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.