A Lovely Place

what a lovely place
and yet so cold and forlorn
warmth and light soon comes
let us frolic upon its coming
tramping down wild flowers
jumping low bushes
scraping your knees on sharp thorns
I will be glad to kiss away the sore

Wisdom of the Mountains

the mountain wind blew
whispered wisdom, uttered truths
from leaf to leaf then tree to tree
bounced from the rugged ridge
to the lofty mountain crest
settling on the pine covered glade
here is where I’ll camp

Purgatory

I was sucked in by an eddy of raging lava
An infernal hole of blinking redness and darkness.
My soul groping for some outgrowth in the rim
Of a gaping caldera brimming with toxic fumes

A wreath was tossed by a kind specter from an overhang
Brightening for a few moments the evil mouth
Some spark of hope before the engulfing of the light
Before the obliteration of all that is good and right

You were to redeem me from my wretchedness
But like an evil boil on the land's face
You only caused me pain and anguish
A throbbing ache on a quivering flesh

I sailed through treacherous straits
Via the doldrums and the lake of the Hydra
Into the mythical triangle of the Sargasso
You devoured and sunk me a thousand fathoms

You drove me with your feigned affection
How commiserating you seemed of my frailties and woes
The shamness of it reeked through shuttered portholes
As I viewed a false parade of masquerading sneers

I have loved you much, too much to my undoing
You were the words of my song, the furnace of my loins
My magic box wherein stowed my dreams, fantasies,
My creed and my joys, where dwell my passion and salvation

You have cast me to an oblivion of your creation
Oh woman loved, but heartlessly not loving back
A place of ungranted desires, of pain without remission
My soul in ruin and my heart pathetic in cold chains

I turn my back on you now, woman!
Whatever foolish notions I had harbored now departed
I have sobered up from a mindless stupor held so long
Worms neath the bark now exposed and evasive of the light

While ugliness have now sprouted from your brows
I look back with gratitude for all the momentary pleasures
Crushed but ecstatic in your grasping tentacles then
Relieved at last, gaining freedom from your stranglehold

Little Freedoms

Some freedoms will be late in coming
Not this afternoon nor tonight
Not ever hurried through resolute effort
Nor through exaction, nor imposition

We all cherish our little freedoms
Unfettered, not hemmed down
By strangers from ourselves
Proudly we stand foursquare on this

Forces abound around us
Other people's strong assertions
You cannot do this nor that
Why not, we shout back lamely

Freedoms are urgent
They are burgeoning forces
Throbbing in the heart
Wanting out from confinement

Easy to say
I want my freedoms
Whoa! hold it, keep your cool
It comes on its own accord

The Sea

One sullen day on a beach
I spread my beach towel on the sand
And posed as if in deep musing
But nothing came to my senses
Except the hiss of the sea breeze

I thought the cold of the water
Would stir me up from my lethargy,
I dipped my head twice
But it only numbed me some more.
I could have drowned in its iciness.

Instead I looked at the sea in the eye
And spat out an obscene oath.
If you couldn't solace a spent soul,
You are inutile, you over-rated majesty
Not able to assuage a man's discomfiture.

A Wake In the Barrio

Funeral wakes in our barrio
Are simple but picturesque

Amidst boiling cauldrons of
Rice porridge with strips of tripes

A gathering of mourners intone their grief
While downing jugs of native grog

The sakla master shuffles the deck
Cards bearing luck not auguring death

Children past bedtime hours scaring
Each other while hiding under the casket

Wilted floral wreaths line up the walls
Like sentinels with nauseous breaths

The honored one somber in slumber
Indifferent to the homage paid him

The widow worries about the collection
Fingers the knotted hankie bulging with coins

Will there be enough to pay in the morrow
The brass band engaged to liven the sorrow?

