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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

From the far cry of a hawk caught in mid-flight
Recalls a voice of awakening:
Your dreams of flight hover in the distance,
The ever so distant call of the sun-eagle.
The ripples of golden waves,
Mounds and mounds of it piled up.
All these add up to your helplessness.

Do clouds always move with such impassioned grace?

At nighttime, he dreams of flight. It is the moonlight now
That casts its veiled form, her voice in the distance.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / September 27, 2011)

Tapos na
ang bilang.

Si Eunice
Nahuli na

Nasa likod
ng pintuan

Paalis na
kasama sila

Gab at Sam.
Uwian na

Na'san ka?
Ginagabi ka na.

Hanggang Kailan
ka magtatago

kung wala namang
maghahanap?

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / October 26, 2011)

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)

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)

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)

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)

The sadsack Catholic Church
Priestly pedophiles
Excluding women
Both ******* and homophobic
The Knights of Columbus
Cristobal Colon-izer
A (possibly Jewish) sadist
Who did not discover America
Ruled his colony as a tyrant
Was gold obsessed
Had women *****, their tongues cut out
Paraded naked in public
And inaugurated genocide
The slave trade, a legacy of Hate.

             Crush the Infamous thing!

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)

You come to me as a goat
among flock of sheep. You
offer words I do not understand.
I neither welcomed you
Nor offered any reply.

Words.

They scare us. I will not offer
Anything except what the  poets,
Juvenile writers of love want.
A forced smile for something
We do not want nor have
Any interest for, an awkward
Conversation where we tell you
“Profound! Profound! Profound!”
And pretend that all this is
Heart felt.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / December 20, 2012 - Pasay)

ok so
what I was trying to say a month ago
that Lima of six million citizens is interest worthy uniquely for
it is (I have travelled significantly and) maybe yes likely the only city I've known
raised completely on a foundation of sand and
god, does it draw the mind to find something so much built
from grey-brown particles dust and quite really dirt look
beneath three cathedrals no joke it's
formica silica a bit of gypsum maybe.
regardless an earthquaking silty stiffness lies below.

and yes maybe I've been forced to love this city because
for whatever reason in my capacity made bad choices and I
have— no, have been made to
come to this city as the only enclave
the FBI won't pull me from.

but regardless I once said four years ago that I could
learn to love anyone, given the
willpower faith and motivation and
******* already I may love this
city I may love the way it always fog and evening rains but
the precocious days when sunshine comes are
unexpectedly– even possibly–
brighter than the days once were in Santa Fe.

Because the world has her Paris and her Seinne, her
London, and her Thames,
and her
New Amsterdam and old and Guineas new (and both) but when
You put a cornerstone down on lowliest ground, stack stones there only trying to–

one must respect a faith in what
shouldn't ever have happened.


Because Lima in growing to love and love can
Bring up tears but maybe you
start to glimpse at the heart of someone, after these years see that
Babylon dried the Tigris and
Shanghai may as well be the Yangzee but
Lima is a
peasant town, built from nothing,
while human we

cart in over tonnage vegetables and quartered meat
to eat, and eat– we
need to live to live we eat...

and from the Mirador De San Cristobal a striking view of where we sleep:
Lima six million bodies row on row.
What was once desert here we will decompose
and with craven frames prompt trees to grow.

There is more soil here than ever in
the geologic predestiny of the place and
Hell it could be three years even before
the Holy Bomb does come to
wipe clean leave stones of the
"human race" but this–
this city will do what cities do chew
up our radiated bodies all
criminal convictions forgiven each
soul I guess heaven, revelations, to
start a new.

This city is a desert I choose to live here
because when I die these trees will
(having no choice)
Exhume my body these
trees will grow where trees don't go and
from my remains make soil make
sand make earth make

If I must die childless I
can at least saturate the sand
in Lima, can at least,
serve conduit for something new.

