by you

one day, this book would claim
recognition and pride
then history will forget
when the dusk refused to leave
you, curled up in a blanket
of words you cannot write

one day, as the pages turn
and your story comes to life
the world will feel the pain
of a man reinventing his first love
and a child trapped in the fairy tale
of a frog  that remained
buried in the sand

let the pages burn their hands
one for each minute you were judged
one for each lover you killed
one for each dream you failed
one for each night you died

he..

he was young
but grew old, about five years
faster than most, forced to
wrestle with fairness
in a world which wont even
recognize his voice

he learned of life
only from books, words
of wise men and heroes
he never really understood

he saw love, only through
his mother's eyes, which cried
more than it ever saw the light
and he shared that pain
in his every waking day

but still

he loved, more than he knew
he should, he gave
more than what he owned
treading on a fine line, between
deceit and betrayal

he dreams, of a memory
faint from childhood, when good things
lasted, and hopes never
left him, abandoned

letting go

a fierce struggle it was!
god would know of the nights
when i muffled my cries
with my pillow that now know
your name by heart

you had me warned
what seems a lifetime ago
of wavering loyalty
and flippant obsessions,
you were born with

it isn't your fault

i'm letting go now
heck! i know,
i'd cry some more
i love you too much, after all
do you know?

i'd gratify my loss with a few more tears
another night in the cold can't kill
perhaps it will help freeze
that space you left, where i can
bury the pain in numbness
and tomorrow
i will be strong again
no i wont forget you
i can't
but letting go
is where it ends

pagtangis

gusto ko sanang namnamin ang katahimikan
isabay ang pangangarap sa paglalim ng gabi
umidlip sa duyan ng kapayapaan...

pero ayaw matapos ng alingawngaw
pagtangis ng maraming nasugatan
pag-iyak ng mga namatayan

nakakasilaw ang dugong dumilig sa araw
pinagtampisawan ng mga paang naglilibang
sa pangako ng mga diyos-diyosan

your song

the music may die, soon
we will watch
as it fades and recedes
into the corners
of utter sadness, or perhaps be
forgotten

still,
until it does

let me feel its rhythm as my blood,
its beat nudging, consciousness
reminds me of each minute
ticked away in search
waiting and hoping
only to find
that the music played for me
from the start,

to the end,
it does

raise my soul unto the peak
of fleeting joy and lasting madness
the melancholic pauses,
the brilliant gaps..
a crescendo that shall be
heard last

then, everything else
stops

:(

i saw her in your dreams, her face etched with your whispers
spoken in prayers you never let me hear, remember
when you said it was not hers? oh how i thanked heavens!
but when you closed your eyes, i knew, forever isn't mine

i cannot stay and just watch how i'd lose this battle, you've taken
me, unarmed, you've always known i don't have much to offer...
let me gather the memories, piece by piece, and make them whole
tomorrow, when i'm gone, they'd be what's left of what was once

come to me poet

tell me poet...

when did you believe roses
melt a young lady's heart
and dare
to nip their thorns, one by one
till your fingers bled
and found
it took too much;

when the blood inside you
first simmered, incessantly
intense, as the embers seemed
to burn your soul
with greed and longing
realizing, satiation
is for the meek

when you found fidelity
merely impregnates
love
and obscures its meanings
then, you cried
of tears, wishing
you knew lust as much!
but you didnt..

come to me poet
let's talk about it...
we have the whole night, to us
a world, sometimes cruel
often unforgiving...
but it waits, for us
to explore it's secrets
and perhaps, before it sleeps
find us an escape
or maybe a dream...

tell me virginia

when the shadows sleep
and leave you to play with
the many faceless creatures that call
your name, subverting sobriety
you have mastered, after
a long journey that led you
nowhere,
what do you see?

when the deaf tolls of bells fall
on the languid cries of your child
for a mother trapped
in her own youth, for a future
she has yet to understand,
whose voice you hear?

when the feathers in your pocket
with which you shared
an ugly dream, turned to embers
that burnt your palms
clasped in prayers, to a God
unnamed, mummed answers
sent to mock
your thoughts of real and unreal,
how did you feel?

tell me virginia, tell me now
my own ghosts wont let me sleep
and the fire inside
consumes my soul fast, so fast!
i grope for air for my last struggling breaths
as my child clings to me
a life i cannot hold
for neither of us

tell me virginia, tell me..now
did you find peace away from dreams?
is there your solace
amidst the ocean?