Oh, but her eldest will arrive from LA tonight
Bringing dollars, then there's nothing to fear

Picture yourself behind the coffin's misted glass
A life well led but ended with trifling ceremony

Funeral wakes in the barrio will always be the same
As if I care, but I wish I can do better on my turn.

Harana

A tune and its refrain hauntingly crooned
While a guitar is strummed in soulful rhythms
A mellow leitmotif for a kundiman
Plaintive words from an ignored swain
A lad emoting as only a lovelorn can

As if obliged the moon shone bright at
A night that was quiet except for the chirps
Of pesky nocturnal winged creatures
Thoughtless of the pain of a boy in swoon
In sympathy the dogs did not bark at the moon

The kundiman played on and on
While the strings struggled to keep pace
With the erratic rhythm of a dragged out tune
Sang by a smitten singer looking at a window
That stayed closed hiding a fair maiden's face

Oh, the promises were high and plentiful
The sadness and the sting of rejection heavy
For a moment even the mocking nocturne of chirps
Subsided as if relenting to the heart-rending pleas
Ever eloquent in words and in song

The nacred windows stayed unopened
All through the cold and hostile darkness
A song that can soften dark angels' hard core
Fell on unhearing ears and an indifferent heart
No matter, the harana will play on as it always did

Qualms

Your words inspired the letting loose of the ogres of spite
From your feigned naivete the silencing of a thousand flutes

You widened the chasm between me and my paradise
The gap between the eastern and western strands

A hint of betrayal in the guise of affection loomed
Enraged brightness that blurs and blinds totally

A nuclear head riding a blazing rocket running berserk
Carving its imprints of earth dents and bottomless sinkholes

Obliterating the clam diggers and the sandpipers on the sand
While I lie on shore with blackened and crinkled skin

Bleached skull and big bones emerging from crumbly ash
My soul flying off without bidding goodbye from the residue

On A Far Away Beach At Dawn

Your face is etched in the stars that dot a sky about to lose its black
Mirrored as a reflection on a luminous sheet of sea at low tide

The image skittered like sand pipers dissolving as the first rays
Of an impatient sun scattered light on the slate gray sand

A harsh westerly blew to shore and slapped my face
Assailed my nose with the briny redolence of shoreline waste

From afar clam diggers sat on empty pails digging and
Poking with bamboo spatulas the water logged sand

I heard your voice mingle with the twittering of the shore birds
As they skipped and darted leaving their V marks on the glistening sand

I thought of my easy chair, my garden, I thought of your smile...of home
A harsh westerly slapped my face, a briny redolence assailed my nose.

Reckoning

Into the bottomless depths of
an insatiable human vanity
Some vision, perhaps an illusion
Of youthful conquests, green laurels
Linger in a colorless reverie.
I, cradled in Morpheus’ arms
Unwilling to be awakened from
A blinking dark to light kaleidoscope
Trophies with dull gleams
Plaques with tarnished sheen and
Illegible citations of dubious merit
Brittle sheepskin with obscure Latin script
Are these all that I have wrought
In a lifetime of toil and invention?
How beggarly my existence has been
As I face the numinous One
To Him who bequeathed a legacy
For a life that is replete with promise
Of selflessness, of beneficence, of divinity
All of which were left stillborn in me.

In A Field of Daisies

Daisies arrayed row on row
On a blanket of mottled green
Marked by black and white monoliths
On the ground and above it
Only the sun to ease the reposed from
The tedium of morning, noon and end of day
Just stars and the moon give brightness
To the dark and cold of an unsympathetic night
Memories swept like dried leaves and cut grass
No visitors now lay garlands and wreaths
No more caring hands to pull weeds
And unwanted tare on the unkempt lawn
A beloved husband then overly grieved
Now in aloneness amidst other scattered bones
A son and daughter’s mortal remains interred
Beneath a coarsely woven impenetrable veil
Of forgotten existence and faded affections
Soon names and epitaphs on hard stone
Are erased by wind, rain and indifference
Not even the lowly worms delight
Over bare and dried up skull and bones
Only hypocritical daisies bow in the wind
As if in reverence, as if in remembrance
Are the dead thankful for the decay
And insentience of their mortal remains?
Surely they are for they can no longer feel,
Nor see the faithlessness of spouses and lovers
Ingratitude of children and the inconstancy of friends.

