Palm Sunday, 2012

I plucked a small bird
made from palm leaves
from a lone, potted plant
on my way to church.

It was a long walk on foot
but I was in no hurry.
The dawn remained trapped
among skeletal fruit trees
and the morning sounds,
distractingly lovely.

Departure

Sickle of the moon

in this tropic night

still illuminates

the footsteps you left behind

on the wet, muddy trail –

the curved blade, reaping truth

of a traitor passing by.

The Orange Fruit

The orange fruit falling

from your hand rolls

to the sidewalk.

 

You chase after it

under the orange sky

breeze sweeps over

your whole body

bringing to me

poignant cologne.

 

The orange continues

to roll on the pavement

slowly peeling your scent

until I could smell it whole

when you come back

such an orange-filled run.

Aftershocks

We felt them, the tremors

when it first hit the earth’s core, creating

an undulation in this home.

We trembled like the

The Visit

Boarding the bus from Davao

to Digos, I passed by

San Miguel. I smell the brewed beer,

(probably in various

degrees of foam) rich in flavor –

 

like the same beer he poured, vibrant

like this afternoon’s tryst

but paler than the metallic

sun, half-hidden among greens.

The taste still remains in my mouth.

 

I taste it – mixed saliva and

beer – inside this bus

freezing cold, on my way home.

Long Distance

I think about you and the spaces between us

my thoughts rarely strayed away to

someone else.

I think about your stolen words of

Counter Offer

Father slipped into my dreams last night

(first time in years since I got out of uni).

I followed him through T-shaped sidewalks

like a long, uninterrupted tracking

Leaving Kanchanaburi

You remember me leaving, boarding that train

the third-class clickety-clack train

snaking its way out from the depths

of your fragile province.

 

Raindrops helplessly clinging on the train window

Lotuses frantically moving upon the rain’s

coming, and as the train pulls into

a halt, station after station,

ominous sounds of wheels

brushing past the

railway

 

called me back in a strange language

and I had no voice on my own

no hasty, curt reply

to say goodbye.

 

Kanchanaburi, I watched you with love

as I left you in the gray hours

to meetBangkok’s setting sun

yellow and attenuated.

My Neighbor

We have so much in common, to name a few -

loud amplifiers and stuck fish bones in our throats.

We have no words left

to utter.

We have hands cramped to express

Surrender

I cannot see the principles

governing those waves:

how one singularly eclipses

the other, like a graceful act

of give and take

or a seamless theft

of arrogance racing

splash after splash -

the rolling fluidity

without symmetry.

 

So I made a boat I found

out of styro

let it float ashore

the lonely boat crashing

into fearful waves

a violent welcome

a sheer flow

stowed my boat

 

away. In between waves

there is energy I know

yet I feel there is none; no

distinct symmetry, just

immediacy, and no such thing

as potency.  In this dynamics

of waves crashing

I am weakened

 

with a shudder of both heat

and relief, upon seeing

the lone white strip

a flag floating

 

that is my boat

coming down the shore.