In Nero’s private stage,
Disaster was
His audience. Rome mimics fallen Troy in play.
What was reflected in Nero’s eyes
when he sang of the swirling patterns
of fire? When Rome was caught burning;
When conspiring led to its fall.

Fire engulfed Rome with fiery teeth.
The clouds hide or faint into black smoke.
The skies bleed heavily with rust
Its brassy color mixing with the
*** of burning seas, like oceans melting

Could you not feel the sun’s weight?
Now it is incomparable to
Molten seas and softened lead!

Blood spilt from sea-point, waves wallow the cries
Of the fallen. Like a bellowing sound marching
Against caverns of ears, Copper soldiers
Melt into clouds oozing with emotion,
Shattering their now empty metal hearts,
Hollow hearts that outlive the muteness.

It is awakened when
Spark and light is absent.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 26, 2009 - Alabang)

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

Half man, half tree:
Describe limbs with leaves
And when the reader reads, looks only at
One part: wood
but not sees

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / 2010 - Parañaque)

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)

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

It no longer exists.

The wind; a passing gale sweeps
my laurels.
The desert is filled, too many
my voice.

Origin, a return to birth.
A sword of blazing fire, winged
halts me.

Where are you Eden?

I look and look,
the desert is filled with voices too many,
which is mine or do i have any?

The sun no weeps, I sing.
Myself, I find, thick of leaves
I carry, it sings no longer green.

Winged fire sword ablaze,
use I, leaves dry. Outstretched,
brown, my arms, fail to sky

afire. Feet my burns, I no walk longer.
Stiff, I root my tree to flower.
Fragrant white flowers, settle.

Pray I to you, of hope I joy.
Bring life to water, Frame of sky
Bring, Abba, Father.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal - February 1, 2011)

It felt strange
The first time
I became aware

I just happened to
Walk up
The stairs and the wind
Blew.

I really didn't feel
Anything
Nothing, really
its just as if
you were stealing
chocolate and you feel
As if someone knew.

No words for it.
Yes, i know it's
An understatement.

It's them again.
I catch them glancing
Too often, too long
And Waiting
For something
To turn up.

- 01/21/16

She visits us every time
The building needs repainting
And every time she visits us
We ask her:

“When will you be back?”

You say you will only be
A jeepney ride away.

We sing; the choral chimes with the wind.
Dry leaves always settle down
Where the wind stops.
Only it does not. But, it settles, and always
Wherever the wind leads them to grow

Apart.

Maybe that’s the purpose of apartments.
Always seeming to leave, to stay only
For sleep, not rest.

We kept talking every time
How our phones ring each other.
You answer questions, always you do so
Not with a no, it was difficult for you;
Nor a yes; but always you say:

“I’m right here”

“5 minutes”

passing through regular public commute;
you are always nearby,
always stuck in heavy traffic.
I can even see you every time,
Always there,
And always smiling.

The last time we smiled together
You told us:

“I am always here – a whisper away”

Only you are there

Not here.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / July 25 2013 - Parañaque)

It kept her inside the workshop,
the only noise, a sewing machine
quietly purring like an old moody cat.
Spools of threads closed into fists,
Fingers curling back into their tiny shells.

She places a piece of cloth on the table,
The open seams sticking out
like the yellow stains of a neck fold.
An old worn out shirt with little holes
filled with imaginary garden trolls.
The smell of moth ***** seeping out.
Curling her lips like a slug with a pinch of salt,
A hesitant hand moves deliberately
as if feeling the roughness of a warty toad.
To keep one is to improvise, to mend spaces
tightly with thread and needle on skin.

She will say to herself: “I will keep him close”
Her little lover’s shirt on her small bruised frame.
chipped, she will drink liquor bitter.
She will drink it long and drink it deep.

November 2014

The gods of fire and storms seem to call.
Do you not hear that his end is near?
The deep is swallowing up the light.
Skies burn, winds drip emotions.
But unlike Fishes, multitudes of clouds
Dissipate like crowds, oceans
darken with grief as sun seems dulled.
Stars move with the procession
Of boats with floating lamps.
Fishermen’s vessels cross, slicing waves
underneath, spraying salt water on eyes.
Crisscrossing nets spread
Like wings of dove.
Overbearing waves heavy with boats
answer call of coming
School of fish.

Pained hands blister the night.
With Eyes that flicker like lamps.
They Be still and know of Sun’s
promised light.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 25, 2009 - Alabang)

So should a seed
does grow must leave
its home:

Earthly walls,
empty shells
he covers himself with.

