Poetry : Edge of the Year

Edge of the Year

It was a crazy summer
The winds raged with bared teeth
And the clouds were crying

Bite marks and tear drops
Drowned and consumed the streets
And there I was, finding refuge and warmth
Tracing infinity in the mouth
Of a warm cup, black
Like the absence of sugar in my life

A crazy summer
And yet like all things once whole and sane
There was a lucidness,
A brief spark of sanity in the dark
A sharp glance from the afternoon sun
Cutting through the crowds of the clouds
And it found me.

How long is a lifetime?
Is it encased in the shell of solitary seconds
Exploding one after the other till the air
Is filled with blossoms from newly sprouted flowers?

I left the cup empty
And walked through the streets of life
Navigating with the stars
My hands mine and yet belonging to someone else

And we talked about the births
That always happen while so many are dying
And of how beautiful it was to be
Trapped between them.

Until
Amidst the persistence of the stars
Mortals such as you and I could not deny
The night that was now holding us.

From summer, I am now here
At the edge of the year
And the days are like nights
The stars with whom I navigate
Burn themselves from within.

Pinoy Big Brother , The Fucker

Pinoy Big Brother, The Fucker

I have always believed
That real life
Is lived
And not mixed
like herbs and spices
vegetable, meat, salt
baked
then sliced
into little servings
called
primetime

at least, I am happy
for those who have sold
pieces of their lives
for their dream
of recognition beyond
mere ordinary patterns.

They must be happy
Even as they shed
Their tears
That are like
Promises
Written on sand

Perhaps big brother deserves my envy.

of how
Big brother speaks
As if he was the bush
Burning not with flame
And yet whose light
Many wait
In couches, sofas
On cold dirty wet floors
To witness
As if a flick of the remote control
And things go
On and off
In his house.

This is the television series
Of Real life,
Or so they claim.
And if that was a lie,
why is it that so many believe?

They fail to return calls
Or text messages,
the genesis of a variety
of Cancellations and postponements,
Even the spoon waits
For the open mouth
While eyes are glued
To the altar
Where Big Brother’s
Fake fire
Burn.

The television series
Of real life.

While in all the cities
Somewhere in its streets
Beyond the reach of street light
Where sound doesn’t sound
Like sound at all
Someone is waiting
Outstretched dirty hands
Clenching their stomachs
Trying to squeeze away
The cold fire of hunger
Waiting
For a big brother
Or a sister
To take them home
And live real lives.

On Leaving Balulang

On Leaving Balulang

There I was
A Sunday without a sun
Having a conversation
In footsteps
With the twisting road

Long and tiring, that was how
I thought it would be,
As how I remember it
from all those jeepney rides
I took with someone
Who knew more than just my shame.

Walking on a road
Towards the heart of the city
where no one knew me,
whom the one I love abandoned
For the unknown horizons of Bukidnon.

Along the way, my naked foot
Had accumulated souvenirs:
A thin lace layer of dust, smoke
And tasteless bubblegum
stretching and snapping
like my will.
It must have been a long journey
But don’t really know, can’t really tell:
I was busy
Unhooking the syllable thorns
From the word
“STUPID”

Everything is Clear

everything becomes clearer.

the sky that is blue

and the earth that is green,

where do they get their buckets of paint

for both almost infinite canvass?

and who is the painter

who slaves in the dark while we sleep?

Everything is like when,

As a child with hungry eyes and ears,

I fed on things that were new.

The leaves and branches are raising their arms

Waving them at the arrival of the winds,

Birds and bees, and small insects unseen

Join together to perform this symphony

Of celebration at the waking of the sleeping sun.

Everything becomes so near.

An empty chair sits by my side.

And even in its silence, I hear,

Or perhaps imagine,

It’s absent voice calling out for someone.

Everything is so clear

Light and sound,

The lengthening of shadows.

Until the stars come out to watch me

And we watch each other.

Everything is…nothing

There is only empty space

Everything is clear

And that is why I fear

That certain absence

From whom a shadow

Whose shape is not like my own.

And yet blends and covers

My own shadow

Complete, total

Like bonfires whose fingers

Washes away

The stains of dirty memories.

Another one from the Yjanla Castello experiment..the last one i guess

Note : i have reason to believe that this isone of the best from that long ago session...

Rain


Whenever the raindrops end their exile
and become refugees on my skin
I cannot explain but I remember you

Of how you held them, broken as they were
On the cup of your palm, as if an offering
Or waiting for them to fly.

Like a child you were with your smile
With outstretched arms you welcomed them
As if they were the toys inside boxes, behind glass
windows.

