The long while

The long while has much silence as words.
A married woman arrives on the front door.
She holds a picnic basket.
She has eyes that say 
"Do not ask anymore, I am here."

And all the long while I wonder
What prompts a man to open a door, 
Let her come in. 
Or yet, closes the door behind him
As he joins her elsewhere.

inside the ribcage

Here, at this time of the year, the sky flatten 
the hours. It becomes almost impossible to tell,
sometimes, the time unless you press your pulse

to know you are still among the living. Here,
where every thing has become so efficient and
then not. The selvedges are ripped, if one cares

to notice. Such small things like the seeing
through an opened window the lovers, now kissing,
have forgotten to close. Most of the time

every one has learned to move with flat-line
hearts that have become so civil, so tirelessly
euphemistic that at times I am beginning to feel

this calamity, incredibly scripted, un-human.

the silk road

Names are always beautiful. As beautiful 
as we can imagine them to be. Framing 
them with the lines of our wants, the unsaid 
and unanswered needs. We tell and we do not
tell; the yearnings are always difficult,

no words come, they balk at the touch.
If I may be direct, how will you respond?
If I tell you I wonder how it will be
to be right across you, the table meant
for two? It is possible.

All these exchanges happening while sharing
a metaphysical table. So it is this, we
have no bodies, no faces, no names; but
how the words flow. Moving and always
in a state of unsettled be-coming.

The silk road can be seen from outside
our window; a candle flickers, you unfold
a table napkin; I search for a word trying
to find an excuse to look at you.
Someone comes close, asks what we'll have
for dinner. 

the unsame world

How can we live in a same world?
I made the mistake of looking out 
the clear glass of the front door 

and smiled (did I really?)
           
that the man who saw it took it
as sign he could shovel.
My shovel was leaning on the porch

so there was no need of him.

But it was early in the morning
and I was just coming down to tea
and the man was cold, explaining

his deal for something to eat.

The things we could, need to do.
The real things beyond our real.
I didn't carry

cash, what is also called the thin
line between warmth and cold, 
the places where people stood. 

wsw 18 mph

There are movies about this.
And books, and love affairs
and stories.
How there is a wall, call it
wind, geography, distance

upon which we press our ears
and listen to the other.
Words and breaths.
We place our palms flat
on the wall and listen to

the wind howl, the gusts
shaking the leafless treetops
and making the windows sound

as though knocking, to open.
But we do not. Knowing why
it is better, not.

waking up with no memory

It is the entanglements after. If there are any.
Most of the time, it is best

when both know it is nothing else. But that
spur of the moment--

muscles, adrenaline, the quickening of beats
towards cosmic release

before returning to the exhaustion of bodies 
and what is it that has always been there: our

own tired places in a slow and spinning world. 
It has been a long, long time

since.
Never quite losing sobriety facing passion.

Always steady to take the long drives 
and decide at least three steps ahead, as though

still playing chess with whoever it is across.
On better days,

I think myself in transit on a lucid boat
crossing an ocean called Weather&Time.

There has got to be a return or an arrival
somehow, although at the moment

my thoughts are only as simple 
as has she thought of me today.

sitting on the steps, leaving on a bike, at 10

There is a plausible reason why
women (may) tend to believe it is
they who are rejected.
The apparatuses of ideologies
repeatedly soak them so.
But long ago, before all these

we were ten and I said something
that had hurt you and I was sorry
and you wouldn't accept it,
refusing the popsicle offering
already starting to melt in my hand.
Sitting on the steps that summer

I learned who will always be
fearful; and suddenly fearful 
of my own discovery, I 

threw away the offering in anger.
The popsicle's sweetness 
melting away, its bone to the sun.

Was it my first desperation then?
The first grand show 
to the largest audience of one

whose magnificence I discovered
and feared. And she?
She wouldn't even look at me.