In nakedness
must Adam gather up
sewn up leaves.

While surrendering
into the dark
and foreboding earth:

Miles wide and miles deep.
Alone, into the sweltering
and blistering heat of the sun.

Armed with but
a leaf for Mercy!
cries his clothelessness to the wind.

So must a flood pass
once, twice, over and endure
in callousness and tenderness.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / August 5, 2014 - Bulacan)

From the far cry of a hawk caught in mid-flight
Recalls a voice of awakening:
Your dreams of flight hover in the distance,
The ever so distant call of the sun-eagle.
The ripples of golden waves,
Mounds and mounds of it piled up.
All these add up to your helplessness.

Do clouds always move with such impassioned grace?

At nighttime, he dreams of flight. It is the moonlight now
That casts its veiled form, her voice in the distance.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / September 27, 2011)

my ribs were pierced and the last 
vestige of life kept pouring out.
​and when the last word was said,
my body was lain among the mute.

I was a carpenter once, yet I will  
Soon be carved from wood
To sit in silence like furniture,
all dressed up and well kept
with expressions on my face: 

Of pain, of hope, of kindness.

But let us keep our eyes
on what cannot be seen.
What is visible is seldom what it shows.

A man I once knew kept with him a jar of seawater
He reasons that when he wakes up 
He is reminded by the vastness of the sea. 
And he embraces its fragrance: 

Salt and water.

Can not a jar claim a portion of the sea as his?
Or to put it in perspective is it not the sea that embraces us?
Our mouths and minds are still, left open and dull in silence
Waiting perhaps in solitary meditations 
or in many tongues we will talk.
and the crowd will call us drunk.

I and my other self are one. 
But soon, after I have gone another will take my place,
he will embrace us like the sea 
Even in places where no sea is in sight.
One thing is certain: salt. 
The tasteless air will ink new births of sea.

Today let us clothe ourselves in the nakedness 
of our adopted innocence. We will walk with the many 
and again converse in the greater garden.

- 5 September 2018

Tapos na
ang bilang.

Si Eunice
Nahuli na

Nasa likod
ng pintuan

Paalis na
kasama sila

Gab at Sam.
Uwian na

Na'san ka?
Ginagabi ka na.

Hanggang Kailan
ka magtatago

kung wala namang
maghahanap?

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / October 26, 2011)

"Twenty years before current time, the Spear Sect, known for only taking one student had its Sect Head accused of practicing Demonic Martial Arts by the leaders of the Murim Orthodox Union and was given the judgment of death."

I.

"A team of horses will struggle to chase down a spoken word. From the Analects of Confucius"

And when they died, their life ebbed away.
The maws of dogma forcing their daggers
To blot out the truth with the blood of the lost.
The orthodox sect's swords painting an old wall
With thin veneer of paint, haphazardly done.

In an unmarked grave lies the spear sect.
Where two died, another lived on.

II.

"An old warhorse in the stable still longs to gallop a thousand li. From the Analects of Confucius."

And they pierced his ribs,
his flesh threshed by deceit and
The facade of the pharisees
forcing him down. In the dark caves
he was placed with the heavy stone.

The shroud is a white sheet
Covering his scarred body.

His life lived on with the sinful:
the tax collectors and the courtesans;
the uncouth and uneducated,
the murderers and drunkards,
the gentiles of the other sects.

Though he lived not as others did.

From one spear he died,
with another he lived,
Leading them with the sacred fire.
Fishing for followers
among the many hungry.

December 2021

And here you are
Child, come to me.
This. What it used to be.
The entrance to your
Marble home.

The pillars.
the four corners that held
your baby clothes, old toys.
Like a wicker basket
In flames, now blackened
And covered
With the thick vines
And mired in green.

Nothing withstanded
The once and Great war.
The nights lit up
like fire-flowers blooming
in summer. Every thing
Burned away. Nothing
sacred was left. Doors and
Walls no longer stand.

You touch what is left
Grazing your fingers
On the roughness of
This old, old skin. Tired.

Now.

Only the stairway
Is  left.
The only portion left
Clothed with marble
Not carved away
by scavengers.
It looks sad
now that it leads
nowhere.

It led only to sadness
If you try to remember
What is no longer there.

With finality
You pick up your things
And go.
Content with the past
That it once held you
In its brown,
But now white and bony arms.

