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Poetry
sINApupunan
tiwarik at yukyok
ako’y nanahan
sa kweba ni Inang
tigib ng karimlan
ikasiyam na buwa’y
dumatal
supling ng uniberso’y
iniluwal
Nagkangipi’t
nagkabulbol
Saka naging
suhi
Sa sansina-
pupunang
Nagdadalang-
muhi.
A big house is a small house
Like a shoebox cramped with preserved
Fragments of quite a life lived by—the letters
From a childhood friend, puppy love remembered
A ribbon, the first book gifted, cookie wrappers
Like a matchbox—emptied, cleaned and feathered
Cushioned with small cloth and with some litters
Of breadcrumbs, compartmentalized with cut boards
To...
More poems in refracted light
As a child I was taught never
To curse the rain, no matter the floods
Or the roof blown off due to howling
Wind, indeed never mind the lost
House as long as one was alive,
To live and let live, even if night’s
Softness lay in ambush, waiting
For...
Red
Everyone says that
Red is the color
Of love and passion
Which adds meaning to
lovers’ days and
inflames their hungry nights
Yet some of us forget
That red is blood
Personifying life
It moves and flows
Inside our bodies, placing
A stamp on our existence
This hue is the flag
Of pain and sorrow,
Which reminds...
Garden
to Bea Yap Martinez
Banished from a house
in havoc, a broken vase,
a curtain on fire,
I tiptoe here to hide,
a child enisled
in a labyrinth of green,
crouching behind
stem and leaf,
branch and blossom.
Heft of footsteps enter,
a stick testing the air,
seeking the source of sin.
Under the cover I...
Ang pag-iibigan
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 ko, ang pag-iibigan
Ay pagtahak sa daan
Na nabubudburan
Ng talulot ng rosál.
Akala ko, ang pag-iibigan
Ay paglalapat lamang ng mga labi
At pagyayakapan...