So at ten, I took my bike and
learned to leave in pompous glory.

young man

The list for the grocery would be short.
But walking through the aisles, 
By itself, The List would grow, long and
With wings, maybe, as in poultry.
And promising as in spices, sweet like
Dates in a section closer to wines.
It would be important to impress the girl, 
Nope, not soda or beer or pizza.
Not in that old way of wooing 
That she would be a queen, 
In the kitchen.
The young man would show off he could
Make fire and keep a pot warm,
Apologize as well he's no cook, but
She should stay put on the high chair
And enjoy his attempt to show grandly
What he has trouble saying plain.
And the pretext for her coming over?
Anything but a movie on a small screen,
Anything that would lead to the couch,
Anything that would lead to anywhere else
Except the kitchen.
And seeing him trying not to be a klutz
In an apron with a wooden ladle, she
Would most likely offer to cut the onions.
Between the two of them, someone would 
Banter and another would quip,
And laughter a chorus that would fill.
The fried chicken wings, burnt.
The butternut soup, no salt.
Only the multigrain bread absolved.
He: "We got the dates, though."
She: "And this is some wine."

by the river

A mile from where I am, there is a river.
There are ducks, some other birds. The water
fragments and glistens like glass, and runs
with a sound like bodied spirit-wind.

Sometimes the afternoon walks take me there.
Mostly to see the sun 
set behind the mountains. Beautiful sky.
There are men who sport fish, bass usually.

It is tempting to do the same; though, 
why bait and hook a fish merely for pleasure
stops me in much the same way
I stop myself from crossing what separates 

us.

what the mind says

what the minds says/ is altogether different.

i take walks in the morning, walks

in the late afternoon towards evening, evening late

the lights becoming/ is altogether different.

i have to keep remembering now, nearly

all the time what made the decision to keep on 

this way beyond distances and times of day, past

the roads seen ahead/ what the mind says

is altogether different.

After, Then

There will be no return, woman. 
No knock on your door, my once beloved.
We both are too weary to attempt 
Any more old familiar dance.
Any better man knows, there really is
No more having back what was lost.
What was lost impossibly scattered now.
Irretrievable. Irredeemable.
All that we have left, you and I
Are the remains. Only another form
Of ashes. Arms wrapped around yourself
Standing by the closed front door. 
I, looking back at you, at the porch, 
The yard, the house, the neighborhood, 
The curb, the life,
From the rearview mirror.

The Act of Remembering

A dangerous thing, this act.
Betrayal to one's own mind who
once decided and precariously
ordered the will to 
severe part of itself, 
preserving most 
of what spirit remains.

And then suddenly this-- 
re-collecting, bringing back
to make as part again
what had been 
intentionally let fall away.

When still young, there was 
so much strength to push
ahead, against the gusts.
To keep forward the head
steady from not looking back.

Perhaps because the road
was still long, the young
eyes still unable to sense
what lies by the by, 
by the bend.

Our immortal's time.

Now here we are. Here I am.
The familiar autumn 
on my back. I try, I try
to push against the gusts.
To keep away from the act,
from surrendering to
remembering. I do not want

to say I am afraid that come
this winter, the bones will,
on their own, remember.











  

A long goodbye

I have few weeks left before final leave-taking.
These weeks pass in slow motion but pass they do 
Just the same. The list of things to do has 
A certainty in it: the number of banks, the emails, 

The visits to dentist, and barber whom I will see 
Twice more before having to find someone like him
Again in another country (though I doubt it

Someone who already knows, by seeing me, 
Exactly what to do). A poem has been written about 
Having the same barber throughout one's life, 

A kind of faithfulness and understanding of being.
I anticipate on the last visit the appearance 
Shall be the same though I tell him 

To cut as short as possible and he might wonder 
But not ask. The scissors and blade will move
In the same way. The look on the mirror 

And the sound of "thanks", the tip before the door 
The same. Of the list, only the dentist will know 
From the way a tooth submits to certainties.

When memory is long

it is more difficult to forgive. I remember
the exact words you said 
inside the room 
where all the words we hurled at each other
lay with the shards of glass and mirror

remains of china, frames, memorabilia
what you wore and the colour of the sheets
the sound of begging
and finality, that immovable self-possessed weight.

The stolid words, once arrived, stay
no matter you sweep them with many vacations,
drowning them in tropical seas of laughter
into a forgetfulness; the words know

how to breathe darkly in subterranean waters
finding their labyrinthine way, resurfacing
as beasts of reason
for disbelief and anger 

unfaithfulness. 
You and I do not mention 

the lock is broken and I wonder why 
it cannot be said in plain words.
What we choose not to understand.
How memory gets in the way.
A hallway, a strait. You and I, different shores.

nearly midnight

It seems to you there is a consistent hunger
In you somewhere you can neither point nor name.
Everything else appears alright.
Action movie on the cable, some mutated turtles

The kind you could have loved lifetimes ago
Now you place on mute and sleep through.
Its only redeeming quality, a young woman
Too beautiful only the young can believe

To be real. You would have preferred bio pics, 
Political conspiracies, the end of the world 
As is known, at least; these are familiar.
Closer to what you have come to believe.

