i.

Barefoot, the sod tickling ourn toe's
Aquamarine, cometh mine queen;
Down the trail's of immortality
We shalt go.

ii.

Long happily ever after
None more manacle's;
To fasten ourn wrist's
For we shalt be unimpeded, by eachother's kiss.

iii.

Let the other's wish
Who art jealous;
Of ourn vow's of dedication
This is reality, not some t.v station.

iv.

We shalt build a nation
Out of the Philippine's;
And Greece
Combined.

v.

A concoction of
The finest Misamis Occidental lambanog;
And the relish of
Thine own king's santorini assyrtiko white wine.


©Brandon cory nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane nagley/ Filipino rose dedication

to every family that has lost someone to the war on drugs, i offer you a piece of my heart. take it and make it yours.

when the other children ask if i miss you, i answer no. how can i miss someone who has not even left? you are still alive, i feel it; i know it to be true. you live in the paper thin walls of our home, a ghost lingering on the dining table.

(i'm sorry there's hardly any food laid out. sometimes mother forgets to buy any or her hands shake too much for her to cook -- i don't know if it's from the cigarettes or the lambanog. brother is always out nowadays, trying to make money. he leaves before the sun is up and comes home long after mother has gone to bed. i think they're like this because they can hardly bear to look at your seat without dying a little more.)

grandmother tells me to talk some sense into mother. "just because he died doesn't mean she can let her children die too. she is just sad. she needs someone to talk to." what she means is: comfort her. but i wonder. what comfort can you offer a dead man walking?

sometimes i stare at the sky from the hole on my ceiling, and i wonder which star is you. is it the bright one that is always at the center of my vision? the one a little ways to the left? on better days, brother joins me and takes my hand in his. i swear it's almost like you're back, laying beside me.

it's hard without you here. we miss you. when i see the other children and their fathers -- whole, unhurt, *alive -- i feel a pang of pain. it's like hearing the gunshot all over again.

i don't know if you were still alive then, but i was the one who called for help. i screamed until my lungs gave way to the torrent of pain that filled even the spaces between my bones. i don't know (nor do i wish to) if you were still alive or if you had already had a taste of sunset.

it's a little funny. you had promised me we'd go to the lake that day. just you and i. you had gotten a job the week before and you wanted to celebrate with your favorite daughter. (i didn't have the heart to remind you i was your only daughter.)

and i want you to know i am holding you to that promise. when we meet again. in space. heaven. eternity. in whatever version of the afterlife we end up in. we'll go to the lake.

just you and i.

affixed there, its insignia of silence,
   the river-memory of bleak stone
   in waters raging

all at the vandal of the afternoon.
  running dog's the swelter, a salvage
   of iron in heat. the revolution's an image
  of the child in all of dogdom

when anger breaks loose a fettered dove
   here, or the crisp agony of bannerets
   shoving a name worthy of forget:
   bawling enigma from here to there

all the tension of wires, umbrella-heads
   are people, drowned in lambanog.
 our mirage drunk somewhere in intestinal
   roads flushed with the swill of bile --
 moon's the face of ******, stars
    their ****** patrons. squall of wind's
  the pernicious call of morning starting
   washlines, groping dry,

   an unpossessing pale ******. somewhere
 in Quiapo, someone's a Jesus-monger, ****
         of the Magdalena, or
    an inverted crucifix treading its way
   past hills without geometric memory.

  mine's the next station, yours too,
  thumbed by a tired machine: this etcetera
      of coffins squinting at their faces.

Like twinkling drops of hallowed lambanog
that you later called miraculous coco *****,
they remained in the night sky of your shot glass
after you tried to drown the sorrowful mysteries
in countless gulps of your comforting best friend,
anaesthetizing every pain in your fatigued heart.
There your imagined liquor-incarnate compadre
of one comforter spirit friend and brother beside
sitting, hugging your shoulders, in whispers telling
you, you’re not alone, just cry if you need to, crying
as no Jesus or Mary could save your unfortunate soul
sentenced and punished without trial, by sheer strike
of Luck or lack of it. Keeping the faith despite the fate.

Not even a single teasing demon to offer you to pawn
your one forsaken spirit. Gods are deaf. Salve Regina!
yelling to high heavens, growling to the deepest hells
"Eli, Eli, Lama, Sabachthani?” - viral pneumonia spells
the names of maimed friends and silenced co-workers
“in no particular order!” as if finalists in that pageantry,
we call pandemic - worldwide but never world class
- and only the coronavirus wears the crown and reigns.

The roll call of the departed has become as endless
as the river of tears and sent messages of sympathies
and ocean deep condolences and sincerest wishes of
peaceful rests, soul or no soul, expressed. Covid or not,
all the dead are suspected zombies and swabbed; a stick
up one’s nose has taken new meanings. And thinking
positive is suddenly not on, not in, but off – it’s feared.

Life is like the alcohol with which we wash our hands.
It easily evaporates, leaving our skin feeling cold. Like
when Sepsis claimed a dear sister on New Year’s Day –
Anxiety is a real, a dangerous reality. Then colleagues,
mentors, friends, relatives, acquaintances, mother of one
pal, a health worker, front liners, a driver, a poor child,
a teacher, a student, a jobless man, a millionaire, an idol
An aunt passes away, on one unhappy day. Grim Reaper
blindly, swiftly, sweeps the shining sickle, the scythe . . .
and the life that began at daybreak is gone, gone, so quick.
All grains harvested in just a day.
Life. Just one short day.
One day.