"cristobal" poems
In Nero’s private stage,
Disaster was
His audience. Rome mimics fallen Troy in play.
What was reflected in Nero’s eyes
when he sang of the swirling patterns
of fire? When Rome was caught burning;
When conspiring led to its fall.
Fire engulfed Rome with fiery teeth.
The clouds hide or faint into black smoke.
The skies bleed heavily with rust
Its brassy color mixing with the
*** of burning seas, like oceans melting
Could you not feel the sun’s weight?
Now it is incomparable to
Molten seas and softened lead!
Blood spilt from sea-point, waves wallow the cries
Of the fallen. Like a bellowing sound marching
Against caverns of ears, Copper soldiers
Melt into clouds oozing with emotion,
Shattering their now empty metal hearts,
Hollow hearts that outlive the muteness.
It is awakened when
Spark and light is absent.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 26, 2009 - Alabang)
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 7:09 AM UTC
Half man, half tree:
Describe limbs with leaves
And when the reader reads, looks only at
One part: wood
but not sees
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / 2010 - Parañaque)
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 2:00 AM UTC
The Albatross
Lone de-odorizer of the toilet
Its smooth contour covered in a clear blanket
Wrapped around with cheap plastic,
Adorned with cheap silk, the semi-lucent plastic
Like unwrapping a yema
It smells very sweet. Very, very.
You seldom notice this white bird
In your long hours of comforting, brooding
Hungering for attention beneath the swollen toilet
Asking for unwanted pleasures
The toilet asks "why must I feed?”
The Albatross mums in its silent reprieve.
Still you didn’t notice the wounding
Of your smooth oily toilet
In long comforting hours of sleep;
No, only excretion is wanted here.
The albatross takes away the scourge
The scourge beneath your noses
And still you didn’t notice
The glory in its inexistence
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 28, 2008)
Sep 17, 2017
Sep 17, 2017 at 12:00 PM UTC
It no longer exists.
The wind; a passing gale sweeps
my laurels.
The desert is filled, too many
my voice.
Origin, a return to birth.
A sword of blazing fire, winged
halts me.
Where are you Eden?
I look and look,
the desert is filled with voices too many,
which is mine or do i have any?
The sun no weeps, I sing.
Myself, I find, thick of leaves
I carry, it sings no longer green.
Winged fire sword ablaze,
use I, leaves dry. Outstretched,
brown, my arms, fail to sky
afire. Feet my burns, I no walk longer.
Stiff, I root my tree to flower.
Fragrant white flowers, settle.
Pray I to you, of hope I joy.
Bring life to water, Frame of sky
Bring, Abba, Father.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal - February 1, 2011)
Jul 21, 2012
Jul 21, 2012 at 12:43 PM UTC
She visits us every time
The building needs repainting
And every time she visits us
We ask her:
“When will you be back?”
You say you will only be
A jeepney ride away.
We sing; the choral chimes with the wind.
Dry leaves always settle down
Where the wind stops.
Only it does not. But, it settles, and always
Wherever the wind leads them to grow
Apart.
Maybe that’s the purpose of apartments.
Always seeming to leave, to stay only
For sleep, not rest.
We kept talking every time
How our phones ring each other.
You answer questions, always you do so
Not with a no, it was difficult for you;
Nor a yes; but always you say:
“I’m right here”
“5 minutes”
passing through regular public commute;
you are always nearby,
always stuck in heavy traffic.
I can even see you every time,
Always there,
And always smiling.
The last time we smiled together
You told us:
“I am always here – a whisper away”
Only you are there
Not here.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / July 25 2013 - Parañaque)
Jul 24, 2013
Jul 24, 2013 at 9:44 PM UTC
The gods of fire and storms seem to call.
Do you not hear that his end is near?
The deep is swallowing up the light.
Skies burn, winds drip emotions.
But unlike Fishes, multitudes of clouds
Dissipate like crowds, oceans
darken with grief as sun seems dulled.
Stars move with the procession
Of boats with floating lamps.
Fishermen’s vessels cross, slicing waves
underneath, spraying salt water on eyes.
Crisscrossing nets spread
Like wings of dove.
