Daddy takes me to the greenhouse,
behind our rotted trailer, deep in sovereign backwoods.
Marsh voices, thick like tupelo honey.

The coo of a loon, hiss of a cottonmouth, shiver of a snapping turtle.

The silver of swamp lilies lip the land in wild haze,
a veil of ochre moss tickles my nose like gauzey ginger ale
and soil clings to my ankles like a lonesome hound.

Daddy’s greenhouse is a shed, a haven.
A milieu of magic and fleur-de-cannabis
where pixies pull my curls and gnomes dance
under mushroom parasols.

My hands dip into a hollow of muddy earthworms.
I feel akin to the yellow blood of a butterfly
or pale jade of perplexing geckos.  

Daddy is a shaman.

He trims holy blooms that come from spirits
who sing in the wind like the whippoorwill at dusk.
Snipping sticky bushels, he pads tufts into his pipe,
carved in the shape of a sullen armadillo.

I watch him inhale.

                          His breath
                                               stiff
                            as a braid of mangroves.

                      He exhales a ligneous cough.

                              I don’t mind,
                                                   much.

island summer heat
big backyards
shared by three families
with rambunctious kids
sundresses, sandals, swim trunks
a big mango tree and
a merry-go-round with red chipped paint
geckos and mud baths
"boy's got cooties!"
  
mid-west plains' dry, summer heat
Mr. Sun is our lamp well past 9:00pm
Dow St., a giant hill covered
in uniform houses, filled with the uniformed sacrificial
spinning wheels, acre-wide hide and seek
nintendo and donkey kong, fireflies in jars
front yard mulberry trees
pippy longstocking "lets' go into this 'cave' of vines"
poison-ivy
  
southern peninsula, humid, summer heat
above ground pools and trampolines
a red brick house; the first home
the first CD collection, Filipino food
THE PARK,
the sandbox lid drowning in the bayou
sleeping in guest rooms, sleepovers a sign of status
pelicans, ducks, fishing,
sleeping in the boat; camping on the beach

Pip pip
My pip boy.
Don't you know how far
This hole goes.

Follow the white rabbit
And see.

my head is a moon of many
in the strange orange
alien sunrise.

Beautiful, breath taking views
Of vast volcanoes and bright blue seas
Scorching sun and high temperatures
Palm trees swaying in a soft breeze.
Through landscapes layered with black lava
White washed walls wind their way
Around gardens full of fantastic flora
Where lizards and geckos love to play.
Ships sail by beyond the breakers,
Planes pass over as they come in to land,
Promenades packed with holidaymakers
By beaches of beautiful golden sand.
Sun loungers and swimming pools
Hours of rest and relaxation
Siestas while the hot sun cools
Poolside bars for cool libations.
Spectacular sunsets in surrounding skies
Each day ending in such serene splendour
Reds pinks, blues, greys and turquoise;
Colours any artist would be challenged to render.
Pubs clubs and restaurants of such variety
activities that appeal to everyone
Local residents renowned for their hospitality
Make Matagorda a paradise second to none.

• This great division of space. •
And the untamed plants.

Geckos...
Pose as domestic pets -
slide along its faded railings.
Casing draughty walls,
tethered to rafters loose lashing;
hanging in jungle green.

I clean up the wild flowers
that float   in   the  a i r, without
explanation, without wrong measure.

Is as it comes -  
I am ashamed that this is all I want.

A testament to solitary hawks in the upper branches.
Flutter in memory carefree cardinals
in this leaf-strewn place,
Dragonflies form wing-prayers
We kneel and peel our shoes off,

drop our feet to sleeping grass
to be closer to the narrow splendor.

Peacocks honk rough phrases, asking anyone.
Commuting the tracks, between valley stream.

I linger limbo roads
On the jungly drive,
pass a farm that repeats
its exotic fruit tree, the elbows of orange blossoms
Guava groves, avocado arsenal,
saturated ocean views beyond pestyflower frills.

At the life proof gate. This world is untidy
with its muddy banks, with its eyes.
1000 flower bloom
Listening feral fowl, ungulate shake  

Retirees friendly fire,
Long forgotten barbwire crossing creeks
the mountain lost in a sea of green    
This land, like me, is free
To live a less domesticated dream

Pile clouds push the north ridge
liquid blue lines at dead man’s point
cane garden pool for industrious folk
verdant green tuck from the upper deck

Waterfalls heavy and head winds calm
sea deep clear at the pit cove
pusser *** pints (for the pain ****!)
eateries pop and glow in port

Oleander clips and elephant ears
scuppernong grape from the jester
tannia stock on dipping day
calypso calls from an improvised spot

Hammocks hung at coral beach
funjie band in bamboshay time
ficus, gallows and *** runners
flying fish on the catamaran row

Metallic crab and swordfish
soggy holes for the sage and musk
sinkers, skiffs and rollers
white squalls gust on the north bay

Skeleton art at charlie t's
powder white and breezy
shells and driftwood for the artisan heart
geckos short of the cabana

Butterflies float on violet caps
fingers cross the hummingbird bath
anglers steady under canopy layer
lighthouse sails are bending

It's been a long life, been a long day
Waiting for all the yesterdays to simply die away.
Here I'am waiting with nothing to do
And empty hands don't make work light
Loneliness doesn't fill up right.

