A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket -
And you listening.
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming - mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm
wreaths of breath -
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk.
'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!'

The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed.

i
wish
that
i
could
tell
you,

like
soured
milk,
so long
overdue.

like
birds
that
fly
south
before
the
snow,

i wish
it
had
flown
from
my lips,
long
long
ago.

like
a
rose
in
full
bloom
and
the
bee
that
buzzes
above,

i'll
have
to
fly
away
in
peace,
just
as
a
graceful
dove.

some
things
can
never
be
spoken,
some
things
can
just
never
be,

some
thoughts
get
treated
as a
lifetime
prisoner,
...

never
to
be
freed.

My city spews poetry like smoke,
In vicious columns of abstracts,
Of unspilled blood, untold hurts,
Unsung love and unrestrained joy.
Neck of an old refill snapped
absent-mindedly,
Sploshes a tiny blob of red ink,
On the table cloth,
And so flows musings and rants.
Smell of twilight rain mingles with
Incense fragrance of evening prayers
Triggering a burst of longing and love.
Electric bulbs and rainbows coexist
And emit more than just light.
My city breeds more poets than
The Lakes ever did.

If these petals are soaked in blood,
Then it is the blood
of soldiers
shot before
they could return the favor.

If these petals are soaked in blood,
Then it the blood
leaking down teenage arms
those that so dearly
want pain to end.

If these petals are soaked in blood,
Then it is the blood
of those murdered
whose lives ended
without meaning.

If these petals are soaked in blood,
Then it is the blood
of a broken heart
that doesn’t bleed,
but wishes it did.

If these petals are soaked in blood,
Then it is the blood left unspilled
that lives to let live
and dies only when death takes it
to soak these petals.

Paalam na muna, sinisintang toyò
Childhood sweetheart kita, karibal ng tuyô
Pero wala sa usapang mayro’ng dugo
ng obrerong sa alat mo’y ihahalo.

Di ko maatim na sa kanin kong puti
Iwiwisik kita, habang may lugami
sa mababang sahod, sa dusa’t pighati
Kapalit ng yaman ng sa ‘yo’y may-ari.

“Bukas na lang kita muling mamahalin”
Kung sakaling katarungan ay dumating
Kontraktwalisasyo’y tila almuranin
Kamandag sa buhay nitong bayan natin.

Translation:

We’re on a cool-off, Soy Sauce

Well, it’s goodbye for now, dear soy sauce brand, unspilled
You’re a childhood sweetheart, rival of dried fish grilled
But unjustly having lowly workers’ blood spilled
It’s not part of the deal, your salty taste concealed

It really is just hard to bear to sprinkle you
on my white rice, while those who toiled to see you through
suffer deeply in wages low, mis’ries undue
amidst the wealth, so huge, of those few who own you

Love you again, oh tomorrow, maybe, I will,
if fortune brings that sweet justice to hands that mill.
Contractualization’s a serpent waiting still
To our dear people’s life, a venom meant to ****.

Look through the fence, you see that beast there?
  That tense lump of muscle and mange-ridden hair?
That's old Scrapyard Spike, and this is his lair;
  Don't tread in his yard on adventure nor dare.

Old Scrapyard Spike, he's been a-weathered for years;
  In his chain-link domain, rain-soaked despair.
Unfed in the morning, watered only with tears;
  Unsheltered from squalls, corroded by glare.

Now poor Scrapyard Spike wasn't always so old,
  When he was a puppy, they told him they loved him;
But when he grew up, he had to make friends with the cold,
  For with the clink of a fence, he was thrown out on a whim

So Spike spent his days alone with his chain;
  He sweltered at noon and slept wet with the rain;
And all those who passed him discounted his pain:
  "He's just an old cur" was the daily refrain

And then one cold day, a girl found her way in;
  Her flesh on her bones, blood coursing unspilled.
Old Spike smelled her first, his chain went a-slitherin'
  And the lost child stood rooted, her every nerve chilled.

The silence of metal, broken plastic and glass,
  The beast came a-running, his chain length a ploy;
And jaws opened wide as he lunged for the lass;
  But when his head pressed her thigh, he whimpered with joy.

Old Spike raised the call with a manticore's thunder;
  A summoning cast with his lungs' every strain.
She petted him gently, whose care she was under,
  Though his poor heart convulsed as he looked back at his chain.

The clangor succeeded, a blue-clad protector
  Saw the beast at her heel, and he drew as he lept;
An ounce of hot metal found Scrapyard Spike's skull,
  And the last thing he heard was his friend as she wept.