Poesy Defiled

What have I gotten myself into?
A dance of nances, a dilettantes' ball,
Men in mistaken milieus
Ladies feigning radical chic
In pretense of art and sensitivity
Of the unwanted and the ignored
Spewing vulgarity and unabashed behavior
Hiding behind the absurd and the ambiguous
As if fearful of being stripped naked
All in the name of mythical temperaments
And consciously fabricated personae

Poets with fractured verse gather
As in symbiotic safety
Unmindful of grammar formality
Spewing anarchic syntax
Senseless verbiage strung indiscrete
Metaphors unmatched and asinine
Words spelled as heard
Free verse shamelessly abused
Mouthing poetic license as an excuse to
Inflict mayhem on literariness
Drawing attention as avant-garde
The charade lives on, robust and raucous
In the circle of fools

The Wayfarer

Stranger from the highlands and cold climes
Your gaudy costume and cleated shoes
Speak of romance and never ending adventures
What can you tell me of the land that you came from?
Did a mother cry when you tightened your bootstraps,
And did a sweetheart pour her heart out and tore her golden hair,
In the highlands grooved with gorges and capped in white?
What made you turn your back from the warmth of the home fire,
From the safety of familiar haunts and comfort of kinfolks?

I look at you in wonder and in honest envy,
Did I not have the same urge to seek out the world?
The long road beckoned, a gilt lined horizon held promise
Of riches, strange loves, sights and sounds waiting to be felt
The wanderlust of youth never been put to rest
Now the resolve is almost gone though the urge remains strong

I listen to you with whirred hearing
Your tales conjure images unclear and lackluster
How pitiful that imagination has failed
To see the splendor, the spectacle, the thrill
Of faraway places from whence you came.
What is the color of a sunset from a mountain crest?
Are daffodils and edelweiss as bright as sampaguita?
Tell me again and again because the images fade quickly
Blurred flashes, a confusion of gray, black and white’
A mind-numbing monotonic haze is all I see.



Rest your tired arms and legs on my soft chair
Let the cool sweetened bubbly quaff moisten the dryness
Of a roughened gullet so that you can weave more tales
To regale my inquisitive yet hardly comprehending mind.
Looking at you now and trying to feel the pleasures
You must have felt throughout the years of wandering
Leaving your trail on foreign sod, seeing faces
Black, white, brown, yellow and other hues
Friendly, hospitable as well as hostile and cruel.

Tell me if it was worth it all
Leaving a crying mother and a woeful wife
Abandoning kith and kin, familiar and friendly haunts
Or is it just the folly of youth, the dare of the unknown?
Do you not regret having the hot winds sear your face,
The trackless routes, the gravelly path, the thorns in your shoes.
Do you not regret these?

Tell me I am right in staying put
The travel itch still unscratched, but, I would not know
If the pleasures are as my mind earlier envisaged
Or will I forever wonder what glories and fortunes
Have passed my way when I did not sail or fly my fancy.

Bare Assed

I come to you now unclothed, unwashed and unabashed’
This is my barest, lowliest, truest self,
With wanton passions brimming, ogling with animal intent
This is me wallowing neck deep in the sweet but unctuous tar pit
Nurturing my prurient delights, my wettest of dreams
I slink through dark parlors besotted and puking
I spew lewd orations enjoyed by kindred low life,
My gem of the barrel dregs!my jewel of sewer silt!
I come to you unclothed, unwashed and unabashed
Frenzied and clumsy in anticipation
I rush and come to be one with you,
So embrace me now my lovely, quickly
Before I don my clothes again.

