At some points in our lives we come to a pause right before an intersection, figuring the choices we are going to take, fearing the uncertainties behind our head. And in my life I have come to so many points where I doubt my own conviction, question those pieces that comprise myself, and reconsider choosing a thorny, weedy, rocky decision of letting myself free but failing all those around me...

It is during these times that I heave my hands forward, coping for some strength to switch on the streetlights alongside me...

Wake up,

dear eyes!



Untrodden path

right before me,

My feet cease

with uncertainty.

Hands hoisted,

tearing such

deafening serenity

Groping in the

cold space

for rails

For I dream not

to stumble

into the unknown,

into the foggy

lonely distance.

Voices heard,

those in my head,

those screams of

the silence ahead.

Seeing through

the thick fog

my eyes want to

foresee such

strange territory

that reigns ahead,

Visions of the future

vague as a

twilight beam

My feet are slowly

moving forward

facing, embracing

fear.



Starving

quicksand

Awaits derailment

and for my walk

to stray.



Wake up,

dear eyes!

Several times aboard a marine vessel that transports me between the island provinces of Bohol and Cebu in central Philippines, most of those happened during the late hours in the afternoon, I had witnessed the fairly eye-catching setting of the sun behind the low mountains of Cebu, with its radiance illuminated from a dome of orange and red and deep purple.

Most of my travel at sea between the two islands I traveled alone; I enjoyed the fresh salty air and the calmness of the sea, the state of being alone creates a tranquil room for self-reflection and contemplation. I am the kind who enjoys the company of my close friends and likes to travel with them, but I also enjoy and prefer to travel a few hours at sea by myself. It is when I reflect on the things I've done or should have done in the past, and figuring where this road I'm taking is leading to.

The sunset is my sole company during those times. Amid handfuls of strangers and passengers I find wordless conversations with nature. But it gives me a twinge of guilt going back into it over and over, finding solace in it, blinded most of the time by my own desire to fill some emptiness inside me, and making use of the sunset's company without even giving a slightest expression for its beauty.

Now, it is just time to say these words...

Receding is its fiery beauty

to the western heaven's infinity,

That mystical venture into dusk

is its routine glorious trip---

An endless prompt

for the insatiable poets.



In the sky it's the serene belle,

the cosmic masterpiece on symmetry

Summoning all eyes

to its dome of motley diffusion---

A day's closure so grandeur

hails the waking of night into action.




Shadows cast to the east such impressibility,

Evoking the fantasies of a mind so engrossed, so visionary.

The blending of darkness to the

dimming rays' heavenly hymn ---

All praised by the songs

of my singing pen.

Streetlights shine down our way so we can walk safely and with definite direction. But their aging presence has become ignored by people who walk the same road every night. Is this going to happen to the streetlights of our lives one day?





Evanescing streetlight

At the crack of dawn

Its doting bathing of night

will not soon

End, but will forever keep on.



In those countless still nights ---

My repressed praises,

My lame cajole ---

My pointless bawls.



My driving with broken headlights

In a misty road's blind maze---

The lamp's brightness, a chiding gaze.



After this passing midnight

the sun wakes up to the tired street lamp.



--- My evanescent streetlight.


Photography from plaza.ufl.edu/
theoryof/misc. Please CLICK HERE to visit the owner's website.

Love. Such a wonderful word. A word full of life and emotions. But a word now gravely abused and misused. People feel, give or receive love, platonic or otherwise, at some point in their lives. Those who are in bounty tend to ignore it, while those in scarcity spend all the time they could to cherish it.

In the 30 years of living I have fallen in love once. But it happened in the wrong place and at the wrong time. It was the kind not dictated by the norms of the society. And there's nothing more painful than letting go of something that took for so long to come. And now I wonder, should I have to wait for yet another uncertain years?

That I cannot answer. But the words that flow below, are the things that I am certain I had seen and felt and touched during that single, brief encounter. And these are the very same things that I wish are still there by the time I fall in love again...










In life's a Capella of fleeting plethora ---

Behold, our hearts' graceful dance!

