on reading a poem

It isn't true what they say
that the setting must matter, neither
the day. To be honest, a poem could find me anywhere
and still, I would remain half of myself, reading
it. This morning, on a trip home, I found a poem
crumpled up next to the seat I occupied.
I had the sense
that the world moved on, had left my body
which drowned headfirst
in the wet bosom of the first lines. I am standing
in the middle of an old living room and I am helping my husband
with his necktie. The words say that I am lonely and
I felt my hands expressing this while they skimmed
over a pattern of wild geese. The writer says that I am waiting for
my husband to leave me. Upon reaching the end, I learned that he will
never return and I know this is true. The person
who has written this never says it, not directly, but
the honesty he left in the
un-telling frightened me. My feet felt
tired all of a sudden, as if they have walked
over every possible body that wants to turn into
something more accurate and sincere.
What I mean to say is, it was so long ago since anyone
pretended that they were in love
with rain. Over a bowl of soup, my father told me
that the true equilibrium of the world is in the center of the heart
of the last person who believes. There is a lie in me that I cannot wait
to whisper in your ear. I want
to say that the last time I went hungry for something
was when I was ten and convinced my classmates
that I had no arms, so that they can teach me
the goodness of letting go. And in their
words was a solace that I could never
match with anything living afterwards.
But the truth is, I have always recognized that self-same confidence
in a good poem: how much it knows you, how expertly its writer can cradle
you in his arms as if you both sprung
from the same kind of love. Try to
imagine what the heart of a poet looks like. Nothing
special, I suppose, save for that strange fullness, that
unmistakable crick that is trying its hardest to define the tilt that leans
slightly toward all our mysterious days.

what i want to become of all this

My aunt tells me that the first English word I uttered
was the word dead. I was three and didn't know
any better. How easy it
was then to say something as trite and irresolute as the word
dead and make someone happy enough to remember
it for the rest of her life. Now I feel the stiff competition for
words, as if everyone else is using up all of mine, what
I am trying my best to say. There is so much I do not
know how to explain or talk about. My father
once asked me to write a story about him after he dies
and I could not imagine how he got the courage
to say something like that out loud. Maybe it was his belief
in that first word and the way I feared it
that convinced him that it would all be true
some day. What I would not give to be able to take a slim collection
of unused words out of my pocket, all saying how much I loved
the living and the man who first asked if the hunger
I was feeling was the kind he could do
something about.

an elderly woman talks about her daughter

The world has lost these pretty young girls.
Their angst has woven a different, more impenetrable
planet around them. They sob and weep about
atrocities that take place in other dimensions of space where
everyone else is a lost mother , a drunken father, a
neglected urchin of chance - versions of monsters under beds,
the dagger in the closet. They no longer know the importance of
mystery, of holding out because everything now
takes place outdoors. I would like to peep under their skirts and
find out if the myth is true -- if down there, there is really nothing
much you can see but a built in boombox, a transistor, and
dozens of blue and red connectors stumbling
all over themselves, pricking their veins that
are seas so blue they look painted on.
Their mouths are always hungry for trophies
of intellect, for disasters then and now,
for vague properties of love. They say words
like "atrophy" or "vindication"as if they were
new weapons that still have the capability to hurt.
But their convictions are different.
They prefer them raw these days so that they’d
be easier on the palate when they swallow
them whole. This fact alone makes me think
less of the weaker ones - the ones who scar easily or
those who consider a bad hair day an opportunity for suicide.
Maybe this is just me, wasting time.
In dreams, I see my younger self,
running with bared teeth, my brown skin
soiled with so much anger. I remember being unafraid.
But now, I ask myself, what was I running against? And for whom?

after the fiesta

Some things are left here:
Bright confetti spilled on hard ground,
as if by mistake.There is a lonely, inflated balloon near the
spot where the stage used to be. The remains of
candied apples are peeking out of hiding places.
A solitary chair is waiting for someone.
A forgotten teddy bear lies on its side, its face
noticeably askew - testifying to rampage, to carelessness.

And there is a boy of eight, standing in the middle
of it all,whose mouth is open with wonder.
He thinks it is a battlefield and believes that
he has seen glory. Already, he has forgotten how the
place looked like some nights before. He does not
recall the parades, the whirlwind happiness, the
clowns who cried, Step right up and you will see
the miracle that is your life.
He prefers the debris that laughter leaves.
It reminds him that he aches when he is bruised.

Suddenly, he hears music that he cannot place.
He makes a sidestep into a remembered dance.
The tune that he carries, which for a moment sustains him,
guides him years afterwards.
Still, he does not remember where he heard it first.

dinner at the mckenzie's

First thing: Make eye contact. Be polite. Always say,
please Pass the salt/vegetables/potatotes. You are dependent
on everyone on the table but nobody
will tell you that this is the case. It is best to start a conversation
with the people seated beside you. Nowadays, it does not matter
whether it's with the person to your right or left side; most
probably, they would have the same convictions, same
issues they'd like to move you
over to, but again, they are not aware of this. Indulge
their private delusion that
they are the most interesting people you will ever meet
in your lifetime. Smile and say That's wonderful! or frown and
say That's too bad, accordingly.