The Morning God Sang

The sounds came rushing in, where did it come from?
Has it always been there? Angels’ halleluiahs, God’s riant laughter
Ascending, reverberating in crescendo at the gladdening hour,
Trilling with early birds, buzzing, whirring with the bees on morning forage
The day now begins clearly, with light spreading from the ridge to the lucent lake below
Love songs sung in gaiety, noble anthems, magnificent hymns and gentle pinings
Like Orpheus’ flute, the music wafted in the air, oh what euphony!
Tones winding in and out, weaving with the breeze, brushing against pine needles
Out-shouting, out-running each other in playful chase, playing tag with grasshoppers and soprano birds

Then as quickly as it appeared, the joyous harmony stopped, stillness began
The reality of the late morning sun caught up with me and imposed a silence in its recognition

The Medium Is the Message

Let’s not talk about terrorism, write, nor broadcast it
No more the sight of blood and gore from dismembered
Carcasses of men and women, young and old, and the tender flesh
Of babies scattered, alighting on treetops and eaves of houses
Unchecked hell, ball of fire singeing, bloody scimitars like
Venomous tongues of diamond-eyed serpents strike
With senseless abandon on bright sunny days of barrio fiestas

Innocents dragged for ransom, indiscriminate and ruthless
To forward political and religious causes, or is it just banditry?
The white flags drip red oozing from wounds of the unwary
Enough of this on tv, enough of this in newspapers and radio
Get your revenue from somewhere else, not from blood money
You only stoke the flames, ransoms go higher, embolden scum and make
Famous the infamous, opportunists into heroes ready for the polls

Enough of the false glitter reflected on the tube and silver screen
Let’s be done with silly plots, martyred women and crying waifs
No more the inane and vulgar dialogues and dragging scenes
Clothe the immodest, the mammalian freaks who bare as if in art
The sick and kinky pleasures penned by hysterical fairies
Selling obscene laughter from the tasteless slapsticks of gay ridicule
Lewdness and crudity are now clicheic fare regardless of audience

Let’s raise the cause for better media offerings
Uplifting themes, virtue rewarded, moral lessons to children
Heroes worthy of emulation, not the rich and the powerful who
Flaunt their ill-gotten loot, getting away with their insidious deeds
Let’s sing hymns to those who serve well, applaud exemplars from the barrios
Those who labor with honest toil, plowing and seeding the native sod
Let media deny those who self-aggrandize, those who create saccharine images
Reject bulging envelopes of releases with ulterior motives and wads of bills
News that disinform, make malice, besmirch the honest, lionize the crooked
The tube and the diode box are bad news, the press blotted by its own ink
Let’s now defer listening, seeing and believing the heralds of a muddied estate

The Foothills

The foothills seem rueful and evasive today
Its outline glow seems palled and
The twilight reluctant to give up the light
Its sun a dull emboss on weak pink,
With rays like wrinkled fingers crawling.
A lethargic passing of a day

Clasped by avian claws a hare’s mangled fur
Wriggly worms feasting on rotting mouse
Crafty spider weaving zombie bags
An aloof mantis lops off her lover’s head
A woodsman felling venerable trees
The air reeking with scents of battered wood

I promised to keep this to myself
As I looked away from the scene
I shudder to think of the mayhem
Happening everyday in a sleepy glade
But, some things in the foothills
Are better left veiled in gorgeous green

Bottom Feeders

Bottom feeders
In a cloudy tank
Eagerly watching
Dimpled pink morsels
Settle down on a pebbly bed
Watch out from the rear
Your gorgeous apertures
Jeopardized I fear
Sit tight
Bottom feeders
In a frenzy

If I Was Going –

If I was going
Surely I will come
And go as I went

I met three on the way
Coming back I met three
Should there be more?

