i am never travailed
by all afternoons
goading me
to

the door of poetry.

all of them sleeping heavily
shelves, these gods
where i imagine my fates
far-fetched,
perched atop an illusory cypress
like a dove oblivious of home,

Villa
 de   Ungria
        Joaquin
            Gonzales
  ­    Tiempo
  Dalisay
       Abad
          Lumbera
     Gamalinda

  these imperious tyrannies
   sovereign in speech casting
   my storms to drizzle alone,

  where all these words go
  where all these fates wander

  i know not.

     all i know is continuing.