we looked for light

and walked outside. the longest time
i've ever been alone with her, beautiful woman, beautiful
and i, the constant loss of words.

smoke? she said. she had a box of cigarettes.
now the occasional, i gestured having neither 
stick nor light. no one else in the room 

smokes and we exchanged helpless smiles. 
we walked outside looking for light.
the only time i've ever been in long conversation

with her, whose "fate" in the boardroom was
just partly decided. the word she used for future
was "unease". she wanted to stay

a year more in the country. i didn't
know why, but didn't ask. we might never get to
see each other again until a time.

two cigarettes after at the side of the street
just outside the gate of no-smoking zones, 
we hugged. and she went back in

and i took my leave.

the things we do to roll the stone of the world

1
To roll the stone up the mountaintop, only
having it roll back, to start again. Do you
sometimes feel this old? Bones, body
weathered as stone, faith broken like a horse

learned of certain gain, loss. No longer having
child's eyes even if you cling on to wonder.

2
Yesterday, sitting at the back during a vision-
presentation; and later, in a conference 
by activists: the things done to roll the stone
of the world. To where we hope a better place. 
(Sometimes it takes twice as much to keep on

believing). We do anyway; like the stranger
who introduced himself and shook my hand.

3
And courageous, asked "Will you take a look
at my poems, tell me your thoughts. 
I've shown them to no one else." Such trust.
Such honor to be given it. No matter the poems

were bad; there is always enough gentleness.
Aren't attempts half the success itself?

4
I wrote T a very long letter last night while
I was high, with an explicit apology: "Let me
say these before my short sentences surface."
I meant sober where sober meant quiet.
This morning, I dare not open the sent emails.

Because T is afraid of permanence (and I
never asked why) and I give thoughts bodies

5
of perceivable, tangible form. No plant in pot;
all of them on ground. Rhodora, fierce

woman, I met her again a week ago, gone
the sharpness into gentleness of the weary.
Retired after warring ideologies for sixty years.

6
All these slow march of protests towards that.
Even though we might carry no banner.
The things we do to roll the stone of the world.

I kissed her last night after making love.
The soft lights showing gentleness--

that which makes us keep on 
rolling stone of the world.

what we left behind in love

Who, what we left behind in love.
Left behind out of love. 
All reasons into one final tangible thing--
The leaving. Who truly understands it

Not even fully the one leaving, 
Feeling only that which comes first
As feeling before any knowing--
Feeling being the very first language

Of that that cannot be enclosed
Into any simple names.
Who, what we left behind in love.
Left behind out of love.

Others, as well as our own selves--
Versions of the less or more of
What we now are.

clay

What the clay tells is simple: what is broken from care-less remains broken. 
No amount of shaping, no fire can prepare it for fall. Such things as trust,
Maybe not love.
Or maybe that is why I am wrong. Small heart that I have with not enough 
Room to let in anyone that had, once, been let out. Closed the door.

the angry books

Just this morning while calm 
out with dogs, I thought about
the angry books. The several
I keep where I take turns 
unmasking myself, also
masking self partly from self.

Perhaps, several years from
when I've written them I will 
see them better, see myself
better. Understand blindness.
As when I see my father now.

Corinthian verse

I have stopped defining love, because I can't.
I am resigned to some things impossible, because
Mere I am. Words are as large as universes
Capable of holding entireties I cannot even
Imagine, even though I try volunteering 
As writer, mere puppet of voices.

How can anyone be so certain of things?
Even this body may not be real, real only
Because I cannot see so many other
Things. My awareness, so limited. Dogs know
More than I ever would, the unseen, smells
Of worlds. They also know about love

Unconditional.
















after a line from Mary Oliver

dear friend

What of the American dream? Now that we all have achieved it.
We find a nomadic part remains. To take so less with us except
What matters in the long journey: feet to carry, body of joy.
Everything else, it seems, merely trappings we have come to
Be accustomed and could not let go. These we have now 
We only dreamed about half a lifetime ago. Something to learn
From the animals we keep: To have nothing else but love

Only so very difficult for us: bearing our simple joys.

