Nice,
Slick,
Steady,
Unbuttoning...

She makes
Naughty
Things
So
Forgivable.*

© 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.

Those hands,
Cleaned with our clothes,
Washed with the rice,
Rough like these days
Are feet that kept me going.*

© 2015 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.

Wrestle me well, my love,
     For we were star-crossed enemies,
          And I miss you.

My shoulders miss your caring arms,
My lips crave your pale-red tongue,
     A slice of refreshment, watermelon,
My chest searches the rise of your chest,
And my torso longs only, and is only,
     For your leg locks.

     Grapple me and my lightweight heart,
     As the backbone of this world breaks,
     As the sun sinks into final submission,
          But I will never tap on this love out.

               Never.*

© 2017 J.S.P.

Despite the moon, the mood
     And stars on foreign skyline,
From having seen the Earth, this world, teeming
With life, with breath, and breath Almighty,
     And spirit in things which are perceived,
Still, I feel a deep longing, a chasm,
The feeling of missing, the want
     For reliving a lot of things,

Like the beaches on the South,
Sagada, Batanes, the tarsier,
The reefs, and the mangroves,
Our fellow Filipinos eating Adobo
And the so-soft fluffiness of rice,
In celebration of our heritage,
     Our famed resiliency,

I am a tourist all my life,
I remind my self,
     Until I found you,

For they are all yours, all finest things.
     You are the islands of our country,
And all these call me
As though to take me to you,
As though you were calling out to me
     For an embrace.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

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

© 2014 J.S.P.

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

© 2014 J.S.P.

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

...like a busy snail.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

To fully understand this is to bridge
The hundred islands of Pangasinan,
Or to darken the sands of Boracay.
I say, let alone the confusion,
The thrill, the beauty,
And let us love terribly, fully,
Crazy, and make sweet follies,
In the simplest way
We could ever know,
Saying,

Love does not ask,
And does not answer.
It only feels.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Should the prodigal sphere of daffodil
Finger your hair divine with its powers
And hold a communion of flower to flower,

May my heart flatten like a humble plateau,
So when you smile the smile of the City of Bacolod,
I can clumsily tell you the poem of I love you-s.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

You giggle for the simplest thought
Of pickup lines. Next to you, feeling
Like I won, feeling like I’m new, is to feel
That I have lost the sadness somewhere,
As we fearlessly fall, further, entwined,
My baggage, unfurling like a parachute.

You came for my love
That I would love to love you with,
A romance rid of readjustments.
It is like, each day, all I would want
To believe-in is that, when I feel like
Putting my best foot forward,
I must do otherwise, act stupid, for there is
Nothing sweeter than a woman’s laughter.
There is nothing sweeter
Than your ever-laughter.

And now, with so much pent-up
Energy, and synergy, my soul, sweetly
Soul-touched by your eyes,
I feel like kissing you, over and over,
For showing too much teeth,
And tongue, and chin, those paired
Provocateurs on your cheeks,
I religiously swoon over,
All calling out to me.

So now, I advance, move forward,
Braving forth to the heavens,
Your humbling haven,
For your smile is for my lips,
Your lips are, your laugh is.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

So there's a thin line
     between confidence and arrogance...*

          Humility.

© 2015 J.S.P.

The sunny sorcery
Over silly silverbeets in Sicily,
     And You.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

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

© 2014 J.S.P.

Know, I will hug you,
Though you cross those arms.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I could lie, and lie hard, about looking,
And looking hard for the perfect blue,
A certain force of blue that castles
The white sand beaches of the South,
Of the Visayas region, somewhere
In your eyes, beloved, while they only echo
The whisper of that brown coffee blend
You infinitely adore, or that proud tan missing,
Always missing out on a red bikini.
But my heart can't nor simply can't.
There's this something about my lineage
That resonates within me, that my soul, wet,
Would always want to travel back
Like a driftwood drifting back.

I do not demand the burn nor the fire.
I am completely fine in smoke, shadowing you,
Shadowing me and the scars,
Making love, perpendicular,
Out of a night perpetual, and postpone sleep
Over our mutual moon beaming.
There is none left for silence, but us,
Only our lives. (Listen.)

