Inukit ko ang pangalan nating dalawa sa isang puno
Simbolo Ito kung gaano kita ka mahal, mahal ko
Naka ukit sa punong iyon lahat ng ating mga pangako
Mag mamahalan tayo pang habang buhay kahit labag man sa atin pati ang mundo

Sabay tayong nangarap noon
At alam kung balang araw matutupad iyon
Pero tila labag talaga sa atin ang mundo
Mga pangako'y bigla nalang nag laho at na pako

Tinangay ng malakas na hangin ang munting pangarap natin
Tila kahit saan ito tangayin ay kay hirap na itong hanapin
Bakas ang pangungulila at lungkot sa aking mga mata
Dahil kahit katiting na pag-asa'y di ko na makita

Umalis ka at ako'y iyong iniwan
Lungkot at pananabik na sanay babalik ka at hinding hindi na kita bibitawan
Para akung pulubing palaboy laboy kahit saan
Tulad ng pag mamahal natin di ko alam kung saan ang patutongohan

Iyong ngite na parang araw na nagbibigay liwanag sa buhay ko
Pero ang ngiting iyon di ko na nasisilayan kaya biglang nag dilim ang mundo
Mga yakap mo gusto kung madama muli
Mahal ko bumalik kana at alam kung hindi pa ito ang huli

Madalas akung pumupunta doon sa may puno kung saan naka ukit ang ating mga pangalan
Dahil alam ko na doon mo ako iniwan at doon mo rin ako babalikan
Tila buhay ay parang sentonadong guitara
Wala nang direksyon ang mga nota dahil nawala na pati yong kopya

Lumipas ang ilang araw hindi ka parin bumabalik
Mas gustohin ko nalang sumoko dahil dito sa sakit
May bagong pangarap kana ata diyan mahal dahil di muna ako binalikan
Masakit pero sige sisimulan narin kitang kalimutan

Tumanda na ang munting kahoy na ating pinag ukitan
Kay tanda narin ng pag-ibig natin na iyong tinalikuran
Ilang taon na ang lumipas at kay rami na ang nag bago
Pero pag mamahal ko sayo pang habang buhay naka ukit sa punong ito

Ngayon may kanya kanya na tayong sariling buhay
Buhay na pinangarap natin Pero ito'y namatay
Masaya na ako mahal sa buhay kung ito
Sana ganon karin katulad ng nararamdaman ko sayo

Mahal ang punong ito, ay mananatiling simbolo at Manana tiling naka ukit ang ating na udlot na pangako

It was well trained cats in the cattery calling, pats on the back, back door, kicked in, mooring boats on the mooring in the morning and the phone call, cost cut, cold calling, and we're falling, falling, we're falling in love.

My best friends are criminals, and the jail cell crying is trying at times but trying sometimes feels tiring. The tire track tiling is abysmal, freewheeling in reverie, revving engines readily, sitting, settling and stirring imaginary cups of tea until eternity gives up delinquently.

I fail to recognise the narcissist in me until the inadequate rantings fall of the page at me. I want to be free, I want to be me, I want solidarity and I want that cup of tea, I want patriarchy, I want matrimony, I want monogamy and none of this is hyperbole. I have no apologies, especially not for the words I string together so irrationally. What else could you ask of me?
What else indeed, if I can't be naked I can't be free, if I alter the way I write I relinquish personality.
It doesn't seem right to me.
Dada is too crass for me, I need a cult of spontaneity. The English language is too brash to be...

Philosophical ideology and the books I read, all tell lies to me, are all absurd you see, I embrace the monotony, let the waves of the sea wash over me. I let the dictionary pages fall off the quay, like that moth on me, like the sloth i've been and cloth on screens. A dead dog can't scratch it's fleas, but to appease the beast we must first release, all creativity and return to being.

Drinking summer skin,
I hear the voices in the night sky
I'm a slave to the darkness around the stars,
and I can't remember why

One, two, twenty-three percocet in my soul.
Ambulance lights breathing throughout the mist.
Pump my stomach like the sawed-off shotgun
that I was too afraid to use,
because what if I 'miss'?
What spectrum of desolation to be traced with lips;
to kiss away the desire to exist.

