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547 · Oct 2015
Untitled
Jedd Ong Oct 2015
Am I not my Father’s son,
who too, touched sky and stars
and sat atop moons gawking at the
world’s birthright that tomorrow
would be his if he had only
asked?

Am I not He, who walked too
upside down shrubs, and skies,
and bushels of wood and fire and
swam through soil, digging through
water, marvelling at the glorious
ruin of His creation, how he’d
one day bring it towards light
again?

Am I not He, too of Joseph,
father of dreamers, closing
his eyes and feeling stars crackle
beneath his feet despite the Earth
burrowing his neck further beneath
desert?

Am I not He, son, of Solomon,
who worshipped in temples of gold,
robed in purple and gifted with
brilliance -  made to plot, sow
stitch and reap the fruits
of fragment kingdoms at sceptre’s
will?

Am I not He, Son of God,
nailed to crosses and sprung from
stone graves, body light as air,
heart white as snow, skin
made to glow glorious, guiding
those who wished only to see,
blinding those who thought nothing
of sight?

Am I not He, God, Your son,
who was knit bones at your
suggestion, made to stitch soul
to flesh, knelt as your soldier,
became one amongst they:
ruinous, crumbling, blinded, they,
split, and crooked, and
broken?

Am I not of You, God?
Am I not You, God?

Am I not, God?
543 · Jan 2015
Treatise on Physics
Jedd Ong Jan 2015
In the beginning
Was a reboot. God

Running his fingers
Over the 1s and 0s
Of our artificial minds
Bending

Its language
Backward. Let himself

A small grin; Einstein

Founded a theory for the way
Light bent
Through
And not

Ran
Ramrod straight
Into hardened walls.

Called it,
“Quantum,” traced,
With the tips
Of his numbers
The merciful

Fragments
Of our misshapen
Universe,
And too smiled

At our salvation.
543 · May 2015
Seymour is an Introduction
Jedd Ong May 2015
There is a Seymour in all of us - not more a fragile name but perhaps not less. We are all equally cut, strings loosened past our own internal metronomes, flashing bits of poetry past those who will listen. Or rather, those who must listen - the longer no one does the faster these strings within us snap piece-by-piece. Soon we will become balloons that float away and pop. We, leaving Earth for space. Note that poetry is not just the meter that stirs heat and snaps foot-beats within our tongues - but the needles that ***** them too.

In these poems are buried stick figures and falsified diary entries - excepts of a language wrought from our own souls. Today I wore a baseball mitt scribbled with bright green verse as to not get lost running around the diamonds. We are all, in our own way, misunderstood and that’s where I feel Seymour’s got something over us. The innate, misread poetry of our collective consciousness is pervasive in his entire life. Maybe this is less of an introduction. Less of a poem even, than a eulogy for Seymour Glass - the most delicate man who ever lived.

He threw a stone at the one girl he truly loved, as we drew stick figures.
Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters can be found here: http://www.ae-lib.org.ua/salinger/Texts/RaiseHighTheRoofBeamCarpenters-en.htm. It's not necessarily a poem, but I hope it's poetic enough to pass as one. It's been tough.
531 · Jun 2014
Untitled
Jedd Ong Jun 2014
I dream of golden nooses
And oak, glided chairs,
And a sick man shriveled up and
Wasted away shivering on top
Of a rain-soaked rooftop
With rosary in his hands
Squeezing one last prayer out
Of his blueish lips
Before heading back down
Into his bedroom.

Chinese characters tattooed
Sloppily on the
Stark white cement walls,
Words for death and dying men,
And mercy and God,
Paintbrush dipped in bright red—
Red is the Chinese color of prosperity.
Gilded gold and cedar the American one.

In frustration at the hollowness
Of his Midas touch,
At the way his hands grasp the
Cross of Jesus only for it
To turn gold in scorn,
He screams.

In anger seizes the
Rosary around his wrists
And snaps it on

His neck.
530 · Dec 2014
December 24
Jedd Ong Dec 2014
We will
Wrap
Our fingers
Around these gifts
Like ribbons,
And unknot them
And unclasp the
Thoughts
That hide beneath them,
And find the joy
That comes with
Giving.
525 · May 2015
Untitled
Jedd Ong May 2015
We are not warriors yet.
We still gaze at stars
that predate the dawning
of time - heaven-sent
crumbs bowing to Earth.