The morning sun went
From east to north
A long day, today

If I was going
Surely I will come
And go as I went

But, I Wanted To Sing –

Sparrows in my mind
Scratching for ort
Stirring a host
Crowding in my bowels
Have the fireflies flown?
From a grumbling cavern
They fly up to
My uptight gullet
Pushing up bile
Tamped down
By peristalsis

Aach, what a sting!
But, I wanted to sing

Pastorale

The fog draped on
Mildew, mushroomed
In a field of wax
I lost foothold
Slipping and
Grasping straws
The wind denied my hands
Lost in a field
Of waxen mildew

I am blue
My horn I blew

Red Book (Juan Makabayan)

Red book pages were props
Up on the mountain tops
Slime green cascade
Spoiled my marmalade
Glo was here today
With dogs held at bay
Furious hands grapple
The doctor prescribed apple
Mike took them all
Nothing left in the mall

I had to go down

Counter Flow

The patter pitter of the rain
Played concert with the
Tock tick of the clock
As my day started with the
Setting of the sun
I could hear the music
Rolling and rocking
From the room next
As people went out and in
Slamming doors

From the window
I strained my neck
To see and look
Behold and lo
People about and up
Flowing fro and to
Like the tides and ebbs
Of swampy waters

The strange sequence
Of events that go and come
Had me bewildered and bothered
But on the down and up
Considered, it may be better
That our fortunes go and come
And fate is as we die and live

Bye, Bye Blackbird

Blackbird
Singing from high tension wires
Urging me to sing along
Follow the frittering flashes
Of smoldering plumes
Strung up like notes
I should be home by six
But it is a pity to miss
Bird burning up high
Will anyone understand?
Asked Billie, what lament
The song intones
Blackbird strung up
In high wire
No harder luck story
Than this been told
Make my bed and light the light
I’ll be home late tonight

A Murderous Season

His dark majesty rode in with fluttering cape shrouding the day
With no bugles to herald, no chorus chanting his usurping of the light
The people in the village huddled and together trembled with fright
Pulled down the shades and barricaded the doors of straw and mud
“We’re not ready for you,” they shouted peering through slits of rotting wood
“I come at my pleasure”, he roared from his fiery eyed ebony mount

“Where are your offerings…your fealty…your sacrifices?
Where is the fattest of sheep, the youngest of sons, the purest of maidens?”
“Tempt me not to summon my minions to wreak havoc on your lowly abodes”

“Oh your eminence, forgive us for our shortcomings, turn your anger
Somewhere else…the next village perhaps…we will be ready in a fortnight”
The sheep will be fattened, our Benjamin ready and the virgin dressed in white
With a shrug that shook forests, blew away clouds and tossed seas
He said “I am a god that does not wait, I want your offerings now.
Your pleas insult me, your excuses disgust me, your promises infuriate me

All throughout the village a heavy pall of fear and dread hovered
Then he left with a shattering flash of lightning and the roar of crashing waters
Even the dawn was reluctant to shine out of the gloomy wake

Through the gray of an unsettled morning light
No babies bawled, raucous children silenced and dogs lost their whimper
Huddling in corners of their decrepit huts mumbled prayers ululated
Fathers and mothers wrap their arms around their quivering wards

Somewhere in the village young men grouped and with loud voices
Declared “prepare, be ready, let’s put up a stand against this onslaught”
Lit torches crackled, the staccato thud of pegs driven on hardwood and
The gnashing of metal sheets lashed on steady moorings were heard all night
(Lit torches crackled, steel against steel gnashed with their honing
The staccato of bamboo poles hewed and sharpened in broken rhythms)

As before, his dreadful majesty comes without herald, without ominous harbingers
The sky will crack up and with bright electric storm light up a silhouette of trees
Along the edge, a bleak horizon flashing off and on in rapid succession
As bats dot the darkened the forest’s canopy like scattered ants in a broken hill

Now he came as threatened…sudden, looming big, terrifying and horrid
Against a backdrop of a splintered sky…a tattered Aurora’s hem
Thunderous hooves fell on hard and dry ground shaking up mountains
Primeval forests bared and hills flattened with every heavy stride

