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Poetry

Grandma

Her hands quiver from sustained pressing of the beads. When her voice starts to rise, the light of the kerosene lamp amplifies from an entirely lambent glow, illuminating the details of her room. Mound of frass and dead winged ants on the altar; archaic cross nailed askew on a bole. Might these, however...

Inverted Horizons

The sea and the sky Swap their eternities The waves with the clouds And everywhere Fishes fly birds swim Farmers cast seines Fishers sow seeds Waterways counterflow Waterfalls go into reverse All of this unbeknown To Siri Alexa and Cortana.

TWO POEMS ON FATHERHOOD

Shoes Paper cutouts folded to fit my back pocket. I carry them along through bus ride and train tracks. I’ll be gone for a few hours. My daughters look forward to this annual ritual. Now they need the stitch and leather of a tougher kind. Last year’s is now a hole...

What a Child Cannot Learn from Books

When you wound a leather sofa with the forbidden razor blade, you see no cut but a blooming, cotton pulp breaches skin, first peeps and bursts out almost in delight. When you try to punch through a pane in a capiz window, you will be awed by how something so...

The Bullet Wakes from Its Cruel Shell

I dance through air with a deadly grace. Yet mourn the lives I cannot replace. Once a vessel of power, now burdened with guilt, I pierced through dreams, where innocence wilt. A mother's love fades into the night, Leaving children alone, lost in their light. A father’s laugh, now...

One Little Less

One little less of me — a hand, an awe, a feather falling free. one little much an eye; one too little, still more to be. One too little of what I am; a little too much to count on, to look ahead for few is to drift...

Random Pickings

Two Poems for the Road

A Dirge (Majayjay-Lucban Road, June 16, 2024) How swift the shift from Thalia’s smile to Melpomene’s frown. One moment, Jack was about to crack a joke. Then smack into our bus the trike smashed,...

Shooting Star

If one looks closely into the night sky, and spot, by chance, these flying balls of fire, a wondrous sight for the naked eye, a heavenly transcendence...

Four Poems in Search of a Government

Stones There is an old man.Waking, his heart beats fast, someone’s running after someone.He can’t remember his dreams these days.He fixes himself for the 25,719th...

Binondo Church

For its brick walls were blotched with rednessLike a child with a high grown fever,The tolling of its bells, bounty and scared. The plaza on...