I have wondered if you welcomed the rain
To become your cloak, your mask, and if their hold
Is kin to the shadows you left yesterday

Oe perhaps, their cold is there to temper you,
So that whatever that burns may steam off
And blow away the dried shell breaking.

The things that fall need places,
And the rain washes away the streets, why not
Let it wash human bodies

So you told me with your transparent words
Emerging from the cave of your mouth,
your eyes had hands and whisked me away to talk of
different paths…

…until the sun was chased away by the dark.

Whenever the raindrops end their exile
and become refugees on my skin
I cannot explain but I remember you,

And even after when the hands of day
Have brushed away the rain you held so close,
and I wonder if you were also washed away

absent as you are now.

on borrowed memories

Note: the followings are just mere rambling..that is..firstdrafts...will try to work on them when i would..wi would, not when i could..but fornow..here they are...

Musings After Midnight

When did your eyes learn how to transform

and capture the light and reflect them into glances of lies?

Why did you make midnight promises

And carve letter on blowing sand?

why call me in so many names

only to leave me with the only one I chose for myself?

Why did you abandon the one you love

And lost what you sought ages to find?

Why coat in sugar and honey the words

that was rotten and bitter in the core?

Why do we trust, is it only to be betrayed?

Why do we live again, is it only to be murdered all over?

Why do memories remain without traces?

Why is holding on so difficult and letting go

As soft and automatic as breathing?

These throng of questions have walked over me

And I have scraps of their passage;

Broken twigs, dried leaves, dried petals falling

all without moisture that a small flicker

can turn them into a bonfire

fit for the cremation of one’s soul.

and yet these questions

whose answers I have long possessed

still haunt me

they bloom each day

like flowers

whose leaves and petals

carry along its surface

the teardrops born

out

of my lonely nights.

-------------- ------------------- ---------------------------------------------

DisConnectIng

What is it, bravery

Or the aftertaste

From the kiss of desperation

Suicidal madness

For one to gouge one’s eyes

Slice off one ear, then the other

Sew the mouth

After the chopped tongue

Cauterized,

Legs crashing

To the call of

“timber!”

Arms and fingers

Crushed, broken

Like twigs to set the flame

Burning that knows no flame or warmth

But only mist

Crawling

Like oil.

To choose

To be suspended in midair

Never knowing how high heaven

Or how hard but fertile

The earth could be even

Amidst giant heaps of stones

And pebbles.

Like clouds I become

Like clouds

Drifting from one landscape

Driven by the currents of your desire

To be left all alone.

How like a cloud,

Transformed and molded

Into named and unnamed shapes

Absorbing moisture

Everything, tears and dirty water

Until everything is heavy

Is dark and gray

And from the weight

Sometimes my labored sighs arrives

After the lightning,

Tears are shed

That people run away from

Hide from,

With no one to wipe them dry.

How like clouds

Whose shape

Is raked into strips, thin and thin

Like stardust that is never quite seen

And all that remains

Is the sky

Blue, like the ocean

Whose surface

Froths and waves

While underneath lies

The stories and treasures

Never to be revealed or told.

3 poems from the Yjanla Castello Experiment

The following are 3 works from what I have labeled as the Yjanla Castello Experiment. As to what the experiment was all about, I am sure the works would spell it out. Enjoy.


Traces

It is possible you are not of this land
Though I have seen you weep
The poison from spirits long left in your empty cellar,
Though I have seen red gasped and flowed
Like the flower you held for me
Whose torn pricked you.

Who is the mother who taught you
To caress like a silent stream newly born?
Who is the father from whose seeds with embers
You sprouted,
Flesh and form garbed in fire?

I ask these questions and others
Because though I have deciphered your outlines with my own,
Because though I know your secret name,
I cannot remember a page from yesterday
Whose words, colors and sketches are kin
To those with whom you leave your traces,
Nor can I find among books or among the trees
Or there where heavenly bodies call their home
The name for this elemental force in the season
Arriving with you every time.

From what far away constellations
Did you steal these stars, these suns
Who are now submerged in your skin
That in your room filled with the dark
I saw you with my unopened eyes,

Your caress is a feather,
Or a like a fallen leaf floating
In air or sleepy waters.

And in the silence I seek for the sound
Murmurs, pieces of you
That I could decipher.


Listening

i have been listening
to the songs you burned
in silver discs whose face
reflect only my own

the final song is playing
our song, you proclaimed
and as my fingers trace the edges
of the next one,
as if following a path
that would lead to you
i cannot help but remember
the tenses you used

burned in
read only cds

burned
burned out
like ashes

if only the compacts of our lives,
round, spinning and spinning
like the earth
were rewritables
then i would be burning them
as you did
not with your songs
nor ours
but mine

burned in, burned out
the flames invisible and long gone
even before the final wail.