Mirrored reflection injection causes the resurrection of my imperfection.
I see me for who I am, who I was, and who I won't be.
It's the collection of
my eyes dilating and my knees speculating their arrival
to the blue and white tiling disguised as neo-survival.
My mind is evaporating. My body begins to convulse.
I am a ghost in a machine. I am without a pulse

that’s the thing with those trophy wife types,
never really mandible in *** like a jaw ought to be,
too stiff, too anorexic model type:
pooch pooch a handbag full of duck quack pouts of the lips.
i like mandible women, scary scarred women,
the types that will grow into fond babushkas
and cook you a broth.
ah all this crap with daddy longlegs walking into a paparazzi
web of flashes is ruining the red carpet,
i was about to frizz it up into cushion afro softness
that would be quicksand for high heels.
i need blotches i need survival skills that hold the skin together,
every wrinkle, every passing jest of “irrelevance,”
every amulet glow of feeling through the kaleidoscope of depression,
jet-lag i call it, although i rather call it trombone,
with the numbers it was bound to happen, leaving the mammalian
kingdom and entering the insect kingdom, it was bound to happen,
the lost identity tiling the earth, ploughing the eardrum for symphonies,
it was just waiting... just waiting... like a spider waiting
with the flies of the urbanisation of green & green...
can’t change my mind... blotches on skin and bulges of missing protein
on the hips... perfect girth for child rearing...
i don’t like perfect... it’s supposed to have an aesthetic aura of an art
gallery... instead it has an aesthetic aura of hygiene of a hospital;
i arrested all the beauticians while talking to the paediatricians
painting my nails with u.v. liquorice in this hospital of hygienic looks
but unhygienic romping pompoms that swayed man to chlamydia.

The plumber came to call or The self-draining P’trap

To all the plumbers I have met, and yes I've met a few,
Domestic pipes, commercial pipes and civil pipe-work too,
Blow torch and solder, flux and joints,
Tricky bends and straight bits, in perfect counterpoint.

Then of course the big stuff, pipes bigger than your shoulders,
Not supplied by DIY, only bought from stockholders,
No solder for this job, a welding torch’s the thing,
Careful tack, align no crack, weld a perfect ring.

All the pipes are connected, whether large or domestic small,
Fill with water and pressurize, hoorah, no leak at all,
Flush the pipes, flow is fine, a job with a happy ending,
Pack the tools grab the kit, thank god I’ve finished bending.

The domestic user is dabbling, with a little pipe-work flair,
Can’t be that difficult, just one joint here, or the odd joint there,
All seems fine, fresh water in, waste water out,
I’m not going to spend money, on a plumber’s callout,
The waste seems not to drain well, gracious, how can that be,
I connected what I thought was right, no it can’t be me

It appears the waste pipe is blocked, gone are the comforting swirls,
This must be where the gooey stuff goes, and all those hairy curls,
I can clear the blockage, how difficult can it be,
Now, the water goes down the plug hole, around a wiggly bit, I see,
I think they call that a P-Trap, that’s all technical news to me
An old wire hanger, with force of water, will definitely do the trick
Plunge hanger down the hole, wiggle it round a bit, give it a flick,
The water hasn’t moved an inch, and the wire is firmly stuck,
Time to remove the P-trap, and deal with the unpleasant muck,
How difficult can this be, what could possibly go wrong,
Get the tools, lay on my back, this shouldn’t take too long,
Gripping trap tightly, with little effort it should unscrew,
Nothing moves, try again, it’s ****** tight, I think the thread’s askew,
A tap with my hammer, will loosen this stubborn joint,
No movement is detected, both sides are still conjoint,  
A mighty whack should do the trick, just to make my point,

A thin stream of water, is dribbling down my arm,
Success, I grab the trap, twist like merry hell, and to my alarm,
The stored bath water gushes out, the mood is far from calm.

Pushing the trap together again, trying to stem the flow,
A loud voice calls, from the dining room below,
What the hell are you doing, water’s all over my Chapeau.