Overbearing waves heavy with boats
answer call of coming
School of fish.
Pained hands blister the night.
With Eyes that flicker like lamps.
They Be still and know of Sun’s
promised light.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 25, 2009 - Alabang)
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 7:44 AM UTC
So should a seed
does grow must leave
its home:
Earthly walls,
empty shells
he covers himself with.
In nakedness
must Adam gather up
sewn up leaves.
While surrendering
into the dark
and foreboding earth:
Miles wide and miles deep.
Alone, into the sweltering
and blistering heat of the sun.
Armed with but
a leaf for Mercy!
cries his clothelessness to the wind.
So must a flood pass
once, twice, over and endure
in callousness and tenderness.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / August 5, 2014 - Bulacan)
Aug 5, 2014
Aug 5, 2014 at 8:42 AM UTC
I say it the ocean
that it runs
deep. But water
it is not,
quickly swept up
by the wind.
Nor is it driftwood
that rides the tides
undecided. I Say it is
the rudder that steers
the ship. Not the sail
that the wind does blow,
but the ropes
which carefully guide us
to which direction
we choose to go.
It is the rope
that binds us not
against our wills,
but that of which we
hold on to
in the darkness
of our minds
where light does not
our eyes show
nor in winds
that tell us No.
For M.D.R.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / 06/10/14)
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 2:24 PM UTC
And here you are
Child, come to me.
This. What it used to be.
The entrance to your
Marble home.
The pillars.
the four corners that held
your baby clothes, old toys.
Like a wicker basket
In flames, now blackened
And covered
With the thick vines
And mired in green.
Nothing withstanded
The once and Great war.
The nights lit up
like fire-flowers blooming
in summer. Every thing
Burned away. Nothing
sacred was left. Doors and
Walls no longer stand.
You touch what is left
Grazing your fingers
On the roughness of
This old, old skin. Tired.
Now.
Only the stairway
Is left.
The only portion left
Clothed with marble
Not carved away
by scavengers.
It looks sad
now that it leads
nowhere.
It led only to sadness
If you try to remember
What is no longer there.
With finality
You pick up your things
And go.
Content with the past
That it once held you
In its brown,
But now white and bony arms.
For Nick Joaquin
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / Augsut 12, 2014 – Bulacan)
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 1:08 AM UTC
Last night
you breathed on me.
The grass
reminded me
of the faint color of the sun
on your skin.
I remember,
how we treaded lightly
on folded grass;
a reminder
of how we stayed behind
for each other.
"Like friends"
We would say together.
How our own weight
carried
our sentences
to each other
almost touching.
For T. S.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 8, 2011 - Parañaque)
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 2:09 AM UTC
This October,
the rain speaks pebbles
like the sound of static.
Watch the patterns the wind points out:
the drifting rain,
a question marking a crossroads path you keep
asking to yourself.
"if the rain keeps pouring,
will our questions only pile up and up?"
Gathering huge puddles
under our doorstep
reflecting an expressionless sky, or
a sudden murkiness in it.
how the rain touches the roofs
of old gray houses sitting in silence.
watch as a huge puddle gathers all
other puddles, gathering minutes
the seconds even, lost in counting.
the rain starts drifting faster and faster,
see how counting no longer counts,
we feel a certain disconnection, again
the sound of falling pebbles.
Still, the rain keeps pouring
its numerous what if's
how it pins needles to our heads
you ask and you only hear
the long 'tchsssssh'-es
filling up the empty spaces of
my mouth, of our long silences
that still count, to me.
You slightly move
your hand above your hair
in a futile attempt
to lessen the question of rain.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / October 1, 2010 - Alabang)
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 7:30 AM UTC
I hope you know that this is foreign land.
I hope you know that when the men and women of home told me,
“You are a fool to dream”, I grew to despise their voices.
That when they told me travel was ludicrous, black was sin, and I a devil because I was a 12 year old autistic child,
I grew to despise their land.
It was not my land, I’d say. It was theirs. It was their rotting green, their putrid sand, La Isla Del Encanto.
I hope you know that this is foreign land.
I hope you know that when I left the Island, I left that house.