This is all that becomes of us.

Our bodies will explode.
We will chase the other off
shadows nursing our blood.
Moonlight will ground whispers
into long-drawn screams.

We, reduced to streaks.
525 · Sep 2013
Ghost
Jedd Ong Sep 2013
Outside on the park bench, her heart skips a beat- a shadow's passed by.

The crickets have thawed.
They continue to stretch their chuckling bones.

There is a key in the dark,
A woman fearing to leave the light.
Her purse has five hundred dollars.

Her car snores softly beside the sidewalks on which runners nonchalantly run, and walkers nonchalantly walk.

It is not fear that immobilizes her,
But its trailing shadow:
The fact that it left without so much as a glance,

Without so much a trace,
As if she wasn't worth threatening.
524 · Oct 2013
Untitled
Jedd Ong Oct 2013
On the wooden beds you once lay
Bloodstains remain-
A murky brown
Undoubtedly
Yours.

You paid the full price
For sinners who wouldn't
Stop

Injecting pins and needles full of
Bitterness, scorn and
Shame.

For your life
Was exchanged rusty needles and half-
Filled syringes full of
Hate—

Searing our
Eyes full of anger and mockery and—

Grace,
What have you done


You,
Stabbed to death for a
Freedom not even guaranteed,
Wounds not even cleansed,
Bones not even mended—

Murdered for me on that cross

All for the slightest glint of broken mirror,
Hoping that a shard would
Pierce

Me.
Ex. 14:14
522 · Aug 2014
Untitled
Jedd Ong Aug 2014
Two crows
Perched on an entanglement of cables:
The universe signaling her
Twisted approval—
Like barbed wire only not
As ending of things.

They stand side by side,
One mute,
And the other lame,
Both hard of hearing.

Their claws cling tightly
To the promise of an electric
Jolt—transcends mute,
Transcends lame—a message
Of life—something like
Its mathematical proof.

Two black crows sat perched
Side by side waiting
For a physics lesson:

Namely, the one that stated
For every action,
Is an equal and opposite reaction.

Their light, feathery wings
Brush against
Each other as if by
Chance.
519 · Apr 2014
Verbatim
Jedd Ong Apr 2014
Latin purifies.

And so do the other languages
That ring foreign to my ears.

And prayers sound lovelier
When they are honest.

When honestly,
There is nothing to be understood—
No silent covenant.

When "God"
Is but an uppercase letter
Uttered with the utmost clarity.

Or if not,
With the utmost sanctity.
517 · Sep 2014
Untitled
Jedd Ong Sep 2014
We will grow old,
You and me,
Grow back in time,
To where the bicycles
Were lopsided
And the streets very much
Old brick road,

With the oil lamps
And quiet nights spent
By candlelight,

With the weeping parchment
Blown to dry,
Scratched meticulously
By a dancing feather, oh

We will grow old.

And come back to the little
Park bench where we used to
Sit. Count the cracked, granite
Pillars that paint the
Pathways of the Champs Elyseé,
Or Bagumbayan,

Dance alone,
Along the Great Wall,
And sing, you and me,

With a Grand Piano and
Giant mandolin and everything.

And we will wear coats and ties
And flowing skirts
And hike our way down
To the cul-de-sacs of Venetian Manila,

Where the bridges are still
Shores of sea, on which
Young lovers, friends, students, artisans
Still comb for pearls,

Yes, indeed, we will grow old.
Jedd Ong Nov 2014
It's true, what they say:
Time turns back
In dreamland.

Hair, somehow
Thickening,

Beard,
Oddly thinning,

Belly
Obscured handily
By a small, thatched pillow.

The man

Looks clumsily
Like his father:

They share the same
Squashed nose.

But
His breaths,
They reflect not

The heavy-handed heft
Of his ancestral chest
Rising deeply,

But rather the lighter airs
Of a simpler time

Resting gently
On his eyelids.
For Saki. Hehe.
512 · Nov 2013
Open House for Butterflies
Jedd Ong Nov 2013
Maybe we should keep the doors open.

Maybe then,
The night won't seem as fearful.
The dusks.
The dawns.

Maybe,
There's really nothing to fear;
The sinister ones seek closed quarters.

If we opened our palms just a little,
They'd run

And scatter.

We should keep the cocoon
A little more broken.