A hundred and three years she's been alive
No more breath to be taken and mesuared now
I'll remember the visits, jelly beans and nail polish
Not quite comfortable in that place,
The hospital's never been a pleasent place for me.

Now the struggle's over and I wasn't there.
Coward perhaps but now, all I can do is wait.
Wait till the aftershock stands still and everyone is home again.
Be there and try to understand losing
Someone close, distant at the same time.

I hope there's a better place, full of sunshine
No geckos and nothing goes to waste.
Hope you found the peace and the faces you needed
Great Grandma Sophie
Please rest in peace.

you are lying on your back in a bed 5,487 miles away from home.
there are geckos trilling from the corridors and the trees cast shadows in the room
above the door, the air con whirs and you shift, sticky, skin sweating against starched cotton sheets
too hot, too humid, too much

everything is too much, but at least it’s too much here instead of too much back there;
you visit temples, vast and golden in their glory, and white and intricate in their purity; ocher where the sun has kissed blessings upon their pillars,
and pretend that you too are subjected to the numinous nature of sanctums and their spirits
and pray they don’t notice that the awe in their eyes isn’t reflected in yours,
hope they don’t sense that you are not here to heal, only to stretch old wounds into splitting open anew

you are ruining your life

you are ruining your life somewhere beautiful that’s been the making of so many others’ lives
but you always strived to be different, never recognising
that agony, despair, self-deprecation, self-victimisation, suffering—they’re the most common connecting factors between all humans
you are the same as the other six billion people aching and crying and spitting anger in their sorrow,
blind to the one billion who’re trying to make the world a better place so the rest of you might smile a little more often.

one of the geckos scurries across the ceiling and you flinch,
a moment of fear for the unknown before you settle once more and simply watch his little legs fidget his body to freedom through the slats of your propped open window.
inside your chest there’s a moment of heavy silence as your heart grapples for a connection between you and that little creature
both small little things striving to survive in a world too large, too bright, too crowded yet too empty
chasing freedom like a child chases a dream.

the moment passes.
your heart regains pace and your mind whirs with the lonely static of too much me time

you are ruining your life
not realising you’re weaker to suffer than you’d be if you tried to heal

Dusk sets on the quiet desert
Eerie shadows hide behind saguaro soldiers
And sanguine striped snakes
Sneak back into the earth
Rowdy coyotes meet among the rocks
To cry at the moon
Who never cries back

The wind roams so freely through the desert
Stopping where she likes
To dance with the wildflowers
Or tickle the sun soaking geckos
She laughs as she passes by
And the sands chase after her
Begging to ever be so light as to
Keep company with the clouds

The mountain wraps his unfaltering arms
Snugly around the valley
A regal jacket of deep greens and browns
Laid across his towering shoulders
He lets his gaze follow the hustle and bustle
Of life in the desert as suns set and rise
From the place he has always been
Greeting each javelina and jack rabbit
As they settle into his solid embrace

The wind moves manically
Passing through the creosote bushes
With just enough time for a polite greeting
Before she rushed off to tease the birds
She touches every piece of her beloved desert
But she can never settle or linger too long
For fear of losing herself all together

The mountain feels his weight
Pressing so firmly against the earth
He faces anyone who challenges him
And he only rumbles with laughter
When they strike
But he begins to wonder what lies beyond
Where the liquidy sun shimmers in the air
He cannot abandon his post
For fear of crumbling into pieces of himself

The mountain cradles the wind
Slowing her down long enough
To warmly welcome her home
The wind tells the mountain
Stories of the desert

Sometimes I mine for echoes
Ghosts of sounds within me still
Cicadas and the clash of boules
Soft voices from the hill

Two young boys tongue-tied in the sun
Barefoot on summer's shore
Soft feet licked clean by freedom's whim
With oceans to explore

My mother nurtured flowers
Drowning shadows out with paint
The brightness of geraniums
The patience of a saint

My father cut the grass too much
And ran to clear his mind
Until the echoes of the Angelus
Beseeched him to unwind

My brother lined his time with books
He tore through Willard Price
And towed me just behind him
Through the fronds of paradise

Marauding hornets launched their raids
From castles in the attic
While Stanley mined for longwave gold
From seams deep in the static

And all the while
My granny kept her patience in the shade
Her deck of cards adorned with birds
Their feathers slightly frayed

