.
°°°
When wading on low tides, I never forget to hunt for newface starfishes and take photographs of them for keepsakes.
°°°
This concept may be out of the box and/or bizarrely new. The metaphor or maybe the connection of a star and a starfish in this might be not as striking but I hope it does leave a good impression. At the same time, I wrote it in my perspective as a child so to best reminisce how I used to think about falling stars and starfishes. It's like writing a provoking memory, to me. And I did use to imagine the falling stars and starfishes (both things fascinated me) metaphysically connected and related when I was young. It's not a concept I've made up now, it's a thought that really came in mind at the very moment I was at sea with my mother in my childhood. It's a memory I really want to honor and write something about. Somehow, I also wanted to convey this concept as something that would be bizarrely relatable to me, something I, or if by chance, you as well, can reflect on in terms of my/your relationship to my/your mother. On the first line, "Mother look", I wanted it to convey a sense of expression entirely describing those instances when I tried to explain myself or something I think about to my mother and seldom end up in arguments. Then the thought of relating falling stars to starfishes can be childlike. I think of it in a sense that it is a figure. It's exactly what a mother would commonly think when she argues with her child over something, she would think what her son/daughter (in his/her teenage) thinks and wants is childish/childlike. Most times, mothers negate and say what they want for their sons and daughters even if it isn't what their children really want. So that is why I had to impose it in this poem, because it states something clichΓ© but still very relatable. On another note, the fallen and falling stars are both figures that signify the sons and daughters who dared of choosing their own path in very hope of a better definition of their identity and risked for a destination even in the possibility that they could be lost or broken in the process. Then the undersea would be a metaphor or a figure of the world we currently have, a world opposite to the sky, far from where the stars dwell, figuratively a place where falling stars go. But still, can be a place that can be called a home. So that's it. Enstring everything together and TA DAAAH! Lol.
°°°
On a serious note, my dear weirdos, it matters to follow our hearts and seek for answers and affirmation to questions that put us in crisis especially if identity is concerned, even if it meant that we have to not follow what our mother would assertively say, mothers are not always right. And even if it meant that we have to leave the house we dwell in and the family that we share it with. Most times it is worth the shot. We'd be there soon. It's really not like we're leaving home. Home is certainly a feeling, not necessarily a place. And home will always be within us only when we've truly found who we really are.

Pardon me for the long note. Anyway, thanks for reading. Happy Sunday. :'>
Jul 2019 · 470
[ senryu ]
I saw strangers smiled
in the wilderness of streets.
Then I missed myself.
I was just another passerby spectating the smiling lady who vends cigars and candies on the sidewalk; the smiling newspaper guy; the smiling pedestrians; the smiley subtle faces of fellow by-passers. Each smile was just painfully bright.
Jul 2019 · 215
Into a Tree
My varicose veins started to swell day by day, mother.
How do I make the pain go?

Well, periwinkles are anesthesia.
It will help you numb the pain
if you make sure to keep
the stench within.
So keep some in a bottle.
And son, from now on
Get a skindeep sunlight surgery.
And forget the tea.
I'll make you a cup of rain for the morning.
So get well soon, okay?
You better be.

Day by day
I metamorph
into a tree.
Jul 2019 · 240
The Stench of Periwinkles
The smell of periwinkles
helped me a lot when
I was a child
in a way that the stench
makes me think that the world
is just as beautiful.

The smell of periwinkles
still helps me a lot
now that I've grown and
still growing
in a way that the stench
makes me remember
how beautiful the world
used to be.
writing random childhood memories out
Jul 2019 · 408
Coastlines
I looked through the seas
with the way I look at youβ€”
skydeep and everblue.
[ Figures ]
coastline: a boundary between two people with completely different worlds.

(no matter how much you want to jump, all you could do is watch because it is a clear border where lines drawn can never be crossed)

(the coarseness of a coastline signifies the hard situation of someone who has unrequited love over a person)
Jul 2019 · 178
Shooting Star
A lilybud blossomed
into an illuminating light
as it took a leap of hope
of its last fall of life
away from the heart
of the hearth
we call sky.

An iridescent flash
in the darkest of the dark
ready to grant a wish tonight.
Jul 2019 · 704
The Introverted Boy
I wish I could fling the door open
so you'll see the window
I told you about.

We could watch theΒ street posts and tree sparrows on cable wires extending to the horizon of watercolor skyscapes
from there.

