Woman On The Pavement

How pathetic you look—
Nameless woman, queen of asphalt.
Languish now on the throne you share
With others just like you:
Regal heirs of a stolen land.

You arrogant, do you think you own the
Rats nibbling on your toes?
Do you reign supreme over the gutter?
Better take your tarnished coins and start
Shopping for lovelier cans.

But you look so tired. Awful woman
The fire in your belly creeps up to your cheeks
And refuses to be tamed.
You can only twist those lips and spit
Viciously on the parched earth

While the city looks on.
Flies begin to feast now on your open sores
As you thrust a hand to beg for death.
Yet nobody sees your ruby eyes as you gaze
Down at such noble spectacle:

(how smug!)
A child suckling on your withered breast.

Trail

Open windows terrify me.
And the empty cartons lounging near the door—
They radiate like neon lights.
Portents of my mechanical membrane, cubed shapes
Curling and unfurling like flags:
How am I to know their immensity,
When all I can see are these motes gyrating
In their presence, frantic fireflies annihilating histograms?
I don’t need this, you see.
Sometimes, all I want is a bucket and a sledgehammer
And the cartons hanging upside down on the ceiling
While the lights continue to flicker and rain.
(these windows won’t go away)

One day I can finally pick up these clothes
In the corner and start to uncrumple them.

Counterclockwise

Now doesn’t it look good, this neurotic
Frolicking? Cars are easing into carts,
Cemeteries are ripe and ready for picking
Like the tangerine festoons of a forgotten harvest
(A pin drops to the floor and is forgotten too)
While calendars swoon and reconstruct
Wilted paper boats, airplanes on barbed wire.
Everything extracts itself like a leaf.

This movement is a farce and needs to be reset.

Clairvoyance

I do not wish to close my eyes. Not here—
Not with the mirrors of rainclouds gathered
Beneath my toes, nor with you beside me
Trailing in the wake of unspoken journeys.

There is so much here I dare not miss:
The hunger of roads, as it swallows,
Inch by inch, the crafted distances of dreams;
Portents of dust and pilgrim stones;
The muddied footprints we leave behind
Recollecting ancient wanderings.

Everything yields itself to apparition.
And I, moving within the torments of space
Thus proclaim sublimest title:
Spectator of phantoms.

Yet hereupon, vision falters.
Among the shadows of our weary limbs
Light proceeds, forlorn, to its gentle dying.
We took to blindness long before we built
These cryptic avenues and pathways of our minds.

Unseeing, it is the patience of highways
That moves me to consume the horizon.
Now I bow my head and search for maps
Etched upon these invisible paths we tread.

Sight begins here, always, where darkness is steepest.

Fire Drill

There will be no bombs today.
Slowly you crawl to the earth,
Unperturbed by rain or fire.
Now you are parallel with worms.
Now you plant your watermelons.
Your fingers are smudged
With yesterday’s clay
Yet you lick on it after a mouthful
Of rice, tomatoes. Supple supper.
Lick. Lick. Something clicks
On the left hand side of the kerosene lamp.
It is the voice of a distant cannonball.
You yawn, put on your pajamas
And hug the rifle under the covers.

Reverie

Pensive pilgrims you and I
We wander aimlessly around
The vestige of each other’s thoughts
Where our mortal dreams recline.
You there and I here:
Unmoving, a breath apart.

If it were possible my knee
Would be brushing against your knee
As I sit here
Musing on the geometry of your shoulders.
The slightest move and certain
I would feel the rough edges of your
Calloused fingers
One
After
The other.

But friend your eyes are lost in a distant place.
I dive into your darkened oceanfloor,
Submerge myself in your
Reverie
But always I scramble up for air.

You are drowning in your rhapsody.

Drowning
Inch
By inch.
I cannot hold your hands
For they are too near.

Friend if it were possible, my knee
Would be brushing
Against your knee.
Yet looking down, I find only
The fringes of your fleeing shadow
Touching the grave corners
Of my own.

Latitude

These walls are supposed to be white.
Pure as the flickering of mountains.
Now they only smell of aerosol and can only
Recount of coffee-stained evenings.

Charcoal wavelengths are smearing
These mirrors, my dear. And that picture too.
The door is two million miles away
And can only be opened from outside.

I will wait for the blank signal before signing off.

But first let me stack these books in rows of two.
Let me throw these vases and replace them
With arrows, great silver contraptions ready
To plunge on the cue of brooms. Mothballs

Have no need of cockroaches anymore.
Not this time. Let me grab these curtains
And scare them away in tidal motion.
I promise to make them quiver. Later.

I shall scrub these walls down one day.

Blank

how do i measure the distance between two pauses?
pause 1: you
pause 2: the gaps

we create in between the
before
(and the)
after
of everything.

Space is folly.
Proximity is what we fail to

touch.

The Other Side

i am not the voice you hear from
across ocean's infinity

i am the whisper that blows softly in
your ear, the gentleness of far-off horizons.

i am not the sun you gaze at daylight's
end—i am the fusion of colors

at water's edge at dusk,
dissolving in muted harmony.

i am not the image in the mirror,
that murderous traitor clawing at your

heart, ripping your deep, thoughtful eyes
open to let flow hidden oceans.

i am the image of your soul;
i am the strum of your guitar.

An Antiphon

(for lolo ostoy on his 9^th death anniversary)

The dark embers of heaven descends upon the earth and sighs.
Gone are the mourners
And dimmed now the footfall of the procession
That watched you close your weary eyes
And place your hands over your hardened breast.
Nothing stirs but the dust around your epitaph settling
And the thrashing of the nearby sea.
Nothing here but a celestial drone
Wheeling its notes in spectral ripples
Like the way the sound of your voice
Reverberates in a hundred languages
Or the way your avian eyes speak
What syllables could not utter
Or words, in their essence, could not pronounce.
It’s been worlds hence.
I can’t remember when the rain last danced
At the sound of your absent laughter.
Yet long after dirges die and footsteps fade
Into a mystic moon’s chasm, I listen.

