And even though it doesn't want to,
The moon sees itself in the river,
The light, the shadows that it cannot touch,
The borders of your Neverland,
That grand open garland, your waist
That tickles past imaginations.

The night air, as Eve was,
Had nothing to wear.
Frantic, it covers itself
With your hair,
Perfumed, it laughs at itself,
Sharing its first fruit.
I, a human, am staring
At the very breath of God.

Forget the wind, the moon,
The river, the old, old
Stars hung as jealousy.
I have a mustard seed of love.
And I need only to believe you.

© 2011 J.S.P.

We may have forgotten
Some memories,
     But we cannot
          Unlove.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Show me the soles of your heart,
And we will run,
Together, to the acres
Of matrimony,
Where we are souls
In our very first forever.

We will nod the nod of love,
As one, as yes
As we could ever be.
We will know how flowers
Keep memories.
We will know why I love you.

You will show me how to dream,
Your true self.
You would be nearer than what I thought
You could ever be. You will dizzy me
With curious stars.

Now this is our far, far away,
Amusing, existing:
A hand on your hand,
Two pairs of lip, perfected,
Entwined.

© 2010 J.S.P.

I'm making sense
Out of palindromes.
     I am no better.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

If I were to die,
If this life be remembered
Like diminutive things
You unknowingly admire,

If little by little, you will go
Leaning towards me,
In which once
You were too hesitant,

If I mattered in this instant, just now,
If I, in this time, a very token from me,
And you see me fit for remembering,

If I were to depart, love, if I were to,
Then see me fretful,
That the things which I cannot hold on,
Might smile on,
And me leaving.

If I were to die love, if I were to,
And you'd just come to me, I am alive.
It is because no matter how old
Or ageless time is,
It would be as if
It was only born today:
If I have you, I have forever.

You are an inkling of life to hold on to.
Be it for love or not that you inch yourself close
For reaching, just for reaching.
I would be, would seemingly be,
Like a night without its fireworks
And you
A love song.

© 2011 J.S.P.

Lower down the silly guard
Of your charisma,
Let your ears reveal the pull
Your smile creates
In certain corners
Of this sanity,
And let me love...
...You.

I would vow to keep your hands
In mine forever.
I know none of stars
That shine tonight
As brighter than this love- its eyes.
Much better,
Let me love...
...You.

Feel the rush, the icy blue
Of this perfection.
You won't have to stay in slumber.
Let me lower down a shoe.
Let me feel the hair you grew for me.
And you will take me in, a beast.
I promise,
I will love...
...You.

Now.

Let me love...
...You.
Now.

© 2011 J.S.P.

...Love...
...from your collar bone.

© 2014 J.S.P.

Nobody stares at female eyes
And looks unto his past:
You're looking at your future,
Otherwise, you'd just glance,
Or look at her feet, tilted,
Glamorous, as though
They're reaching
An improbable kiss.

Well I am nobody tonight,
And I've said too much adjectives
By not speaking too much.
And too much is okay
As long as she's the gilded one,
Bearing it all in one light,
Not casting shadows on me
But leaving me blinded.

If love is not blind,
Then what else would be?
But I look at her with love,
And I look forward.

I've grown a rose on my chest
By being patient,
And cleared my throat too much
For cough that won't come.
I could have walled my back
Forever, but tonight
Love...is looking back.*

© 2014 J.S.P.

Moments of impact.
There was a second there before the kiss.
The ungodly hour spent
     And the night of secret fireflies.

The grains in an hourglass,
     How innumerable still.
There was a time I yearn for emptiness.
This loneliness, heaped up on my chest,
And in the afternoons,
     The melancholic burn.

A glimpse of your body.
The affinities of flowers
     With the bud.
An eternity of this and that, of improbabilities,
     Or of unrequited love.

A night without a star.
     A day without the sun.

But the sun's without a day,
     Without you.*

© 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.

True love
Is a wanderer
Who refuses
To go back.

© 2014 J.S.P.

My friends, beware the leprechaun.
The gold's not worth it.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Ask what fate is to dandelions,
For I am clumsy, loving you,
Peeking when was asked to dream,
Glad seeing you.

I am no cloud, no air, no wind,
And balloons have long fled from my wrist
Touching the convoluted power lines somewhere
In the rural south of my country.
But I hold your hand with my hand, so light,
Like the line of a kite, too high to make a run for,
That I cannot state with words, with poems
What's so heavenly about it
Or without it that is about you, except
As such, this mutual touch.

I chased a single drop
Not knowing what will hit me.
I'm drenched, soaked all over.
Rain poured down, heavily.
I gain what's unexpected,
And love...is undeserved.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

And so I write of love
Thinking it’s the sane thing to do,
     Of over-thinking
Which overpowers the other,
Your love (your past love)
     Or mine.

Everyday seemed like a day after the other,
Only, that they move backwards,
Only, that they grow much painful
As days go by, as nights
     Are even worse.

Nothing hurts
Like a definite goodbye,
Unless it was an indefinite one.
I know for sure
     That I could have you back.

I love you so much that I miss you
And how I struggle
To make you understand
That I only miss you
     Because I love you.

