Your love is one that does not age
Like the lilac wine that blossoms Into a beauty over time

Time and timelessness will bind
The vines of this enchantment

A dichotomy so intertwined
Like the asphalt in the ocean
As we float above the waters
In ceaseless beating motion

Our dispositions secure
We live in spates of wake
In homes built with our hearts
We bend but do not break
In a distant possibility
Perhaps an ending looms
Though ours is no exception
We love what we can take
Of smiles and half-creased wrinkles
Of tears and jumping lakes
These ribs protect intrusion
But lungs are built to fail
Yet though the heart is naked
Fragilities prevail

I love you with the ticking
Of clocks that won't rewind
For the first time you left me
Our cross became a line

so fragile
so complicated
so naive
I was waiting for you
you didn’t have a face
you didn’t have a voice
you didn’t have a body
you were a dream
my dream !
I knew your embrace
I knew your smile
I knew your warmth
….here you are!
your arms
protect me
your mouth
gives me the oblivion
your eyes
give me the peace
I'm your
and you’re mine
fill my empty
sweep away my fragilities
don’t leave me…
I ‘ll be cold
Don’t leave me...
my heart would become ice ...
so fragile…
it would be blown to pieces....

If only you revealed yourself to me
As the flower that never blooms,
But rather, imploding,
Enriching all the sweetness,
The alchemy, the brewing of perfume,

Then, this triangle of stars, the sun,
This colors of freedom, this hospitable country
Would mean nothing in my mind,
All in bitter vain,

Life would soon not fascinate me
Because the fear or thrill of death
Would no longer be breathtaking,

I will circle all over the Earth as your feet,
And as the road you will be taking,
Because I would need to watch you,
And love you, and be you,
And be for you, for forever.

So, I have to steal the rays for you.
I have to bring light at your footsteps,
At night, the grace of dew, short rains
In the afternoon, and I have to be the reason,
The only reason, that you open up
To the World.

Not like this, my love,
Not like this, where you,
Rising, would show yourself
As great fragilities,
As fireworks
Shared by all,

For Life, then, will matter,
Time,
And so is Death.*

© 2010 J.S.P.

The textures of a star as with her flesh
Are not those that seep nor soften
That they grace the hands divine
With the airiest of moistures or the fluidity
Of fire. It is far from that.

All smoothness that I know I felt
And are all too palpable.
Now I abstain from such,
     From such nakedness.

Not the papaya, the apples, the grapes of La Union,
Nor the watermelon kind of touch
But of the moon attenuated, the pierce
Of the narrow light or the folding abaniko,
Could unravel me towards the discovery
Of wild fragilities, little by little, all too tender,
With its river, and its regions forbidden
     And its sections.

I circumnavigate my passions
Towards hers.
     I shiver.

I have yet to measure a feather,
Her waist,
     With my lips.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

We need to talk, she said at last

Her perched up high and holding fast

Like some towering iconoclast

And I bowed to her whim



She looked me up and down and then

She threw a fist under her chin

Cocked her head and to begin

She said “Well, I’ve been thinking”



I sat and let her thoughts collect

My silence somewhat circumspect

No words for fear they would inflect

And belie my position



A million possibilities

Of personal fragilities

A lack of sensibilities

An abject lack of tact



An endless scroll of mournful songs

The devil’s list of total wrongs

Small evils gather by the throngs

Just what is it I’ve done?



Or maybe that’s the problem here

It’s not mere acts that cause my fear

For the ills I own are not so clear

It’s the fault of willed omission



Have I not noticed something change

Or left things fester like a mange

Priorities to rearrange

Oh so much left undone



And in a moment she begins

To load upon me my grave sins

Just think of all the dreadful things

Resign me to my fate



And then her lips begin to move

Her voice a breathy open louvre

Her words of silk are just as smooth

“I think we need a cat”



