Cross those arms, love...
Cup, uncover,
Surrender,
What is human of you
To wow me.

I like...
...knowing you...more.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

''Why...is a silly question.''*

© 2014 J.S.P.

My heart is cold and empty,
Love has sapped me of love
In all the right places, rooted in me.
Time nourished me.
And it would be lonely for you there.

Scars bridged all fate I have,
Altogether. My poems--
Buoying me to the river
Of my mind, and out to finding you.

My heart is cold and empty.
So bring the world with you.
Your dream, your soul, your pride.
Bring the photo of your dearest smile,
The pallette of your eyes, that is
Also water, and sun, and sky.
Your discoveries and doubts--
Dear, take them with you,
For there would be many, there,
That are not. All is shadow within,
And burden, and gravity.

You would know what its like
To be the light or the feather,
A star, or hope
To one that is hopeful.
You would feel what it is
To be one, and being one,
And being all
With me.

You would kiss, as though
To love yourself. Embrace, as though
To set one free. And journey,
As though to settle on my heart,
Realigning all that is whole
With all imperfect pieces.

Now, live,
Love in faith.
Go after dreams,
And silly things,
Fail. Learn. Act.
Feel.
Drink coffee.
Sing Karaoke.
Be crazy.
Ignore poetry.
Believing,
That way,
Somehow,
You are loving me.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

I am an army of jealous marching,
Armed with guitars.
I am no conqueror,
Lording over roses,
But they won’t get near you.
You are a flower of your own.
Your tongue is a ninja.
A kunai is at my throat.
Your *******…is a tactical unit.

I know what I want.
And I am easily angered.
Yes, you would see me
Slaughtering flying-kisses
With a Balisong;
Love letters for you--
Burned, gunpowder.
I would be on the watch
With a machine gun,
Guarding your heart.
And then you would call me
Weird.

You see, my heart has a detonator.
And if it's your wish to see me
Exploding, then let it be,
Yet do not pick the pieces,
The adjectives in the streets--
You will only make a lament
Out of them.

Dear,
I am just a blacksmith of words.
And your love…is a blazing fire.

I am at war
With your senses,
Your attention.
You are mine.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Nice,
Slick,
Steady,
Unbuttoning...

She makes
Naughty
Things
So
Forgivable.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

She only tastes
When you taste
Her
Like melted...
...chocolates.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

An old,
High
Telephone bill.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Do not lead this finger...
...to your tongue.

It...excites.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Pealing,
Poking,
Patrolling...
...Her...
...with eyes...

...like a busy snail.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Reach her.
Her soul is letting down
Her liquid hair.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Only accept what you cannot give.
Only expect what you can't receive.
Love is kind and marvelous. Believe.
You made me believe, love.
You made me. We need not
Answer why-s.

The past sorted out the stars tonight.
The same auspicious stars will arrange
The moments for tomorrow.
The same boat of time will be
Old enough for fireflies and
Crescent moons, somewhere,
On a majestic river in Bohol.

This spoon, this fork, this red
Straw on clear, perspiring glass of
Red tea, this ill-fated receipt,
The wooden tables and chairs
With uneven leg-lengths,
Those couples over there,
The lamps, the crew, the ambiance,
The long line at counter number 3,
The clock, that classic clock,
Especially, knows that--
That I love you. I love you,
Because you showed me how.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

She exploded
Into onomatopeias
As lions tickle...
...from waist down.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

You can't completely hate.
You burn photos...
...from the corner.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

He was repeatedly submerged
In the water. It lasted days, nights,
Week, but they could not get
A different answer: "No... NO. NO!!!"
He's flesh-- all worn-blue.
And then, eventually, they--
They stopped. Poor thing.

Dead.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

The sands know patience,
And waves know passion,
Nobody knows.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

"I keep your letters", she said,
"Somewhere, between fresh...
...*******."*

© 2014 J.S.P.

She is the most attentive person
That I know. So I am winking
At her.

I do not really know
Which star at night
Reminded me of her
Just like before.
Sirius, Rigel, Vega, Aldebaran--
I do not recall a star that--
That does not look back,
She cannot see me anymore,
Just looking, staring at her,
This way. God,
She's so beautiful.

She is the harpist of my life.
She feels more than ever.
She longs for shapes, sizes, and textures.
What a cute baby...
Her hand is fond
Of my hand, memorizing
The intricate lines and features,
Telling my future.
You can tell what she really is.
She smiles despite of.

She is literally wind, monsoon,
Literal dark and light,
A soul, a window.
She is literally blind.
She is literally love.

She is the most attentive love
That I know.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

...
...
...
...
...
...
!!!
...
...
...ever,
Ever,
Ever,
And...
.­..ever.

© 2014 J.S.P.

The hotel balcony is the highest
That I could get, just as lying down
On the greener grass in Luneta Park
Is the lowest that I could ever be,
All because she is with me,
All because my hand fits, feels just
Right about her hand, and all because
All the warmest stars kept on
Staring back at us, inspired.
We are the farthest satellite
That they could ever find.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

A river of emotion-- wandering
Always. Always going back.
The blue whip of the seas
To the Spratlys.
The blind sting of salt
That felt like fire.
Moments of impact.
A sailing journey.
The big dam of everything
That is not you. A night
In the belly
Of a bluer whale.
Pains that are necessary.
Pains that fortify the past,
The tides and the lesser heart.

