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.