*~ L. Alexander Carlé

tangled in my bed, you’re holding the bits of my smile that i didn’t even know fell out.
there, in the the gravities of messy sheets and intimate eye contact,
we come upon the part of the story when it reaches a climatic point of dizzying anticipation,
the type of expectation
that whispers sweetly on my skin as if it had the plot of our collision written on it.
here is the precipice of something scary; my tentative hands outstretched—
a coincidental incident; your hands reaching back,
folding me into your body.
everything is the same: the sun still came up to light our faces and
this little town hasn’t changed.
but everything is different, oh god.
the day i sat down in a mostly empty hallway
was the day that i realized i am the worst of unintentional catalysts.
the blush of borrowed luck stains my knuckles and i clench my fists in hopes that it will stay
before i let a safe house like you shelter a storm like me.
i’m so afraid of breaking you.
i’m afraid of my own vulnerabilities.
i’m afraid of letting people into the places where there’s still some wholeness to me. i know—i’m a walking contradiction.
touch and go,
stay and leave,
everything seems to fold.
what is that saying.
“the best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry”?
  never had a plan when it came to things like us but please understand
there are certain fragilities i can’t fathom in me and that i’m afraid of my destruction as i am of my own creations.

      but for now, this is the first chapter in our book.
this is the first day I wake up.
this is where we start.

some days the sunset is permanent, it's foreseeable.
it's all soiled with a deep amber, the skies, the pink walls,
the long shadows on the ground.
city smells in the air, soft bergamot scent from his black hair,
november rain.

in those days you are bereft, it's foreseeable.
love is remembered and withered, out of the scene, and tears are no more.
his trembling sigh a lament,
your hot tears a passion so fervent,
your doleful detriment.

they said life is beautiful,
but you have tasted heaven once, and they haven't,
and you believed it was something inside of him,
has awakened something carnal and ancient,
yet you knew he wasn't of heavens,

only one of the transience fragilities of earth,
but this was paradise to you.

you wanted to believe life is beautiful,
but his moan was a mourn to all the lighter things
you have lost in life,
and for that, your happiness is not easy.
you lost something in this life and it's found until it's no more.

you knew this, despite a paradise was transient, and colored of flame,
it's a paradise, still.

life is beautiful but it grows blue, grey, crimson, pink.
and some days it's a permanent sunset,
in those days there are shadows of heaven on earth, you see,
his shadows lengthening on the ground
bleeding into the lights, everywhere.

I lie awake contemplating,
an insomniac stricken with
the explorer's mind
that wanders in search for exciting possibility;
the revolutionary heart
that fights for an unknown positive change;
an ignorant soul
that believes that all is possible;
and a weak man's body
that takes the punishment.
The power is out,
the heating is turned off
as a dimming flashlight flickers
like the light of a flame,
but such shimmers onto
white, blank walls
provide the backdrop
of cerebral cinemas
playing blurry features
of painful pasts
where lessons are learned;
of the struggling present
where limits are tested...
I lie awake, contemplating,
a stomach empty, rumbling
because of forced financial responsibility,
a body aching from mandatory life labor,
silence from those I seek
for help, for comfort, for a voice
to aid these ears that
no longer can simply hear silence
but instead the loud shouts
of a conscious trying to persuade
a feeble mind into conformity
using what the eyes see,
what patterns the memory recognizes
as refutable evidence.
Would it not be so easy
to live the life of a normal man
or live the life of a normal woman,
carefree, to enjoy the youth
in ecstasy, without care
of the future?
Would it not be easy
to instead spread out
each M&M; to small hands
around and instead
empty each piece into my mouth?
And if I were to see a woman
crying on the bench,
would I choose to sit and sew
the torn fragilities of human vulnerability
to risk punctuality...
Would it not be easy?
To live life to oneself
to one's own need
to one's own desires
without care of the future...
But during these cinemas
on my dark bedroom wall,
I see poverty within the past,
I see pain through the present,
and because of that I fear the future
that maybe the precious time
spent on these late night contemplations
will amount to nothing,
that in time the mind withers
and ultimately dies
blank as it began.


Yet I wonder, to act on impulse
leads many to mimic
society that surrounds
the observant eye
who has a mind, but is afraid...
Am I a man who is different?
Or am I a man who is the same?
Or is it that in this finite spectrum
of infinite possibility of these
two questions: I stand in the center
unable to place a point
and remain stationary?


