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)

My closest companion.
Whom I shared my secrets with.
We were two halves of a circle.
The only person who withstanded my tempest.
Your voices told me stories I will never forget.
You showed me things I never knew about.
We would laugh. We would cry. We would raise hell.
You were eccentric. That’s what I liked the most.
Never afraid to break the rules.
My love for you knows no bounds.
You may be gone, but your memory lives on.
Your spirit is here, walking with me.
My guardian angel.
My friend.
My closest companion.
A brother I always cherished.
A man whom I truly loved.

lastly, Poet with a camera is my name
I think different,
From a space between the mind and the brain
Sa-me twins but thus, Gemini’s are not the same
A him and I are the her in you,
all one on different planes
Rhythmic
as time shifted the shift consistent with the gifted, I was lifted,
raised from the dead level, craftmenship a wordsmith and, .....
I sailed on,
To the east, i found the light,
a gong,
of the knowledge in which I was bound, though hit in the head I was sound,
gone,
I,swore,
silence,
I found myself surrounded,
by the fire,
hail storms from the war torn,
salute,
as I’ve withstanded the canon in which man falls, the truth
It’s the Sight of the Victims of the relentless, the stench of the trenches,
ahhhhhh......
see to you, the peace in ignorance causes blissfulness
but my veil was far removed,
perceptions of the perceiving proceeding theirs, though my skies are no longer blue.
It behooves,
therefore language was not the construct it’s the con. In you
The power of the double edged sword we swing,
the tongue, twisted,
minds flipped and
realities painted,  by those who tainted, thus doused the soul,
just rewind time.
Confused, split in two
no longer fused con’d out of the whole,
man walks in spite, In spite of,
the bright, light, might I,
with migeht of,
many men,
sit in the trenches of the sea,
she shall protect me,
through the ripple, of primordial amorphous waters, the daughters of man.
It’s the evolution of the revolution (3x’s), the cycle in which we span,
which exist in the groove
Though I appear still, I move. I said, though I appear, still I move...........

Art is the only event witnessed that pushes a culture forward through time within progress.

Through everything she’s been through, I still love her.
She’s seen hell.
She has endured violation of her body.
Came out of war with scars.
I still love her.

She had fought through a battle of immense depression.
Withstanded the whips of oppression.
She rose through the whole fight.
To become a queen in her own right.

Her personal battles inspire me.
Because she’s tougher than me.
They inspire me to be better for her.
For I could’ve lost my love at any moment.
Her survival makes her more beautiful to me.

I don’t love her less because of what happened.
My heart aches for her pain.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?
She has.

And I still love you.
Whenever you rise from your pain, I rise from mine.
Through everything, I loved you.
And I will still love you.