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)

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)

I love him. That's the first thing that my thoughts tell me whenever I do something involving you. I love you. That's the first thing my thoughts tell me when I look at you everyday. For the first time,and every time until we have to say goodbye for the night. I love you. Those words roll off my lips so often, because they fill my thoughts more than my memories could ever fill up buckets, if they were a material object. My favorite three words, right after your name. Because whenever my lips day your name, I fall more in love when them, more in love with you. And I don't know what to do.
August
-I saw you. "Wow he's so pretty"
September
- I kept seeing you. "I wonder what grade he's  in"
October
- I talked to you for the first time. "Wow this kid is awesome"
November
- I really started to like you, a lot, and we started dating. "Wow, happiness, this boy is amazing"
December
- We got a bit closer, we had *** for the first time. "This boy, wow, I'm lucky he's mine. Best *** I've ever had, plus he is so sweet. What more could I ask for?"
"I won't give up on you if you won't give up on me"
January
- We got closer and started hanging out more. "I love spending time with him"
February
- We started to fall for each other. "I will be here to catch him, I hope he will be there to catch me"
March
- You told me you loved me. "This is the happiest moment ever, I love him too, I really really love him too, and I can't believe he loves me, this is amazing"
April
- We broke up for the first time. "I will do anything to get him back. I love him. I need him."
May
- We got back together, and really became best friends, we knew almost everything about each other. "This is the best relationship I've ever been in"
June
- You bought me my tiara, I was officially your princess. "He has already been my official prince for a while, I love this boy so much, I've never gotten gifts from a boyfriend before"
July
- I spent the Fourth of July with you and your family "I feel official, like I belong here with him, with them"
August
- School started again, it was weird not having you there. I missed you more than anything. "I miss renzo, I miss him so much, I need to see him"
September
- I saw you every single day. "I love you so much Lorenzo, you're my everything"
October
- You told me you were in love with me. "I've never heard anyone say that in my life, I'm glad it's him, I want it to always be him"
We broke up for the second time. "I'm so ******* hurt. So ******* sad. But he is doing this for us. I'm going to get him back. I'm going to get him back, and it's going to go better than it ever has been. He is doing this for us. I hope I can do this. I hope he can do this."

You are my best friend. If something happens, even if it's something small that doesn't matter, you're the first person I tell. You're the first person I go to for anything. If I don't spend my money on you, and I buy something for myself, I feel guilty. Because I don't ever want to live my life alone. I want to live it with you. My heart belongs to you, and I can't see it ever not belonging to you. You are my best friend. My best friend. My only friend. The only person I trust, the only person I want to be around, the only person I love. For the past 10 months you have been my life, you have been my entire life. And I don't know what to do anymore. So many thoughts run through my head, and I'm always wondering when I'm going to get you back. When will you be mine again. It's been 3 days, and I always feel like I'm dying. I don't want this to last weeks, I don't want this to last months. I can't not kiss you. I can't not cuddle you, I can't not call you babe, baby, I can't not do it. And restraining myself is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. You have no idea how much agony this is causing me, not being your girlfriend. It's awful. It's absolutely awful and I honestly don't know what to do. Being hurt by you was better when we were together, but I'm still hurt, but even more that you're not mine. I want you back so badly, I want you back so badly. I can't not go s day without seeing you, I can't do that. We have gone three months without missing a day of seeing each other, and I don't want to break that. Come back. Come back. Please come back, I need my best friend, I need my boyfriend, I need Lorenzo Ruiz, I need him more than anything. You make my life better. I am so in love with you. I will walk to you if you need me. I just don't know how much I can do without us being together. I want to be able to do this for you, I want to be able to do things with you, I want you back. My heart wants you back, my brain wants you back, my body wants you back, my lips want you back, my eyes want you back, my nose wants you back, my hands want you back, my arms want you back, my tummy wants you back, my legs want you back, my feet want you back. I love you Lorenzo Cristobal Ruiz, I love you. So ******* ******* much, you have no idea, even if you think you do, you have no idea. No idea. I really hope you're trying has hard you can, you can do it Lorenzo. You can do it. We can be happy together again babe, we can do it. I will be the only one in your heart. And I won't drop it. I won't drop it, I couldn't possibly. I will treat you like you deserve to be treated, I will make you happy, I will make you happy. I will love you, I will love you more than anyone has ever loved anything. I already do. I need you back Lorenzo. I need you back. I hope this doesn't take long. I really hope it doesn't take long. Because even though it's only been three days, I don't know how much longer I can be without my baby. You are my baby, my prince, my everything. I love you. I love you so much. Please try as hard as you possibly can, please, for us. You're doing this for us. For us, and for me, and for yourself, you can do this. You can do this. Because I need you back, and you need to have that weight lifted off your shoulders. I need you back. We need each other. We both know it. You can do it. You can do it. I know you can.

Alex's books on hip hop and Spain
      New World racist disasters
                     y ahora:

     The mob against their Masters.

See Wonder and Exile in the New World
By my friend Alex Nava.