The Shaking of Shifts

Sweet Start Something

2011-04-26T17:05:00.001+08:00

Trinkets, wine, and everything divine
On this lilac night: when fate decides, we confide.
Beneath the crystal light of the moon
Let's discover the secrets
Estranging this endless night.
Remember me in the silence of stars.
One by one I retract your scars.
No need for fraction or fear.
Even love can be absolute, my dear.

(An acrostic poem that spells out TOBLERONE)

10-wheeler

2011-03-26T16:07:00.002+08:00

Once a truck that screamed of the devil’s laughter that shook the stillness of hills, the exactness of the breeze to docile leaves and bending sunflowers, the distance between the skyline and your empty gaze out my window. Once my engine flames melted metal and material,

surged fiercer to the dark chasms of your mind running on rotors,
gone mechanical and maniacal with the irreverent revving I make
on summer-seared concrete. Once we sped past the hallucination

brought by this mirage, this fleeting chapter of gas and water where we saw
the end:

the world crashing into a mammoth wall
men built to secure their secrets
—instantly, the Earth as a wrecking ball
with a mood angry as me beating the red light.

On this day we remember the tracks left by kindred monsters without brakes.
On this day we shoot the road signs with our eyes closed.
On this day we discover the pain in the puddles of yesterday’s rain.
There will be more to the rolling of 10 wheels raging,

skid marks and all,
on this day. Give way.

Beep! Beep! I’m coming. I’m raging, 10 wheels, more miles and counting.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
Watch me. I’m burning gasoline and gaining torque from this road’s
tarmac thrill. Beep! Beep!

I’m coming. 500 kilometers per hour. 501… 502…
I’m coming. Past the murky wilderness, past the children flying kites,
past the lone haystack where many a lover fucked when their cars lost gas.
And they never did lose gas. Neither will I. Because—

I’m coming. All the way from North to South,
demolishing anything that comes my way. Diesel power, my new order. I’m coming.
Irresponsibly. Down your avenue,

polluting the wind,

ruining the road,

crashing your gates,

coming,

coming to terms,

offering you one last ride.

Heart-shaped

2011-03-26T08:57:00.007+08:00

(after a Marilyn Manson music video)

two lovers in a car speeding
on a serpentine road dark
as the intention of the night.

while he drives, a reassurance of love
and some pictures of her posing
seductively with a knife.

the road expands
while in their memories retrogresses
a scene of them bloody in bed,
fucking.

later on, he professes the last temptation
—together as one—
which she takes by the mouth
and spit back at him.
against all others, she says.

she is now driving.
(he has long been driven.)
role reversal on the fast lane.

he sets the car afire, kisses her,
and she sends burning metal
crashing down a cliff:

their romance thickened
by the sound of which could be
the universe shattering.

How the Journey Ends

2011-03-23T07:25:00.010+08:00

Transitive. We have always been
caught between how it was to love and be loved.
Overcast the overtones of these things
that compromise us, we remain one, whole, loving.
Because there is something more to this parting,
I'd like you to keep me as a photograph tucked under your pillow.
"Lest we forget," I'd tell you. But we won't forget.
Our memory crisp as paper, clear as light.
We pronounce ourselves beyond the memories of your memento.
Every once in a while, I ponder what wonder
holding your hand brings, and the phone rings,
you're on the other side. Reach for me from where you stand,
dig down deep the depths of my foreign longing,
speak to me in the clarity that you are.
On days like this, I wish I could be the cloud
by which you sit and drift by
as you watch the earth expand beneath you.
Absconding reality, you say, you fly away
to this cold and faraway place where I am.
Every time the journey ends like this:
the homeless romantic in me
finds his way home to your heart.

Bumps

2011-02-05T13:57:00.006+08:00

“The findings dictate I should undergo operation. My gallstones cannot be treated by medicine alone. The doctor said I'm also diabetic and that while my hemoglobin is low, my uric acid is high. She told me, too, that my thyroid would be monitored because there’s a lump in it.”

- A text message from mother

the news came as a wall
to which i collided with.

the smash silent yet strong,
horrid yet hidden.

and i was left frail on the floor
dreaming of amnesia

—even if it can't unmouth
what life—yours—

had terribly spoken.