It was a peaceful night in the tiny hamlet, only the rustling of rotted leaves
And the mewling of a distant cat could be heard in the village square
Past the ruins of an adobe chapel, by the field of withered corn stalks
Roods of odd sizes and slabs of crude granite scattered on weeded plots

A murderous season came to pass, a plunder most cruel and swift
There is no redress, no recompense, no relief and no reparation
Injustice, unfairness and unconscionable cruelty never were protested
It is the way of all things and it will inflict its fury again in time

David’s Birthday Poems

1. There is this David from Saigon
Upon seeing a cake on a ledge
Huffed and puffed away
At eleven candles on its edge
Hey! It’s his birthday today!



2. Today David turns eleven
No finer lad this side of heaven
With his smile and clever wit
And a grouch not even a bit
Blew big candles on a cake
A bite of which you have to take



3. No nicer lad than David you will find
A cheery face to match a clever mind
Hey! Today is March three in Saigon
A day for moping and sulking to be gone
For he turns eleven and not a day late
Surely a day for everyone to celebrate.

Sea Change

Do you have a sea within you
Where awesome barnacled monsters
And fragile fish in shiny crimson vests
Scatter in the sea grass as they meet

A swarm of wrasse streaming through
Like muted skylarks chasing wind
On a swathe of gaudy pink corals and
Upon fields of somber olive kelp

Oh what a powerful will lie in wait
In the calm waters of the deep
Only the undulation of the sea grass
Give hint to the burgeoning force

Oft times, restless waves with billowing roar
Swell up to heave foamy white crests
To crash against the stolid gray cliffs
Challenging steadfast promontories

But the land will always frustrate the dare
The sea falls back deeper into its abysmal depths
Then, gathering strength, it rises again
Rallying waves to get back at a startled shore

Dark Eden

I lived in depths of a thousand fathoms
Where days are dark and cold
Darting shrimps leave silver streaks
The only light to be seen at noon

You can’t tell when it’s ebb or tide
In my abyss no precision gauge
Measure what is great and small
Leviathans and weak fish equal in esteem

Friendly barnacles smile but who’s to see
Sea grass greet should anyone come
Fiddler crabs play mute chamber music to
An audience of groupers with mouths agape

Endless miles of filigreed corals
Graceful kelp lined row on row
A regal maze of lime green hedges
Lie hidden in deep blue trenches

Loveliest place in all of the seven seas
Only if a million bonfires could be lit
An Eden kept secret, you know it’s there
Illumined by floodlights of my mind

I Remember Valentine

Do I recall saying,
Lines that ardent swains’ whisper?
Borrowed sonnets from the Portuguese

Do I recall offering,
What every adorer bears?
Wine-red roses and chocolate truffles

Do I recall the impetuous act,
That a lover on impulse dare?
Clasp hands delicate as Dresden blue

Do I recall the affectionate kiss,
That I, with fervent passion implored?
Scarlet lips voluptuous as Autumn cherries

I do recall with longing all these and more,
A lunatic fringe all young lovers dwell in,
Reckless adoration of the beloved on Valentine’s Day

A Pointillist Morning

Off-white mist rising on the ridge
Hurrying into the emptiness between trees
Lost in a thick stroke of green curlicues
Then splattered by a sudden breeze
Like silver droplets scattered by a frisky dog
Shaking off unwanted cold rain
Glistening like playful carmine dots on a
Mantle of matted threads of emeralds
A sudden inspiration, a shimmer of yellow birds
Explodes like a roman candle in sparkling hues
Filling the cerulean sky with tiny glittering flakes
The scene, now in orderly chaos and panic
Strewing golden leaves and bronzen twigs
Blotting over an increasing spread
A canvas speckled with lusty colors
Of an artist’s special view of
A morning by the ridge