It is okay to think about other things while dining. You are not
the inventor of nostalgia or boredom. It is okay to think about your
children - dreaming the dreams of the innocent, unknown to you now.
But be alert, in case someone asks you about
the oil spill in town. You'd look
strange if you said nothing, offered no
opinion about the world. It might render you
unfeeling for life, a nomad who does
not fit in the grand scheme of things.

Keep your hand gestures to a mimimum so that
you wouldn't feel so uncontrolled and ugly afterwards, remembering
your nervous, big hands and wondering how you
have landed here at this peculiar time in your life. If
someone drops something, keep quiet so that you would
not let on that you have noticed, or else everyone
will turn their attention on you the whole night. And you
would not like that. Best to keep still so that you
can move along to wake up in the morning
and feel nothing for your wife beside you,
for the life you have decided to lead.

When they bring in the scented water,
dip your fingers in it, slowly, so as not to
show that you are not used to all this; are not
here at all but you are back in that
cold nipa hut and waiting with your mother for
the big, fresh potatoes that your father hauled in from the fields today.
In the water, you think you see your face, but it is his - your father's
expression bewildered and saddened now
by your wet, pink hands.

surviving chance

I received him as a guest once. That was the night when he felt like
being a cliche and decided to knock on someone's door,
which turned out to be ours.
He asked me to take him in, so I did. Should've thought
it out before my whole family wrapped around him like a
bandage. I believed things would be interesting that first day when
I took him to my room and announced, This is my life, and slid some
of the torn magazines under the bed with my foot.
He looked around, cast an eye
on the books soldered to the desk and said,
This is enough, I guess. One thing
about him is, he did not like board games
and storybooks. Whenever I went
downstairs to read Cinderella to my youngest sister,
he went to the rooftop, put
on music so strange and angry that it breathed in a
life of its own, glowered at
passersby. The children in the house tiptoed
around our strange guest, gave him
food that he said he did not want.
We've got lots of time for that, he said, as
he stared at the beautiful girls coming down the road with pink
tank tops on. One night, I said something to him,
I think I mocked him, I don't really remember. He got
so angry his fists became waves
that appeared and hid underneath the floorplanks.
Next day, he was gone.
It has been
six years and we are all still here. We leave a light on for him but
now, there's only the slow, dry wind.

these necessary joys

What is it about happiness that makes you
say At last as if it was something the world
owed you? Today, I woke up and said Someone
is responsible for the sun, for my weak eyes,
for yesterday's bread on the table. Listen,
I'd like to ask if you would know what would
happen to my brother who is sleeping this morning
on someone else's couch. Why doesn't he find it strange,
how comfortable he is in this new world? I can only
come to the conclusion that he is rare, unlike that
person on a tightrope that a poet once talked about. You see,
I believe that the rest of us are defined by what we
fear most. My brother is not, he is spelled out
by the wild look in his eyes every time he witnesses
something new. It's either that or I never really
knew him very well. The riddle his body forms is on
the couch I am looking at and I am wondering now
who is responsible for him, for all these
necessary joys?

I would like to be married to a poem

What I would like is to be married
to a poem, one that's easy to understand. Of course,
there would be nothing to blame
but love at first sight, the ripple of words
settling on my artless tongue. I would not be able to shake off
the taste of it because its make is much like mine: ash so sullied
that it no longer knows what's safe to contain. A poem is easy
to love because it's not convinced about how complicated
it really is. So unlike its writer, who is beside himself with
grief over his own mystery. You can hold
hands with a poem at night and it won't wonder at
your sudden affection. If you take it to the movies
it will laugh at your favorite parts and will try to mimic
how Woody Allen talks during emptier times. It likes
long walks and dates at the beach because it knows nothing
of cliches. Oh wouldn't it be nice, to be married like that, to
a masterpiece so finite and complete in itself, something that
says, even at your worst days, how much you are loved.

the pickpocket

In my dreams, it is always summer
and the boy in those dreams is always picking pockets. He
never tells me why. My mother, she
does not know this boy
but he looks a lot like her. I am waiting for him to step
up to me and say On my watch, you're never
going to die. And I dread that day but in my dreams,
everything is still in place so I try not to be too afraid. The dreams
aren't always about the boy. Some of
them are about how the wind
makes the red kite fly. The kite is a miracle
making zigzag patterns on a sky
that is overcast with sadness.
I think I've never seen anything lovelier than that,
except maybe for
the boy's hands, how small and
insignificant they look. I'm sorry,
I could've sworn that the dreams were not all
about him but they were.
Strangely, he moves me. The kite never has, honestly. Like
many things, it acts as a disinterested constant,
floating around and
doing nothing spectacular. But the boy was fast
and careful, always
making someone's load less heavy. In today's dream,
I see him lifting the sun out of someone's
beach bag. For a moment, he
makes believe he is stealing from God.
But I know he is not; I know he knows the truth for
God is not here. He is in someone
else's summer dream,
picking someone else's pockets with
bright, small hands.

