"lignin" poems
because our dreams of leaf-canopies and lignin
arrive at a certain variety of green, we will zither
anew with song
here in Bulacan; all the leaves are capsized
brandishing inflorescences as naked as
the scent of petrichor girdled
on the cobblestones: they are forsaken not by
trees but by seasons only, a twofold deliberation
of caprice: there is only two of what is spoken.
such is the warmth and coldness,
missing their obvious targets, hesitant and abstruse,
scattered and at long last, never collected
deftly camouflaged in the familiar drapery,
“Tantusan mo!” as they cry for marks to remember,
we touch the cicatrix to measure with our jagged hands
how much we have forgotten.
what we cease to remember descends deep, as wash-hand basins
concur such depth,
into the well of ourselves, later to discover such
perilous foundling in the squall of either morning or evening,
still devoid of sense: still arguing whether there is much
to reconcile with what has been found and what has been pictured
now, altered by such loss: this is danger, and so is nothing,
swollen and tender, the waters of the estero reek of such
remembering – we cannot ignore its perfume, oddly taking the shape
of the next dagger slowly making its way towards the back
of the skull to pare with river-run precision, what we all
try to hold back inside; so as if to say,
“Tantusan mo!” to remember
where we last took off, like a heron,
or a bird, wary of distances.
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 12:59 AM UTC
deep sepulcher and shallow pavement.
a sharp exchange of glances,
and then like snow-bed,
gone at first feverish light — all!
in me, the world is still,
(you are my
world)
growing roots, a throb of petals.
you bequeath me, a necklace of hands.
railway of stars, like the white
of your silence and mine,
inaudible stone of our
ever growing distance.
scraps of metal archipelagic
in Manila and the immaterial
language of billboards:
my mind, the crepuscular garden,
your memory,
the overgrowth,
never plucked — stilled, unfazed,
your slenderness a sign of
eternity: lignified.
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 12:45 AM UTC
is the world real?
clambering the wall, this inner turmoil.
a sensuous solitaire
of sorts
my 10th beer
reading 2 poems
in the total, stark blackness:
receiving me
like a fresh fruit's glaze,
the tumultuous hands of Ocampo Street.
half-mad,
half-believing
there are already so many writers.
there are so many Lang Leavs,
a choir of Pablo Nerudas,
a cacophony of Paolo Coelhos,
(never have i met
Geminos
or Yusons
Arcellanas
Joaquins
de Ungrias
Sawis — always the realer form
if not imagined only experienced
through dumb senses still?)
always their inner sense
of self conjuring
others giving back the same image
like a prayer's way through lignin cross
thumbing are the fingers
small in rumination
so many of them here
and there is only less of me
less of my voice
less of my laughter
less of my caprices
less of my whims
(more of my drunkenness
trying to feign sobriety standing
at the edge of the fringe,
more of my poems here
and there yet nobody
grasping anything at all)
i go home
chasing the pattern of this
cosmic solitaire.
Oct 27, 2015
Oct 27, 2015 at 12:18 AM UTC
Break, bend and depart
From lofty boughs of lignin towers
And ease yourself towards the earth.
The icy draft, that same draft that nips and cuts at noses and cheeks,
Makes you its plaything,
Bestowing caresses,
Shaping the descent.
Had you eyes where would they wonder?
Towards the ground, cemented in cold callous destination?
Or perhaps, in contrast, eyes ever skyward
In homage to the dreamlike boundless azure
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 9:28 AM UTC