I can't help but love that eloquence,
Your tenderness, a roof
Out of your hands. Your comfort
Is where I rest and wake up to.
Say something, anything, for it speaks,
And is pleasure, a poetic treasure,
A novel or a story. I love the way
You nag. Be candid for me,
And especially for you.

I would enormously love to burst
In a quiet laughter, simply because someone
Made me so with a crafty subtlety,
In me, from the inside out.
I would trade my poems for a woman like that,
Like you, and I would love a kiss,
A kiss for all of that.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Let me court you and bend my pride,
Venting foolish passions,
Vowing with my heart,
     Volleying pebbles to your window.

Do not forsake for my sake,
     Say, you are the fickle Moon
And I'm a grumpy Narra tree,
That I'm the dizzied Sun and you—
A pirouetting world, that we are
     Two islands of the Archipelago.

But never say, impulsively say,
That you are the shooting star,
     The Perseids, a meteor shower,
For it is then, love,
That I would have become
The melancholy,
     The Universe.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

The music in the library was you,
My saving symphony, a silent movie,
That Jason Reeves song which
Never fails to wow me,
A whisper,
     A ***** whisper,
The ancient sound of a page's
Turning, a bell-ringing
From the ***** icecream vendors
Of my humble Homeland,
Or the comfy sound
      Of an oven-toaster.

I was enchanted
     To meet you.

Had you not come to me, love-ling,
And fling the old cobwebs away
From the bore of a book called
Moby ****
     Which my life was,
Then all the dust of the Earth,
Of the shelf, of my flesh
Would have gathered
In me, burying the papyrus,
The scroll, a fragility—
     My heart,
          My ever-lost.

Time ticked like a man clambering,
An ambulance, a clocktower
     Pierced through the chest, the soul,
          The spirit.

But your eyes sang, songstress.
My spirit hoped.
Your body leaned,
     Communed.
        
     Your ear
          Touched my ear—
           A melody, a harmony,
               An embrace.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I am willing to wear
The noose
    Our love requires.*

© 2015 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.

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.

Poets
Are doting fishermen
Who lets go
Of the fish.

© 2014 J.S.P.

Red leaves land
From a treehouse, through the wind,
     For this whisper,
While the earth buoys the waters,
     And the waters—stars,
As we lip all silence that there is,
     Together.
    
          This is how we kiss.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

The dichotomy, the desire of both—
To relive
     And to forget.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Love’s not simple, God knows it’s not.
If it is simple then it is not love.
But to make it simple, to make it seem simple,
I am sending it out to you, word for word,
Line to line, poem after poem.

I am handing it out to you
Like a million dollar contract.
I am making you feel it, touch after touch,
One halted-touch to the next,
Sadness and happiness.

So forgive me, if I burden you
With all love’s complexities.
Forgive me, if I am heaping it
At your feet, all this confusion.

My heart is only boat tonight,
And you have every right
To own the ocean.
My mind is only wind tonight,
Yours is a closed window.
Our hands were the shiest couple,
And our elbows were French-kissing
For quite some time now.
So I have a liking
For what I cannot have.
I think it is quite clear.

Don’t pull me in.
Don’t push me away.
Don’t tire yourself.
Open the door
Or just have it closed.
But please forgive me,
If I knock at your door
Forever, for I love you,
And I love you, simply,
With all its complexities.

I am offering you
A key to an opened door-
My heart.
Use it well.

Forgive me, dear,
But I love you,
And it is
That simple.

© 2011 J.S.P.

The way she stares—
The line between attraction
     And seduction.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Some answers are locked...
...so that there may be room for faith.

This I believe.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

The vividest viridian, the variety,
An orange vinaigrette,
     Vexes her.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

There is no way for you to know it, but
For me to say it, write it like I mean it,
A revelation, a firm oath, telling things like:
"My stubborn heart is a parked automobile
     Waiting to be towed away by you."

Because the word "Wait" can be deceiving.
To lie at our Homeland beach in the summer
Of 2017 could mean patience or indulgence.
To fall in line on a counter could mean
     Paying or just plain getting.
And to sit at a bus stop could mean
     Going home or leaving things behind.