Of Seasons & Stars & You


The seasons have lost their minds
Astray, confused.
It rains on summer these past years,
Falling and falling
And they press the sweet blossoms
Deep into the earth
Unsmelled.

And so I am sensitive
To that certain silence,
A liquid silence
To nights where stars flower
After the fall of rain

Before I knew constellations
My eyes jumped
From one star to the next,
In the night sky I pegged
The strange and unexpected orbits of my life
Until I discovered
In textbooks
The truth
About seasons and stars.

Exploding blossoms of light
Whose flower, whose center
I could not touch.

Yet these mournful eyes
Filled with clouds filled
With the evaporation of happy memories
Still look at the stars,
A shared affinity
Deep and misted as these nights
Where stars bloom after summer's rain.

It has been another season
Since you last came
Yet the embers still burn from the nights
That blazed with our bodies,
Bright white lights,
But your memory belongs
To another season.

In nights like this one
You are like the stars
Carrying your light in the distance,
And the truth about stars
Are also yours,
Bright, burning light
And dead.

My Poetry

** dont know if i posted this before here...if i have not, then its about time...***

if my poetry is filled with women,
it is only because the branches of my life
were tended and mended and caressed by them
even before the body of my wood was still a stalk.

like you i was a seed inside a woman
and from the moment i sprouted
from the shell of her womb
i had set my roots to dig deep
into the soil of my life, past layers
after layers of stony indifference
and shallow water
to drink from the mouth of this earth.

under the sky of women's love
my branches were free to seek out
the layers between myself and the sky,
in the garden of women's love
they guided my roots
to sink even deeper
and not to wander wide.

there was a woman whose smiles and eyes
flashed like white stars as she named for me
the constellations in the sky,
Orion and Sirius, of what i would have
to bear, major and minor. there was
a woman who spoke to me
in meter and rhyme,
who fed me my first sweet fruits of metaphors
whose aroma and flavors i could still taste even now.
there was a woman who tucked me
between warm bed sheets and blankets,
soft pillows on my head, like her breast,
so that i could dream and in the morning
be set free to discover who i am to be.

father is only a name
i barely remember. brother
is the son of my uncle and aunt.

if there is so many women in my poetry
it is only because i have been loved
by plenty as i have loved and lost many.
from women springs
the blossom of my summer laughter
even if my hands bore down on them
soft as autumn winds
with the silence of winter.

there will always be women
in my poetry for i know
with a rooted certainty as deep as my roots
that when i could no longer smile
nor sing to the wind nor feel the moist
of the earth, when i have forgotten my name
for the windows of my eyes had witnessed
their final silent sunset,
there would be women,
it would be a woman
even if i no longer have my poetry,
who would shed and share her warmth
from the tears and her arms
for me.

bakers...

"your poetry does not belong to you.
they belong to those who need them"

and so sisters and brothers
let us craft
with clean hands and choice ingredients
the bread of poetry we bake.

You do not know the farmer in the field,
Dirty toes and fingernails, skin
The color of brown earth baked by the sun,
The beast of burden who bore
the onslaught of the season
to give us clean white rice.

Silkworms do not feed on silk,
But the mulberry tree, jaws chomping leaves
So it may spin us softness. The bees do not only
Gather nectar, but incessant wings visit
Flower after flower so they may pollinate.

Each of us should be humble
as the farmer, voracious as the worm,
Generous as the bee.
Our fingers should set off
towards the highest and ripest fruits,
The sweetest,
Wash them with clean water
So that others may partake
and be filled.

We are farmers ourselves,
The world may not notice us, may believe
They need
Us not, but they feed on our harvest.

We may be damned, who
"worship a savage god who destroys them
without making them mad first"
but our hands reveal what is lost
among the heaps of metals, plastics and foam,
damned,
but our roots are deep in the earth, feeding,
as we ourselves feed on humble hands,
voracious jaws,
incessant wings.

Sisters and brothers, I call on you,
Let us with clean hands and clear eyes
Bake the bread of our poetry.

Poetry : Memory

Memory is an old map
I carry between my ears, edges
torn and smudged by spilled milk, coffee
stains, and teardrops.

Like footsteps, I trace my thoughts over
the snake streets, one foot after the other
leading me to mountaintops where the winds
have a name and a taste so much unlike its urban
kin who had long gone native. There are gardens
exploding with flowers, and between them are
the weeds who suck up
the nutrients of the earth and air,
burrowing themselves deep,
multiplying,
until they become a green carpet laid over
the brown bodies of the garden flowers.