Sorry my love, move your hat, it’ll be fixed in a trice,
Me thinks, If I don’t fix this very soon, I’ll need a flotation device,
Just a five minute job, am I kidding myself, my mouth is all agape,
I hunt around with my free hand, and grab the gaffer tape.

I unwind the life saver, and wrap it around the leak,
Let’s consider the situation, to avoid my wife’s serious fit of pique,  
Keep my mind focused, what could possibly go wrong,
A solution is required this very minute, that won’t take overlong.

I’ll wedge my hammer, beneath the troublesome trap,
This will give extra support, whilst my plan, I have time to map,
As I swung the hammer into place, there came a mighty crack,
A hole appeared in the bath end, I suffered a symbolic heart attack.

Time to call the plumber, and hang my head in shame,
My wife’s assessment of DIY, will never be the same,
Emergency call out was swift, a smiling youth at my door,
Lead me to the problem site, and I will probe and explore.

An estimate was made, whilst ******* air through his teeth,
What Pratt, he said, has been working on the trap beneath,
Is it bad, my wife has strength of a gorilla, it’s beyond belief,
I’m afraid it’s a bath, a trap and associated pipe work, good grief.

It’s going to be expensive, there’s the bath and tiling too,
I can’t do it straight away, but I’ll put you in the queue,
Said he was interested in the engineering feat,
Designing a self draining P-trap, was a little hard to beat.


A temporary repair was fashioned, with fiberglass and tape,
I cleared the mess around me, and quickly made an escape,
It was some days later, I thought I’d clear the gutters,
I could tell the family were not keen, by their groans and their mutters,
Not to be diverted, I disregarded all their ridicules,
I told the wife I’d start right now, but she’d locked away my tools.

When Alison left the bath to run
It ruined the parquet floor,
It spilled on out like a waterspout
And ran right under the door,
She’d gone back into the bedroom, so
The spill continued to run,
Across the landing and down the stair,
‘Now look what our daughter’s done!’

We couldn’t dry out the parquetry
It swelled, and loosened the glue,
Then bits would lift and would come adrift,
I didn’t know what to do.
Then Barbara said, ‘It’s coming up,
We shouldn’t have laid it down,
I’ll go and choose some ceramic tiles
At that tiling place in town.’

I said that I’d lay the tiles myself
But Barbara would insist,
‘We really need a professional
For a job as big as this.’
I shrugged, and let her get on with it
I never could win a trick,
So the tiler that she employed was one
Ahab Nathaniel Frick.

I’d seen this tiler about the town
All hunched, and wizened and old,
His wrinkled skin was like parchment in
Some leathery paperfold.
He wore a hat with a drooping brim
So the sun never touched his face,
A puff of wind would have blown him in
To leave not a hint, or trace.

‘Are you sure that he’s up to this,’ I said,
‘He isn’t the best of men,
He’ll probably get on his knees all right
But never get up again.’
But Barbara shushed me out of there
Was keeping me well at bay,
She wanted to prove what she could do
In laying the tiles her way.

I didn’t get in to see them then
‘Til the tiles were laid, with grout,
Nor see Nathaniel Frick again,
I supposed that he’d gone out.
I stood and stared at the new laid tiles,
Their pattern was in the floor,
And Barbara, waiting proudly said,
‘What are you staring for?’

‘There’s something a-swirl in those tiles,’ I said,
‘Some pattern you didn’t mean,
The way that he’s put them together, well
There’s a sense of something unclean!’
I said the tiles made an evil face
And showed her the curving jaw,
The squinting eyes that could hypnotise
And the cheeks, so sallow and raw.

She said that she couldn’t see it then,
That I must have twisted eyes,
I wasn’t wanting to hurt her so
I tried to sympathise,
But the monster’s face was set in space
And it wouldn’t go away,
I dreamt about that face by night
And I saw it, every day.

At night, the face seemed to snarl at me
When I passed it in the gloom,
And I worried that it was set right there
Outside our daughter’s room,
Then Barbara thought she heard a noise,
An intruder in the house,
And tipped me out of the bed to chase
The night intruder out.

