Tomorrow
I see you as if you are white blood upon red snow
Burning the ice you touch
I feel you as if you are frost on flame
Hardened and then melting
I need you as if you are the ground that carried my weight
And I shall fall

To feel the scarlet blush run again in your pale cheeks
But I have already crushed you

In my hands you have become
But an empty bed
Soiled sheets
A dent on my pillow



To A Ghost

My heart does not belong to me.
Or to anyone.
Except perhaps to the ghost of you
I knew last night, last week,
last month, last year.

I tear at your skin.
My fingers claw through flesh on flesh
to drink your tears
and lash out at you,
like a tigress,
sharp teeth on soft lips
curved spine like a scythe
in desperate need to tear your flesh loose
from the ghost who owns me.

But the search proves nothing,
and the skeptic is a prophet.

There are no ghosts you said.


At the Church in UP Diliman
05022002

I sit here
Where many a desperate soul
must have sat
searching for God in this cold stone edifice
oblivious to the warm beating heart beside

Where faithful must have knelt
Pouring a thousand dreams
Into lifeless beads
Solitary in this place of gathering


And when they leave
So do their faiths
Tucked in worn out prayer books
Hiding their wounds in laughter
While they live their lives again
Forgetting that the gods have already died.


Untitled

You are a shadow I would never see
If not for the man on the moon
And the mermaids’ song
And the wind that brought me to your side

Powder sand beneath us
And the drums to lull us to sleep
Wake up to a hypnotic dream
Pushed on by palm on wood
And ancient voices straining to be freed
And instinct released
And senses forgotten

You are a shadow I would never see
If not for the man on the moon
And the mermaids’ song
And the wind that brought me to your side

Poetry Reading at Nine

I was a child contemplating
their fiery gift of tongues.
A pocket book writhing
Between stubbed fingers

and hungry eyes that only
almost understand
but never saw
the fires that burn
furious unslept nights
dreamt over and over
in the eternal heaven
of a remembered smile

Same stubbed fingers
forcing apart secrets
Too treacherous
Too dark
Too old for one so young.


Unheard

Her voice is lost in
The haze of swirling drums
And pounding hands
And shouting, screaming
banshees too loud
to be heard.

The wind carries inanities
in profound rhythms
masquerading as truths,
when they are merely
obvious, banal
shrieks of mediocre chords.

And she is crying
like defeated harps
lamenting their master.
But no one listens.

Sanctuary

She is an angel dreaming of heaven
And you are the devil
Drenched in the sweat
Of a throbbing hell

Do you know whose eyes it is you see
When the darkness has blurred the lines
And the shadows play upon her skin?

Do you know whose voice it is you hear
When the waves crash around you
And the crickets sing their moon song?

Do you know whose touch it is you seek
When your flesh crawls out of this comfort
And you burn hotter than the fire by your side?

She is your sanctuary
But her calmness is not enough
And you long for the heat
That scorches and withers
And kills you slowly from within
--- April 15, 2002


When you Leave

I pull myself from this wreckage hoping that I am you.
I wade through this sadness crying,
hoping that you will wipe my tears.

You have reduced me to this.
I feel the intensity of you not holding my hand
I listen to a silent song no one else will sing
Waiting with bated breath for a call that will never come.
I kiss a face that has shunned me
And touch once-warm skin now cold as ice.
I kiss the air that fills your absence
And stroke the space that is left unfilled.
And I will fall, watching my world fall with me,
Feeling the rain of a broken earth upon my skin.

And I will I pull myself from this wreckage hoping that I am you.
But I am not, and I must save myself again.
--- June 28,2002