Sunday sermons are spilling on the inner city streets
through the green heaps and brown bags
through the downtown whisperers
and sage solitude souls

Army bands prepare for march
(their trench members filling packs with canister and cane)
the high command and tricked militia head pinned
quick on the look for splinter, lorry and skuttle

Traffic patterns change at the COP connect
camouflage bearers break formal stride
battle men slip between colorful floats
unsuspecting slumlords (vein pricked and weary)
grin in their second suite dying rooms

Twitching men and rubbernecks
sit discreetly on the corner wall
JJ and the chief revere a 21 gun salute
holy rollers raise cheer (in a moment of silence)
chess men hold steady
with ivory cues

Flames belt from the distant foundry
streets come alive with crackle and dust
members of the attic group glance down from their perch
an elderly man in a straight jacket (happy in the now)
sits solemnly with a cold reflective stare

It’s not far from the steely mud holes
from the flying fragments and sharp broken dreams
from the arsenal digs and madmen (who quietly turned the *****)
the ivy trellis
and flowing white gown
are a nocturne fit
for this elevated rolling highland

Nilaliman ko ang hawak ko sa bulsa, wala na nga pala 'kong pera.
Mabilis akong naglakad patungo sa bughaw na sasakyan ko. 'Di ko ininda ang pabugso-bugsong ulan at bulong ng mahapding hangin. Bumubulwak ang tubig mula sa kanal at magiting na dinadaan ang palusong na kalsada papunta sa gusali.

Nilaliman ko ang hawak ko sa bulsa, at natuklasang wala ang susi ng kotse.

Matagal-tagal na rin akong nag-aaral sa lumang gusali ng Biology sa UP. Pangatlong taon ko na. Sa wakas, magtatapos din ako.
At saka mag-aaral ng medisina.
Unang girlfriend ko si Kaye, at napakahaba ng aming kwento. Nagkakilala kami noong bakasyon sa pagitan ng aking ikalawa at ikatlong taon sa mataas na paaralan. Hindi siya ang una kong babaeng nagustuhan.
Pero siya ang una kong minahal.
Nagsimula ang lahat sa aming pagiging magkaibigan, at nang lumaon, nahulog ako para sa kanya.
Alam kong mali yun, kasi may gusto siyang iba at may napupusuan din ako noon.

Pero binago niya ang lahat. Naging matalik kaming magkaibigan, hanggang sa ayun, nagkaaminan.
Walang nag-akalang magiging kami.
Nilaliman kong muli ang hawak sa bulsa. At saka pumanhik sa gusali, papunta sa aking silid.
Natagpuan ang susi ng kotse, sira, putol, puro gasgas at tila nabagsakan ng mabigat na bagay.
Badtrip, sabi ko.
Magko-commute ba na naman ako?
'Di nagtagal, nakaisip ako ng paraan.
Pinapunta ko si Kaye, total, may kotse naman siya.
Dumating si Kaye sa silid nang may malaking ngiti, isang ngiting tagumpay sa volleyball.
Bakas pa sa kanyang mga braso ang bakat ng tama ng bola ng volleyball. Namumula, pagod na pagod.

'Yun ang huling alaala ko.

Sabi ng doktor, nag-shutdown daw ang utak ko buhat ng matinding pagod, at nagkaroon ako ng amnesia.
Ayon sa kalendaryong iniabot sa'kin, humigit-kumulang 30 taong gulang na ako.
Wala akong ibang maalala kundi ang alala sa gusali ng Biochemistry.

Nilaliman ko ang hawak sa bulsa. Hinimas ko nang todo ang lalagyan, hinipo ang bawat sulok ng aking bulsa. Nakapa ko ang isang pirasong papel.

Dear Lorry,
Mahal kita.
Pero may mahal na 'kong iba.

Yun lang? Yun lang ba? Tapos na?
May nagawa ba 'kong masama?
Tiningnan ko ang aking mga braso.
Bakas pa rito ang mga bakat ng kutsilyo, namumula, puro peklat.
Sabi ng doktor, may suicidal tendencies daw ako. Aba pakialam niya!

