waking up from the rags

she croons a soft lullaby
to her eight year old daughter
they lie separately now
asleep, in kind, in a bed of dark water

he lies in half-wakefulness
remorseless for the murder
they lie separately now
him and his too forgiving mother

the streets clamor with celebration
but what of the departed?
the streets clamor with celebration
unaware the emperor's naked

she pillages on
shameless of her plunder
they watch carefully now
forgetting they once exalted her

he grasps at straws
claiming "it's just a piece of paper"
they watch carefully now
hoping this time they'll remember

the streets clamor with celebration
but what of the departed?
the streets clamor with celebration
unaware the emperor's naked

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vote wisely.

unbroken (prayers for Haiti)

the air is dense with the memory of the lost
maybe in time, this too will define us

a child walking out to fall into hands bloodied from clawing at debris

a mother left underneath or perhaps already with the pile rotting on the streets


a lover finding his love, unresponsive but alive nonetheless
let the crushing pain echo out- it is a good sign that she isn't dead


a man pushing on. adrenaline comes when the cries become fainter.
what does it matter when death haunts even those above the rubble?


what does it mean to be saved?
is it to be awakened, brought out to learn hell is more palpable than was taught us?


it is to be assured that holding out a few days in the desperation
and to be found can mean hope to others fighting to survive


it means the flooding of life back to those waiting and still struggling.
hold out a little bit longer. help is on the way.

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i've been following the news about Haiti and everyone who's suffering there. my heart bleeds for the families of those who are still underneath the rubble. and i can't help but feel a silent desperation at the thought of those who are suffering on the streets for lack of food and shelter. i hardly know them but i still believe and hold out hope that those 3 filipinos will be found and reunited with their families. i echo Farie's sentiments when she said, let's pray. someone needs to believe that miracles can happen in this terrible disaster. and in a way, miracles have.



a girl was found by her father and boyfriend and everyone told them that they should throw her body along with the pile of corpses on the streets. she was unresponsive, and her eyes were corpse-like: open wide, unseeing. they persisted and brought her to the doctors. even there they were told that the girl's body should be thrown out. (there are so many who need help and so few there to give it that this reaction was understandable) only one medic found enough energy in him to bend down and check the girl's pulse. she was alive.



a 2 year old girl was pulled out of the rubble. they heard her crying and when they lifted the debris, she walked right out towards her rescuers. people were still found alive after almost a week after they were buried alive. rescue was said to be futile after 3-4 days without water.



miracles happen. if you're reading this, please pray for the people in Haiti. not just for those who are still lost. also for those who have no food and shelter. resources are so scarce that even those who survived the earthquake face the reality of death at the hands of starvation and disease. riots are breaking out. hope is slowly fading. surely we all have time to offer even just one prayer.

losing Sundays

i dreamt of you. and i wonder if it means something. and if it does, is it a good meaning?
i dreamt of you. and i can't shake off the excess, the after-effects of an unaccomplished memory.

but a dream is never anything more. and in dreams, characters are often what we need them be.
in my dream, you were what i needed you to be.

i dreamt of you. and i wondered if you dream. and if you do, is it sometimes of me?
i dreamt of you. and it is mildly exhilirating but mostly less dramatic than the fact that it was you.

but a dream is never anything more. and even though it was you, i made you more.
in my dream, you were what i needed you to be.

i write therefore i am

lately, my sister's gotten me into the habit of entering Book Sale stores and searching the racks for "good finds" at crazy cheap prices. sometimes, braving the dust mites is actually worth the risk. she once bought a zora neale hurston book in good condition for only P30 or something like that. and i bought The Horse Whisperer for P50 and it was hard bound too.

a book i bought over the Christmas break contained the words of an author i was hardly famiiar with. The Train Now Departing. that's the title of the book. it's not much for plot but the author's introspective characters got me reflecting on myself as well.

there's this one part where the character reflects on a book she's reading (in much the same way i am doing now) and she "wondered about myster writers were they all, in part, despicable? Probably....Perfectly nice people in the main, but there was that one cringing place in their souls that provoked them toward this sort of writing."

if what one writes speaks of the self, what does my writing say? what do my words say i am?

the questions floor me. and when i look at my writing, i can't help but wonder if all that my words show is a gaping hole where love used to be and which i try vainly to fill with justifications and eloquence. am i, then, simply a reaction to the forces that have come and gone in my life? the inquiry is valid enough but the implications of an answer have such destructive potential that i cringe from it and decide instead to wait for the heavy abyss to perhaps engulf these emotions as well.

in books, there are endings. not always happy but things end all the same. resolution is part of a good writer's objectives. in life, sometimes one has no choice but to leave things hanging.

first sight

electricity enters through the tip of my middle finger
slowing perceptibly near the inside of my wrist
tracing back outward along eager skin
creating static on soft hair to touch my elbow
rising still, the current scintillates, ever so sure
winding gently up across my shoulder
to touch lightly, purposefully the base of my neck
it is as if a kiss has shivered upward along a single path
that wreaks havoc on my entire body

it is such a private moment that it stretches on
causing my breath to catch and release in slow shudders

you smiled and the world responded with such a physical force,
i could not have escaped. allowing for choice, i would not have wanted to.

penitent

spare me now the trappings of your well-planned soliloquy
practiced perhaps in the hopes of plying what comes as attention
or perhaps even begrudging affection from this wasted lot

it is not that your presence is unwanted nor is it that you, yourself, are
not worthy of want. this is an inevitable reaction to time bidding defiance
disallowing my reprieve, holding back a claim to peace and forgiveness

a sorrier plight surely exists not far from here and one sorrier still just adjacent
i wait not for the harangue spoken in a voice stealing from my own lips,
the issuance of which might reveal stolidity enough to break you.

i wait for you to walk on of your own choosing.
soon it will be clear enough. you supplicate only to shadows.


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i wrote this as an offshoot of the emotions in a book i've been reading. only after a few of the lines had been written did i realize i was writing about myself.

funny thing about poetry is that it bites back.