And what do you believe? At eight, you had 
Your last faith in Santa Claus; at fourteen,
Fools' love. You wonder how some can go on
Dreaming of romance. Or world peace.

You remember someone saying to look at
Inevitable failure in the eye, exchanging
Blows with it anyway. A hopeless kind of talk,
Pessimism you do not subscribe to but

Remember anyway. The hero suffers in the movie.
You feel yourself pointing out refugees dying
In the next channel. And at the street, 
the stray dog scrawny and sick with open woods.

The three candles you lighted at the church
Of Saint Teresa saying god alone suffices.
You still believe. And you feel it--although
What it is, you no longer know. 

All news by the day growing more and more
Disturbing. Stranger than any tall story
About mutants or aliens. These kinds of movies.
This world. Growing more complicated to resolve.

The TV goes on without sound.
Your dog shifts at your feet. 
It, too, cannot sleep. Ever shameless
In trusting you, waiting for you again.

the flock, the flock

I no longer say "Bless me, Father
For I have sinned." I have left
A long time ago. Not anymore
The same child who read the bible
Every afternoon, cover to cover
For the stories of unbelievable
Faith for a beyond admirable man

Or god; in my life there 
Are stories in middle of stories
The ones I do not dare have light
Or air on them--for what use?
They are the silence between
My god and me. 

I have keep my peace with 
Men and women claiming closeness
To god whom they seem to know
Up close: we are entitled to
Our own brand of delusions. But
I do not say this, let them be.
My own is that god and I 

Are this: cosmos letting me be;
My own weakness leading me--
From time to time--to becoming
That same child again who
Has nothing but faith and fear

And faith: all to be good again.

words do not die, one must remember the sunshine

Words do not die, one must remember the sunshine
what it was that used to feel 
the world is large enough for all the rooms 

of love. 
All the windows open, you kiss by the street
both twenty 

or something again. Words do not die, especially
unsaid what it was that used to feel
what was meant when she said 

to never call again. One must remember the sunshine.
Words do not die in another universe
someone has courage to dial the phone again.

because we'll never know the rest of the way

i wonder how it will be meeting you again
the world is not that large
it is small enough

chances are

we might come across each other again
i know i wouldn't know
what to make of it

chances are

you will appear indifferent exactly the way
versions of you did in
survival stories

something over

the many other lovers left in your wake
because i wasn't blind all along
because neither of us were blind

we knew all along, it was over
chances are

we knew all along, it would be over
chances are

we knew we wouldn't be over.

where you and i are

Names can be deceiving.
A letter, when given to a room
Ceases the room to be.

What is a room?
Room that is in a house, that is in
A life, that is a space

To occupy as love would
Inhabit a time.
And loving, a state of habitation.

Where you and I are, shall we
Receive a name for it or forgoing
Let the where itself be.

I thought of a lover by another name 
In another way, is still a lover.
As love is afraid and brave

Certain of uncertain.

gentle non-fiction

One type of genre I step back from is the personal essay. In spite of ideas such as fossilised written selves vis-à-vis transitory selves, the certainty and nuance of an elusive self migrating in space and time, the lies of protracted drama in the name of art, the unreliable "I", other beautiful and convincing arguments the many number of friends writing in the genre say, I remain a step away.

Non-fiction, no matter how gentle, how sincere, tells too much. A freshman's first draft of narrative essay tells how she was physically abused by a father, how she cried in the middle of a cornfield, thought of running away from home, decided to stay. Another draft of a Haiyan survivor's account.

Sometimes I pretend not to wrestle with the question why. 

No matter sometimes I feel something surfacing from the well of quiet to be written this way, in this genre of gentle sincerity. There, a lump in the throat. A remembering of something that is, perhaps, being slowly forgiven by the self within the self, in spite of the self.

And yet, I step away. Less courageous than a nine-year-old battered by her father at the cornfield.