Old Poems Part I

I'm such a cheat yes, so instead of writing new posts I'll repost some ancient poems (pseudo-poems really)..

The first one, I made for my good friend totomai, who incidentally is celebrating his birthday today. hapibidi, bulag! :)

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BLACK SAND
If one day you go and find
yourself at a lake. And there
in the depths you say this
is where I must hide.
I will be there at the
edge of your affection--
The black sand at the bottom,
I will be the cushion to your howls, the
jagged grains at your feet, protecting you
even as I cut your flesh
until you lose it, and you rise up--
for air--- to shore. You'll find
it's not too bad.There are little things
you can be happy with--how
the lake is our secret place,
and around it is a shore where your little
joys are hidden. You with your bloodied
soul, You will have my faith,
the day you learn how pain
pushes you to be happy,
that every wound is a friend
yelling at you. Wake up!
Enough!
Turn your life around.



FORGETTING
A child draws a circle
and traces it with his hand,
knowing instinctively
what it means to be whole.

It is a process of unlearning,
How a child forgets his first years,
What courage it took
to sit…. crawl, the sense,
the dignity of each step.


Every mother must be broken
How life takes away
everything pure, all fruit
eventually fall to pieces.



SIX A.M. (first published in the Sunday Times circa 2005)
the world as i see it on my way to work
watch a cat
sleep in shadows
Beside a man
eating grubs
at the asphalt table
Where I walk.

smell grim men
hauling legs,
sticky young carcasses
butchered at dawn.
swim a concrete sea
Of sharp breathes,
A handful bleary faces,
One red dress in heels.

nod at the paper man.
Who nods back blankly.
This is not the time
For smiles.

I live with silence
at half-light
pushing dead doors
for coffee.


NANA (first published in the Sunday Times circa 2005)
This is your country—
a tarnished land
of dead wood,
a cup to catch bloody rain
from a half dead kidney.

This is your world—
stiff bones in a metal chair,
tentative nudges, a
fluttering of unseeing glances.

I am talking to you now,
but time erases everything,
In silence when I whisper
what you ought to remember,
those pupils see nothing, know nothing
but that wet sucked-at-all-sides pillow.

Old age is a thief.
And now there is nothing
but unforgivably young days
drowning us in this flatland.