Red Flame

Once again
Beauty
Reflected
In the Context of the World
How many times?
Can Love say No to Itself
From the Perception
Of Difference?

Writers Ink,  
Unspilled

When a Flag comes out
Is there no longer One?

Are the Words Spoken
In Another's Language
Really  the Threat
Of an impoverished Life?
Or the Words of another
Persons Faith
....heretic?

These ears
of Listening
Are the Walk
Of Life..

There is
No Team
No Coin
No Fear

Just the
Opportunity
For Choice
To Love, and Listen

A Rainbow
Of Entry
Into a Room
Without Light

Love's Miracle
Unbroken
Sight

The mileage added up to just a grand
Not a lot for 20 days,
No crossing of a dateline
Or a continent’s divide.

But still that world seemed somewhat foreign
and I saw streams of amazing things,
That were echoes of my teenage self,
As different now as I was then.

A hazy forest, dark and damp
Where the mist turned into fairy snow
And we walked on in muddy shoes
To learn the mysteries of falling water.

A midas treasure of wave-borne findings
Spilling from a cavernous hall
Pieces of so many lives found
Floating on the morning tide.

Stories of a Nippon sailor’s life
From things that got thrown overboard
Images of fishing boats
In round glass ***** and floats of cork.

Carve the circle with a line
That led to a reunion of
The ones that I grew up beside
But never quite was welcomed in.

A rounding up of recollections
Shared at tables set for eight
Where those left out still don’t fit in
And bonhomie was the music played.

To the ocean of my childhood days
Waves that tell me who I am
And fill up all the empty spaces
City life drained out of me.

A shining tower with ninety steps
That wound around like pizza slices
And tripped me up to ******* blood
As balsa airplanes spiraled to the ground.

No time for wounding on the schedule
Shedding blood but never tears
The leader of the band played on
Admiring a Tsunami boat

Come all the way from far Japan
With cargo of the local fish
Still swimming in the unspilled sea.
A miracle born from true disaster.

Another beach, not like my own
A warmer, calmer span of sand
With jutting rocks in shallow surf
That dare you out to climb them.

Drawn once more to city lights
And the grassy ***** where mother lies
There were other gardens to enjoy and
And contrivances with just two wheels.

How quickly we grew shuttered in-
Just two days in big city life,
The restaurants and funny shows
Still told us it was time to go.

Longing for the beauty of the Gorge
We were met by smoke and blackened stumps
And exits blocked to waterfalls, ravaged
By the fires of hell, and ugly now for 50 years.

A teenage boy with fireworks and no sense
Destroyed the loveliest drive on earth
And bragged to all his awestruck friends
That all the news stories were about him.

With fingers crossed at Mount Rainier,
The sunny weather turned to slush and
Fell two inches in an hour.  I ate fresh snow
Off branches as we hiked, and froze my tongue.

We wore the heavy coats we almost didn’t bring
And cheered when sunshine took the snow away
And we could walk in forests once again
On trails we never knew were there.

A wonderland of cast off parts and metal bits
Became giraffes, seahorses and other marvels
In the hands of a roadside welding artist
Who sold a giant piece to my home town.

A visit with a sister who shared my youth but not my soul
Who grew one way and I another
Leaving not a thing in common for us
Except the love that comes from blood.

No way to avoid the final city
Hellish place of one way streets
Endless detours and construction
Pay all you own to park two hours.

Yet there was the comedy and
Segways once again to ride.
A troll under a hulking bridge and
Poor Rapunzel in the tower.

Passing up the tourist musts,
Visited in journeys past, we saw
The small and quirky things
That make a foreign city yours.

Twenty days, almost no rain
Unheard of in that rainy clime
A lot of sun, some cloudy skies
A bit of snow to frost the cake.

Twenty days to drive a circle
On the map of who I am
And where I came from
To bring it all back here with me.

To this place so vastly different
I wonder how I found a way
To fit inside this giant tumbler
And plant a seed that actually grew

A would-artist long ago
I wonder how I mixed the paint
To make a life so changed, in colors
Blended from Seattle’s soils.

Painted on a Portland canvas
With a brush of Longview bristles
Wetted with Pacific water
To present my image to the world.
                       ljm

All of your sincerity can nay make me believe
There is an egg hatched within these words
A broken ***** unspilled with lusting
Doesn't a new father and a mother bring
We just carry on with odd shuddering
The benevolent shot of blind oxytocin
Rings the bells of this sweet typing
Until the critic sets in.