Frost eyes stare
into the layers
and layers underneath.
Rotate, adjust, rotate, adjust.
some eyes are made
to look at what’s under
miscroscopes
and see the dinosaur-old cells
within barely human
humans.
Cold hands always
gloved blue or white or green.
Scrape, cut, scrape, cut.
Some hands touch
the insides, even graze
the silver linings
of a purpling heart.
Soft...
How hard it is to take a side.
Where I live, we are tribes
Of rich and poor, and in-betweens.
We are tribes of different colors.
We are descended from chinks called insects,
From older tribes we try to genocide,
We are descended from the conqueror-rapists
And from the conquered...
Kaibigan,
Petmalung lodi ka na dapat ngayon, paalala lang
Baka kasi nirarayuma na yang akay-akay mong salita
Sa taludtod; apdeyt apdeyt din pag may taym.
Wag na wag kang pupuslit ng kakosa, katropa, karantso,
Baka walang makaintindi: patok ang paps at repa.
Mala-wattpad ang peg ng drama ng saknong
Kung...
We peer furtively at smiles, bent wrists
and it smacks of mortality.
We imagine—nebulae in the irises
of a stranger, like they bear stories
waiting for the optimum mass
of hydrogen, us counting on fusion.
The wish to witness the immortal
is a prayer written by the finite.
A folly—we are...
There is no warning—
the sky, a sudden insurgent,
opens with
guerrilla downpour.
Torrential rain,
an unrelenting witness,
assaults the fragile spines of trees
and the quiet bones of houses.
Water...
Nothing
in my garden of chrysanthemum
can make me smile
not the clutch of winged Monarchs
perched on my rosals,
neither fishbones nor the trees
I had long since abandoned
the...
I. Van Gogh’s Patch of Flowers
Flaming red, they gleam in the sunlight of Arles,The poppies in summer strewn along the paths.The artist shuffles by,...
Gipit
Kapag kawalang-wala,
Nandiyan mayâ’t mayâ;
Pagtanggap ng biyaya,
Wari mo’y nagsabula.
Sino?
Nang ihain ang dalág,
Nagsipasok ang lahat;
Ay, sinong maghuhugas?
Isa-isang lumabas.
Bugaw
Iyon bang batang-bata
At tiyak na sariwa?
O iyong dalubhasa
Ngunit medyo...