Do not catchA butterfly With your hands,Especially not
A white oneEven with itsEver so slightStreaks of black.
You might Damage itsDelicate wingsAnd it can
Never fly again.Catch it, rather,With...
Akala ko, ang pag-iibigan
Ay pag-uusap lamang
At malagkit na tititigan.
Akala ko, ang pag-iibigan
Ay paghahawakan lamang ng kamay.
Akala ko ang pag-iibigan
Ay puro saya’t wala nang lumbay.
Akala...
“You’re free to dream,” is what’s often heard
For wishful thinking seems to be done daily
And nobody had to pay a dime to keep it in their minds
Or really is it so?
The price of a dream never comes cheap
It has, and always has been,...
Aimless and astray—“I won’t go far”But most times, I am lost in the intricate streets and manmade blocks
Not knowing the way back to your bosom
I am the leaves, bloodless even with the stomping feet of menand most often I am the leaf that...
I walked barefoot on the Pacific beach,the sand a chill, the sun a dying coal.Waves whispered secrets to the rocks,and there it was—a spiral waiting in the breath of the tide.Its surface shone,etched with lines curling inward,like a road curving toward a hidden...
Here my mother, who must have been
in her early forties, sits on a stone ledge
at Fort San Pedro overlooking the Guimaras Strait.
The sun must have been strong, as she smiles,
trying not to squint against the glare,
as her left arm holds my then six-year-old...
One last time, my forgotten friend,
poise your calloused hands
and dig your battered heels into the dirt.
Left behind by the new world.
The others, glam dolls and pulpit idols,
have all long gone.
I watch as you reach the top,
as a slow, hazy blues chord from a...
I was seven
a war marred my hometown
Tíyo and the fishermen
soldiers
the deep sea
battlefield
a compound
of the sea’s little bones
of sable sands
in a wicked bottle
their arsenal made
the Earth mumbled
in tremulous waves
the heavens bled
scales
of shattered souls
to the flesh of my innocence.