Lambda (1994)

You touch me in response
And flames consume
My core shudder
As your mind
And mine connect
Thru the meeting
Of our eyes and navels
Subtle wavelengths
Subdued currents
In unison
Exploring sensate powers
Already honed and ripe
From each own's
Breadth of experience.

Homesick (Brooklyn, New York 1995)

As I walk with heavy boots
Laced with late winter slush
On these deserted sidewalks
I pull my coat closer to my chin
Clutch my tattered gloves tighter
I still shiver!
The pale moon peeks with reluctance
Only to give me a hunched sullen shadow
And the old elm trees lining the streets
Bowing to console me, lay frozen, leafless.
My breaths are slow, shallow
As if to ward away the windchill
Seeping through stoic brownstones.
So, I gather my coat even closer
Clutch my gloves even tighter
But never ever conquer the cold
Creeping thru my brown-skinned core
Yearning for the warmth of a sun
That only shines
In those very far
Far fareastern skies.

An Danaw

Nangahaylot an mga tayubtob
Nagkamang an santamariya
Kay taghiluan an danaw
Nangamatay an mga pijanga

Nuhubas an tubig
Tagkujaji an mga pagusi
Napuo an mga buaja
Tagpabuthan nan dinamita

Mag-santelmo pag-utro
Sa sirin nan ako mga damgo
Kay namadhan an danaw
Tagsujop nan imo kauhaw

Malad-ang an hangin
Nag asu an kalibutan
Nolutaw an kampana
Nahayu, nabungoy

Nan imo katampalasan
Hakug na mga katuigan.

Half-forgotten Dream

Suddenly from the blur
Of sleep wafting
With colorless dreams
Alive came
The denouement
Of the lump
That choked my throat
And left me half-awake
In Kussmaul's breath
Now in a trance lulled
By soulful maya chirps
These pregnant memoirs
Of childhood loves and mirth
Lost in swirling time
Leaving a nameless feeling
Haunting, throbbing,aching
As the new dawn
Dares to break.

The Lake(Mainit Lake, Mainit, Surigao del Norte, Philippines)

There is something
In the lake that
Beckons me back
To where it all started

The thrill that strokes my spine
In scaling the marsh
The soft sighs I heave
As a green garter snake
Crosses a narrow path
The allure that secret
Islands of hyacinths possess
The mild scent of banyan trunks
That graze my skin
The freshwater tang
Left on my sunbaked hair
The childlike joy
In scooping out innocent fries
Along the intrepid riverbank

The mystery of my ancient spirit
Piece by piece repaired.

Dreaming Palawan(1992) @ St. Paul Subterranean River, Palawan, Philippines

Where the mangroves are,
The life chain starts.

Their yellowed decomposing leaves
Add murkiness to the mud
All the silt and debris collect
At their mangled roots beneath
From the putrid flesh
Of worms that failed to fly
To the thickened dust on their barks
The venomous molt and hide.

But from the same milieu of decay
A billion plankters also thrive
From which fishes subsist
Which in turn become food
So that men may live.

Where the mangroves are,
Whose fearful silhouette at night
Kisses an enchanted full moon sometimes.

Third World Month of May

Now the village welcomed
The so-called merry month of May
The playful raindrops fell
The earth exuded
A humid musty smell
And the overcast sky's cut
By jagged electric energy
O, how the toads croaked with glee
As iguanas sauntered oblivious
To the mantis's mantra-praying
For cicadas to please cease
Their toneless bleating finally.
But then a child screamed
His last shrill eerie hungry plea
His jaundiced bloated belly burst
His ina sang her loneliest uyayi.
Now that was not exactly
A merry merry month of May.

Paglalakbay (amid the China Sea on a 20-person capacity pump boat en route to Cagayancillo, Palawan, Philippines on a medical mission)

Bawat ungos ng katig sa asul na karagatan
Ay nagbabadya ng iyong ginintuang kadakilaan.

Panginoon ngayon kami'y nagpupugay
Sa gitna ng mga alon iyong marahang hinihipan
Upang maghatid sa amin sa bayang nakalaan
Mahinahon ang ihip iyong inutusan
Payapa ang dibdib sa iyong kandungan

Purihin ka, purihin ka
Maging saan pa man
Tunay kang matapat
Ang iyong pag-aaruga'y
Walang kapantay,walang sukdulan

Sa dagat ng mundo
Na walang katiyakan
Kapag ikaw ang gabay, ikaw ang kasama
Kahit ikaw lamang
Tunay ang luwalhating mahahantungan.