Silky drapes flap like soothing wings;

We chase paradisiacal butterflies through the wind.

Eyes meet, their sparks blend colors with the midnight aurora

And talk of words not known to our worldly minds;

Words flowing, ripple after ripple --- rushing, affecting.

We dance to the rhythm that waterfalls create,

Spotlighting our feet's wading through encaustic estuaries.

In a garden of chanting petals, we stand breathless --- our two hearts talking.

The following poem intends to celebrate the turning of life from the dark sides...












What was lost will come back

What was left behind will cope up;

What was moving backwards

Will meet us round the other end---

Just like in a loop, for we are in a loop.

At the end of one's term

another will break from the rich soil ---

Strive, compete, persist.

After all, life's all about taking time and giving way ---

Like winter succumbing, surrendering ---

To the waking of spring.

And we'll be the new leaves, sprouting.

Coldness,

the fierce, nonchalant, numb breath of winter ---

The flashback of our falling.

And then springtime comes,

The exultant sun spreading its shine,

limitless;

Clearing the clouds from its way,

Inviting new walks, new flights, new hopes---

We are the birds, singing.




Photography by Eleigurl. Please CLICK HERE to visit the owner's Flickr page. Thanks!

The kind of relationship I have had with my grandfather was fragile and distant though we live under the same roof. I could not remember a time he embraced me or I hugged him from my early years until the day he passed away. We had never talked over casual topics on casual day-today conversations; when we do it would always be short and and concentrated on a particular issue. No talks of weather, of politics, of local issues. No how-you've-beens and no take-cares. Yes, it is true. Yes, they were expressed through a tradition we called "MANO", it is where the young takes the right hand of the old and lightly press the back of the old's right palm against the young's forehead to express the young's respect. But that's it.

But the blame is shared by the two of us. Yes, he was not the expressive kind of grandfather and he was not the kind who spends some time playing with his grandchildren and, yes, he might have shortcomings when it comes to building a strong relationship with us and creating a free communication path between us. But I also had my fair share of shortcomings. I was one of those grandsons who never expressed their love and appreciation toward their grandparents, too reserved, too stiff, too unfocused. And I lacked the effort to spark a conversation and start re-building the porous castle he had started. When he passed away I did not cry. Not once during the entire wake and funeral. But I did not hate him or dislike him. In fact, I miss him and feel a little nostalgic when I remember him asking me to cut his nails or rub his back or pull his beard with a thing that resembles the forceps (I forgot the name!).

I wish we could have been better as a grandson and as grandfather.





Your hurtful means

of straightening my supple childhood

as your heartless sneering on my existence.

the vastness of your wisdom

the depth of your heart.

your island and mine

the flowing of emotions and hugs.

a moment you gave me one.

were the remoteness in your eyes

the weight of your palm.

And their meaning to get lost in a flooding gall.

Birth is our threshold to a long journey,

But some journey leads to yet another birth.

Growth is where we see the flowers bloom,

But some of us bloom to call their end of growth.

Our childhood is one of the things that we sometime dream of going back. The following poem tells that time spent, however, can never be redone...










Those young years that can never come back
Filled, like sandwiches, with pickles, pepper and tart---
My young playfulness, zest, and mishaps.

Some mem'ries stayed, more mem'ries slacked;


Those frolicking and giggling I can't turn back.
Why, tell me, can't I mimic my then innocent laugh?

Time had devoured those days --- all spent, lagged, gone.

Those emotions felt, those pure bliss, all withered --- their mem'ries hummed;
Nay, age, wealth, wisdom --- can do nothing but dream and sigh.




Photograph by BuddhaWarrior. Please CLICK HERE to visit the owner's Flickr site. Thank you!

Life is a journey. And every stopovers and turnarounds occupies different chapters. Life, to some, do not end when the body returns to sand, but rather a beginning of a new part in the same book...








The foliage shakes in the wake of summer;

Its canvass of colors all turned to amber.

From a throng of once green cedar

Falls a leaf, now smells of cigar.

Deep, brackish flowing water

Awaits for the quietus of this dry litter.