The swallows scythed through open skies
Back home where they belonged
And like Narcissus, swooped from height
To kiss the surface of the pond

The wasps built paper palaces
The geckos froze on sight
And midwife toads woke from their doze
To tune up for the night

As daytime took its leave
We sought out satellites and stars
Then lay in quiet contemplation
Watching Venus waltz with Mars

I remember cowboys’ breakfasts
With my father by the lake
Freewheeling with the moon roof open
For freewheeling's sake

We wore our bike tyres paper thin
Climbed castle walls unseen
Dived into lakes to race for ducks
And ruled the world at just thirteen

We fashioned bows and arrows
From the saplings in the wood
Sprung ambushes from chestnut shade
And fell dead where we stood

We roamed the dust-filled houses
On the back streets off the square
An ageless band of soldiers
Feigning death without a care

We raced around the wood yard
Sometimes scuffled in the dust
We traded glances with the neighbours' girls
And felt the nascent tug of lust

We sought out mischief in the hills
Stole naughtily from shelves
Smoked roll-ups in a Dutch girl's car
Unclipped our wings and helped ourselves

I've been busy around with work lately so I cannot write some poems.. So instead, I'll tell some interesting things about myself..

1) I have a collection of exotic pets, mainly tarantulas, hissing cockroaches, scorpions, leopard geckos and all sorts of things.
2) I'm a computer engineering graduate, yes I'm actually an engineer. That's why I've been busy lately :/
3) I tried eating live crickets. JUST ONE TIME!. Just for the sake of the event, I ate 15 pcs. of live/adult crickets
4) I'm an outdoor kind of guy, love hiking, camping, literally being with mother nature.
5) I'm a jack-of-all trades kind of guy, err not really. Just knowledgeable on general info's and stuffs.
6) Soon to be an Astronaut!(I Wish), yes, one of my lifelong dream is to become an Astronaut. That's why I took engineering :)
7) I love music, seriously, music is my passion (although I can't compose stuffs) but I can play a guitar and a piano (mainly self-taught, thanks to YouTube).

Well, that is all :)

When my mother dropped me off at the airport
She said, I hope that you find your home
This one is tired and bent at the edges
And it doesn't suit you well
I walked and flew and slept all across the universe
But then I remembered... I know where my home is
My home is walked into the paint-stained carpets of dorm hallways where we taught international students how to curse in English
My home is under the napkins in greasy spoon diner tables where my godfather winked across at me
It's somewhere between the white and the blue in the waves of the ocean
Inside one or both of my headphone earbuds
Under the bark of a eucalyptus tree
Inside the box of waxy crayons on my lap during road trips
Caught like a stone in the treads of the tire of the wood-sided Jeep my father gave me
Buried under a tree in the backyard, with the goldfish and the pet mice
In between the keys of my piano and the keys to my first dorm, first house
In the sunlight through the window panes of my room in San Fransisco
And hanging off the roof with the geckos in Indonesia
It's feeling scared in the school library and at senior prom and in empty alleyways
It's the empty park nine thousand miles away from my mother
Where I whispered to the birds that I wanted to go home
Because I knew no one else would listen.
It's in the scissors that gave me blisters
When I redecorated our house by hand
And the tears I hid from my brother
While I turned up the thermostat to warm his icy soul.
A lot of it is stuck on the roof of a hospital room
Staring up wishing to disappear
Some of it is in my father's bones
And his misty eyes when they started to show
Home is in my best friend's bed
We didn't have our health but at least we had each other
It's my favorite space between the top bunk and the bottom bunk
Where secrets hang like candle smoke
It's the words of a book I haven't written
And the pages of one I don't want read
It's here, it's now, it's etched on my skin
It's me, it's him, it's somewhere far ahead
I don't know what it looks like but I know it will be there.

well, he didn't really get loose
I forgot to put him back with Spike after his 30 minutes of freedom
3 hours later, after looking under every chair and couch,
checking every room, every closet
inside every box of crap I keep in the basement
I got to wondering if he climbed into the basket of ***** clothes
and is now belly up in the rinse cycle
luckily that wasn't the case
after an exhaustive search,
I was convinced he was under or behind the refrigerator
but I was too tired to move it
so I decided to wait until tomorrow
as I was about to climb into my luxurious air mattress
something caught my eye in the corner
Zilla was poking his head out from under the speaker
of my mp3 player
stared at me as if to say;
'you lookin' for me?'
I knew he was hungry...he didn't think about that
when he went awol
so I put him back in his glass house where Spike gave him a
'welcome home'
slap in the face with his tongue
and I fed him a nice juicy superworm

no fur on the clothes or furniture
no barking at the neighbors
no smelly litter boxes or yard mines
no yearly shots, expensive food, flea and tic oil
sweaters, burial plots, surgeries, walks in the park...MUST I GO ON?!
Geckos...the perfect pet!