* the star that you were

i am now in a place, far

away from where your light can cast

a shadow on my heart, struggling

to make it to another night
when i can dream

and wish all my dreams back

when you were distant

when i knew not your colors

when your voice was just an echo

of your poems, your laughter

a music i wove from my own joy

and your tears a reflection

of my sorrow

away from you, i can be
the child who adores your charm
the smitten teen age girl who murmurs
a tale of a secret love
or a lady consumed by passion
and waits at night
to bask in your warmth
frightened of letting go,
eager to make love

let me stay here
and make believe...
one day, when darkness has gone
you'd come, and find me
in this place
where i have always waited
waited for you to shine...

she..

she once tried to write

a poem about herself, 

because no one else could

not because they wont

but because they felt

they know her too well, or some

have known her too soon

but the poem refused her

words that barely captured what she wanted

said, remained buried in the rubbles 

untouched by her desire

to come out, and let out a yearning

to be heard

she once tried to sing a song

for herself, to create a melody that she could

play over and over in her head

to dance to and swing with, to come

into a trance for, entangled in a weave

of unrhythmic thoughts and random feelings
rising and falling and fading
to a calm....if only to rise, again

but her music died, somewhere
between the anxious search and senseless calls
the nostalgic journey brought farther
doubts in a path where she lost
her steps, as certain as they were
of the peaks and pits, of the mounds and holes
of a day, and a dream, then
there was fate

she has left
her shadow sewn to her past
and her heart clings to a  promise, bleak
tho it may be, her laughter resounds
in rumbles you hear of an earth moving,
the refined tunes of pleas and wails,
what once spelled indifference

find her smiles afloat the breezes
that caress your half conceived dreams
that soothe wounds you bought to win
a battle, or to lose a war within

a minute before the darkest dawn,
between your god and hers, she awaits
your soft whisper with simple words :
you understood,
all she wanted was to be happy
she was being silly, but
no one ever told her...

a moonless night

he paces around his dark room
the unhinged door on one side and an open window
on the other, from which only a thick wall can be seen
and only the remaining breaths of air passes
reeking through the stench of molds as old as the wall
and the half dried rain of a late summer..

it had been several full moons since he started...

how she loved the moon, he often caught her
talking to it on late nights, when he comes home
sober, and knows she'd be basking in its warmth
on nights he was not, when he does not..

and it was several nights that he didnt...

he looks back, on an unfinished portrait
the thick wavy hair crowns a face perfect in shape,
almost, if not for the small scar that dented her right temple..
ah! he remembers the wound, how that bled
in that same room, beside his bed she laid,
covering her face, but the blood glared, as if
beckoning him to come near, to see for himself
how she tried, despite the pool of blood...and tears,
to remain placid, her eyes still as clear as the stream
untouched, as she was, before they started
a dream

those eyes...

he remembers, very clearly, how they spoke to him
when he wanted only her silence
how they smiled more than her lips did after a night
of passion...she called it love, he always thought it was
just one of the many they have yet to share..

it was time for the moon to rise anew
he shall not see its light tho, it has been forever
buried behind the wall facing his window

with a trembling hand he tries once more
but the face just stares at him, giving no clue
those eyes wont speak to him now, he knows

his canvass died the day they closed, leaving him
only a shadow of what she saw, the debris
of whom and why she loved..


he hangs the portrait back
and sits by the window, praying
for the same darkness that has engulfed her
to choke out that thick lifeless breath
that eludes death, and kills everything in him

some call it love

i'd like to find a word
that best describes
the anticipation
of seeing you at night
the erratic beats
of my heart, gone mad
you'd say, oh! yes, maybe
mad...

help me define that state
when eloquence is lost
and pride is choked
with simple carefree thoughts
knowing unintelligible whispers
will be bridged by warmth
in silences that fills
the old forgotten void

please don't look for rhymes
metaphors you wont find
this is not a poem...
it's just my heart's musings
on the new things i discovered
the sheepish grin
a silly teardrop
the timid laughter
a trembling voice

some would simply call it love
i say, it must be
much more than that