It was all I knew; the house, el pueblo. The men who saw me with hungry eyes. The moriviví sprouting from the wood. The church whose women scorned me.
The grave my father slept in.
I hope you know it was a terrible thing, the bone thrown at me, the thing I had to eat because nobody knew to give me meat.
Marrow. The only love I’ve ever known.
You must know. This is foreign land.
This place you call free, this place with flag blood-stained and heavy.
This place I cannot seem to breathe in, where I cannot sit without first buying coffee even if my voice cannot come out, where my head is wanted because my mind is a darkened white, my skin is muddied by race, my eyes are black, black like your wood deer and owl– and I hear the voices of the men and women from home who learned from the white man to say— black is sin.
My skin was made to be loved by the sun, my nails were grown from the bark of the tree en los montes. I am carved from the stories my teacher told me of los Taínos, and slashed with the lesson that Cristobal Colón was a man to be celebrated.
I hope you know your land is foreign.
I hope you know your flag is bloodied.
I hope you know that when I stand on your soil, my body knows
it is not free.
May 18, 2019
May 18, 2019 at 4:13 PM UTC
Clouds overcast;
Light of sun
Seep out.
Atop this hill, us
Below a height
Of canopy-sky.
Thought dreamt.
It drank long
And deep
in sleep.
Sun folds
into a blanket
Of glaring eyes.
As if the stars seemed
To question me:
"Where have you been
In this long dream?"
Always, we have been here
Watching trees grow,
Letting summers pass,
As if waiting
For something.
The folded grass
Reminds us
Of familiarity.
Salt, grass, mud,
Water, earth, air.
The wind
whispers these things
With a steady hand,
Brushing the grasslands
With water. Gently
Leaving its fingerprints
In us.
The shallow pond;
The way it mirrors the sky
Kept us pondering.
Perhaps the sky meant for us
To be more than just lions.
I look into it sometimes to think
how I was unable to see
the stars that night
we drank from it.
Maybe, i'm just not thirsty.
Outside our hill,
the winds
from the White Mountains still blow,
Singing their last verses.
I am starting to forget
the thought of us
being more
than just mere lions.
For T. S.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal - 01/11/14)
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 2:47 PM UTC
the ruffling of
wet leaves, dews
dance on rain wept
petals, or on ground
-bore-earth. In her
rootedness
they sought, in her
peace
they found
Solace.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 24, 2009)
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 7:01 AM UTC
The rain;
Flogging our roof’s heads with sound.
‘Tchssschschschchchcshshcsh…’
like unplugged cable.
Smudges our screens in monotonous tone until
wire is cut, or lightning struck.
A veil of silence
envelopes eyes, off-color.
We stop to think of what might happen.
To stare at endless possibilities
of rain falling
to a stop.
Unless the flood comes uninvited,
Offers things for sale; usually you’re left
without a choice.
Barters a few Armani clothes or a few Dolce & Gabbana
For a sack of rice and a few cans.
Sometimes the flood throws you freebies,
like exotic pets bigger than a cat
Or throw in a few Pesos and get a broken tire.
But mostly they just give you mud and dirt. Mud and dirt.
They fill you up with it
and cover your eyes with it too.
And if you get lucky, they’ll throw you
the essentials like refusing to take your children,
The recovery of a dead faith and you start praying again,
Or they give you an orange boat.
Sometimes the rain comes in to see if you’ll sink
Or learn to walk again.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / September 13, 2010 - Alabang)
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 5:26 AM UTC
It is Monday and you hover above me
Like a thunder cloud signaling rain.
You shake the slumbering trees
Motioning them to awake.
It is Tuesday and I do not kiss
you. Night turns to day.
Sky is father to earth
and gathers rain to nourish the land.
This morning you kiss the imperfect earth
Goodnight. It has its back turned to the sky.
Outside my window
The wind cools the rain on my back,
The new grass births.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / September 21, 2010 - Parañaque)
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 7:02 AM UTC
Uncovered rooster
Quiet; sliding frog retrieved
Storm front tails collide
Jun 9, 2020
Jun 9, 2020 at 11:48 AM UTC