those who use their real names
on poetry websites:

we own a poodle
2 leopard geckos
buy ***** by the half gallon

have killed 2 to 3 people
BUT ARE NOT
serial killers

we only listen
to Tom Waits
songs

are surely
on the f.b.i 's no fly list

may own too many
guns

we  wonder???

how long???

is a piece of string???

and tattooed
on our genitals
"live free or die"

a dog pees on
every tree
telephone pole
and mailbox

to let  the other
dogs know he was here

and here I am

two to six inch long
mostly nocturnal reptiles
the soft - skinned geckos

Born in a sinkhole,
Where money is made on petrol,
And geckos are plentiful,
So, best hope your names not geico.
This can truly be the life for…
Some.
Hold the beer, bring in the ***.
Thriving prostitution, right under God’s sun.
While the the streets flood with pollution,
Goodbye Captain Planet, end em with a gun.
A travesty that gets spun,
And put under the rug.
Along with other skeletons.
But as long as money flows,
The rich can keep eating beef Wellington.
Where most can’t dare to be themselves,
Like they May Sarton.
For those in poverty are deemed as burdens.
In a land of prosperity,
Yet got homeless people starving.
Sleeping.
In the streets,
If this land belongs to the meek,
Than why don’t they have a seat.
To the table?
Because those with privilege,
Are like Cain to their Abel,
Propaganda in tow,
Turning facts to fables.
It’s like Lao Tsu says:
Those who know do not speak.
And those who speak do not know.
So, how can we grow?
If we don’t water?
When friend turns to foe.
Where grass hides snakes and gaters.
If you want to find evil,
Follow the dough.
And if you want to find the traitor,
Look at who controls the labour.

in twin centuries dead to perception, whereat then I may've kept her
beyond the matin' season of tokay geckos that spills into September
contingent on what 877 M.K. Ultra bosses'll allow me to remember
the swollen socialism of Venezuela's social integrity that swells my
largely free-flowin,' thrill-hammered, vasodilated, thrilling member

Time travelers of past futures gone bleak into space, time staring, reflecting voids created in order to uncreate. Surveyors of back alleyways littered with cake and angels. They shout out profanities, reflected by dry bricks and geckos clicking.

Barred windows
Crayons and baristas
Overflow cups of mirth

Apartment walls, a membrane worn thin by incessant bickering, a thick patina of noise and foot thrusts through silence. Three women escorting lesbian foresight, caroling the throes of silent *******. Three feet of water drowning friends in the night, the air thick with bleeding apologies and hitchhiking strangers, casting shadows in a vibrant, violent, purple wake.

I see you
Oregon girl
Ferocious but frail

I ask you what time it is and we both laugh at the absurdity of the chain of circumstances. Jazz concatenating with noise in a staccato sun dance. Friends and wine, red smiles and delineated eyes casting visions of tomorrow against a projected memory.

Six pair of eyes
for breathing colors
into the night

The silence deafens, then lets up- and we roar with laughter, most hearty.

the afterthought of rain
lies heavy in the air tonight
the earth slowly steams
aand on the elctricity lines
the  family pink  of galahs
amuse themselves
doing 360 degree loops
on the rain slippery wires
round and round and round
with child-like glee

down tne road, the  jackos
settle in for the night
amid laughter and gossip
and much flapping of wings

i watch the geckos race up
the wall to postion themselves
under the porch light
and await the night's buffet

somewhere over near the pond
the old frog begins to sing
i am pleased to hear him
i thought we had lost him to the heat
his basso profundo love cries
follow me into the house
as the mosquitoes  begin their
bloodsucking serenades.

and the earth slowly steams

Quaint crumbling yellow tower blocks. Heaps of trash and traffic choked streets.
Geckos smiling sweetly on the wall. Cockroaches and rats in the background. Two children. One mischievous toddler and one innocent baby. My wife in the distance looking away. A middle aged Asian man drinking, scolded by is wife and mother in law.
My wife in the distance looking away. A middle aged Asian man drinking, scolded by is wife and mother in law.
School aged children laughing and crying.
A laptop in a lonely dark room. Piles and piles of prescription drugs: tramadol , codeine, ******, ritalin. Tubes of corticosteroid and moisturizer creams.


Jolly fat men in their 30s drinking bia hoi, smoking endless cigs. A rock band plays to an inebriated crowd.


Sunlit mountains. Limestone karsts. Emerald rice fields on straight flat roads heading on forever with a fat sunset overseeing the lazy water buffalo wallowing.
The faces of old friends growing hazy.

A gaggle of women, enraged or sobbing.
School aged children laughing and crying.

A heavy lidded eye dropping a tear into a panic stricken and bloodshot one

Aeroplanes heading over the vast sea. My late middle aged parents smiling stupidly.
Various friends smi11
A girl looks on with pity, flanked by a hard faced man in a polo shirt.