Find that they
May rest their wings.
504 · Feb 2015
Midnight
Jedd Ong Feb 2015
The nightingale
Treads light
And trembling, grins;

Tread carefully
As she spreads
Her wings.
504 · Jan 2015
Reclassifying Hokkien
Jedd Ong Jan 2015
“Guttersnipe.”

Now I need clarify that I
Did a lot of white man pandering
When I told the admissions
Officers from Brown that

My grandfather’s
Language is quite
Smelly.

It isn’t.

And I am done romanticizing home
When there is nothing to.

Our language was but
Brevity,

And it got the job done and
**** I can’t
Explain all that in 150 words
That’s why I chose
“Guttersnipe”
For some dramatic effects I don’t
Know to be true.

Their language was dinner table,
And it brought food home,
And it brought smiles on faces
To kids that grew up knowing no other home,
And to men and women not knowing
Where home was and

Providing some level ground as to who what where
When how and why we were as we were:

Quietly walking,
Chinese settlers in
The Philippines.

It was our way of remembering
Who we were.

It reminded
Us that we

Weren’t greater than
Where we came from,

And that doesn’t make us
Any less great.

Hokkien is Hokkien:

My family still uses it
At the dinner table
To kick off conversations.
And pass the food.
I dramatized my college admissions essay describing where and how I grew up. Or rather ran out of words to do what I really wanted to say justice. Whatever. The point is that my life isn't as poetic or dramatic as I'd make it out to be sometimes - and that I'm still struggling to come to terms with that in the way I tell my stories. I mean, they're no less beautiful after all.

Oh, and for those who don't know - Hokkien is a Chinese dialect mainly spoken by residents of Fujian, which happens to be the origin of many Chinese-Filipinos, of which I am one.
488 · Sep 2014
Untitled
Jedd Ong Sep 2014
Somewhere
Deep inside me
I can tell you the reason
For why

Pawikans escape to the sea
Only to fiercely
Return home knowing
Imminent death—

And why minted Simoun
Returned home with weakened
Hands and shakily digs up
The remains of his young
Grave—

It's because
The heart that will not rest
Until it has cleared
Our good name
In the annals of history.

The name of a nation
Blotted with such
Scattered pride.
Paying my respects to a beloved book of mine—Day of Valor by Pauline Lacanilao.
476 · Sep 2013
Untitled
Jedd Ong Sep 2013
From the rooftops
Of my aureate balcony

I will the thunder
To scream louder.

I will the winds
To blow harder.

I will the lightning
To flash brighter,

I will the hail
To flow thicker.

The moonlight kisses
My temple

For I...

I am a stutterer.
Jedd Ong Oct 2013
I am tired.

I am tired
Of memorizing trivial things
That seem to be of no relevance whatsoever
To me.

I am tired
Of being reminded that
I am not smart enough
I am not strong enough
I am not skilled enough.

I am tired
Of being challenged:

Who am I to be a poet?
An artist?
A singer?
A student?

Who am I to have the privilege
To keep moving?
468 · Oct 2014
a reminder to life
Jedd Ong Oct 2014
remember marjorie,
and how her footsteps

pattered quietly
after the rain,

how she rarely smiled
with her lips

but always let you know
what she was up to
with her eyes.

with her, came the day.

in this darkest of nights,
i remember

the sweetness
of her laughter,

the bold redness of
her moon-like cheeks.

her sweetest
smiles come not

off wide-eared grins but
rather the slightest

twitch
of an ear,

the gentlest slant
of her lips.
oh maggie and milly and molly and may...
467 · Nov 2013
The Ropes
Jedd Ong Nov 2013
When the Life gets
Knocked

straight out
of you,

Never forget to
Trace

The knots
Hanging between

Each breath.
463 · Oct 2014
Untitled
Jedd Ong Oct 2014
Row stubborn, Lord,
Row stubborn,

Resist the violent
Crashing of the waves—

Sleep, savior,
Sleep, and do not wake,
For wake means winning,
And the devil is in the details.

Do not fret,
For dear, you are never one to.
Please, stay true to
The full moon that draped you
In the tomb,

The stars that lit your path
As you made your way
To Golgotha
And back,

The stars that light
My darkness,
Today, as I find myself
Barefoot
For the first time,
Unsure how
To move about in this
Velveteen black—

A lot of glittering,
Glass, perhaps, gold,
God, I know

This rawness in my heart
Is sensitive and
Incredibly quick to chaff
But row stubborn Lord,
Row stubborn.