Pumasok si Kaye sa aking kuwarto sa ospital. Hawak niya ang braso ng isang lalaki.

Doon ko lang napansin ang kuwarto ng aking tinutuluyan.
Puno ng sulat ang mga pader. Puno rin ng mga nagsasanay na nars at doktor, at pilit na iniintindi ang reklamo ng mga pasyenteng nakadungaw sa nakaidlip nilang kalawakan.

Hindi ko na kaya.
Ganoon na lang ba ang halaga ko kay Kaye, na ganun niya ako papalitan?

Kinuha ko ang bolpeng nakatengga sa mesang malapit sakin. 'Di ko na pinansin ang kirot ng IV at mga kung anu-ano pang nakasuksok na gamot saking sumusubok na pagalingin ang mas lalong sumasakit, kumikirot na kalagayan.
Isang 'di magamot na sakit ng damdamin, isang kirot na bumubulwak mula sa kanal na pinagdadaluyan ng aking pagmamahal.

Pagmamahal para sa babaeng nakita kong hawak ang braso ng isang lalaking 'di man lang ipinakilala sakin para man lang mapawi ang uhaw ko para mapasaya si Kaye.

Tinutok ko ang bolpen sa aking sarili.
Pinagsasaksak ko ang sar-

clear-eyed springs
unfold her wings
that trumpet
the joyful
sound of
cherry blossom trees
sharing her
branches with
shiny black yellow and
red breasted
lorry birds of spring
oh Lord
i can hear them sing

red car, yellow car, blue car, white car

no lucky black car, no orange to wish on

they just sat there for awhile on the edge of the rooftop, feet dangling looking at the rush of cars passing by playing the game they invented and derived from the tongue twister red lorry yellow lorry
if a black car passes by, luck will come through
spot the first green car and you pick the way you die
look for an orange car and make a wish

it was a game they played to **** time or whenever they went up the rooftop of the ballet studio they've been performing at since they were children and they were currently taking a break from swan lake rehearsals. they played the game for a little more though heather could tell that megan-meg for short- had her mind somewhere else.

"penny for your thoughts?"

meg just shook her head, tilting it across the pink skies that matched the tutus they still had on. a dreamy smile was strewn across her face

heather just watched her friend and the world surrounding them, a light gentle bubble in her stomach. she loved the building's rooftop so much; she was actually the one who first went up here and ever since then, it had been their place her place. she went here on weekends sometimes, when they didn't have rehearsals. everytime she was up here, she felt more than she was, like she was a goddess and everything below her was under a microscope like she could change anything with the click of her fingers. but most of all, in here she could freely be. it was her safe haven.

"okay spill tell me this isn't about hendrix again?"

meg smirked, looking at heather's ice blue eyes "okay you caught me" she says, traces of the english accent she had come with still evident in her voice

"i knew it. boy he's got you in such a haze. you've got a school girl crush on him" she teased, making her friend giggle nervously. meg was dating hendrix peters, a senior in the high school they were attending. theyve been seeing each other for six months now and heather knew how much of a ride it was almost as much as meg (being the first person meg ranted to everytime things occurred) the two were a match made in heaven and it was testified by the amount of gossip about them that was circulated, mostly by the senior girls who were head over heels for him and would hiss whenever their paths crossed with meg's and try to flirt with him every chance they got though he politely shook them off. he supported meg in all the possible ways, from attending to her performances on stage to supporting and showing off her stunning makeup looks and she did the same with him, coming to all his football games and enthusiastically cheering for him. they were madly in love, you could say

"it's not like that" meg scoffed, clasping both of her hands together. "ive just been thinking about the both of us and our togetherness and how we haven't done it yet and yea it's been in my mind alot" she bit her lip, a habit of nervousness she had "it's not a big deal i know, i mean, people do it all the time, people who aren't even together and it's not this eureka moment or anything of the sorts but i want it to be special at least"

"has he been asking you to do it?"

