Explore more Articles in
Poetry
Blink Twice to Mean Yes
It’s not language nor the attempt
at a joke: it’s lack of understanding
that dooms the animal crossing the road.
Still, the same oblivion awaits it
inside the slaughterhouse. Therefore
claims should not just be made
within reason, but more with respect
to circumstance. Like the assault
of a bird’s presence...
To my bereaved beloved
I want my body to be cremated.
Weigh my ashes as against my flesh.
The difference would be of my soul’s.
Much of my leaving soul is water
from each of my cells after the long years of lingering
edema. Much of my soul would be water
gushing like...
Coming home
walking along a familiar road
while seeing a new and different world
your home calls you a stranger
homesick to what he knows and holds
while seeing a new and different world
the fragments of history and memories,
homesick to what he knows and holds
look for a shelter; a...
Rinsing rice
I fed two takal of rice
Into the newly washed pot.
Scooped water for rinsing.
Fumbled, stirred the seeds
Of Tatay’s perspiration.
Spilled the milky water.
Poured out slowly until it subsided.
I saw Nanay outside
Retrieving the laundered clothes.
I remembered what she uttered a while ago:
“Noy, when will we be...
The fire tree
You were born in grace facing the
Fire tree entangled with the wind and the sun
And pregnant with imaginations of the crossing
Lights focused on the direction of the meadow
Tarnishing your immaculate shadow with the
Image of burning tree gobbled by the horizon
And your sophisticated thoughts...
Loonpoem
Under the broken streetlamp
a Loonpoem struggles to be born
In the ruins.
Her voice cried
As the earth cracked open
And Our Lady of Light came
Tumbling down.
The selfsame church the poet
Clovis had been proud of,
A decade before as we drank
In Tagbilaran, in the porch
Of his sister’s apartment...