My journey has only begun
459 · Feb 2014
Untitled
Jedd Ong Feb 2014
There aren't enough of them to
Go around:
Windows bleak but truthful,

Showing the world
Outside:
Whether black or
Painted with flowers

And Knows
The difference.

Allows for prisoners to
Forget the bars
And the bars to forget the prisoners-

Especially the innocent ones:
Murderers for mercy
Toiling underneath the
Razor sharp edge
Of a microscopic knife
Cutting past the throat
Of innocuous farmers.

Wheat plains that stretch Golden,
Stretch for miles and miles
To a little place the other Kansans call
"Out there..."
In Cold Blood.
Jedd Ong Oct 2014
Today I learned
That God kicked my ***
At poetry,
Among other things.

Not that
It wasn't a given,
But still.

Adds to the list.

Mile long,
Mile wide.

And here
I'm simply stuck
Making mountains
Out of molehills.

And over there
He's making molehills
Out of mountains.

Would you look at that.

My God can
Take apart
Put together
Break, fix, turn sideways

Even the largest
Of his creations

And I sometimes still
Can't figure out
How to open a
Bag of potato chips properly.

The elephant
In the room,

Well no seriously,

The elephant in the room
Has ivory
For teeth
And a sinewy trunk
Made out of some
Neat little fiber to
Take in water and nuts.

God's
Given our world
The closest thing
To a walking gold
Animal

And here I am talking
About his poetry
For crying out loud.

Gotta love him man.

Gotta love him.
Praise him. I feel humbled and ready to write again.
437 · Jan 2015
Asphyxiation:
Jedd Ong Jan 2015
A swallow
Only ***** its wings
As it falls
To earth.
Well, I need some practice with brevity.
Jedd Ong Jan 2015
He did not crow
For cooler coals or
Shorter flames.

To him, murderer's row
Was but a lifeline knit
From Virgil's careless brow.

Little did he know
That purgatory's final blow
Was covered in snow.
430 · Nov 2014
As Night Stands Still
Jedd Ong Nov 2014
An envelop of darkness
Draws in quiet.

There is a sweetness
To the silence,

To the chorus
Of sleeping children

Humming away
Hymns of brighter tomorrows

And far-away dreams
That shield them from aged lines

That once-upon-a-time
Plagued their fathers and mothers.

And oh, there will be
A time for them too to grow old,

But I will take solace
In the fact that even

As we grasp for words and songs
To grip our smiling pasts,

There will still be nights like this:
Full of silence and God and poetry,

And swinging songs of self and serendipity,
And quiet mornings wrought just

Light enough by street lamps
Which hit pavements like bits of gold,

Waking the dew and painting our grounds
Smooth and bold.
As requested by Sofia: no approval. I can't sleep.
416 · Jan 2015
Untitled
Jedd Ong Jan 2015
You ask me
To write poetry
And I will tell you
To draw a face.
Any face.

Because the poetry
Is in your lips
Believe me
I've tried
To run away from it
But you,
There you are.

And when you
Ask me
To write poetry
I will ask you to sing
Because the poetry
Is in your voice

And believe me
I've tried to stop hearing it
But you,
There you are.

When you ask me
How to write poetry
I will tell you
To draw a wall.

Because this barrier of words
Is the only form
Of my love thin enough
To escape the crevices
Of your glance.

You are poetry
My dear.

The preservation of
A voice brushed away
And left to the
Winds of time.
401 · Dec 2014
In Limbo
Jedd Ong Dec 2014
Tonight is but a smattering of hooves,
A suspended dance hanging
High above the half-moon forest
Dripping with bravado and sleep.

Tonight is but a quiet lake,
Awake after the storms,
Overflowing with tears,
As the children fade into the forests.

Tonight is but a dragged axe,
A momentary fear of scythes
And hooded faces with eyes
Barely peeking above the lids.

Tonight is but a withered lamp,
Flickering in-between death, life,
Lamps that utter silent prayers,
That glower at the vast Unknown

And wake
And wake
And wake.
Sick. And Over the Garden Wall.
395 · Jul 2014
In Your Hands
Jedd Ong Jul 2014
Is a ball of clay
That yesterday
Was me, today
Is he, and
Tomorrow, she.