Mirage of Romance(Summer 1999)

The heat waves came in droves
The tide ebbed to its nadir
El nino, the prodigal son that he was
Left surreptitiously on winged heels
The mercury shot past the scales
The sordid gray air was steaming hot
The elders singed in the nursing homes
As infants left by mad hunger-stricken mothers
Laid convulsing by the scorching streets
The bushes pitifully wilted in forsaken fields
And brushfires relentlessly razed the arid hills
The cisterns in the earth's womb were drained bone-dry
The sun was but an ugly angry searing star
Curdling my blood while my heart turned stone-cold
Tired , worn and weary from the longest wait
For that elusive dew drop taste of romance
That never ever did come.

Lost in the Southland(Orange County, California, 1999)

(At St. Regis Resort while visiting Dana Point, Orange Co., California in 2005)


I am lost here
In the vastness of the southland.

The unfamiliar groves
Have long been buried for decades
The lonesome few that stood still
Are but memorials of what has been
The expected citrus scent
Is conspicuous by its absence
Nowhere to ease me thru
My crisscrossing mazes
An unstudied insouciance
Plods along these endless
Meandering freeways and byways
I have charted my routes
By the ancient stars in the heavens
But I am lost, I am lost, I am lost.

I have ran thru the sands of Venice Beach
Scaled six thousand feet up Lake Arrowhead
Broke bread with friends and foes
In Malibu, Redondo, La Mirada
Paddled my way thru Lake Casitas
Made love in the valleys of Ventura
Cut trails thru the hills of Pomona and the Sierras
Rolled the buggies in the desert of Palm Springs
Touched the deadly blades of the Cabazon windmills
Still, I am lost, I am lost, I am lost.

Tonight, I will rechart the course of this nomad heart
Perhaps set sail on the sleeping deep blue Pacific
Gaze up again at the map of my stars
And hope to finally find my way to find...me.

Welcome poets,poetry lovers

Welcome. This blog was originally thought out to be a personal repository of my literary attempts. They have been collecting dust in dog-eared, yellowed loose sheets and an old notebook in my bookshelf. This is a collection of poems, musings and sundry that I have written over the years. I thought, it's time to move them to the 21st century. But if you stumble upon this blog and you happen to love poetry, read on and make comments. I write in English, Filipino, Visayan and Surigaonon. I know it's quite an ambitious endeavor since really it takes a lot to master even just one language. But then again, that's why these are called attempts. Enjoy! Salamat karajaw!

Beginnings

You breathe mist into my disquiet
Sea breeze to humid city air
As welcome as drizzle at dawn
Quenching my listless soul
From residues
Of broken dreams, I wake up
To a field of a thousand daffodils
Van Gogh-yellow aswaying
To lilting rhythms of the wind
Randomly strewn about the fallen trunks
Fallen headlong from the firmament
When the lightning struck my night!


Looking thru the Eyes of an AIDS Patient in the Throes of Death

Cry your grief , softly now
I volunteer my callused hands
To bore the cold earth
And lay down
Your near lifeless bones to rest
Still I do not have the salve
To soothe your laden breast
I cannot even begin
To fathom your marrow's pain
I have my own crosses to bear and keep.

Yes, I have heard your sallow faded eyes saying:
No more Simons from Cyrene
If they fail to find my via crucis

But you may find solace
In someone who knows pain by name
By having been flogged and licked
The raw sting of stripes and thorns
Who, perchance can give meaning
To your death and suffering.


Goodbye

There will be
An anxious time
You will ponder
At my absence
Taste, saline as blood
The angst of my giving
Haunting.
On some cold nights
You will trace
The hollow between your loins
A remembrance
Of the warmth
Of my limbs' flesh
A byproduct, an aching memory
Of my last shivers.


Ang Lilo

Kung ang pulong nga gilatid sa papel, bato
Ang huna-huna sa tawo sama sa lilo.

Gagmay nga bato
Tunokon ug tampalasan
Ilabay sa puyo
Sa lilo modagmal
Apan kung ang lilo
Molungtad, molahutay
Mga lingin dili mahimo
Bato walay hinungdan

Dako mong bato
Magahari, mopaibabaw
Ang lilo gihikog, gipatay
Aron magmugna
Sa abogon nga dalan

Sa kadugayan, ang kamatuoran:
Tubig sa mga panganod
Nga gikan sa lilong namadhan
Mobugsok ug ang bato dugmokon
Sa lupa nga iyang sinugdan

Ang lilo motubod pa gihapon
Gikan sa tiyan sa kalibutan
Mohimo ug lingin
Ug mga lingin nga walay katapusan

Sa ulahing bahin: ang lilo
Maoy matuod nga sukdanan
Sa imong bato
Ang tubig sa lilo
Mas gamhanan.


Introspection

Just when my masks fall and fail
And the Light strips me to my core
Each flesh, threshed
The crevices, each pored
Just when I am rounded off
To my utter nothingness
Reduced to my sum of filth
To the poorest barren earth,
That is when I start to be
Molded like a molten vessel
At first empty, yet lithely formed
One moment washed
Another baked by the sun
Then inch by inch filled with rain
To one fullness of meaning.

More to come later. Ciao.