Suddenly the air is filled with the perfume
of ripe mangoes. If you had plucked them weeks
ago without regard for the relationship between night
and day, warmth
and rain, you would have grimaced
as sour juices flooded your mouth,
as it once did mine.

Memory is an old map, old,
but a map,
and it leads to bright clean parkways,
to dust laced barrio roads,
to where market crops are grown,
to silent alleys where the smiles are feral
and eyes predatory, where a sudden turn to left
made you wish you had a healed scar
as a souvenir and not silent tears
as revealed by distant yellow bulbs.

I had waited…counting…
one.. two.. three…
until green lights up ahead.
I have immersed myself along the shore
though the waters could not wash away
the stains that are not on my skin,
nor in my clothes.

Memory is an old map, its roads as old
as the palm lines and street veins of my hand.
Memory is an old map, and its unfolding
sends wave after wave
breaking
on my clenched fist.

My clenched fist whose fingers part like petals,
then transforms themselves into grasping vines,
after the pen
to chart the highways and streets
of my poetry whose origins it still
has to discover and name.

On Poetry...

Poetry is not a puzzle whose pieces are to be glued together, or a
mystery where every line is clue after clue leading to the identity of
the villain or reason for madness.

Nor is Poetry clothes for you to wear, shirt; neckties, skirts, or
caps to suit the mood of the season, or perhaps or your own.

Poetry has a face and a name; it is not for adoption or distortion.
Poetry is movement, and the blow against silence is not open to any
interpretations.

My father told me that the best poet is the humble baker, the bread
maker who mixes flour, yeast and water into dough, feeds the dough
into the belly of the oven until pale dough is transformed by the
heat, and comes out sweet, warm, brown fresh bread.

Poets should also be thus: bake poetry and not illusions or mysteries
or puzzle.

Poetry : Assumptions

I am not the maverick
Admired and adored
Whom everyone wanted to be

Though I have cried wolf before,
I have nearly bitten off my tongue
To still sobs and howls that would have otherwise
Terrorized across the horizons

My stones have claimed their ground
amidst the coming of waters foamy
and frothy with malice and abandonment
they have chipped my surface smooth
layer after layer, like an onion
to reveal the last fragile bulb
sputtering its final juices
before the flash and fade

I admit I have witnessed
The long procession of stars
Until some have faded,
I have been with the moon
And have endured the aftermath
Of the night of her full nudity
That flares with madness
Coupled with forgetfulness.
And yet these old eyes
Have never forgotten its youth,
They are still hungry for the taste
Of the arc of lips
Too long denied.

You must, you cannot be blind
To the smiles I wear like masks.

I am not a phoenix, or the dragon
Under whose wings I was born,
I know no secret for reincarnations,

It is simple because
i have not died,
yet.

Poetry : There Is No Memory

There is no memory more vibrant
Than that of absence

Where every inch of empty space is filled
With open hungry mouths for abandoned traces

The air is now a frozen sea
Where once wave after wave of scents
Crashed into me

My flesh is now just a patchwork
Of flesh, blood and bones,
Once it was a garden blooming with flowers
and fruits tended by touches and kisses

flowers, I remember flowers
blooming from the garden of Mother.
i barely remember their petals and hues
who have crumpled after all these seasons
and yet I could smell them
in darkness or in light they rise inside of me.

There is no memory more haunting
Than that of absence
And in its presence I recall
Light reflected from wanting eyes,
The supple pout of lips i kissed and kissed me,
Her hair tickled by the winds and from where rose
The laughter of her female blossoms
Intoxicating and always transforming
Twirling over
And making love to me,
Deep
Relentless
In my memory.

Poetry : Endless

Endless

And these I discovered

Between sips of black coffee

And blue nicotine-laced smoke

Spiraling like my hopes

Into oblivion.

That what we desire

Will thus be denied.

Like a mirage in the desert

When your throat is parched,

The promise of water to be chased

Only to find it as it was,

A mirage,

Empty

And the next glance reveals

Another promise,

Another one hopes,

But one would not dare admit yet,

Possibly another emptiness.

And for an instant I wonder

If destiny indeed has a book

And on its pages are the lines

Where I would race myself,

Such as this road that leads me

To

Despair:

The stars burn in my eyes and yet so far!

Why does such sweetness have to be so brief?

The memory of her face, unforgettable…

Because I am mortal

From me there can never be creation

But only destruction:

My words break on the surface

Of the invisible sea of silence,

My poetry stains pure virgin paper

With the blood of my pen.