"no he doesn't really no, forcing there" meg shakes her head "but we did talk about it some time, once, thrice yea"

"someday then or tomorrow just be safe my dear friend" heather replies in a playful tone, trying to bring back the lightness of the conversation

"ugh help me practice my skills give it all to me darling, let me do you" her friend wickedly retorts, launching atop her and pinning her to the concrete, playfully mock *******

"ew dude *******'re so gross get off me" she says trying to act annoyed but she was laughing too all the while trying not to get crushed by meg's weight who was strangely heavy despite her small wiry frame

"ow babe im coming ugh" meg continues, laughing fooling around-this was how their friendship worked

"*******. now your germs are all over me" heather grunts, finally pushing meg off her and both of them just lay there for minutes, laughing too much and choking in their breaths, as the sky was bathed in watercolor above them, the sounds of the city being their soundtrack


"what's it like?" heather blurts once theyve both calmed down

"hmmm?"

"what's it like, being with him?"



meg raises her hands like she was touching the clouds, taking the question in deeply "it's....wonderful....i mean...we aren't always happy and we have loads of fights but....we manage to make it work and the whole thing drives me crazy but it's a good kind of crazy"

her answer dissolves in heather's thoughts are completely lost in it


"you know that when we first got together i told him how much i hated clichés? flowers, chocolates stuffed animals, fancy dinner dates you name it and he nodded and the first gift he gave me was a boquet out of makeup products and i laughed because it was thoughtful and he's just full of surprises but you know he did give me flowers and letters on an occasion but i didn't mind it.
i guess that's how love is, made out of all the things you love thrown in with things you don't like but you don't mind at all"

heather nodded, still deep in thought "how did you know?"


the question seemed to have an incomplete thought but meg got the gist "i just did. well i didn't know itd last but i did know that he was for me but he's not my soulmate see, you don't find soulmates, you make them. anyone could be your soulmate, soulmates are just a ****** up idea at finding love. someday you'd know kid"

heather rolled her eyes. she hated being called kid because she was reminded of how much younger she was from meg when it came to these sorts of things "don't call me that"

"you'd know" meg pats her friend in the head, lovingly still teasing her

she sits up, tying the ribbons of her satin slippers. they climb down the fire exit and join the rest of the ballet dancers, rehearsing for the rest of the day



and heather went back to the rooftop the day after, a saturday in solitude sorting out the contents of her brain, replaying the conversation she and her bestfriend had in this very place the previous day, all the while feeling a sort of feeling in her heart very familiar to nostalgia. she realized it was the feeling of longing. longing for love like meg's description of it. longing for love like the glow of stardust. longing for love
sure she had a boyfriend before but not once did she feel like how meg described love out to be with him not once did she feel like their kisses and hugs mean something and their fights never felt worth fighting for. sure she had this guy in her grade whom she passed notes and looks with and texted for days but it was never serious and he didn't see her in that certain light that makes people glow that you fall for and even if they dated it would have been too complicated.

it was a winding day for her mind to wander and she played their game as the cars went on their journey on the highway down below.

an orange car swooshes out of nowhere and she closes her eyes and makes a wish when my person comes please i hope i'll know, holding on for a beat more. after that a black car passes and her luck was aligned with the stars

The bin lorry had been.
I picked up a fragment
of our neighbours lives,
litter they must have scrapped.

We do not know them.
They're always moving on.
Urban Bedouin,
with a thousand and one
domestic tales untold.