To Alicia Back From Dubai

Throw the door wide open and rejoice
With spread arms and welcoming laughter
Oh, my beloved is back from a long sojourn
A perilous odyssey in distant shores

She walked in with silent grace emerging
With familiarity that rekindled the house lamps
Perhaps I will enthrone her there
On the ornate chair at the head of the table

And all the people who came to greet
Curious idlers whiling away the time of day
Will notice her tired but brilliant glow
Modest elegance, with simple flair

Reach out and hold my hand, beloved
Let you and I bask in the familial warmth
Come, adorn my hearth and home
Bringing back affection and care

Open your bag brimming
With your homecoming gifts
Wrapped in happy paper prints
For those huddling by your side

You’re beside us once more
Delirious with joyful affection
Dust and scrape your wayward roving shoes
Never to leave the welcome mat by the door

Graduation Post Script

When we were through with our scholastic years

And have returned to the happy slant of things

Bid hello again to the lively reality of out of school

Relieved from poring heavy tome upon tome

Wanting in words to describe the relief the hiatus caused

From the rigors and hardships of a disciplined way of life

The august halls of the alma mater a prison now behind us

And parchment scroll did seem irrelevant to our lives

The college library had graffiti on its mottled walls

The carillon pealed from cracked bells jangling hymns

A heavy yellow pall spread clammily in the quadrangle

The dean was in disrespect, the faculty tainted, we were sure

But what of the mind?, The cultivation of which

Unknowingly, surreptitiously had been honed to face

The challenges of a reality then far imagined

Clearing the muddled glasses of youthful views

Soon we realize that the years behind the ivied walls

Were not stones wasted and skimmed in an algae filled pond

Later as we mused and pondered complexities of existence

That would have stunned us dumb had we not persisted

Morning Bells and Prayers

The bells rang raucously
As they have always done at six
They rang late for the devoted one
Who was out of bed by five

They rang too soon for some
Who need not wake at such a time
A stolen hour from someone’s rest
To restore strength to work the day

The loudspeakers shouted rudely
On the day’s crack of dawn
Waking every creature from their stupor
Rousing their faith with noisome pleas

The voices buzzed with electric crackle
Intelligible cackle cutting through the fog
It’s done no good for all its intentions
Unwanted annoyance to start the day

Black Bamboo

The black bamboo fronds reached low
Swinging to every blustery blow of the westerly
Up and down, to and fro, left and right
But rising to straighten not staying low for long
Like erect whips snapping lively at impassive clouds
Lashing out against phantom scars and imagined foes

With momentary lulls they spring back to uprightness
The wee creatures at the lower branches stir and chirp
As if a siren sounded the respite and the return of the calm
The bamboo shed encrusted scales relieving the itch
Caused by the constant strain of heaving, stooping and rising
Then it stooped so low, creaked and broke its battered bole

Not even the sparrows at the bowers could, despite their cheering
Set it back to its poised air and proud bearing
The waste left by an unbending and unyielding pride
The litter of the green flaky rust lay on sodden floor
Who is to clean up? Who is to wield the broom?
No, not us. No, not the wind, not you nor I

Terrorism

The zeal of the crusades
Persists resolutely to this day
Shackling the tractable faithful and
Hounding the wretched infidels

Missions more impassioned than ever
In fulfilling their avowed vision for all
Insistence rather than tolerance and suasion
Contrary beliefs and rights repressed

Other faiths fight back with fanatic fervor
Striking with flaming blades the unbeliever
The whiter the flash the redder the carnage
The louder the blast the more terror sown

Death to the cohorts bearing the cross
Sowing terror is ruthless intolerance, but,
Saint George and Michael Archangel delivering
Fire and brimstone to the heathen yet another

Rainy Day

Rain chatters annoyingly
An incessant harangue on metal sheets
Drums, grates, pesters my listlessness

