As the night falls like a glossy drape of black

crepuscular muses forgather for a bath of neon

for like the evening their lives are fleeting.

Festive flapping, summoned by the streetlights;

minute dusts of silver fall like quiesced rain,

showcasing unknowingly such soundless marvel.

At the crest of their being beauty is spotlighted

before the day breaks its first light,

and their once sublime flight morphs into a dream.

Photography by Kokorokoko of the Philippines. Please click here to view the owner’s Flickr page. Thanks!

Hello! I'm back!
I'm so sorry for being passive for a few days. I've been hooked with developing a screenplay, and I thought I could get out of it as easily as I've started it, but it's seems more addictive that I thought it is. I've found myself engrossed with the rewriting, re-plotting, editing and polishing. I just hope that later on my pitching will somehow kindles hope and even pays off. Do you guys happen to know a place or a site or a person who takes movie scripts and actually review them? I've heard about Writers' Guild of America, and that they offer protection to amateur writers and veterans alike by registering their works there. And I'm going to register mine. If you happen to know a place where I could "toss" it, please let me know. I would truly appreciate it.

I know this is a wild idea coming out of me, but well, there's no harm in trying.


And btw, the poem I've posted below is actually a depiction of the story I am writing about. Well, it's more of like, the poetic expression of the story, summarizing the main issue into a log line. I can't stay long here for now, I got
limited internet access (grrr!).

Anyways, good day to you all!

Hugs!

I look for a place
Where the world spells life differently
But find a crossroad instead.
Shall I take the highway
Or shall I follow the biway?

Events are the outcome of one's choices
These roads before me
that'll take me there are empty
The clearing of whichever road befalls
only after my every step.

The distance is vaguer than mist
But the fog lifts up and clears
After it touches my breath ---
Only by then that the distance is seen
The distance's defined.

Blank routes yield no options
But choices for actions pave a route
And take me to where my heart envisions.
For there's no predestined me,
or a prearranged journey.

And so I don't choose ---
I make a road
for
me.

In domestic violence and aggression, or in a family whose leaders are in the verge of divorce battles, it is most often that the children are the ones who are forbidden to get involved but are the ones left most shattered and devastated. Such destructive issues have become rampant nowadays that they come to slowly alter the ways of the world into something of its own, at least in the world of our children. We might ask, whatever happen if a home’s lamp and pillar come crushing down? The answer is everywhere now. With open eyes and awake soul, we can see them so easily.

From them he learns to voice his outcry

at such young age ---

he’s supposed to be playing!

Where forces of thralldom

make him find ways to stand alone;

Cupping hands over his ears,

his way of list’ning to his own songs;

Casting his eyes to familial exiguity

to such fragile relationship,

to the wails of many a depravity;

Though dark he still sees in them a buoy

where the glint sparks unwavering hope

of salvation, of his salvation.

Domestic tumult a cataract to his eyes

and the uprising of wounded soul,

the omen of phantom barricades ---

all blinding his youthful conviction

instilling fear, guilt and rebellion.

Drastic hands grasping tight the metal rails

for the hurting is pushing him to the edge,

the kindled future’s slipping down the ridge.

How soulless it is if they’d let him see them

walk away leaving him, forsaking him!

There must be a way to level the gorge

or he’ll be skidding fast and falling ---

from parental purlieu to bottomless perdition.

From his eyes dreams are escaping

his body shivers, not capable of losing;

At the threshold of their home

where the playground lies,

a crossfire is trapping him, crushing him.

Stand but not just wait, he tells himself

while all the others await

where the balance will go tilt,

Here he is tipping his head high

before this hostile, charred fair ---

Patch the shards, hush the screaming!

Curb my erosion, redress your err!

--- But nobody’s list’ning.

If he could just be much older,

perhaps they’d hear him.

Does he really has to first grow old?

Photograph from allcare.net. Please CLICK HERE to go there.

This poem was written after spending time alone contemplating on what could happen to me now that my chance of going and working back abroad is dim. It is my ultimate passion and dream ever since I was a child to go to faraway places, discover felicity and inner tranquility that I could otherwise not find close at home.

There is something in it that pacifies my spirituality and provides me inner smiles, and it is therefore my goal when I set my foot into a journey towards it. I've been to the first pace, and It felt so wonderful to be at the threshold of your dream. Just one more step and I'll be fully walking toward where the untrodden path is leading.

But then powerful forces pulled everything away from its place, forces beyond my power to control and change. And now I have to wait for it to subside, while finding ways to collect everything back into place for me to keep moving.

The distant light is still there, waiting. And so I have to keep walking...

I’ve wanted to pen a poem about my mother and post it on Mother’s Day to celebrate her love and doting on us, her offspring. But due to what happened, sadly I’ve set aside the idea for a while, and wait for my health to cope up. But setting it aside doesn’t mean I’m taking it for granted, my appreciation and gratitude for my mother. I’ve greeted my mother on Mother’s Day, and I saw her smile the purest smile ever. But I know words are never enough to outweigh such tremendous, fathomless love. But it is my relief that somehow there’s a way to let my mother know how much she’s loved by us her children.