Music, from a Distance

2010-09-29T16:08:00.015+08:00

The only thing I know is that the distance is real.
But the invisible hand of happenstance,
which gestures as if there were indeed something there
in the absence of things imagined, holds me back,
directs me to believe that there is a knowing
—a silent note waiting to be keyed in—
in the melodies wafting from her deft fingers
dancing on the keyboard in a time already past.
This knowing either she or I know not of.
There is no exactness of contact,
no dire need for acquaintance.
From where I perceive her, she is perpetually postured
on the piano, filling the air with telling tunes.
I remain an unnoticed spectator of her recital.
It's not really her there but a mere concept kept in time.
And I can applaud for eternity without her
catching a glimpse of me or hearing
the sound of my palms colliding
but this will not matter.
For who can tell if neither
distance nor imagining can yield tactility?
Who can tell when her playing will finally stop
and when it again will commence?

(For the lady pianist I chanced upon on YouTube)

A Kind of Oneness

2010-07-31T16:52:00.009+08:00

Always the reflection of the little one in her eyes:
Supple & smooth the skin that is part of her,
The flesh no longer distinguishable where it began
& where it ended. The serenity held by what she holds
Reminds her of loveliness she once knew. This was her.
In such smallness, she remembers how her innocence
Won praises when it was her in the arms of adorers.
& she was beautiful even before: that this beauty
Never paled, only whitened, now apparent
In her precious’s skin, is something
She is thankful for, the way the baby is for milk,
The way she is for the baby: the survival
Of beauty and its continuity.

(For Janine)

The poem I wish to write

2010-06-06T22:49:00.010+08:00

has fluttered a thought ember
towards the sun departing
from the edge of my window,

I, gazing at it with wistful recall
till all colors blanketing the sprawling earth
have paled to shadows.

No need to be alarmed
for eventually, the sun will rise in your eyes.
And it will speak of a morning

more physical than wishful thinking,
more eloquent than lost verses.

Wish

2010-06-03T14:15:00.009+08:00

always the conversation to open avenues
long forgotten in the back of my mind.
hers be the thoughts that have wandered
in this forest of forgetfulness, whose trees we used to climb
to shout to the sky our longings now birds bringing
the bleakest of rememberings. how interesting
the way we hide in our sleep, how we find blankets for keeps
in the fragility of waking while we take snapshots of us dreaming.
soon we shall be washed by the reality we escape—which is light.
light which is something faster than the enunciation of names
we give our wounds. and tomorrow the healing begins:
i part the grayness of memories the way the old man does
the hair of his senility. and let me tell you,
you do not age the way a woman should. should there be a woman
to capture this heart burning in prayer, the same prayer
that burned down the house built by doubts,
be it you. into the fire, i say, be it you.
the birds are now returning to proclaim the secret of this wish.
and the forest is still, wide, and quiet. the avenues reopen,
the names and snapshots more vivid than ever.
the old man rises like a fleshed ghost and loses his hair in madness.
again we are perched on the same tree: love above all.
after all, all there is to love, is above.

A Song With A Beak

2010-02-18T23:26:00.005+08:00

Let me tear down
the wall you erected
between us two
with this kiss:
a crow that once pecked
your heart.

Transit

2010-01-07T07:54:00.004+08:00

From this watery gaze above the metro
I recall moments that befell minutes ago.
How in an instant I lost you
in an exchange usually ending with you
clutching my arm, I accommodating
the bag you carry, the heaving of your chest.

Today, we abandoned the city’s way of uniting us:
every afternoon meeting at the station
where people hustle on their way home heedless
they might trip on their steps or lose
something valuable in the process.
Like us engaged in argument.

And we were home every time we touched,
palm on palm, while waiting for lights
to whiten our faces in the dim stretch of the subway.
Now you are straight-sure as this locomotive:
The only destinations we reach are ends,
and back again, you say.

The rolling of metal wheels is in haste
yet the world outside seems taunting still.
You are in the next train yet I seek you
in every stop, every scene seen through blurred glass.

This journey we have taken
may not see an arrival anytime
soon, the whirring of this train becoming
a hundred small wheels spinning on my spine.

White Wall

2009-10-21T07:23:00.005+08:00

Our ultimate predilection is a house full of fire.

We choose only to eventually
combust ourselves to cinders

for ethereal ashes to soil a white wall,
our names: the print from His fingers.

Message

2009-06-30T07:33:00.000+08:00

Probably you won't read this
in the next couple of days,
maybe weeks or months even.