I lie awake contemplating
of personal practicality
that if these thoughts will impact
any eyes, ears, or minds
as separate as they can be.
I hope that in time,
these thoughts will be refined
after being confined
and eventually redefined.
Maybe then these poems will make sense,
or that any of these arrangements
of words taken straight from thought
will translate to normal English
for it is not the curve of a "y"
that should matter in the marking
of a name, but instead the name itself.


As the films end
in memories' credits
where people are listed anonymously,
the flashlight flickers,
the stomach growls,
the body weary,
and the mind drifting
but the eyes wide open;
with few thoughts
left in the darkness,
a paintbrush childishly
draws an insomniac
who contemplates his past,
who recognizes his present,
and who is afraid of his future
but faces it even as
the flashlight dies.

What a classic tragedy!
A small fragility
     Covered by fragilities.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

No matter the apple is ripe it is bitter in the end,
Tinkles of wine on the forehead and the mood is in swing my friend,
Love is in the air, the nerves are ever so pumped,
The innocent, heart, the true never knew of the later grindings,

Fragilities hit upon the tree birch and the leaves fell,
On to the grass trying to rot under the shadows of entrusted love,
Kept lying around the seeds of the fallen fruits around the well,
Shattered to the core like the fluttered wings of the dove,

Heavy price paid, to shed off the burdens sailing in the salted emotions,
Cushioned the pins thrusted promised to handle covered by hard earned situations,
Snap of the finger and the promise to live and die, ended too soon,
Unnoticed it went, deemed as mistake, deliberate the actions you were the fool,

Could feel the sweetness on the tongue, unable to handle its effects,
There were a few roses left in the garden, all had come with some or the other defects,
No room for rush at the bottom of the cliff, too crowded with the bodies,
Wish you had kept things pure and not landed in the state of sorries.

your immensely spread parasol:
it is your downpour consoling
these tumultuous iterations.

the mordant edge of your
susurrations:
it is your word painting my silence.

i have watched your slow fires
raze the inundation.
you have done it well
without trouble
without peril.

i have witnessed your
somnambular sun
mutilate with its precise dagger,
the stubborn bud of
contained splendor.
you have done it well
without blunder
without complication.

i have seen the conception
of your darknesses
and i took them as my own;
its sovereign over my
fragilities,
its tyranny over my
small territories,
its amplitude over the
softness of my voice.
i have done it well.
even with dire postulations.
even if i am
cast into a lulled out perdition.
it is like
there exists between us,
a tryst,
and the lions there lay,
roaring.

If you could choose between
losing yourself and discovering
the deepest parts of your soul with
their weakness, fragilities and fears,
what will your choice be eventually?
And if you go for the first one,
will you walk in the streets
like an empty body looking lost
among humans whom souls you
cannot and do not want to touch?
And if you go for the second one
will you have the strength to fight
the demons who will come at night?
Will you see your soul while looking
in the mirror and recognize it as yours
in its whole being, with its scars?
If you could be whole, would
you still choose to be a half?

A bright chap and not very awkward
He felt he owed a debt just for being
He seemed to keep to himself
In fear of harsh judgments
In fear of exposure
Of all his self-evident inadequacies
Fragilities and vulnerabilities
Of being humiliated by a social world. . .
It ranked higher than death
In things that he feared

Seek for humility​, but know my ability to increase to stability with agility, in this facility where it's build and destroy, the fragilities durability furiously is curious, serious with its toys, respectively causes noise, collectively and expectedly set to be to annoy, the poise, somewhat avoids void, but the only joy is a break, makes self hate, hoping FAKE compensates, the great take, baked in the mind, cold down to lymph nodes, told I was fine, rewind everytime all my dimes spent to hatred, only knows patience to create pain ancient, maintenance for cadence to fry the hellish desperation, being shy is being selfish, that's my little inspiration, for the fact of consideration that I saw misuse in me, others wage war against self, that wasn't new to me, enemy and friend, you're hoping they don't pretend on their end, defending what we think to offend them, but the truest gem finds and defines you, beating round the bush, you can push, this will shine too, half a picture drew, knew it was killing me, blank on the other side, lying with HUMILITY.