And so my pen tilts from here,
Not knowing what to say,
     Only knowing what to feel.

     And we’re apart...

          We’re once were.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Here's to folly, to the great valley called love
Which reminded me of forever through imperfections,
Hardships and disappointments, of falling deeply
Into discovery from self-doubt, of reaching freedom,
The bore of a goal like contentment.

Here's to pain, the antithesis of the stars,
Of pretensions and incompletion, the middleground
Between the starts and the endings, the covert catalyst,
The grand surrealist, as we dread to know
The fullness of our sanity, of our souls,
Our fragility, of our very being.

Here's to the machinery, the agitation
Called dreams, the sweet fog of distant memories,
Or the dark smoke of passion sometimes,
Cunning as ever, like a freight train,
Like wind, like havoc, like thypoon,
Oftenly deprived of conclusive destinations.

Here's to art, drama and poetry, the mystics,
The sons and daughters of the grand mystics,
Of philosophy, science and religion, not to mention
History, the grand infidel, and mythology, the fibber.

Answers overwhelm us, test us, and divide us,
They appear when we're most not ready,
Yet the questions keep us sane, ever growing,
Ever sun, ever moon and ever cloud.

Only time will tell and would not,
The old grey, the clear dark, the pale light,
It never learned a language,
It only learned to live, noticed
But never quite understood.
How diaphanous. How vague.

So here's to the confusion, to the uncertainty
Like love always has been.
Here's to us, to our ambitions,
Our possessions, the treasures which speak
Permanence in our hearts.
Here's to the violent, the meek and the indifferent.
Here's to the society and the humanity
That's left in it. Here's to those who hate me.
Here's to our faith and our fate.
Here's to the poems that will never be written again.

Here's to you, my love, my true.
May we stay kind, mad, and human,
Or something more, whatever that means,
Despite the opposition, and deception and progression.
So here's to the Universe.
Here's to the grand riddler called existence.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I write a piece remastered as though
To make love. It is when my poem engages
And at the same time disengages,
Where the reader keeps wanting, and
Bare, barely, retaliates.

So the poet was a man
And the reader was a woman.
When I write, I hold
And hold her hips.
And the pull was the pull
Of the lips of our kiss.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I kiss you, and so, therefore, my self.
I kiss my forehead when I kiss you,
And free the butterflies up
From a bottle of a dream, that is a poem
Of love, when I kiss you,
If and when I kiss you, and in the process
To let you kiss yourself,
From kissing me tender for so long, for so sweet,
From the upper and the lower lip, from the upper
To the lower chest of mine, then yours,
Just to propagate them
As the secret kisses on your thighs, perfumed,
And do what our mouth does to the summer fruits,
While I kiss you to surrendering
Of self, of glory,
Of pride.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I like the improbabilities that go with love,
Just as when I held your hand
But never really held it,
As the physicists would oppose to the idea,
Saying that it is because
Of the electrons and stuff, and quantum stuff
Which I find so hard to believe.

(But you, dear, frankly,
You need not make me believe,
Only wonder.)

See, I look
At you, closely,
And closer still as if
Two comets, themselves, defied
The distance of lightyears,
For me,
Just to look back.

You are a star, love, I think,
And I have likened my self to the Universe,
Not because you are near,
But because you are far,
Yet far enough...

So I could love.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Poets
Are doting fishermen
Who lets go
Of the fish.

© 2014 J.S.P.

Squirrel hangs by his foot,
This man
     By his neck.*

© 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.

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

© 2014 J.S.P.

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

This I believe.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Smile, hold that ever-smile.
Tonight, you will witness a brave star
     Unstitch the shadows off his feet.
He will high dive and unload
The weight off his chest
     Then burn himself gladly
     Towards the law of gravity,
Just to break the icy walls
Of the heart you once thought
Impenetrable, and you will smile,
     Sweetly, the smile of smiles.

     But someday I will circle you,
          One in six, seven on seventh,
     Forevermore, and you'll hear me
          Say I love you, then you will fall.*

© 2017 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.

An eighteen-wheeler truck
Smashing through a Jaguar XK8.
     How priceless...*

© 2015 J.S.P.

An old,
High
Telephone bill.*

© 2014 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.

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.

Our love was
(has got to be)
Among the best, the immensest
And the most baffling
Of all the optional things.
We willed it
     To be like this.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

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

© 2014 J.S.P.

Their eyes...
...will fail them.

© 2014 J.S.P.

A lioness and a *****
Were kissing,
     Madly,
          Over me.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Nothing will be wasted.
I shall lip everything back,
Lift my clumsy and the naughty,
The ones that never made it
To your heart-wall.

You cannot blame me for thinking
That the flowers are all the same,
Your lily, the opened rose, the petunias.
O this garden of a body you have.
You be-tremble me, Love, even now.

So now, tonight, ever,
We will save them up,
Oh I will kiss them back to your mouth,
This love thing,

To your tongue so tender,
From your neck,
Your legs so slender,
Your shoulders, your waist,
Those young *******,
Then to your soul.

And pretend,
I won't do it all,
All over again.*

© 2015 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.

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.

...the sweetest nod...
...of love.

© 2014 J.S.P.