The seasons change

Delight becomes delirium

The paths twist and fork-

Food becomes tasteless-

In my mind I was an angel

Who became a frog without

Being a prince-

Into a butterfly, fluttering wings dipping

Into an ice cream melting

Under the onslaught

Of a female tongue---

Ah, that was perhaps a dream.

And wet dreams, oh not so true

For when i wake up from such dreams

I am not wet

But steeled,

Hard and raging

To bask in the flood of the light!

These are just glances

Of what I discover every night

Between sip and puff

Of course, there is death for me

But perhaps, even after dying

All of this would continue

In new faces

Experiences

For the endless.

Finally...

after having so many reasons to keep it off, the time has come.

and that time is for me to continue to work on my last two projects: my autobiography and a collection of my best works (that is if after i get down to weeding them out, the crass from the diamonds, something would remain, well, hopefully)

the autobiography is for someone i may never meet in this lifetime, but someone to whom i owe a responsibility of at least leaving fragments of my experiences that he could at least patch up, connect the dots, trace the constellations of the man. i am hopeful that in time, he would appreciate the effort. Jian, this is for you, the least i could do for you.

the other is also more personal, my collection of poetry. its been some time since i have started writing these works i dare call poetry. so many have come and passed. and for quite a long time i didn't know what i really wanted with my works, what direction it was going to (though friends have been fast to notice that they have a single thing in common : women) perhaps when this book is completed, some of my more social and political works would find the audience they have been craving for. i feel that for all the experiences that i have been lucky and damned to feel, it is only worth it that i somehow attempt to show how they have been to me, as witnessed from my eyes.

some friends would know what this would signify. do not worry, the book is not yet finished, and what is going to happen when the books are done will only happen when the books are finished. and yup, im gonna make sure none of you get to steal the drafts, or prevent you from burning my house just to make sure that this "dead-end" project would not be born.

i am still alive, and that is what is important.

its not gonna be easy i know, when all of my senses would be sharpened to face these two projects. but they have been kept off for too long, and while there is still time, there is hope, and a chance to finish them.

working titles so far are:

autobiography : "i confess i have been loved..."

poetry : "broken glass on the pavement"

thank you.

Poetry : Aftermath

Aftermath



In the ruins of our disagreement,

Digging the rubble for pieces

That we might still patch together,

She tells me

That the reason why

all those women of yesterday left me

is contained inside the shape of my flesh



and having heard this,

and this was last night

and still hearing the echoes of it now

like church bells tolling

for a funeral, I ask myself

why is she still with me?

Why does she still stay?

Perhaps, the answer is that

Like all those women

Of my yesterdays she too will,

One day, one night, or one afternoon

Or perhaps even without a sigh,

Abandon me.



And that is why

Immersed as I am in this sea

Of silence and loneliness where I hear

The sobs in my head,

I fold my clothes and tidy up my things,

Pack them into my travel bag

And with my pen I chart

The roads and highways of my map

Where I would soon be walking

With my shadow

The only one following me.

Coffee (1 of 3)

Coffee

Because it is not my lips
You seek for your own
So you may savor the day
That is being born, as promised,
Laced with the aftertaste
Of ashes and yesterday.

Because my hands are scarred
And your skin bristle, your flesh
Shiver at the contact of its strangeness
Your skin knows, though could not detect
The washed out spilled catsup,
Dash of pepper and salt
Lying just beneath my skin
And so you dare not discover
What twigs it could gather, for bonfires
To blaze in your darkness,
melting scraps of your shields
And forging them into new spoon and forks,
Into a goblet.

Because my voice is not his voice
My eyes are not the stars of your blued skies
In daylight or dark.

been jumping from site to site and i realize i have missed a lot. i made replies to querries that were posted last month..waaaahhh..

but i am alive..and i want to stay that way.

"revenge is for children. those who want it are basically emotionally immature"

i got this thanks to my sis uGa..now i know that if im gonna be a cyborg one day, my name would be and mean...



(check out http://www.cyborgname.com/ )

gotta make a run..but slowly, i would be back..im alive, hear me!

it has been a while..literally...

its been like months since the last time i posted something here, and just a few days after that since i visited here. im glad that the site havent shut down this enclave of mine though i have been absent for too long.

so many things have happened eversince i last words i fashioned from memory into this electronic papers. so many things...

but one thing for sure..i am alive..i am alive...

"and im glad im still alive" - eddie vedder of pearl jam

a sure sight against sore eyes these days...



and another one...



love knows love..love attracts love...love binds..in freedom