once you've read enough, or what's
called a respectable "bank account"
in literary terms, you fall back
on poetry, journalism and book reviews...
which springs to mind
a comparison between being a violinist
in an opera, playing a concerto or
being a street vendor, busking out
alternatives to the satanic cartwheels
of rubber tires slicing up a defiant cement road
in a busy hub on the Embankment -
i still want to cry every time i
hear bob marley's redemption song
or the other bob's north country blues,
i don't know, it just happens like period
pains, it's a grudge brimming near
the boiling point of water or the melting point
of iron that's lucky for chefs and for blacksmiths...
i am picking up the pieces of an empire,
the british rubble and a world in chaotic chuckles...
as they said of the roman degeneracy...
that ****** fascination with cuisine...
too any fast-food outlets...
no, but indeed, when you've become satiated with
a personal taste for reading, you
end up reading book reviews...
but i don't understand why a dominic would
read a book by a luke concerning drugs and warfare,
as picked up: 'odin's men rushed forward without
armour, were as mad as dogs or wolves,
bit their shields, and were as strong as bears or
wild oxen...' citing Snorri Sturluson...
the missing clue? magic mushrooms.
also worth mentioning: the 1814 Swedish-Norwegian
war... magic mushrooms aplenty...
in 1945 Soviets in Hungary dubbed the 'rabid dogs'
(indeed no " " enclosure, i trust the man's
descriptive certainty, indeed they were rabid
and dogs and there's no ambiguity to be invoked)
swallowing fly agaric...
american pilots in Afghanistan caffeine+
i.e. amphetamines...
Homer's heroes drunk (why is it that when a poet
is company during a war it becomes iconic
and almost glorious to keep the blood-thirst up?
like that idiocy of warring in the Napoleonic times,
a line of men, walk among canon fire and
stand 20 metres apart and just shoot...
like the post-Napoleonic war strategy of killing
civilians, huh?)... as too the heavy drinking
with king Harold prior to 1066 Hastings...
through to Vietnam, 1971 -
51% of GIs smoked marijuana, 28% took hard
drugs (******) and 31% used psychedelics...
****** was high as ****... a Michael Jackson of his day...
the ****** Eudodal... the luftwaffe on Pervitin
(earliest patent for crystal ****) and too
the Panzer men, e.g. a Gerd Schmücle.
sober citation at the end of the review
quoting a soviet surgeon:
                        'women and wine
                         are all very fine,
                         but a real man needs more:
                         the sweet taste of war.'
sometimes i'm in that aspect of things, almost gladly
i'd take up a trunk of wood and bash about
the field - but i realised poetry is a great war
you fight solo, and there's no brotherhood idealism,
solo, solo, all the way through...
but this still doesn't explain why a boy would
read blue material, as above mentioned,
and a girl would read pink material...
a jessica reading sounds and sweet airs:
                                        the forgotten women of
              classical music...
gentrification in the making... why wouldn't a boy
read pink material? too much of a crane driver or
a lorry nomad in him, to simply sit down
and hear a diva with 'oh, what ****!'
citing the Duke of Mantua's envoy that was Barbara
Strozzi play the clarinet?
you know why i'm cynical about feminism?
it's too distracted, it wants to spread its influence into
every human endeavour, positively speaking
it's what woman always boast about:
feminism is multitasking... it has to be relevant in
every realm of thinking... first of all it should focus
on one, and stop this quasi-plagiarism it's doing
at the moment in every aspect of cognition -
i say, the founding mother, the matriarch of
******* is feminism - honey... can't **** all the time,
gotta forage and hunt and build houses too!

I saw them get on the lorry
packed with people
drunk with sunshine, sand
and salt water
smelly people
stacked like sardines
to save a little on the fare

I saw them head away
away from the beach
away from the people
let people off
suddenly
and then drive off
something was off

I saw only five people left
driving into the bush
two of them slightly confused
confused by the terrain
and that only they would remain
heading back
strangely
via the outback

I saw them stop in nowhere
putting cuffs on the man
shouting things he didn't understand
dealing blows
and kicks
that he did
one at a time

I saw the others like he did
how they treated his wife
had her beg for her life
and had him beg and cry
and beg
to let them spare her
but they all wanted to try

I saw them get in the lorry
all five of them again
heading for a small town
where they found an atm
for that one last blow
of using their credit cards
before they would let the couple go

I saw them leave
only three in the lorry
the couple were left in town
shocked and scared
in an unknown town
they had no idea
why
I saw it all