But I'm concerned of what
you would think when you'll
also see the vase and
a dead tuscan sunflower
I've plucked sometime
in a long-ago summer.
Don't worry I am not a creep.
I can even make you
some paper orchids
if you like.
I might put one on your ear
if it's fine. Just
give me some time.

Don't mind those
tattered jeans and floral socks
stenched of petrichor
and scattered like autumn leaves
all over the floor.
That's how I've been. Just
give me some time
to clean.

But then that is why
I'm all afraid
you might dislike me
for I've built up lies
and messy secrets
to hide a past
and all.
There wasn't even
a single window
on that wall.

You might not understand
I'm like a lichen-blotched tree
inside a lake of jade.
More like a
dead tuscan sunflower
inside a vase. If so
you don't have to
stay longer in my shades.
But don't just leave me
like a summer
in a while.

You might not understand
why I live
in a house of no windows.
But maybe you won't open the door.
Jul 2019 · 499
The Rainfall
A poem is a sound.
Its meaning becomes a lyric.
And if you want to feel it,
feel it like a raindrop
that ripples through your soul.
And if it's raining within now,
it's because you listened.
Jul 2019 · 427
Ephemeral
Hearts are
falling flowers.
Stars fall
evanescent
like leaves.
Rain falls
from grey skies
bluer than a waterfall.
Days do not pass.
Time just falls.
Everything around us
are falling within.
But if you're lost,
just go.
Let them fall,
just follow;
for where they do
is home.
Ephemeral [adjective]
: lasting for a very short time.
Jul 2019 · 422
[ Haiku ]
White plumerias fall
like moths fluttering the light
Of a crescent moon.
Moths started to fly over and around. I feel sleepy. I see a crescent moon. But I look at the white Plumeria flowers falling gently before everything else.
Jul 2019 · 320
A Red Leaf
If I would be born again
I'd be a humble leaf.
Leaves, when they fall in time,
do not break.
And there wouldn't be too much sadness,


but just peace.
maybe if we would really look, even the silent falling of the leaves might show us something deeper than how deep they fall unto
Jul 2019 · 278
Vagabond
You were a butterfly lost in the middle of the sea.
You were a feather silently falling with the leaves.
You were a shadow burning in the moonlight,
looking for the midnight sun.
Sometimes we're somewhere so much different looking for something. Sometimes we want something we couldn't have and want it so bad that we change into someone unknown. But does it have to be so painful to be different?
Jul 2019 · 202
[ Haiku ]
Flowers were breathing.
As I trod trees had cloudwreaths
In the mizzlemist.
Jul 2019 · 250
Woods of Obliviun
I whispered a secret
to the senescent trees
while flowers breathe through
and as toadstools eavesdropped.
Within the wintry treeshades
I peeked through
the misty oceans above
upon where stealthy Mr.Thunder
has kept on skipping and hopping
and leaping from one silver cloud
over another, where for
every leap was a growling cloud
and for each brave growl
was a silver rainfall,
but poor Mr.Thunder
still couldn't give a good chase
to his fleeing rainbow chariot,
till it had sunken deep
skyrimming in the underclouds
to the mauvy meadows where
it had always frolicked through,
and me, in the underwoods
where we had always built
wreaths of purple memories
before soaking ourselves long
in the silvery mud,
bethinking in sunken moments
to just become ghosts
with only memories
because even rainbows leave.
Thursday with blue spirits
waiting for when would
this dreamy mind alight
from looking for
where my heart has crestfallen
deep at, how I had lost it.
So I bite into the mist
of the peeking dusk.

My bluest spirit has taken it,
a secret the sleepy woods know.
Imagery from an inkheart child's perspective.
Jul 2019 · 186
Flowers For My Golliwogg
Between old trees I sowed seeds one eve
I watched them woke as warmth grew savage;
Out from the coats sprouted wreaths of leaves,
Came starry nights, welcome to teenage.
I knew sooner I could see them grow.
I could feel them dreaming from within.
I could smell an odor that I know.
The scent of teen spirit from their skin.
I wondered if they're dazzled like me
When the night skies would be filled with stars.
Were they keeping undersoil mem'ries?
Have they known of teenage being scarce?
Because I know; time will make us go.
And when all the leaves fell,
I follow.
When things make me melancholic, I go to the sea, look at the stars, and think of leaving. This poem is most especially about the reminiscence of my childhood and teenage and the memories I hold on to and live on.

— The End —