This is not like those.
My aching bears no weight;
It is the inner weight itself--
An old anchor, the great shipwreck,
Our first kiss I remind myself of.
Ever hopeful. Ever silent.
Ever love.

Here, I wait for you.
Here.
Still is the pain...
...that love moves.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Kiss, kiss, kiss for me
A tender line, a border--all afternoon--
Straighter
Than the sword of the soul
To divide me, to awaken me,
Somewhere, between the rage
And the calm:

So that my thrusts steady,
Would hurt and agitate,
Bleed and satisfy, winning us
The ancient war.

Then, I am still for you,
For loving, for country
All deep evenings. Imagine
The stealth of the world in effect
As honey drips some place
Inside a hive. The cicadas-- intrigued.
A flower pollinating.

We will burn the known
Elements, even fire.
The shadows, the moon
And the stars will warm
Their hands together
Near the shaking flame.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Here's a vase.
You don't give flowers
To a flower.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Mount me by the belly...
...and take a stolen shot.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

The cares in the world are as little
As the arcs your eyes make
When you smile--
Whenever you smile.
This interaction--soul to soul,
Silly, with both stares bending, ending
In laughters. I cannot pair my thumb
To the lower detail of your lips.
I cannot cuddle your pains
In the past. I cannot quite conclude
How your hips sway me
Towards hope than to surrendering.

You are the type that needs
Chasing, after falling for.
I have to be happily ever after you
Or be sad forever.
I am the lovesick
Wanting to be the one
Who feels for you,
For your forehead, your neck,
Assessing for fever
In vain.

The little I do understand
About love,
I forget little by little.
Little by little, I petal you
To the glory of such force,
Of such feeling, its truest,
Simple and bravely.
Slow is the death we die for love;
Forever is what it takes.

Dear, in the darkest days of life,
My love, my only, I want you
To save your life
That is also mine. I want you
To take everything necessary,
For you to start a new one.
Leave sorrow. Take air away.
I won’t be selfish of all-you
For all-me.

I won’t be jailing your heart
For me,
For the best things in life…
…are free.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

What do these matter?
At the park,
There is an empty seat,
Where an ant pass food
To its kind.
An old tire lies
On an old rooftop–
Sometimes, a street kid
Smiles, playing with such.
The Stonehenge and
The Aurora Borealis.
The works of Pablo Neruda.
The Mona Lisa.
The Banawe Rice Terraces
And our being one,
Together. A kiss.
Our kiss.

Poems. Music. Epics. Wind.
Your yellow-painted fingernails.
The blue colors of this country.
The red arrow that bursts
Forth into kisses that drip
All over me. And just to
Gladly die for you. To die for you.

A coherent thought about love
Will always be proven false.
All we become and have to be
Is good ignorance. All we nearly had
Are but cruel clues that ever
So entice. All we ever witnessed
Are nomadic crumbs
Small beaks pecked along
The moony way.
And all sad waters, suns
And sacrificial stars
Will always burn down
Going South. But
What do these matter?

For these,
I am loving you,
Yet, even more.

Now death
Is even more confusing.
And our friend, Time, will soon
Be against us.
So, I am Leo.
And you are Pisces.
Love weaves secrets.
And men love mysteries.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Our love had no bite,
But it was...
...all...
...tongue.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Let us count...
...the numbers backwards,
and make life...
...count.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

My words are empty.
They are once filled...
...within me.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Cygnets...
...walking...
...on egg shells.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

As I draw your lips near,
Embracing all adversities,
Keeping true a premise,
Let us not set a feeling free.
Let us hold it tight perfected,
Together, like burning suns
Imploding, as final bursts
Of energies, a theory,
A star rid of infinities.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

''We should not speak
In turns.'', she said.
''Kiss me.''*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Where your happiness
Meant being happy--
That is my home--
Anywhere.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

There are always new places
For our feet, always
Another,
Wearing out the shoes,
The veins, and soles.
I learned to love the world
From your waist down.
There is no end for travel.

We travel and travel more.
The buses fill, the jeepneys,
And the planes. The trains fill,
Terribly fill. Boracay fills.
And what a tedious postcard
This is,

When the whole point
Of the matter is this: that
We are bound, headed, destined
To someplace else,
Boundless, vast
And everlasting--
A non-lifetime--

Which pretty much answers
Why love does not return.
I think that love could,
But must not return.
And I will carry you on,
You,
On my back,
Just to prove it.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

The universe is unnamed.
Time keeps forgetting his birthday.
Wind, fire, water, stars--
Shaped in our favor.

But when I love you,
You are a curve in a thumbprint.
When I love you, I am me.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

We are the grey area;
We write for our space.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

She kisses
Old kisses away
Much better
Than the last.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Please let me touch...
...your...*

© 2014 J.S.P.

