"paolo" poems
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)
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 7:09 AM UTC
#teamara
As in the nub of the remains of crayola crayon that’s been used to color in so many smiling cartoon suns on a piece of paper-
Her favorite color is yellow.
And I don’t mean a wimpy *** pastel yellow or sometimes a pale yellow
I mean her favorite color is bright *** yellow.
Like Pikachu yellow.
Like she’s almost nineteen but she’s still willing to play Gameboy Pokemon yellow.
There’s something innocent yet corny kind of yellow about her.
She’s beautiful like yellow jirasol petals
She’s intricate as yellow thread woven in a Rasta Dom
She’s yellow like gold and Africa
She’s sweet like pineapples and delicate like daffodils
I still don’t know why her favorite color is yellow
Maybe it has to do with her fascination of Asian men…
I mean! ...with the continent of Asia
She thinks she’s more like pink Japanese cherry blossom trees in the summer
But I know she’s truly yellow petals on Paolo Verde trees blowing in the wind spreading around Tucson
A metaphor for her love
She’s yellow like the color in the middle of my pride rainbow- She supports me
She’s yellow like the big painted sun at the hospital with a big grin
I wonder why nobody smiles at hospitals
The place where life is easily given as taken
Where we are reminded that our health is sometimes taken for granted
Other than that great big yellow sun
She is the only that radiates yellow and smiles
In waiting rooms, she seems like she’s the calmest
Even though she’s the only one going through surgery
She’s so beautiful on the inside her body can’t even take it
She doesn’t deserve scions or scalpels to even be considered touching her bronze skin
I wish instead they would strip down the color yellow from my life
And give it to her to make her smile so bright that even word “cancer” would cease to exist
But still. Even through pain and hardships
She still smiles. Not only is she yellow when she’s happy
She tends to radiate yellow even when she’s gloomy
When I’m upset, her aura has way of rubbing off on mine
And I get insight to why her favorite color is yellow
*** she’s the kind of yellow that represents strength
She’s yellow like tall forts made from gold bars
She’s yellow like flames that roll of her tongue when she spits fire
She’s yellow like a crayola-crayon… except she can’t be broken
From her, I’m learning
That even when you’re hurting
You can still shine bright like your favorite color.
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 3:55 PM UTC
_To Polina, my anchor, through all my lives_
Between dawn and dusk
on the precipice
in shades of scarlet
stood a magnificent house
Strangers and I were enthralled
by the neon red foyer where
Francesca and Paolo welcomed us
to the house of a thousand doors
Each door an invitation
to delicious desire
each room a seduction
of perilous passion
One door opened —
three bare women holograms
drank from a small lake and
brandished wicked, feline smiles
At my feet a church of cardinals
glowing with tears, heat and sweat
whimpered in their prayers
but the pope watched from afar.
He speaks—
the mouth at once is an eye, an abyss
and a hurricane from Pandora's box
Then I am I no more — a cardinal in crimson —
but no shame or guilt guides me
when blood-red lips land on mine
"Do you not see
there is equal courage
equal purity
in giving
into
temptation—
the kind
that appals the devil
to revel
in the hurt, the open wounds,
and the agony
to dive deep—
into the depths
and say all the yeses
to embrace the darkest demons
of your soul?
Enter—
and you shall find
hell or heaven within yourself."
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 1:37 AM UTC
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)
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 2:00 AM UTC
(and I cannot live
from with-out)
<>
a poem in appreciation to Rossella Di Paolo
<>
I, too:
- am an embryonic work in progress,
well into my seventh decade, with no ending in sight
I too,
live in the house of poetry, the address likely differs,
but suspect the innards of the houses differs little,
the decor, quite similar
- my house shrewdly requests a rethinking,
noting, it lives my artifice,
with in & with out
Then, we are a We:
- my cavities house her, She, Poetry is of Ruth (1) born,
- Poetry, She, reminds me, ”whither thou goest, I will go”
This duality:
- where the haunting of words providential,
emanate, both inhabiting & inhibits my breathing
She, a fearsome creature, a fearful-something,
for it tears me and shreds tears its demands be wrung
from with in to with out
She, Poetry:
- leaves me gaping, hollow, fills me with
depressurizing boreholes exposed to the elements of
externalities of an admixed atmospheres, that nature demands be refilled, fresh in, stale out,
for which the artifice trick is knowing which is which
when Poetry’s birthing:
- chest pounds, heart-rate beats heavy metal,
abdomen contracts, there then, no languid in my language,
no help untangling the alpha-bet jumbling,
product of the screams of pushing,
squeezing it forth*
*you’re hoping to quick-catch newly formed combinations,
for if you fail, a poem
noisily crashes to and through the floorboard cracks,
where poetry’s chaotic glinting etes
maliciously glimmer~winks at me
with a sarcastic thank you*
*“ah, too bad, another creation stillborn,
gone to rest, biting the nether dust,
without hope of resuscitation…”*
just another unfinished work in progress
periodically
a survivor clean caught, transcribed, edited to be finished,
amniotic fluids cleared,
poem resurrected
blessed with eternal life,
readied to be shared and delivered,
affirmed
and you say to no one and to everyone:
this poem will be our poem,
wither it goes, ascending, descending,
all live in the house of poets,
one house,
many apartments,
each poem a god,
and
my God will be our God,
your God, my God,
in the House of Poetry
Jun 21, 2023
Jun 21, 2023 at 5:55 PM UTC
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)
Sep 17, 2017
Sep 17, 2017 at 12:00 PM UTC
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)
Jul 21, 2012
Jul 21, 2012 at 12:43 PM UTC
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)
Jul 24, 2013
Jul 24, 2013 at 9:44 PM UTC
Hoy que danza en mi cuerpo la pasión de Paolo
y ebrio de un sueño alegre mi corazón se agita:
hoy que sé la alegría de ser libre y ser solo
como el pistilo de una margarita infinita:
oh mujer -carne y sueño-, ven a encantarme un poco,
ven a vaciar tus copas de sol en mi camino:
que en mi barco amarillo tiemblen tus senos locos
y ebrios de juventud, que es el más bello vino.