Roethke

She says to hurry to hurry to hurry I say to pause "I take my waking slow"
The things to do will never run out They are a legion that never slows
She chides and she smiles and sometimes understands the need to slow
In praise of slowness we kiss She half walks and I half run
To take our waking slow

conversation without bodies

What the vodka does is ease
boundaries we see called bodies.
The fields: height, colour, hair
style, demeanour etcetera

minds, by habit, label for survival.
Such identification necessary
caution for anyone in bodies

born, breathing, working, living
as we do; how naturally 
equipped we are to know

threats. Every person
a field to survey.
Which must be why hard

drinks are necessary for real
conversations, and darkness
for making love. For when

completely sober, bodies talk
in the language of gauging
petty things made important

such as "there is something wrong
the pipe under sink; the water
bill is erroneous; the doghouse

needs cover from the rain."

entering oceans

He said he would like to farm one day, spend 
the remaining of his life bearing with the land.
This man I admire so much for kindness
my own dark heart slows its pace.

It has been nearly a decade now since last
we spoke. I continue to echo his words,
writing is word made flesh.
Perhaps, after all, I've heeded the calling

no matter in another form. Quiet mornings
by the window such as this, I think it is
the lonely sailing that I feel. At seventy

I would like to stay very close to the sea,
see all the time the horizon all will cross
on the given day.














photo by J.Quintos

among the lasts

Let me tell you about my restlessness, the uncertainty
of my leaving because dearly I wanted to that I am 
afraid the dividing line that will be the news. Two worlds.

At the moment, there is nothing beyond September
those days that are steps toward a cliff of two bridges
one must I take given the word. What word. Not one 

of us now says a thing, both waiting, while things away
making endless strings of short travels: points A to B;
A to C; A to D etcetera where the sea is a moving part.

Roger says I am ready now, I am. Am I? Of course,
there is no better time than now. This year no longer
than necessarily so being a turnstile in the middle

this road that is now as lived. We do not say what needs
not be said. I hold you close in mornings that I repeatedly
memorize even as I know I cannot forget.

when i will meet you

When finally I will meet you, 
I imagine there will be 
nothing to utter and many
distances to cross. 
Each of us a world
too long alone on its own,
making and conversing
with bird shadows on walls.
We will be right across
each other on the table,
wondering how it all
has come to this, singular
moment of meeting.
To begin the real knowing
is to begin the crossing 
from whichever previously
we know as real or unreal.
How will I say the first word.
How will we begin

what can be shared

What can be shared but what I can tell you and you, me
The burden words have to carry, a weight in universe
To ferry across the tide of nothing, myself to you and you to me
No matter the truth it battens: no such thing that matter
Truly can be shared. For what is love, but two lonelinesses
holding hands in the dark.












after J.Garcia

who we are

Who are we but merely
the sum of things

Nothing more than a passing
dust

Many believe to be
eternal in another form

Among others intangible
love and soul

Are we the unnameable
merely

A force in relation to 
all love     






photo by Y. Schneidt

wonderer

The existential questions do not end. 
I began asking when I was twelve
would I be the same, I asked mum, 

were my name different, 
had I liked things different.
It was summer on way to gran's;
my favourite shirt on: Sydney
because it fit perfect, was light

blue green embossed sea and sky.
And there was hibiscus blooming
the walkway to gran's; when I looked
up the sky was sea the clearest hue.

And I understood that
maybe it didn't matter at all.   




photo J.Yap

what is not real-- a true

One long marriage after, do you still believe?
I want to, if still possible now. But I am no
Longer the same from that many years ago.
What has been broken, remains

Weathered and less than the one who dreamt.
Who still dares to tread the narrow?
The young, the fool, the brave.

I watch them admirably, listening to
The pounding of my own unbelieving.