If someday you would find me,
Destined for another,
That I only kiss
With half the feeling it requires,
Then by that time, you would know
That I have already decided
To go against my patience.

I no longer await
The fulfillment of the heart.
I no longer wish to see a world out-of-place.
I would see as if
I see like you.
I will no longer look at your *******, your hips,
For I would only look at *******, and hips.
Your eyes-- just eyes
That I would stare at still.
And I would secretly want you
Like classical music.
I would secretly want to touch
Your moony left earlobe.

I am destined with such sshh inside of me.
My heart is only wind tonight;
My hands, water.
I struggle for the poem of love,
The leaf it carries towards you.

A cicada is all I can think off your songs;
I have no use for the evening but to listen to.
My soul is not contented, not,
That somewhere two stars are far apart,
As though a male one from his ex-girlfriend.

I have a liking for what I cannot have;
I let you go on purpose.
The black of your hair, the little of your feet,
Hands, slight-fevered,
Rows of lip, rows of thigh-
All of it, gone;
All of it,
Cloud and jasmine.

I let you go because I want you still.
I love what I do not have.
I know my fate.
I love you.
And I set you free.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

To write a poem for you
Is to busy one's self in choosing
His favorite toe: Say, a starfish,
A jellyfish. Say, an octopus,
A squid, scribbling in the water,
Listing 'ten reasons why' as
Autobiography.

Look
What you've done to me.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

It started off as though to say:
I love you.

But then I'm learning, and adapting,
And deceiving, and becoming,
And beginning...
...to be bad at it.

What a strange feeling!*

© 2014 J.S.P.

If love is blind,
Then memories serve
As its blindfolds.

© 2014 J.S.P.

No is your best...
...yes, yet.

And I...respect that.

© 2014 J.S.P.

Brea-
Fru- -sts.
      -its
    .
        .
     .
    E
      K
      O
    M
     S

I was once...
...a pile...of leaves.

© 2014 J.S.P.

I think what we are missing out is that love is plain receiving, after all. People are clumsy enough to give it or lose it along the way. It can be sung or tediously written. I may be wrong, but, I think the problem we have with love is with who we want to carry it. We decide what is true and noble with the way it was packaged or presented, thus we hope. And so we pour out what we have, to the extent of our flaws, for the so called authenticity called preference. Then some would chase for love as though it's an adventure. Cookie crumbs are everywhere. There is no end to people who are lost, happily. And so we spend a little more time and energy, and money, tossing all to the ocean as ill-fated bottles for our forgetting, just to bitterly fail at it. Kind of makes me wonder how this *** I know found the love of his life. How did he do that?  Is it really just about ordering the right kind of coffee at the cafe? Or lying under that one auspicious tree? Perhaps, we're just addicted, frustrating ourselves with the idea of love returning. I think people, subconciously, just wanted to build the value of what they already have. We are not contented that there is such a valuable thing on Earth as love we can effortlessly attain. We think of it as an irreproducable need, like it is buried someplace else, in the distance, that one should say it is precious, that one should say it is deserved. We tend to precede the struggle, not knowing this simple truth: The struggle is after love not when a man is after it. We refine what we have, and consequently, we define ourselves. We don't search for love, neither will it find us. It already did. And it has found us fools. Contentment is true key. Love differs from hope, and hope love, and even faith. What we love makes us stranger; love keeps us sane. We tend to conquer love; love is submissive. It remains true to itself, while we are just being...ourselves.


© 2014 J.S.P.

Hips...
   Chest...
      Face...
         Waist...
            ...traced.

© 2014 J.S.P.

I will become water,
Bearing the ocean
Of her colors.

© 2014 J.S.P.

You are nowhere to be found
By my side, sweetly,
Perhaps, just for one day,
One night, and one
Dream.

One sweet gesture not for me
Was like a time stopped forever.
One breath- harder than the last.
And they say that jealousy
Is also sweet. I wonder why.

My travel is long and hard,
That even the beauty
Of a female passenger, across,
Feet in front of feet, eyes to sleepy
Eyes, did not bother me, as much
As your giggle bothers me,
Sweetly.

Bread does not nourish me.
My mind has lost its old self
From having thought at times,
I have not eaten with you always.
So what would it be like, as
Your head tilts from there, to here,
To this sad shoulder? What would it
Be like to hold your hand, or
The other, sweetly?
I have hungered for days, beloved.
I like what I do not have.

I have felt the December breeze
Lean unto me, and have not felt your
Arms oftentimes, nor the touch of finger.
I just wish my memories
Has flesh enough, that your forgetting
Has embrace enough, so that
Night by night, I won’t have to dream
Of kiss, kiss, kissing you to sleep,
Over and over.

And yet you will ask,
If I can taste
The littlest of your kiss,
But I'd say yes,
Sweetly.

© 2014 J.S.P.

''And as tomorrows move forward,
yesterdays...are uncertain.'', he said.

''But our love...is yesterday.'', she said.
''It never ends.''*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Pelvis withdraws.

The tongue...
...wins.

© 2014 J.S.P.