For Nick Joaquin

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / Augsut 12, 2014 – Bulacan)

Last night
you breathed on me.

The grass
reminded me
of the faint color of the sun
on your skin.

I remember,
how we treaded lightly
on folded grass;
a reminder
of how we stayed behind
for each other.

"Like friends"
We would say together.

How our own weight
carried
our sentences
to each other
almost touching.

For T. S.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 8, 2011 - Parañaque)

This October,
the rain speaks pebbles
like the sound of static.

Watch the patterns the wind points out:
the drifting rain,
a question marking a crossroads path you keep
asking to yourself.

"if the rain keeps pouring,
will our questions only pile up and up?"

Gathering huge puddles
under our doorstep
reflecting an expressionless sky, or
a sudden murkiness in it.

how the rain touches the roofs
of old gray houses sitting in silence.
watch as a huge puddle gathers all
other puddles, gathering minutes
the seconds even, lost in counting.

the rain starts drifting faster and faster,
see how counting no longer counts,
we feel a certain disconnection, again
the sound of falling pebbles.

Still, the rain keeps pouring
its numerous what if's
how it pins needles to our heads
you ask and you only hear
the long 'tchsssssh'-es

filling up the empty spaces of
my mouth, of our long silences
that still count, to me.

You slightly move
your hand above your hair
in a futile attempt
to lessen the question of rain.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / October 1, 2010 - Alabang)

My afternoons have been spent listening to her
And her mind-numbing jazz, the trumpets
and the trombones, the bass guitar and the piano.
I'm almost tone deaf but, god, I could feel her soul
through her songs. She has caught me
like how liquor stared back at me
with her golden stare
As the ice begins to sweat.

After school she would teach me
How to handle her instruments:
The soprano, the alto and the tenor.
The former, we would practice often at her whim;
Her favorite sax which even with a few notes,
she'd ask me to play with her.

In her own words, "You have to imagine"
"Making love to your instrument."
"Imagine me", she said.
And for the first time I heard her play
Pink panther off key.

after painfully separating
the colors in intricate patterns
she allows herself the full glimpse
of her daily labors. and without
hesitation brushes the dry earth,
along with her work.

her long fingers unfurling,
the long and brittle parts
breaking into sand.

7 November 2018

Clouds overcast;
Light of sun
Seep out.
Atop this hill, us
Below a height
Of canopy-sky.

Thought dreamt.
It drank long
And deep
in sleep.

Sun folds
into a blanket
Of glaring eyes.
As if the stars seemed
To question me:

"Where have you been
In this long dream?"

Always, we have been here
Watching trees grow,
Letting summers pass,
As if waiting
For something.

The folded grass
Reminds us
Of familiarity.

Salt, grass, mud,
Water, earth, air.

The wind
whispers these things
With a steady hand,
Brushing the grasslands
With water. Gently
Leaving its fingerprints
In us.

The shallow pond;
The way it mirrors the sky
Kept us pondering.
Perhaps the sky meant for us
To be more than just lions.
I look into it sometimes to think
how I was unable to see
the stars that night
we drank from it.

Maybe, i'm just not thirsty.

Outside our hill,
the winds
from the White Mountains still blow,
Singing their last verses.
I am starting to forget
the thought of us
being more
than just mere lions.

For T. S.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal - 01/11/14)

the ruffling of
wet leaves, dews
dance on rain wept
petals, or on ground
-bore-earth. In her
rootedness
they sought, in her
peace
they found
Solace.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 24, 2009)

She would scratch the surface
To let the old paint fall
Exposing the barrenness
Of the walls.

Then she would,
As she was hired to do,
Cover it up with a foliage
Of green. Nonetheless
Mimicking growth.

- 01/20/16

You've once recounted in memory
with that young boy vigor
of a hobby collection of that sort.

I find it fascinating how you could
maintain our feigned interest in naivety.
You kept us so long in silence.

You've kept all these things in
jars and cabinets packed in
tight spaces.

And as little and as inconsequential
that butterfly memory that you kept
in a bright jar up in your attic;

let that ripple strengthen into a wave
but i will never be what you willed
and kept for so long. A butterfly

clipped and dipped in formalin
for your tiny framed collection,
that pride-start, if you even had one.

-19FEB15

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

For G.S.L.

Lover:*
Write, we must of the moons we spent
Weaving our alien languages together
Deriving meaning from each other
by what it meant for us
to be home in our shell.