But that precisely makes this wonderful.
That regardless of the exactness of time,
I am here discreetly reminding you
of your importance, in a place whose name
now nears an escape in your recall.

It is like shouting at the void the sky unfolds
to us every day and not getting a response
but the slow movement of clouds.

Very much placid and stealth
this message may be, but take notice:
under its delicate folds resides the fire
that have kept you and me desirable for years

of us knowing each other,
exploring and determining each other.

I am still here, and I love you.

Room 103

2009-06-30T07:29:00.000+08:00

Under the red ball of light, the sole source
of warmth in this room which freezes
flesh and flaws, we make the fullest of connections.

“How many times can a circle go round?” you ask.
“Limitless,” I reply.

Lying we weave the wonder of wholeness:
my heart opens to human frailty
as stars explode right between your legs.

For the Girl Who Loves to Play in the Rain

2009-06-24T10:07:00.008+08:00

Look! The rain has freed
itself from heavy, ashen clouds.

Come, take my hand
as we shall cleanse all pretensions
and share this sadness of the skies.

Forever we’ll hate the sun.
Together we’ll hate the sun.

The Telling

2008-11-15T09:58:00.003+08:00

Just because the rain passed us by dry and wanting
for the sun to dance on the skyline more often, I can say
that it is time for us to ask more than what this city
of hanging shadows and silent wires has to offer.

But then let me ask you first instead to close your eyes
and see through mine. Just for this time.

Today, we are no longer lies at the tip of this city’s asphalt tongue
—leading us away, away from the city, out to the open—
waiting to be spewed once it has roused to collapse its concrete walls.

Before it announces itself by means of secrets
it has long subdued in shadows, let us discover the divinations
we have held dear in its very sleep.
Let us go. Let go.

Let us tell the truth.

Blocks

2008-11-15T09:57:00.001+08:00

The TV flashes a face of fluctuating hues
as lassitude fills your eyes while you sit back.
This has been your escape from days
of discomfort: settling on a comfort
spot in the sala, playing your favorite Nintendo game,
Jewel Tetris. It is entertaining as I watch

your fingers dance in confusion
on the control pad, fulfilling your every
strategy. Much more fascinating than the graphics
and sounds of this diversion you play. I enjoy
your complacency found in no-new technology.
But sometimes even this contraption causes you

preoccupation. And so it is I
who boost you with mentoring:
“Place it here, move it there, rotate a little more...”
Then we both smile slyly as we witness
the mass of blocks on the screen
gradually collapse.

Mother, how I wish reality were as easy as such virtuality.

(For Rowena, my mother)

Blink

2008-11-15T09:54:00.003+08:00

Stone eyes

that see beyond the deadpan faces
fixed on the Bread held up high,

whose color and texture is that of
human bones buried in the muddied
form of muck made after last week’s
downpour has crumbled earth;

whose stillness on Sabbath
mirrors the unspoken incidents that came
before the storm, those that befell without witnesses,
in the corners of this barrio
only lighted by makeshift street lamps, within
the dark shade of trees, the soft walls of shacks

whose owner has multiplied grace
for mouths gaping on hunger’s account,
has taught altruism in a lesson of wood
and nails, is the Word

became flesh; blink.

And the people shall turn into salt.

Snapshots of Rain

2008-09-10T08:19:00.005+08:00

The roads mirror the sadness
of peeling walls.

Feet hurry and hide
beneath the thin
wings of parasols.

Their stares are not the only thing cold:
the statues,

they’d shiver
if only no one
would notice.

Paradiddles on roofs,
splashes in potholes.

I sit
in a sardined jeep,
thinking of home,

where
mother is readying
a bowl of soup for my return.

After the rain has ended,
the only one left to ask where home is
is the vagrant pushing
his kariton along the sidewalk.

Like an Old Book

2008-09-10T08:18:00.002+08:00

I’ve read this Sunday,
I lay you on my chest
After the day’s chores.

From this recline
Soon I’ll be opening the pages
Of a dream where you are
A princess missing
One of her glass slippers.

(And I, a prince
Whose role, for sure,
By now, you know.)

So how are you?

What have you felt lately
Save from the rise and fall
Of this ribcage?

Aves

2008-09-10T08:17:00.001+08:00

The reason things depart we don’t know.
How, for example, a pigeon nestling on a tree
takes flight straight off a forked branch
to the burning skies of sundown.

