The poem I wish to write

Has fluttered a thought ember
towards the sun departing
from the edge of my window.

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

Tomorrow, the sun
will rise in your eyes.
And it will speak of a morning

more physical than longing,
more eloquent than lost verses. 

Wish

always the conversation to open avenues
long forgotten in the 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: light.
light which is faster than the utterance of names
we give our wounds. tomorrow the healing begins:
i part the grayness of memories the way an old man parts
his hair of 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,
let it be you. into the fire, i say, let it be 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 specter
and loses his hair in madness. again
we are perched on the same tree: love above all.
because all there is to love is above.

A Song With A Beak

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

(Published, Metaphor Magazine, June 2014)

Transit

From this watery gaze above the metro
I recall moments from 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 tunnel.
Now you are straight-sure as this locomotive:
The only destinations we reach
are ends and back again.

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 scene seen through blurred glass.

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

(Published, Paper Monster Press) 

Ashes

Our predilection is a house on fire.

We choose only to eventually

combust to cinders and become

the ashes that soil these white walls,
our names: the print from God's fingers.

Blocks

The TV flashes a face of fluctuating hues
as lassitude fills your eyes.
This has been your escape from days
of discomfort: settling on the sofa,
submitting yourself to Nintendo.
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 the game causes you

preoccupation. And so I intervene:
“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.

How I wish reality were as easy.

(For Rowena, my mother)

Blink

Stone eyes

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

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

whose stillness on Sabbath
mirrors the unspoken stories 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 turn into salt.

Snapshots of Rain

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 cart along the sidewalk.

Like an Old Book

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

From this recline
I'll open 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

The reason things depart we do not know.
How, for example, a pigeon nestling on a tree
shoots straight off a forked branch
to the blazing skies of sundown.

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