Words we've bound each other with
With histories of our forefathers,
How we delved in the intricacies of the mind
Carefully, and as surely as the waves
Caressing the shores from distant seas.
Coupled with the cresting of the wave,
An ocean's promise lies in wait.

To you I am like the soil that does not empty
Its thirst for answers from the rain.

Yet you cannot give me access to your inner paths
So instead, I have knelt down in silence
and cupped your hermit house to my ear.

You have found speech for words you cannot say.
And I am like the shallow portion of the sea
Where you can clearly observe the rocks and stones
That cut, as well as the coral that thrives
Like fiery corals attracting fish.

We are of different tongues,
Yet despite the separateness
Our strangeness connected us to each other.

You have raised old foundations
And pulled the sea to come to me.
There i knelt on uneven sands
Confident that your own voice
Will lead us to the birthing dawn.

Now it is not just the sea that divides us
but the very same wildness, that impetuosity
that gleamed at dawn, Which led me to you.

Where now is the cradle
for the pearl of the night?
How you have drifted away
I cannot know.

Birthed from sand, Foundations crumble.
Your words are carried away with the rising
Of the tides. Numbing the island in me
Leaving a mark visible only in old maps,
Which sunk the moment you left.

On the very same shore
I found you searching
For what you have lost.

- 13 November 2015

We both ask for a reminder
of our closeness:
A broken handle of a porcelain cup,
an old book you said you lost
in the flood, and the jacket
we both shared in the absence
of an umbrella.

Whispering words that remain
unsaid. Struggling to hold on
to what little we can keep;
the spaces are left out
for memory to fill in.

- 7 August 2014

You come to me as a goat
among flock of sheep. You
offer words I do not understand.
I neither welcomed you
Nor offered any reply.

Words.

They scare us. I will not offer
Anything except what the  poets,
Juvenile writers of love want.
A forced smile for something
We do not want nor have
Any interest for, an awkward
Conversation where we tell you
“Profound! Profound! Profound!”
And pretend that all this is
Heart felt.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / December 20, 2012 - Pasay)

The rain;
Flogging our roof’s heads with sound.
‘Tchssschschschchchcshshcsh…’
like unplugged cable.
Smudges our screens in monotonous tone until
wire is cut, or lightning struck.
A veil of silence
envelopes eyes, off-color.

We stop to think of what might happen.
To stare at endless possibilities
of rain falling
to a stop.

Unless the flood comes uninvited,
Offers things for sale; usually you’re left
without a choice.
Barters a few Armani clothes or a few Dolce & Gabbana
For a sack of rice and a few cans.

Sometimes the flood throws you freebies,
like exotic pets bigger than a cat
Or throw in a few Pesos and get a broken tire.
But mostly they just give you mud and dirt. Mud and dirt.
They fill you up with it
and cover your eyes with it too.
And if you get lucky, they’ll throw you
the essentials like refusing to take your children,
The recovery of a dead faith and you start praying again,
Or they give you an orange boat.

Sometimes the rain comes in to see if you’ll sink
Or learn to walk again.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / September 13, 2010 - Alabang)

It is Monday and you hover above me
Like a thunder cloud signaling rain.
You shake the slumbering trees
Motioning them to awake.

It is Tuesday and I do not kiss
you. Night turns to day.

Sky is father to earth
and gathers rain to nourish the land.

This morning you kiss the imperfect earth
Goodnight. It has its back turned to the sky.

Outside my window
The wind cools the rain on my back,
The new grass births.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / September 21, 2010 - Parañaque)

and the face
that reminded her
of what loss was,
arose in full circle.
the light shone on
what the darkness kept
hidden: the dead
bodies of little furry animals;
all the white rabbits
(as if pulled out from that magical hat)
appeared, surrounding her.

I.

Action instead of meditation,
Whispered the old sensei in his deathbed.

This world is made for the living.
Stop digging a grave in your head.


II.

The old portrait lies forlorn
In this. The only smile in the occasion.

All the white sheets are draped in black
The sweltering heat, echoing.
The only movement:

That of a dog digging for his bones.

III.

Though not a single bone in my body
Is that spiritual at all
Mine might be cranky
Fragile
Heavy

My spirit is getting old
Along with my bones

I carry the weight of thoughts acted
And unacted. Realized, failed, and the impossible.

IV.

On my shoulders, they lie, like only they can lie
Shouts and whispers drip on like in water

Torture. Which is the voice that carries
My truth? The boundary between which I claim
And which this world of movement

For me, has claimed.