Poetry

Philippines, Proposed Addendum to Definition of noun : a stream that cuts through districts or fields of grass : an enclosure of water (see Badjao or Aquarian) : a subterranean wanting : a recollection of faces : a great and significant number, just below innumerable but above sufficient : parable,...

The neighbors say he suffers from dementia. On the balcony, he stares at the cloudless sky. How he declares the stars have turned into tubers of motley shapes and colors! He asks if he could fish some and trade them for a gantang of rice. Perhaps the copious harvest at...

Random and I find our landscape a chore. Every day we push this sunset up a hill then see it roll down. Random knows. She has joined the sunset. His Wawa, adding to the weight of the grey boulder of fading light. I now know why it was the colors she feared. Sunsets everywhere in big cities and small towns. People...

Lord, there’s no day that can carry the load Of living without the help of your grace.  No sun will shine on a land without hope.  The morning there will have nowhere to go,  Like a child who loses sight of its mother,  And then she came, her...

My tongue used to be made up of copra, salivating oils that indicate who I am and where I’m from. A place where coconut husks roof people’s mouths. Instrument to ignite brittle vowels and wavy coir tones. When my people speak, one can hear songs that carry the...

We have our palms embedded in the trunks of trees, embroidered in its leaves were desires left seasoned by the worms. That the fruits were products of a hundred laborers, scattered throughout the jungle of civilization, undisturbed, and the seeds outgrown the narratives of the past, filling the...