Parting Season

This is the season for giving up -- cold and
impersonal; rainwater slinking off the alley like some

anonymous drunk. Somebody invented the first broken
heart to match the color of rain. My grandfather used to tell

me that you would never really know,
wouldn't be able to pinpoint, the exact time

when you are let go by a person you love. Was it on that
specific moment when he was doing something as ordinary

as washing last night's dishes or staring at the green sock on his
left foot when he thought of you as something lost,

as if he received word that you have died yesterday in a collage
of car crashes, mounted secretly in his mind. Or was it

on that very second when he looked at you from across
your small, round dinner table as you said "Pass the green peas, please."

If you had decided to look long enough, you would've noticed
a decision in his glance,forming into a shape of an open door.

Tell me, should there be a number of times, a
repetitive quandry of events before one learns that

to let go is the best course; that it is best to get your body away
before this season ends and translates into sunnier, more forgiving days.

Then, it would be harder, would be inappropriate, even.
It would be as if everything lost rises, as if the world were a place

the people you used to love have never seen; and it was enough

If the way I think about you

If
the way I think about you would amount to anything, the red moon
would quit its job for a night. It would slide down as a woman to
the pub you usually frequent. It will be wearing a dress,
red and appropriate, with
one leg exposed to the resting world. After ordering a drink,
it would look around and see you
alone this time, a rare occurence. It would think of you lonely
for someone, maybe me. then the moon
would be lost in its own reveries, as if it were human, as if it also
has suffered a loss as seemingly insignificant as we have.

For the new year

Some things have changed. Now, I tie my shoelaces

slowly, as if the bus I would be riding on is my own bus

and the other people are merely dream segments, rushing to

and from one another. I also read poetry with my mouth open

which is, of course,a sort of knee-jerk reaction,

a kick in the shin. When I walk I notice

that it is no longer skip skip skip but trot skip clump clump.

when I talk to family members I do not like, I say, please pass the onions.

One night, I was staring at a city light and it looked so finite and sad,

with nightglow all around it, feasting on its one good eye. From that

time on, I kept watching out for those lights, guarding them.

When I eat breakfast, its not just

bacon and eggs but it could be anything! Anything at all -- ice cream,

cold spaghetti, hard pink candy that never melts. I know

now the difference between an empty bench and a lone soldier,

the difference that lies between

the spaces you left behind, what I keep on filling.

to the lover

There are days when you are cucumber.
I sharpen my knife
before I peel your skin off, pretending it is flesh on bones.
Inside you, there is nothing but pulp--
fiction lying in wait for the
next lover to immortalize you in poetry.

I slice you into thin pieces
until you are almost opaque, as transparent
as a memory. Sometimes, I make stars out of you,
or rabbits, depending on where he slept
the night before or if he came home early.

At times, you are fresh meat.
I keep you under running water for
more minutes than isnecessary. This is because
I don't want your blood on my hands.The
meat looks wrinkled after this prolonged
exposure to water, as if it is hurt by my
insecurity.I wear gloves
to keep my knuckles clean. At times, I
make like a god andpound at you with my newly bought pestle
until you are as malleable as my heart.It makes me believe
you are human and can be subject to
impermanence.

In this kitchen, I try to find an end to you. All around me are
the bricks that built my life,that define who I am.
Here, I am free to reinvent you.
Outside, he may consider you a kingdom,
a harbor,a masterpiece. But within these walls,you are in
bits and pieces,wrapped up in foil or sometimes
stowed away for future use.You are reduced to elements,
to momentary necessities. But you never go away.
You live here-- sleeping on our bed, peeping through jars,
rotting gracefully on the wooden shelves. You take
the shape of steam rising from noonday kettles.
Your message is darkness and silence.

We love a love

that puts its head on someone else's reliable shoulder,
that hides between
the experienced thighs of women.
We love a love that belongs
to the sky and sometimes, even the kind that is usually stuck under
the next stranger's left boot.We love a love that
is found between some lines, in the solemn folding and
unfolding of hands. We love a love
that would give us a good fuck, sheets useless and tumbled on the floor
where we were standing, uncertain, minutes ago.
But most of the time,
we love a love that burns and burns in the waiting eye of
several memories tacked together
to form something safe, like a lifetime, or,
a show of paired hands
entwined on a canvas to help others believe that
nothing stops,not even the kind of liquid I have
turned into -- something that keeps on breaking on your open palm.