After years of aimless wanderings
Leaving behind the cities of midnight revels
And the fevered journey in metro rails,
I am back at the land of my people.

Wherever I went,
Under which ever roof I slept,
I had carried my land,
As a jewel in a casket
And ensured it rested safe
Ever under my pillow

As I moved with aliens
Unable to merge with their cultural mores,
I saw my land glimmer in darkness
Like a dew drop on a moon blanched leaf

When I sweated in the blistering sands
A patch of green landscape, like an oasis
Wafted me in a cool embrace
Then dreams poured in like star light
And I wandered in the meadows of my youthful love
My heart struggling to forget old longings
And memories lashing upon me like tidal waves

Pursued by that inalienable shadow
Suddenly being born in flesh and blood
I hastened to the streets of my youth
With hopes galore and plans vivid

But alas! There is none to recognize me
Oh! I am a stranger here
An unwelcome stranger among total strangers
Now I wonder which is truly my land?
The one left behind or the one just landed in?

Oscillating between these two worlds,
My fractured identity looms large
With worms of memories wriggling in my flesh
And a myth suddenly dying in my brain

I.
Time passes, another
batch of refugees and migrants. Cities turn into
new houses of gambling and vicious cycles.
Some say only machines can speak clearly
and most humans have lost what they have earned
throughout all this time, just right on schedule.

To own our language,
and the relationships it sets into motion,
we learn painfully, repeatedly like sunrise
and sunsets.
Claiming our own spaces and demons
hidden in our conveniences and reflex routines,
and learning the tricks that has kept peoples
from fully healing from broken promises
and betrayals throughout time.

We own up to our language and its demons
every day and night that we toss and turn
into something feasible, edible, livable.


II.
Iba ibang uri ng digma.
duguang kasaysayang binabaong buhay
binubura ang lakas at memorya tulad ng siyudad
ng Songdo sa South Korea na ang ibig sabihin
ay "city with no memory".

Ito din ang isa sa mga modelo para sa New Clark City
na tinatayo sa Luzon. Sa dalawahang mga pamamaraan
ng mga naghahari-harian, nakikibaka ang anakpawis,
nakikibaka ang kamalayan ng pagpapasya at pagwasto
sa mga pagkakamali, na paulit-ulit na sinusubukang
patayin sa iba ibang mukha.

Mula pa sa panahon ng mga lolo at lola noong 1940s
hanggang ngayon, patuloy ang mga pag-eexperimento nila at paggamit ng panlilinlang  at dahas, sa ngalan ng kalusugan, edukasyon at batas, upang ipain ang buhay sarili, lasunin ang lupang kinakain ang sarili. Kung hindi tayo mag-aaral at mag-iingat din, tayo mismo ang papatay sa mga sinisimulan. #

We create our own stories,
our own gods and reshape our own peoples
We also create our own demons and enemies.

An old retired fighter once said to a traveler,
"we learn not run from the enemy, but go towards them."
In learning, his new pupil destroyed his heart
and his lovers. And them, destroyed their own in turn.
The traveler sits with piles of stories of all kinds now,
from all over the world, in a library shelf
like a white elephant of impotent rage in his room.

For decades the populations of the world
have been subject of mass experimentation by its overseers.

In other stories, a people's Creator has gone mad
working for his human creations
which required using toxic chemicals to turn
their raw materials into life, while working to
reveal our own gift of growth from attachments
and into self-knowledge, compassion.

For decades also, populations of the world
are kept apart from their own full living potential
not because of some evil or mad Creator
or some insanely depicted required competition towards
reproduction or respect.

Rather, because we continue to face our tasks
through our mistakes and failures, knowing
our deadly blows from through those we reject,
shame and escape from, as our teachers of compassion
if not more than those that we gravitate to
or already belong and accept as our own.

Thus continues perhaps the stories of people's
potentials outside of their fear's many
perverted versions. #

Salitang Ingles na ginagamit para sa mamamayang nagbibigay-ingat
at nagbabantay sa mga tumatawid na mga manlalakbay
sa pagitan ng mga mundo.

Habang niyayanig ng mga kontradiksyon, panatiliin
ang sarili, tapusin ang mga paglalakbay ng walang patid,
Hindi dahil walang patlang, kung hindi dahil kabahagi ng pagsuong
maski dilim, patlang, at kawalan.

