The place where the atmosphere consists of main outbreaks,
Whether the dishes weren't done or the floors weren't mopped correctly,
Something so small can effect the gross unification of "family".
Feeling like you can't necessarily express yourself,
Leaves you to feel drowned out by the many emotions that flood your mind at the worst of times,
It allows your feelings to grow more and more profoundly erratic; anxious.
Allow me to go into full elaboration as to how I constantly maintain my well-respected position of a so called "good person" or complain about the many people who are just as careless as the majority of people nowadays who simply do not ask how I've been.
I've let days slip by,
Suddenly, I feel no difference in what occurred yesterday or really, no contrast in the feelings I'll most likely encounter tomorrow.
At home, mass mental destructions happens,
It's where I get pulled into a place where I'm just trapped in my own self, similar to the way I feel in school.
I don't know, it could possibly be causing my continuous feelings of nervousness whenever I'm surrounded by people,
Or it could merely be the fact of which, I haven't yet chosen a path or seen quite a way to go through and feel a protective environment around me.
These winter days are gradually approaching,
It's only a matter of time until my mind goes away like the sun at night,
These seconds, minutes, hours can patrol for what feels like perennial timings, but anticipation is what's really foreshadowing my shallow whole of a "home".

I.

“You can only fight the way you practice”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

His lessons started late
As always, and as always
What is thrown is a question
You grip tightly
around your fingers
as one would,
as one always should.

With a branch he beckons:
“Come” he asks,

“if a stick is struck from this angle,
what would your answer be?”

Always, the old man taught
With each strike, each parry,
Each disarm and lock,
Each time my knuckles
Would hurt. This way
he makes it sure
that my body
remembers.

This is always
the first step.
My mind might forget.
But the body
Remembers.


II.

“It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi

With him, everything starts
The vague quality of nonwords
Taught from pain, simplified
Through science:

the fulcrum and the lever.

Each joint, each turn,
a pattern to comprehend,
all things work in context:

A framework of the undeniable
Fact:

the world is separate
In only these two words:

Taub at Tihaya

The colloquial words for
Face down and face up;
This is a pattern
of the body.

III.

“If you wish to control others you must first control yourself”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

Tihaya

The lesson starts
When he presses
His thumb forward
to a hand asking for alms
like turning a doorknob
too far to the right.

Taub

when I pull back
four fingers
on a giving hand
too far to what is left.

these are the means
for control.
When I know
How much is necessary
To push or to pull,
To teach or to break.

- 18 October 2017

the rain sifts through my attempts
to grasp it with mere hands:
one cannot understand
without going through its constant
shift and change of faces.
As to another, one learns
to ask the right questions,
naturally, at the opportune time.
Like in all things
Every conversation
Which pass through us
Were never truly there.
Those that do stay are bereft
of meaning.

What remains often
is the damp, moistness
of the late -ber month showers:
regret, loss, a tactless remark.
They share the same fate in all
of this, the slow, uptake for words:
closure, a second chance, a bad joke
like the heavy traffic we always have
to endure - a cartload heavy
-laden with stockpiled souvenirs
with no particular use except
for reminiscing, a flickering hope
for the last bus ride home.

One day, you will
miss all of this.
And the only thing
that is left to endure,
is memory.

14 October 2017

The Albatross
Lone de-odorizer of the toilet
Its smooth contour covered in a clear blanket
Wrapped around with cheap plastic,
Adorned with cheap silk, the semi-lucent plastic
Like unwrapping a yema
It smells very sweet. Very, very.

You seldom notice this white bird
In your long hours of comforting, brooding
Hungering for attention beneath the swollen toilet
Asking for unwanted pleasures
The toilet asks "why must I feed?”
The Albatross mums in its silent reprieve.

Still you didn’t notice the wounding
Of your smooth oily toilet
In long comforting hours of sleep;
No, only excretion is wanted here.

The albatross takes away the scourge
The scourge beneath your noses
And still you didn’t notice
The glory in its inexistence

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 28, 2008)

and the boy drew a line
with his stubby hands,
feeling the roughness
of the pavement.

and it is his stubbornness,
when his name is called,
he doesn't look back
pretending not to hear.

with dirt on his hands
he watches the sparks slither
into smoke through his mouth
to taste something ominously sweet.

24 March 2017