Fingers steady,
Lining the ridges
Of his brow in
One palm and
Warming the toes
In the other,

Widening the nostrils:
Allowing breath,
Punctuating mouth with
Subtle string,

Adding sinew to
His shoulders,
And spright to
His knees,

Tapping lightly
On his heart;
Maroon gearing
Rewound lightly
In reverse—
Heartstrings pull
The mouth into
A sneer;

Allow lidded eyes to
Crease; fully
Soften—open up—
Begin.
Praise Him. Clunky prayers are always a start.
389 · Mar 2014
Untitled
Jedd Ong Mar 2014
I watched the Sphinx
Die quietly of thirst;

Front paws buckling,
Eyes bloodshot—

Her smile, once human
But a twisted grimace.

She shrieked, as her talons
Gouged out her heart; gasped:
"Child,

"My Wisdom is yours."

And she gave it to me
And it was mine to hold.
377 · Jun 2014
Gold
Jedd Ong Jun 2014
I.
Rivulets of rainwater dance
                                          On edge,
Cracked road painted with
Burnt rubber and chipped yellow lines,
Bits of metal bar and
Burning wood
                     -skidding-
Off
       the road

II.
It's 6:00 pm here beneath
The Jones Bridge;

The smell of oil and
Murky sewage water laps at
         My ankles as
My toes meet
               Yours:

Burnt matches stewing
In the palm of your hand, damp
Brown eyes

          —gawking—

At my patsy appearance.

III.
Floating
                    the surface
            on                            
                                          of
Our shallow river is                     A yellowing letter.

We, undaunted,
Swiftly grab at it with our slim
Fingers. For a moment,

We recognize each other.
Hope. ;)
370 · Sep 2013
Spaces
Jedd Ong Sep 2013
Is there a name for the gaps
In between your grimy fingers?

For that moment's pause
Before the beginning of a prayer?

Is there a word for the spaces
In between atoms?

For the gaps in image and in mind,
Little lapses in the great cycle called
Something

Bleak, vast, full of budding stars
And pieces of rock,
As big as they are small?

Is there a label for those words
That seem to skip a beat,
Dancing across the tip of your tongue
Faster than you can spit them?

Is there a word for that
Moment where your lungs fold into
Your stomach

As the people around you become amber-
Riddled flies?

Is there a word for Dear Nothing
Who reaches out and puts her arm
Around you,

Whispering everything you need to hear,
Without actually moving her lips?
368 · Sep 2014
salvation
Jedd Ong Sep 2014
i remember the cut
on my knee
that God once kissed,
and how it tasted
agonizingly bittersweet:
like the start of time,
the stars exploding
as my wounds closed
up, like fire and rubble
and rock spinning aimlessly
around the great wide galaxy,
and i closed my eyes
and suddenly
i could see stars again
and i could see
You again.
344 · Jul 2014
a poem for you
Jedd Ong Jul 2014
These                                                                       (this) are

                                              (is)

(:a poem;
                                    For yOu.)

                                                                                      (Whom i hAvE)

                                 (been nursing)
                                          
                        ( B             h                  e
                              u          c            r
in                                     a     T                                            My
                                  T    m
                             f        o          l
                       i               t                e
                                         s)


butterflies—they glow
              For you,                                     {they've spared me some cold,

chilly

nights}

              <goodby>                they're yours now.

                                                                                                              
                                                                                                            <goodby>
Butterflies. Haha. I was never great at drawing.
316 · Mar 2014
Untitled
Jedd Ong Mar 2014
Those who have managed
The weight of the sky are few;
Far between
And scattered—hidden—searching
For those likewise
With calloused hands
And weary glances,
Rounded shoulders and
Parched voices roaming,
Shouting as one does
When the dawn finally turns to
Day and realizes

"He lives!"
271 · Jun 2014
Untitled
Jedd Ong Jun 2014
The good Lord
Provides a roof
Over my head,
And embraces me.

I close my eyes
And dream his
Wonderful dreams.

Ears still open to
The world's hurt—
Still listening.

Hearing the scores
Of angels, crying:
"Hallelujah, hallelujah!

There is refuge for the lost,
The blind will see again,
So get up and walk,
Get up and walk."

— The End —