The moans began in the early hours
And the groans came just at dawn,
Then Alison came into our room,
‘There’s a shadow on my wall!
A man with a broad-brimmed, floppy hat
And with squinting eyes that gleamed,’
I said, ‘That’s it,’ when she had a fit
And our darling daughter screamed!

I went on out to the lumber shed
And I brought a mattock in,
While Alison jumped in the double bed
As the tiles set up a din,
A wailing, groaning, squealing sound
That would raise the peaceful dead,
I raised the mattock and smashed the tiles
Just above the monster’s head.

The tiles rose up with a mighty roar
And shattered, scattered around,
As a shadow from underneath the floor
Rose up with a dreadful sound,
It hissed, and made for the stairway, leapt
And it almost made me sick,
For fleeing out of the open door
Was Ahab Nathaniel Frick!

David Lewis Paget

Milk-stone tiling, with some
figure-hugging brown
and Castleton's ceiling pervading;
cement works, cement works,
on my mind.

The shroud of Christ's teachings
is left in damp upon the soap-fused wall.

Fan beating in aggressive pleasure,
it staves off stagnancy,
instead cleaning all humidity
with purity of essence.

Cleansed, cleansed,
the soaps are tinted in poisonous colours,
lethal toad and paradise mountain,
you scale all levels of disappointment,
to leave in want of better investment.

As in all politics, each day I intend
to settle my doubts in your cleansing augment,
of all that is pure, and all without grime,
from the stubborn North wind,
that freezes bells before chime.

Trams



Knitted smoke
And rosary of towns  
Unspotted in the rear of the lazy sky
Dreams getting grasps lackeyed
And ***** moon branded with loneliness
Smile tiling what left pariah .
Those survives the end as a woundless dagger
Did anyone ever stands ?
In front of the smoke
When He enters the mind carousel
Speck in the line of windloot
A walk to vanishes ....
All dare to trip ,
After the sundown curfew
When we lost an another episode of terrors ....

tetris patterned-shirt
weird, life-is-a-creamy-dream feeling every ever
I spend here
in
Downtown Vancouver.

is it the thought of the chilli-pepper eyed parrot
grazing on the street soul from the corner of Davie
and Granville?

is it a birth trauma coma slam
considering the fact that my
passport
says I awoke here
for the very first time?

is it the caffeine pulsing through my sweat like blood
the triple-sweater sandwich I call my chest
the passing of my dear old Auntie Debbie
the alien faces of a city-gone city goer
the warm freeze of 15 dollars in my pocket
wallet
crunch

perhaps it's the red pants
the folded skinny's
the overalls
the great validation of Shakespeare's scream:
"All the worlds a stage/ and all the men and women merely players."

Did he mean John Players?

Each and every all of us to be smoked
in the soaking rain
pretending that we
each
have brains?

- - -

I know
I'm not as intriguing
as most of these Greek-God's and Goddesses

But I still wonder
if man and women gaze to me
like I'm bless-ed.

- - -

could that explain the dream feel?
the creamy steamy dream feel?

my lack of validation
in this crowd-work calling card?

- - -

it's just about time
that I mention the women
whom gazed
from the train
that traverses the
clouds.

East Indian I assume
I the troubadour
I gazed right back into her eyes.

We played this game
until 'screech' went the train

and I moved on in space and in time.

She exited there
at the same place I glared
to the tiling below my unfit and soaked
sigh's.

As to why that I raced
so that she couldn't chase
and speak words that would open the
light

I'm unsure

but I wanted to
even as I
slipped from sight
into Vancouver's day bright of a night.

Disgusting is a nice way
of describing this room.

Walking down the narrow pathway
I was surprised to see
but one toilet. No stall,
simply a single toilet huddled
into a corner, scared
to be there too.

Putrid yellow tiling
crept up the walls
like unified mold. A gloss
covered it, slime perhaps?

I washed my hands
quickly in the rusted
little sink that seemed
to grow out of the
wall and headed out
of there, happy to never
go back again.