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Poetry

Meditations

            Seeking In silence I render my song In stillness I yield In the dimness and the brightness I could see that it is The One Still I seek I am drawn to the distant sound Of waves splashing on waves Of rocks breaking on rocks Of soft rain seeking to blend with...

Bound by the Same Umbilical Cord

Stone and Scratcher after a photo by Frank Cimatu My human knows how to scratch ecstasy and submission out of me, rendering my retractable claws cold as a wet nose. My side turns into a Zen garden. I lie, a stone smoothed by hands of love, slender fingers tracing landscapes on my...

Hypnagogic

I see a scarecrow On the yellow moon By the window Of the third kind Woman or man I ought to know I look to the left It shifts to the right Towards Venus I look to the right It pivots to the left Away from Polaris But the night Out of the spotlight Restarts daylight

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, a deadly strike. Traffic crawled at the bloody spectacle of the sprawled body splayed in a strange angle. Dazed in shock, I brace myself for a...

Three New Poems

The Demanding Gospel For Sunil Stephens “Luke’s Gospel is a gospel of mercy; it emphasizes Jesus’ identification with the poor and the lowly, and His willingness to forgive sinners. Yet it is also a demanding gospel, for it shows that being a follower of Christ...

Slaughterhouse Poems

When My Father Passed Away This theater is a slaughterhouse where filaments of grief are too shifty to cut, amusing guests who come  along with gestures broadly understanding what brought them in, inscribing very clearly associations overhanging with the deceased. The bereaved insists on what needs to be preserved along fertility lines, which unkind behavior should be dismembered. Here,...

Random Pickings

Still Life with Twelve Sunflowers, after Scrolling

Van Gogh’s sunflowers  — all twelve of them  — so lively, lush, standing, bending; they do not submit to ikebana’s poise and posture — golden — no — bronze — beautiful yet...

The Measure of A Man

By Jonathan Aquino I. Any fool can carry a weapon and even a coward can kill. I told the warrior as he rose, drawing his sword as I sat...

Poem #2: Numbers

They’re everywhere. When you’re born: 7/24/1997 Age: 20 years old Deadlines: 11:59pm, October 10, 2018 Grades that fluctuate: 94 to 60; 5.0 to 1.0 First salary: P16,000 Damn bills, taxes:...

Jazz

You don’t listen to jazz because It is neither pedestrian nor broccoli. “Who’s Mahatma Gandhi?” asks a man Who had somehow gone through twenty Years without learning a...