Or how in twilight,
my hand, like this bird in search
of a new habitat, reaches for yours
and grasps nothing but the plumage of air.

A Need to Speak

2008-08-27T10:14:00.005+08:00

Somewhere in the conversation
we shared I find myself
unable to speak.

I cannot mention anything,
not even your name,
for you have already drifted
when I began talking.

Who shall hear me then
but the silence you drew
that made me solitary.

The next line is waiting,
waiting to be said.
Whose mouth to do so
we do not know.

We do not care
for speechlessly we have
become sentences
beyond comprehension.

Homeward

2008-08-27T10:13:00.004+08:00

Maybe in a plane past this country,
past its cities drenched by rain,
you think of home instead of departure.

Against the coldness of your trip
you keep yourself warm
with the excitement of reuniting
with transitories you have left some days ago:

a job to land you on international markets,
night-outs in faraway shores, shopping sprees,
independence, and your Malaysian-Indian roommate.

As clouds up there close in,
resemble dreamy pillows
for your weary head,
someone whispers
a story amid the storm.

In the story, you are in a different plane
on a different path leading to a different
destination with a different purpose.

You are
descending,
resting,
residing.

You to him
are slowly coming home.

Letters to Could-Have-Been Lovers

2008-08-05T08:39:00.000+08:00

I. Dear Q.

Don’t bother yourself, brother.
But really, had you sang your heart
A bit earlier than the dawning
Of her childhood love, now could have been
More than a stolen night spent in your car.
Tonight, as the mist chills your skin and her hopes,
It’s only a promise unsaid that goes unnoticed.
See, both your hands tremble of earthquakes
Longing to be hushed by the certainty of chances.
But never fade the thought that sirens in serenity
Have songs to offer too. Someday in the blooming
Of a different knowing, she’ll sing.
As if you’re the only one listening. So breathe.
Breathe as if this is far from an ending,
Near to what should have been your beginning.
Breathe as you once told me
That she is the rise and fall of your chest.

II. Dear J.

It’s not the songs he intentionally sings for you
In a videoke bar. Not the lyrics of which
Are what he offers his longing but you.
The vagueness of falling in love that is you.
Indifference is not to blame. What reference
But to say that heart-censorship kills
More than infidelity! And you know it.
You know that as he smokes a cigarette
In response to your restlessness
Brought by a different boy elsewhere,
There’s love in between his puffs.
You know that you smile in the presence
Of someone you once knew.
Someone to drive you from city to city
And finally home. You know
That the romance is too young to close
For you to hold on to someone else’s nearness
Which has a distance incalculable as the past.

(Published, Philippine Graphic, April 2, 2007)

To Bury a Sword

2008-08-05T08:38:00.001+08:00

In the burning
Wound of pride:
To be a warrior
Who takes laying
His armor down
At the mention
Of his maiden’s name
As a secret revealed
In dragon’s fire.

(Published, Philippine Graphic, April 2, 2007)

The Unbearable Absence

2008-08-05T08:36:00.001+08:00

The absence is unbearable.

Walls glow in the palest of whites
And sheets scream for her soft skin.

The hollowness within
Feeds on the unrestored visibility
Of the skies of a storm.

In my mind,
No desirous circles turn
For we neither push nor pull.
We are forceless.

In the letterbox, missives emptied of blood.

(Published, Philippine Graphic, April 2, 2007)

Fortunes

2008-07-17T08:15:00.004+08:00

Some lines deeply etched
On your palm never rest

As flesh crevices. And cards
That have refused space

In a gambler’s hand,
Settled methodical

On a clean cloth spread,
See you even in the absence of eyes.

Perhaps definition—
A sort of fate’s progression

Or its delay, or the dependability
On what lies beyond mortal time

And space: the everything
Of soothsaying. But really who are we

To know how certain things could be

Definite in a forecast
Without a voice?

So Much Louder Than You Guessed

2008-07-17T08:10:00.010+08:00

And I wonder:

How will you comprehend
The scream I let out

The moment you lost
Your ears to indifference

Will soon be
A reticent pendant dangling

On your bosom?