Patuloy na tumuklas at buuin ang sariling praktika,
hanggang tuluyang matutunan
kung paano tahimik itong pakawalan ng walang pag-iimbot o pagtanggi
sa Lawa na nagbabaga sa pagal ng mga kaluluwang
hindi na makalapag at makapagugat sa ilalim ng lupa,
ngunit hindi rin makauwi sa pinangakong lupa, langit at tubig
na ngayon ay isang lotto ticket, SDO, at mga gawa-gawang karapatan.
Ayon din sa matatanda, hindi ito mababago, at nabubuhay tayo para makidigma at patuloy na tumaya.#

Dito sa Lungsod ng mga siksikang tren
sa umaga at sa gabi ng paglubog sa mga makinarya,
Ang sentro ng  pabrikang papel at usok, na buong bilis
sa inaliping katapatan at tapang
ay naninirahan palagi sa piling
ng mga madaming mga ipis at daga.

May nalilimutan na mahalaga tungkol
Sa tahimik na hele ng mga flourescent na ilaw, kaalwanan
ng mga matatayog na pangako ng condo't bagong mga kainan, magagarang mga pabuya.
Mga panibagong mga tagisan ng lakas
sa mga makabagong Coliseum ng Roma,
sa bawat amoy ng dugo at bagong silang.

May tipo ng sukal na wala sa mga gubat, at tunog ng mga
malalakas na putok ng baril na wala sa digmaan.
Tila sa kahit anong panahon, mag-alsa man mismo ang Kalikasan
at magpadala ng Tsunami,
magpalindol at magpaputok ng bulkan
sa panahon ng kakaibang asul at pula na buwan
sa pagkakabuwal ng bagong bilang
ng mga magsasakang sa mga mass-suicide
mula India, Korea, at Pilipinas dahil sa di-pantay
na mga batas kalakalan:

Ipadala man ng mga makata't hukbong
gerilya ang kanilang pinakamatikas at
pinakamatatapat na mga bilang sa mga pagsubok
ng panibagong mga pag-aaral at pagsasapraktika,
maaaring Puting Elepante din ang
hindi sasapat ang kabayaran para sa mga utang
na dapat matagal nang nabura at naigpawan.

Mula sa lakas at pwersa hindi lang ng mga diyos
ng mga sari-saring pampulitikang mga pormasyong nagdidirehe
sa mga kilos ng mga taong kapit na sa patalim,
Kung hindi mula din sa lakas ng mga nangahas mabuhay
at lumikha ng mga paraan para makapagpatuloy na
makapagaral ng sariling pagkamulat:

Ang kaaway na papel na salapi o papel na tigre
ay nilikha din ng tao para din lamang
maunawaan ang mga sariling kahinaan,
mamulat sa mga repleksyon ng mga nagbabagong
sarili sa gitna ng unos, upang matiyak ang yapak at
mabuo ang mga hanay at kahandaan ng mga
unang hawan, at huling mga walis.
Ang mga kalabisan ay para lamang mapatingkad
ang kahinaang dala ng kasaysayang nagluwal,
ang kawalan ng pagpapahalaga sa binubuhay na mga palitan.#

Newborns in ditches. Dead **** hidden
at the back of another big party line.

Here we go calling again.
Each other, whatever we want
we become.

We filled ourselves with poisons
of complaints after complaints filed,
yet we cannot change the way we respond
to injury, insult, or our own inner grieving
and fears. Trapping the young in straitjackets,
labels and using their good work
only to build better prisons
of self-destruction
for them.

We remain miseducated and lost
because we see our time and work
as mere instruments to be sold and bought,
instead of ways that can save lives
and set each other free.

So this has been where you were
all this time. Especially the kids
that looked up to you.

In between being forced by your intelligence officers
to beat up your comrades
and then *******,
or else die.

This dark uncharted
neglected geographical treasure:
your breathing heart's chamber.

Looking straight out
what is always here with us
regardless of all our lies and grand
machines of escape.

This is the price you paid
for being able to bring life and sustain it.
Until now, we are still trying to see through
this visual masterpiece: another drug mule caught.

Drugs, sometimes as if the sullen reminder of our collective
human attempt at remembering our real treasures
and how we have lost them: A grandmother has 7 packs taped around her body, like a parasite but also like a baby mammal,
or an omen of something else yet to be remembered
and said out loud.

One day or day one, a friend would always remind me
when sober. We step into understanding ourselves better
or we keep making things to express
unresolved fears and anguish.#