Now floating to where it meets the river:

Its journey in the hereafter.





Photograph by WaltB III. Please visit the owner's Flickr site by CLICKING HERE.

Fear not the omen

Of the dungeons of truth

That slipped out of hand.

Though it burst into the open

A fire so searing,

A heart so brave and undefiled

Will summon all fumes,

heap them into a dune,

and tame them.




Photograph by Mr. Geoff. Please CLICK HERE to visit the owner's Flickr site. Thanks!

Your frivolous little actions

And comic but nervous rigmarole,

Your sinuous insight on dominion

And sleight so deft but funereal.



They all don't daunt or cause me to cower.



Your succinct, pure smile's flora

And persuading, candid prudence,

Your composed, facile aura

And discourse so rich with credence---



All sweep my qualm of rating you lower.



Your frowning to life's disheveling

Paves a boulevard so safe and secure

Your deterring a wasteful shedding

Helps define your complex, vibrant nature.



And makes me question my own exultation.



You're a portrait of contrasting landscapes;

In your flawed grandeur a scene so poignant

Where I see myself in a sullen seascape

Bathed in a canvass of drowning colors.



But then one cannot drown in his own imperfection.



Photograph from www.ratemyeverything.net. Please CLICK HERE to view the source. Thanks!

The following poem is one of my early writings between my high-school and college years. I had even compiled it along with the many others into a pamphlet but had lost sight of it after I leave for Taiwan. And, sadly, I could not recover them anymore. It was as though those poems never existed. The following, however, was recovered after getting a copy of my college's student publication where it was published way back in 2001, a month after the tragedy of WTC in New York.









Sitting here on the bench,
Silently gazing at the night sky,
Hearing nothing but the silence of the night,
I think of you again.
Thinking of those timeless moments
As riveting as those waves splashing below.


But it's different now.


Silently taking my seat,
Watching the empty space beside me,
The bygones are recurring,
One by one, painstakingly.
But only, the laughter has long been gone.


It's never like the old days.


Then, quietly, I'm weeping
For nobody's here beside me.
I feel so frail as fate has again
Clothed me with gloom.
I'm alone in the park,
As always.


It's heartbreaking, it's sad.


Softly as a falling leaf
I whisper your name,
Hoping, yearning always.
But it just drifts away to somewhere else,
Somewhere far away.


Too excruciating, too sore.


Shall I wait forever? I care not
For it's your heart that told me to wait.
With my eyes too heavy to blink,
I know it's now time to leave.
Tomorrow, I'll be here on the same bench, waiting.
Again.



Photograph by Tabrandt. Please click here to view the owner's Flickr site.

Relaxing, folding my arms

Under my head

Idling, you nap the time

listlessly away.



Swaying, the sea air

ease away our tiredness

Rocking, it sets

the mood so perfect.



The water,

a sea of ebbing silver sparkles

The shades,

devours the ruthless hotness.



Our feet,

hanging, they so calmly sway

Our eyes,

They smile, devoid of fray.




Photograph from http://www.digitaldutch.com/arles/. Please click here to visit the site. Thanks!

Small feet, soft hands

Tiny nails, tender palms

Closed eyes, moving lips

Kicking feet, dancing hips.



Soft cry, still night

Noisy day, quiet nap

Frail frame, father's arms

Dancing mom, sleeping son.



Brown bears, pink birds

Softer mat, comfy bed

Eyes beamed, joyful crowd

Smiling face, parents' pride.



Photography by TOBYLEAH. Please CLICK HERE to visit the owner's page. Thanks!

Let's imagine it is us who's in between those cars, peering over a man indifferent to our presence...

High above, the noon sun glow;

Hiding in the shades, all men below.

Searing heat on every windshields;

His cupping hand over his naked head.



Squinting eyes, outstretched arm;

Peering on a tainted glass, his begging charm.

Rattling coins in a filthy, rusty can;

The boy's dry mouth, a hungry one.



Those glaring eyes are shunning him;

He's stepping back though the alibi's lame.

Cars moving, he's in between;

A gen'rous heart he wished to win.