And so this pen tries and tries and tries
And (because King Jehoash stopped short)
     Tries and tries and tries some more
To be a decent bouquet of flowers
Or an acoustic cover of a love song
Or a bag of truffles I never once tasted,
     Though you don't even notice.

Dearest, I'd rather pursue you
With all that I got knowing full well
That I can possibly fail than to stop short
And spare my self from shame.
I cannot go half-hearted. I'm all in.
     And I'm here to win your heart.

          So help me God.*

© 2017 J.S.P.

Blue wolves, stars and *******.
Blue sunflowers.
     Flame.
          Blue hearts.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

The precise vagueness
From tongue
     To word
          To skin.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

There is a voice that enlists itself
To exclusivity, and is patient.
One that never knew the tongue,
But just the heart.

There is a voice that heeds,
And heeds only to your eyes.
There is a darkness somewhere,
That is an origin of light.
Lean to it. It deserves
Your celebrated silence.

It deserves your soul.
It deserves itself, its true.
It deserves...
     ...your love.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Tears are fast...
...expanding...
...metaphors.

© 2014 J.S.P.

Let us send mosquitoes into exile,
To the obliterating cold of Antarctica,
     In hope that the stars will take refuge
In this corrupted Archipelago, till then
We shall tire this full moon, lay our lovers down,
And burn the shadows
     As a campfire of our love.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

When you make love to me, you unbutton
     The black jeans of the universe,
You discover worlds, paths, stars,
Dwarves and giants, the viciousness
     Of a blackhole, a machine,
          Swallowing everything.
Yes, you make love to me,
As though to pour milk on the full moon,
     You turn q into d, my love,
          A crochet to a demisemiquaver,
And you make rhapsodies and raptures,
     And records, as I make them envy,
          All the suns.*

© 2016 J.S.P.

O *****'s opposite,
A great wall
     Of spine,
A Yin and Yang
     Of tongues,
We tug and pull
At territories,
     Acupuncture,
Our souls
     Populous
Of me and her,
As our energies, powers,
     Superpowers, stirring,
Growing, binging,
     Surging, and resurging,
Engulf
     A blazing evening.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

The thing about love is that
     It is strategically tragic,
Built to last, made to make you feel,
Feel good and alive, to feel enough,
     Gracefully and sudden
Like a gentle kiss, the spreading
Of wings of the soul, the fall
     Of listless stars, but
          Just as lasting.

I do not know what else to feel
Upon seeing this ocean, except
To remember you with the same
     Natural feeling, inexplicable,
Like the color blue catches on
     With the bleach of white,
Aiming to accentuate, searching
     For the old burn of red
          In vain.

And beauty is felt more
     Than it is seen. Eyes have
Seen more than they have rested,
And they have seen things best,
     While they are closed.

More than sorrow, pain and suffering,
More than sure looped-goodbyes,
     It is the serendipitous affection
That rules over all, overthrowing
The flowing madness of passing worlds,
Passing all the lovers by, mad enough,
     And mad still, yet the fight
          Is worth loving for.

Love is worth fighting with.
Life is worth it. Love
Is priceless, yet, I love you
A little less
     Than love itself.

Love never grew, it just stays beside,
Just beside, them, us, blown
     By the havoc of life, fate and time,
Drifting amongst the drifters
Surrounding us, dizzied,
     Ever-tested, enduring all.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Without you, without the flirty melancholy,
     Without your memory, without love poetry,
Which from leaf to leaf sets off
Into yellow crisps, and sad crimson,
     Congregating somewhere,
Crackling at every strut, a pixie,
     Graceful, treading on,

I will, I would seem as though the root,
Which, in vain, motions its longing,
Long arm, no hand, nor palm,
     A lone finger, saying that I miss you,
No wind to disintegrate, no lungs,
A heart, meditative of emptiness,
     Dreaming of carpentry.

The dormant doormat of yours,
Even that, could not welcome me,
     Without you.

Without you, it is only you
That moves, not me,
     Not even time.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I love her C-s and O-s,
Her zeroes,
Her parentheses.*

© 2015 J.S.P.