Although the following poem evolved from a specific scene, yet it was written from an angle wherein I depict the ceaseless affection and care of a mother.

Hoping that it’s not yet too late, I’m posting this poem now to celebrate the special day of all mothers from all over the world. To you all, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

Photograph by Magpie-Moon . Please CLICK HERE to visit the owner's page. Thanks!

With a solemn prayer

I whisper

“God, please let me wake up

to this same room.”

Today I've heard from my doctor a news that was hard for me to absorb. A news that was not even near my list of expectations to hear.

Last Friday I felt a mild pain at the middle of my abdomen, right deep under my belly. I thought it was just some sort of muscle pain or an ordinary stomachache, so I wasn't at all disturbed and spent the rest of the day typically. The following day, the pain began to increase its intensity but still mostly felt where it was. Only this time, the pain seemed to intensify at indefinite intervals and radiated from the middle towards the surrounding areas but a little noticeable to the right.

It became more painful in the afternoon, and the sharp spasms became more frequent during the night. Some time in the afternoon I informed my mother about it, telling her something's not right.

She asked me a series of common questions. I told her I didn't have a diarrhea, or constipation; my bowel movement was normal. I didn't have a fever, and I did not feel weak. Just the painful stomachache, nothing else. She opted to treat me with herbals as first aid, and during the wee hours of the evening, when the pain made it difficult to put myself to sleep, she decided to bring me to a hospital.

On the third day the pain remained sharper and the spasms remained frequent and painful, still in the middle and would scatter toward the whole abdomen when spasms occur. I told the doctor I did not lose my appetite and did not vomit. They asked me more questions, told me to take some blood and urine tests, and then later instructed me to take the ultrasound test first thing the following morning after they had found out that the white blood cells were high.

This morning, the ultrasound result reported that my appendix is infected and has already erupted, but the infection has not spread because, as what the surgeon later said, it was caught and trapped by an internal body part having that function (I could not remember the medical name, and have no idea what's the layman's term).

When the physician said they could call a surgeon to operate me that same day, fear and worries rushed in even more as they already have. I have never been to any operations before, and the idea of having an operation imperils my dream of working abroad. I am scared of undergoing an operation as most people do, I believe. Also, it will cost us big amount of money, which we don't have. The savings I've had from working in Taiwan for 5 years mostly went to the house my parents helped me bought, redesigned and enhanced. The rest were all spent financing my application for a job in New Zealand, which until now is vague. My previous experience was in a manufacturing industry, and the next one is technically the same. Physical strength is totally required, and the applicant must have no history of operations.

The surgeon came and physically examined me and asked questions. This time, I told him the pain has somewhat shifted to the right since I woke up this morning. After informing me of the ultrasound results and what it meant, he prescribed antibiotics to be taken for six weeks and scheduled me for an operation four weeks from today. He said that it was the best time to remove the appendix, except of course if the pain becomes too intense, which needed immediate operation. I looked at my mother; I could feel and see that she's worried. But my father was brave as he always is. I pray to God that everything will be alright.

After going home I could not think of something else except this. I even doubt if I could write a poem tonight. But here's what I've decided, I will definitely undergo the operation, bravely. There are ways to get the money, and I don't worry much of that now. And I don't want to worry about it in the days to go.

Money is just money, life is something much more.

During the month of May some species of plants, mostly ornamental, come in full blossom quietly exhibiting their beauty, color, and value. It is for this reason that the month of May here in the Philippines is known also as the Month of Flowers. It is also during the whole run of this month that the Catholic community observe Flores de Mayo, a gathering of children and young adults, both male and female, singing praises for the Virgin Mary and offering to her fresh flowers.


Today is supposed to be the start of Flores de Mayo, but I've never heard of children talking excitedly of going to church the way my generation used to. I can't help but wonder what had happened between then and now.

Anyways, the following poem celebrates the life of a flower and depicts its worth...

At the shoulder of the road

the perennial green stands

too long devoid of beauty,

thirsty for honest acclaims ---

an eyesore to many.

But through the march of May

its blossom is praised by this passing girl.

And she who walks abreast

lost her clamors to a mind

that poses to reckon

such prior prejudice;

Eyes captured by those delicate petals,

which beauty now mums

the tongues of men.

And the carols of

the distant bell

call for the feet to tramp still

to where divinity avows

their worth and where

the flower be laid

from those times

it was mostly ignored.

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.

In memory of Francis "Kiko" Magalona, called by many as FrancisM, an icon of the Philppine's music indutstry whose music and passion the catalysts to patriotism. My deepest respect to him and to his legacy. The following poem celebrates his bravery and nationalism, and the difference he had left behind...