Music remains.

Anonymity

looking at spaces left on doorsteps
or crumpled sheets, tiretracks,
everywhere breath goes in single step
there you will find more of this empty
more lines left unuttered more celestial
singing gone feverish like choking
on grass or grassroots i’m not sure
i don’t know which way left goes
or where to find this lost world
but when you look at these spaces
and look really hard you will
find me there.

Daybreak

Everything flows: Sight is space sucking in light
My stale eyes convalesce. I eat the flare on my

Windowpane without second thought and watch
The dust crash upon the wall. Spasmodic melt

Down. It disappears in two seconds and I begin
To breathe. What day is it today? The roosters

Outside are getting bored. My reflection wavers.
I’ve been here a million times already but still

I cannot connect the dots that are running from
My forehead to the door; there are too many of

Them hovering in this blank interlude. Shadows
Continue to contrive with clocks as I struggle to

Partition this reverie. There will be ample time
For waking in the next uprising of half-moons.

Untitled

Goodbye

There’s no one here,
Only the moon peeping from behind the clouds
Shy, taunting.
Silverlight illuminating darkened corners,
Leaves swaying under a pale gaze
Pale as ghosts that slowly fade
Into forgetfulness.

There’s no one here.
Only me and your image from behind
That wall, lurking, while not
Far away, a voice beckons me to leave.

Light ends where the universe begins.

Searching

slowly—

slowly descending this wooden staircase,
lamp in hand,
the faint glow of a dying fire
casting dying shadows on walls i know
would speak
if only they could,
i hold my breath as though in deep water,
looking underneath dusty furniture,
opening every drawer, every closet,
flinging all the curtains aside, sorting
through rotting garbage,
eyes wide open like round saucers,
one hand clutched over my breast
to quell an oncoming despair
yet never daring to

switch

on

the lights.

Rain At High Noon

When I’m done here, tell me how to unfold the rain.
It’s been raining the whole day, but the streets are dusty
And the sheets are almost dry.
No one knows how these mirrors ended up
On the pavement, or why Narcissus wept
When he bent down to look upon it.
No one knows why, when leaning in for a secret,
Clouds that hover over deadly mountains
Cast furtive looks upon the parched land
That remembers only echoes of raindrops
Falling everywhere or that sweet,
Sweet smell risen from the earth.
Thirst is plenty here, where the dust dies
And oases are a dream.
For in this hour of high noon, vengeful suns
Will be scorching every shadowed feet
Come to retreat in hiding.
But it’s been raining the whole day—
And this sad, biting cold is nothing new.
Do teach me how to unfold the rain.

Blindness

I fear I may not have seen it at all,
this halting way you cross distances
to meet mine, always with the feigned ardour
of one who knows how smoke risen from
yesterday's lit candles clambers
heavenward only to be consumed by itself,
you who with mingled silences
prophesy the speeches of bells.
No, I have closed my eyes like shutters.
Shut them without even meaning to,
or knowing why.
Spurned vision without heed of light
that travels soundlessly into
my every soul, a lost blindman's poltergeist.
Darkness knows no perimeters. Darkness and smoke.
The mirrors of your eyes frighten me, I admit.
Only this morning's candles tell me thus:
That where you root your breath, or mine,
we leap out, and crash down,
and sightless, chase each other's distance still.

Discernment

Tonight the moon hides its face
The sky, a vast stretch of nothing
With no stars twinkling
A million light years away.

I hear no music in my ears.
Just faint voices in the distance
And beyond that,
Silence from muted mouths.

A bedroom door is ajar.
Inside someone sits still
And looks at something
Only he can see.

This is a lonely night
But I don’t cry.
Tears are for people
Who know less, I realize.

I smile tonight because
I finally understand:
The stars are hiding
But they blaze somewhere in the distance.

Sinner

nobody knows it as much as
him standing beside you
silently waiting, unnoticed
wanting your trust
you would not give it to him
instead you look up to his
wearied face and utter i’m sorry
though you never really
mean it you say you’ll never
do it but promises have long
forgotten their purpose

one more wouldn’t hurt

he wept crimson blood
and you smile and tell yourself
he understands.

Beauty Is Darkness Too

Beauty is darkness too.

It is night’s uncertainty, the unseeing
Of that which we so fondly gaze at day
Whose every line and flowing curve
By the brightness of the sun
We have studied with laborious zeal.

Beauty is the lengthened shadow on the wall
Borne of the candle’s flame.
A distorted figure dancing in rhythm
To a nameless beat, belying the stiffened
Form of its kin from which it sprang.

Beauty is the night sky, black and bare.
The voice coming from nowhere,
The mystery of a sigh.

Beauty is a silhouette
Whose true worth remains hid.

A Contraction

It’s nine a.m. and it’s a good place
To start kicking rubble.

Nostalgia

she remembers

though she would rather
not suffer that unbidden
apparition of sunlit mornings,
of a face that stood out
from the rest.
over and over again
she summons the evenings
draped in silence broken
only by the soft
cadence of footsteps
and a sudden hammering
of the heart that
could not be abated.

a peculiar sensation begins to stir.

she closes her eyes to drift
to sleep but in the darkness
she sees faces
and hears voices
and feels something
she doesn’t understand
but only makes her want
to roll over in a corner
and drench her pillow
in tears.

On Being Twenty Going On Twenty-One

It is standing in the middle of a labyrinth
And wanting to go back
But you can’t because the minotaur is grinning
Maliciously right behind you.