When all is said, the site no longer matters; it makes little difference whether i'm burned in the heating sun, caught in a heavy rain, or sailed across a navy ocean. They are to weave in one crease somewhere inside me. Nevertheless, from another dimension, the site means something hard, engraved, irreplaceable. These days in home I found myself disheartened, nonplussed, and suffocated. Out in the city I navigated through the giddy horde, antisocial. There’s no subversive changes but nuance shifts that eventually leave the sentiments in deluge. I felt like a caged elf. I questioned my staunch nature.

“I miss the day when the glass is always half full”, when I was exuberant always, at least in front of you, my heaviest confidant. It’s feeling colder inside than outside; I know, relieved that I didn’t initially, all is irrevocable. Those detritus of enchantment repaints the vibe of mine. I owed it all, to the ones that imprinted me. What’s wrong with my mawkish side? Why is eccentricity to be censured? Who else sway one stronger than the self does? One can't ask the sea to never swell in rage. In that you've forsaken your role as my defender, i build my enclosure higher, thicker, colder than the backyard fence, so there's no errands, no means of lapse, of censure. You know everything yet about life——the one I devoted to live. Terrified to admit, I hesitated when asked whom I am referring to.

Half explicit thrill, half insidious vehement. Full fugitive conviction. My second journey towards America. What happened last summer in Texas flew by on some occasion. That’s the center of incidence, not mentioning millions clips of the periphery, the subjective. which stifled my intimidated solider in an unexpected battlefield.  “Tell me where the time goes, it’s like I’ve had my eyes closed.” Some memories are encapsulated. The world seems to remember more I wish to.

As those ego pitfall, the outside order of time becomes my last propel. I never settle, sometimes tarry. I rearranged the handy necessities in the backpack, inspecting within, behind, beyond. The ruffles hinged imply a constant shuffle between packing and unpacking. “Beneath the flying cloud the home assumed forgotten.” Adrift, astray, bewildered, apathetic, unsettled. I'm related to these related words. The plane of the rite of passage takes off, me the only passenger.

I smoke my last stick
throughout the night, the smoke fades
Tomorrow, I'll starve.
The damp morning brings wet rice,
jaundiced eyes, and collapsed lungs

The brown water wanes—
Black-head buoys and a poem:
Birds sing elegies.
The sky absolves once again
Amnesia reverberates.

How little men control
Their own destinies.
At a lost,
As to my internal monologue,
In a deluge of constant questioning.
And as to the control I do command,
With what to, is done?
As to the destiny I am ******,
Is it better to dither from forver, hitherto?
Or slaughter fear, and give anxiety the rub.

naglalaro ang maliliit na alon
sa batuhan
kasabay ay paulit-ulit na pagtalbog
sa kalagitnaan
tinatangay ng mapagbirong hangin
hanggang sa ulap
lumilikha ng kislap at palakpak
naroon lang
ang unos
ang kinatatakutang delubyo
sigwa
pinagsamang ingay at katahimikan
magkatipan
bawat isa ay nagkakaisa
paikot
pabulusok
ang mababangis na luha
kanyang dinadala
kasunod ay payapang umaga

After the Deluge
by Michael R. Burch

She was kinder than light
to an up-reaching flower
and sweeter than rain
to the bees in their bower
where anemones blush
at the affections they shower,
and love’s shocking power.

She shocked me to life,
but soon left me to wither.
I was listless without her,
nor could I be with her.
I fell under the spell
of her absence’s power.
in that calamitous hour.

Like blithe showers that fled
repealing spring’s sweetness;
like suns’ warming rays sped
away, with such fleetness ...
she has taken my heart—
alas, our completeness!
I now wilt in pale beams
of her occult remembrance.

Keywords/Tags: deluge, flood, rain, power, shower, swept away, absence, lost, vanished

Tears percolate from
round, fishbowl eyes,
cheeks a sting
with salt
and loneliness.

I barter with the deluge,
hold my breath
for as long as my lungs
will permit
until a motley of colour
bruises over my vision.

And I can't help but think:
perhaps fainting is
the next best thing to dying,
especially when you are too afraid
to commit to the permanence
of killing yourself.

My only dilemma?

What am I to do with myself--
with the tears--
once I regain consciousness?

You always transcend my sadness
with your hypnotic stillness,
your entrancing symphonies.

My thoughts go back to the banks of Langat*,
where one day a little boy sat alone,
just only five,
bewildered, in a canoe.

From the sea,
from the streams,
from the rain,
you chanted a calming mantra to soothe him,
calling him to dissolve
in your awe-inspiring presence.

Your aquamarine sheen paints
the intricacies of all that I'm.
In the cool blue depth of your stillness,
I long to create the tabernacle of my being.

Never I thought
your melodies could become
the war cry of a devilish psyche!

Today I'm perplexed,
when I hear the anguished human cries
from the twirls of your turbid anger.

I realise
you’ve become an enigma
that pulls me to the depths of a
crazy conundrum.

How many more shades of anger you hide
in the burning red heart of the mantra you chant
to give me a heavenly bliss, Oh Water?