A lackluster sun sinks ever so weakly
On a jagged silhouette of somber evergreens
Its gilt edge no more than erose rustiness

I remember the ugliness of the day
The slate gray of twilight taking over
Amidst the harassment of an obstinate rain

Nocturne

Listen, the footfall of padded paws thud
As twilight wafts its melancholy tune
The traipsing of furtive mannequins into the scene
To start the commerce of the night
Ah, angels on hocked wings mingling in the shuffle
Of insatiable lusts of men of all skins

A nightlong stance of enticement and allure
No rest, nor ease through the cold and apathetic dark
No help, no solace from a sometimes provident night
Singles, pairs or even threes they hustle corners
In tatty glad-rags and blackened rouge they sell
Ersatz affection, snatches of bliss to blighted souls

Heaven has no ears to hearken to piteous plaints
From cracked lips and blistered tongues
They push their trade until soles run raw
Waifs with scarred heels hide in scaly shadows
Oh, what lassitude shrouds the night air
In the blazing red light of a false sunrise

La Belle Dame sans Amour

He saw her pass by
Crossing with familiar rush
A figure caught in strobe

A tree stripped bare in the Fall
Like watercolor blotting badly,
Rouge melting on pudgy skin

Is that she? He asked
Surely not she, he thought
There unmasked in stark light

He loved her truly
They all did, too
Who asked you? She said

Greed

I tell you greed is grasping
It roots on acid ground
Sucks the juice of the muck
Even at the last gasp
Clings with avid vines
On broken slabs and angels
With cracked cement wings

I tell you greed is quenchless
It begrudges the sun its brilliance
Envious of the moon’s glow
Sweeps all the stardust and
Gathers them with a dustpan
And stores them in dark rooms
Gloating in demented joy

I tell you greed is without compassion
Thriving on hedonistic nurture
Denying closeness and amity
Cuts off the umbilical nexus
Shun familial obligations
Shrugs off the flakes of conscience
From the black dress of indifference

I tell you greed is shameless
Ecstatic in pelf and exaggerated self worth
Gloats over riches felt deserved
Forgetful and incognizant of God’s grace
Jingling patina encrusted coins
Amused and savoring the endless count
In glee…in endless count…in glee

Amihan - A Season of Hope

Amihan played in the grove
Touching leaves and sprigs
Breathing on mango blooms
Leaving freshness on the gnarls
Stirring the furry caterpillars
Asleep on curled green sheets

Now the risen sun cast its glare
Striking out with its searing blaze
Soon Amihan shooed and scuttled
Moved on to friendlier milieus
Of green glades and cooler climes
Enjoying the comfort of amiable arbors

Oh kind and merciful Amihan
Let not the tyrant sun sow malevolence
On a withered and desolate grove
Come back and give succor to
The creatures of the green mantle
Threatened by the scorching glare

Come now and save your flock
Never again must you stray
Blot out the hand of the despot sun
Bring back freshness into our clime
Return the peace and the comfort
To a beleaguered and desperate people

The Muse

Traipsing the mountain slopes
Even before the sun had crossed
The distant nebulous endless line

In flight with swifts, flitting motes
Scratching the inner eye
Blurred in the cottony haze

I know she’s somewhere there
In the velvet glow of dawn, but
Never in the glare of noon

Come let me feel your touch again
Restore my quills’ vibrant strokes
Put fecundity in my sterile pad

She comes only at her will
Flirty lady, insensitive bitch
I am but a waif at your whimsy

Dysphoria

Strange fates and unwanted destinies
Stuck and ensconced on us like barnacles
Adding to our discomfort and dismay
Evanescent ease, inconstant joys
Our inheritance from alien origins
Undeserved legacy foisted on us

Our sojourn is not from ease to ease
But rather moving from worse to worst
Snatching bread from mouth to mouth
Living lives from barrenness to little worth
Can you find a hiatus from this affliction?
Yes, but, it's an infinitesimal wait.