A friend I call Sister Shawie silently sobs
And all of her children’s hearts’ knobs
are plugged with mics noise-cancelling
and bluetooth earphones desensitizing.
Old mixed emos - can’t relate, how brute
- worse than real deaf or numb or mute.
Their sympathetic eye implants blue night
and smiling chrysanthemums yellow bright
selectively blind. Their once flawless derma
now pock-marked with socmed anesthesia.

Beneath the optical cables of glass sublime,
the umbilical cords are cremated in time
as the much sought wifi signals reach prime.

The cyber world defies ethics and all logic . . .
A mother’s milk is replaced just like magic.

More than a year,
More than one round
of the Earth around the Sun
No Sun whatsoever
No Likes or Hearts wherever
No posting of new Lines with fever

The verses are maimed
The screen just keeps on flashing:
"Confirm your email.
Like Hello Poetry?
Become a Supporter
Please confirm your email address
by clicking on the link we sent to . . .
Didn't receive the email?
Resend confirmation email.

This makes me crazy.
I just edited the last poem I posted.
or is this even a poem?

You’re like a ghost, whatever that is, lurking behind
the dark bushes and blending with the unusually eerie
silence of a brook in one ancient forest.

The seemingly serene scene rolls
and in the refreshingly cool waters,
a harmless creature slithers on its way
to sip and hydrate itself after the tiring day
of foraging in the lush canopy.

Then from one corner near a thick bamboo clump
the king of serpents surprisingly strikes. The gentle slitherer
is maimed and swallowed whole from head to tail.

Yes, you’re like the mythical ghost
that constantly makes me too afraid to go back to sleep.
As I descend through the mental labyrinth,
you suddenly sound some siren at the back of my ears,
just like a firetruck that warns the crawling traffic
to get out of its way along the main thoroughfare.
By the dreaded time your paralysing whispers reach
my shoulders, I’m reduced to nothing but frozen meat -
no way out but to moan aloud as I grasp
at collapsing threads of the delicate rope of life.

I am the helpless, hopeless, hapless victim
desperately seeking priceless sleep elusive
and which you always ruin as soon as I catch
a rare one.

By stroke of Lady Luck, fate wakes me up
and I’m in the middle of a dark midnight
of nowhere. Tired, gasping for precious air,
I murmured the fifth of the Seven Last Words:
"I thirst." Water! Water!

Yes, you're like a ghost, the mythical ghost.
I'm not even sure - do you deserve
to be the inspiration of awakened verses?
And I'm not even sure either - is this really a poem?

Maybe. Maybe Life is but a dream
and Poetry helps me keep one thing
more precious - my Sanity.

Jose Rizal ating paksa
Naturalista nga kaya?
Sagot nati’y “Tunay! Sadya!”
Dangal ng Lahing Dakila

Mga aral na pamana
Ng bayaning ating bida
Kalikasa’t Baya’y t’wina
Mahalin at Laging Una

You left without a word - no goodbyes nor hints when you’d allow me again to savor that restful slumber with a thousand snores. When was that last time I slept so well? You just left. Nothing said. Nothing.

As hardly as you set off the ticking clock and made me wait for you to sniff the consciousness out of my head, while I count stars so bright or dolly sheep after sheep so white, so was the speed of your departure. I haven’t even had the luxury of precious minutes to ask whether the sheep I was counting had any wool and was there anything wrong with being black for a sheep, and I was too shy to ask the twinkling stars what they really are.

Like a quick scene in this melancholic one-act play in this old stage in the silent theater of memory recalls or the soft fragrance of white lacunosa wax plants on moonlit nights, I hear a loving mother tell her young son to pause his game and take the afternoon siesta on the mat spread on the cool bamboo floor relaxing amidst the dry days of the Lenten season. He just feigned asleep, eyes closed and then open again. I must be dreaming. How I wish I could tell him to relish sleep. For now I want sleep, even without dreaming. Even without dreams. But sleep seems so hard to get.

Sleep has become an elusive dream.

Tila namanhid na ang babahaang landas
walang patid ang agos ng luha, habang walang habas
ang malupit na lilik-panggamas -
patuloy ang tila nag-aamok na pagwasiwas.

Kahit mura pa ang uhay
ng nagbubuntis na palay
Namúti na ang katiwala ng mga bunso't panganay:
Walang sinanto ang pakay
ng aninong sumalakay.
Sinimot pati ipa. Ang imbakang burnay
tuyung-tuyô, tila balóng patáy.

Ubos na ang mga ninuno sa Purok
Ang mga inanak at inapo, tila mga but-o ng kapok
nangalat na sa malalayong pook
Hindi na tumalab ang mga erihiyang tampok
Ang lamping ibinalot, balót na ng usok.
Ang binalot na kapirasong pusod, bakas na lamang ng balok.

Karipas na ang binatilyong habol ang mutyang pailaya.
May baon pang pagkain, pagsasaluhan pag nagkita
Ngunit mabilis na napawi ang tanawing kasiya-siya
Ang natapong lomi, natabunan na ng aspalto’t palitada
kasama ng mga bakas nina Utoy at mga kabarkada
sa ilang dekadang araw-araw na pagbagtas, nakasipit at gura
mula sa Baryo Balintawak hanggang Lumang Baraka.
Di na makilala. Wangis ay mistisong pilipit. Ay! Ay! Lipa!

Slowly,
             slowly,
                         slowly, like one
lonely white cloud in the wide blue
sky we thought was heaven watching
over humans - We never asked
as young children how a good god
could not be bored doing guard jobs,
day in, day out, and night shifts too.

The Inquisition comes out late
and ties us down like captured pigs
with aching backs, sore joints and chest -
maimed cries of those rusty machines
which we now call aging bodies –
but holy texts willed and thus said
Behold! - ‘the Temple of the Lord.’

It came to pass - imagine how
sacerdotal frustration great
that the high priest so self-righteous
in his deep-stained mental frock white
arrives here at scene of the crime -
The Sacred Temple covered in slime.

Hitherto, video clips appear
at the bottom of my sad cup,
and every time I finish one
shot after shot, of laughing friends
as once we were a team working
together when – Oh! When was when?

But wines may warm the frozen cold
that in the few moments we shared
mem’ries abound, like old pictures
in an album, we call, once, life.
Feelings muted.
                            Musings silenced.

Slowly,
             slowly,
                         away,
                                   away
Above the waves a bottle floats
the sealed message remains unread
The mind’s non-stop.
                                     The heart is deaf.
The soul is lost.
                            A story starts.
A piece of wood that stays adrift . . .
Slowly,
             slowly,
                         away,
                                   away . . .
Slowly,
             farther away,
                                   each day . . .