Es bello porque nosotros lo bebemos
en estos temblorosos vasos de nuestro ser
que nos niegan el goce para que lo gocemos.
Bebamos. Nunca dejemos de beber.
Nunca, mujer, rayo de luz, pulpa blanca de poma,
suavices la pisada que no te hará sufrir.
Sembremos la llanura antes de arar la loma.
Vivir será primero, después será morir.
Y después que en la ruta se apaguen nuestras huellas
y en el azul paremos nuestras blancas escalas
-flechas de oro que atajan en vano las estrellas-,
¡oh Francesca, hacia dónde te llevarán mis alas!
2.8k
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)
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 7:44 AM UTC
Leave if You Can II
I live in the house of poetry.
I ascend her stairs slowly
and leap back down.
I sit in the chair of poetry,
sleep in her bed, eat from her plate.
Poetry has windows
through which mornings and afternoons
fall, and how well she suspends a teardrop
how well she blows until I tumble / With this
I mean to say that
one basket brings
both wounds and bandages.
I love poetry so much that sometimes I think
I don’t love her / She looks at me,
inclines her head and keeps knitting
poetry.
As always, I’ll be the bigger person.
But how to say it / How to tell her
I want to leave / honestly I want to
fry my asparagus…
I see her coming near
with her bottle of oil
and crazed skillet.
I see her,
her little bundle of asparagus
slipping out her sleeve.
Ah her freshness / her chaotic glint
and the way she approaches with relentless meter.
I surrender / I surrender always because I live
in the house of poetry / because I ascend
the stairs of poetry
and also because
I come back down.
— Translated by Lisa Allen Ortiz & Sara Daniele Rivera
Jun 10, 2023
Jun 10, 2023 at 9:02 AM UTC
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)
Aug 5, 2014
Aug 5, 2014 at 8:42 AM UTC
I say it the ocean
that it runs
deep. But water
it is not,
quickly swept up
by the wind.
Nor is it driftwood
that rides the tides
undecided. I Say it is
the rudder that steers
the ship. Not the sail
that the wind does blow,
but the ropes
which carefully guide us
to which direction
we choose to go.
It is the rope
that binds us not
against our wills,
but that of which we
hold on to
in the darkness
of our minds
where light does not
our eyes show
nor in winds
that tell us No.
For M.D.R.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / 06/10/14)
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 2:24 PM UTC
*C'etait vraiment une belle soirée,
la plus-que parfait soirée de toute ma vie.
C'etait un soir amaranthine.*
I have seen God,
and he is pistons on iron.
Grey-blue eyes, saltwater pools.
That squeelin' a'screechin whimperin' whinin' hydraulics,
Can you feel the hydraulic boom-boom bass-bass..
He is a man crying "Hey,"
he is a woman selling jewelry
he is wraps and rounds, garnets that glow,
he is 'Tree Fort' musically meditating with meditating musicians,
he is a writer writing in the woods,
he is burning paolo santo,
he is iced off dose,
real European ****
(Boom, boom. Bass, bass.)
he is Scorpio sun signs sun shining,
he is a man's heart shining.
Won't you look at all these hearts,
really have a look at them,
and tell me that they aren't the most
**beautiful
creative
spirited**
hearts that you've ever seen?
Scorpio, I love you. I really did love you. And how I've loved you since.
*It was truly a beautiful party,
the most beautiful party of my whole life.
It was a night amaranthine.*
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 7:45 PM UTC
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)
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 1:08 AM UTC
As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;
And seeing it asleep, so fled away,
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day;
But to that second circle of sad Hell,
Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.
1.6k
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)
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 2:09 AM UTC
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)
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 7:30 AM UTC
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)
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 2:47 PM UTC
Bright Eyes: Lua
Loudon Wainwright: Motel Blues
Radiohead: No Surprises
Keaton Henson: You don't know how luck you are
Tigers Jaw: Never saw it coming
Fleetwood Mac: Songbird
Paolo Nutini: Candy
... and your laugh
the clearing of your throat
your sharp intakes of breath
the chattering of your teeth in the cold
and the movement of cloth against your skin
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 10:55 AM UTC
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)
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 7:01 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