From the Sky to the Kite

2008-07-17T08:10:00.004+08:00

& the blessedness
to fill your wedding church will be him.
not the familiar faces cheered
by candles, splashed with hymns.
not the promise you’ll sacredly utter
in front of god & a thousand petals. not the knot.
not even the groom who on that day
shall see beyond the whiteness you wear.
there will be an aching prayer
you’ll hush in your heart.
& with that prayer you’ll know beyond the heart,
beyond the prayer itself, beyond the vignettes
left of you of him—a cup of espresso,
a toothful & thoughtful smile,
kids commemorating him through personalized shirts,
birthdays, christmas, your mother—that
daddy is & will always be your sky.
& you, a little kite now flying away from the earth.
fly, little kite. say i do. & he has loved & loves you too.

(For Riz)

Your Navel

2008-07-16T08:17:00.001+08:00

Tonight, as we discern the rising of the moon
in a single perception you tell me
that you can offer not the sweetest flavors
of desire for many lovers have already known
the secrets of your skin.

Memories of which instantly make you
as brittle as the pages of old books
kept in the darkest corners of libraries.

And I am diminished
to this lonely longing of lust:
I masturbate my mind hoping to reach
the whiteness of your navel.

(Published, Philippine Graphic, March 27, 2006)

For the Girl Who Loves to Play in the Rain

2008-07-16T08:16:00.001+08:00

Look! The rain has freed
itself from heavy, ashen clouds.

Come, take my hand
as we shall cleanse all pretensions
and share this sadness of the skies.
Forever we’ll hate the sun.

Together we’ll hate the sun.

(Published, Philippine Graphic, March 27, 2006)

Love

2008-07-16T08:15:00.000+08:00

Love to bother
Like morning hair
Flailing in the air
Never ceasing to its fixed form.

Love to gather
Lost thoughts floating
In a sea of dementia.

(Published, Philippine Graphic, March 27, 2006)

Cold

2008-07-16T08:13:00.000+08:00

Behold me
when your lips
are pink butterfly wings
that have forgotten
fluttering:
an ice cube
floating,
soon melting
in a calm sea
contained in a cup.

(Published, Dapitan Vol. 1 No. 2, 2005)

Listening to “The Distance”

2008-07-15T16:26:00.003+08:00

During a night like this
when the moon is an eye
ill with glaucoma, too white
to see the yearning
of disparted lovers,
I’d renounce the waking
of words just to feel
upon my chest throbbing
your soothed breathing
as if telling my flesh
the everlasting story
of the sea and the shore.

Room 103

2008-07-15T16:26:00.001+08:00

Under the red ball of light, the sole source
of warmth in this room freezing
flesh and flaws, we make the fullest of connections.

“How many times can a circle go round?” you ask.
“Limitless,” I reply.

Lying down
we weave the wonder of wholeness:
my heart opens to human frailty
as stars explode right between your legs.

Romancing Camille,

2008-07-15T16:25:00.003+08:00

the purple dove in saffron skies,

the blissful erosion of feelings,

the redeeming sanctuary of stars,

the death of doubts,

the romance of a moonlit room,

the kiss of the morning sun,

that flaming metaphor at the brink of sanity,

my delirious dreams, my poetry,

who is antiseptic to wounds reopening,

who gives void in verses vespertine,

who melts the cold in hibernation,

who blooms flowers from a closed fist,

who turns my heart to gelatine.

Note #22

2008-07-15T16:24:00.003+08:00

camille, words are my possession
at the moment, also a heart
ready to implode at a sigh.
this infinite night has estranged me
from the wonders of the stars.

and i find no redemption
as this instance is the same
place i long not to be.
and there is no profusion
as this space becomes a great
emptiness where i can reach
no one.

not even you.

see, i cannot reach you,
the omnipresent truth
of fantasy and reality.
and for that i am one stale desire:
a smokeless fire.

this sadness bleeds into a poem
that cannot be written by the words
i momentarily own.

In the Young Hours of a Monday

2008-07-15T16:23:00.004+08:00

I should be continuing a poem
About you, Elise, with lines like:
I steal moments witnessing
How your eyes, crystalline like marbles,
Reflect the colors of stained-glass butterflies
Hovering over sun-kissed ripples...

But my brain, keeper of all
Realities, all madness, all beauty,
Is still in its neural slumber.
Or maybe it pretends to be.
It disowns me.

Perhaps because of indulging
Too much in a selfish purpose:
Imagining you as a little girl
Lost in the labyrinth of my love.

Pieces of a broken poem are swept away
In the young hours of a Monday.