…of days gone by

i’m moved forth by daydreams and coulda-beens.
what i should want differs from what i need.

i hold on like i’ll live long enough to end up with you.
what hopes i’ve built fly apart like cards in wind.

there’s never enough time, space, or love:
maybe i deserve none of the above.

my culture tells me to hate my feelings
and swallow my punishments.

as youth, bodies, and memories burn out,
as weeks fail to a mash of rants and

empty bottles, i’m left with one song
worth a damn: that one about

reveries or dreadful ease, something
like that – the one that reminds me

i’ll die from everything said and not said.
i love you though i hardly know how:

i choke on the elegies
i’ll never sing right.

:
:

~A.

st. lorenzo ruiz

‘kahit saan nandoon ang mga pilipino,
ang katapatan sa diyos ay dala-dalang pinoy.’

~ bishop gaudencio rosales
. . .

you, scribe, proclaimed faith’s mystery:
the chance of kinder times, that christ
will save enough love for everyone.

in binondo, the sky was not yet choked by
the smoke of later eras. the view of
the sunset was unmuddied.

like many from your ghetto, the spanish
sacrificed innocents: you left your
family, never knowing the man

you were accused of killing. so with a leper
and three dominicans you fled to japan
where your miracle occurred: you

were tortured then crushed, yet you
never recanted. you were burned,
repatriated to the tropics.

your spirit returned to the
oneness we’d lost.
centuries later,

the japanese would destroy binondo. yet even
now, your faithful rebuild: till lambs become
eagles, till all is again pure.

:
:

epigram:
‘wherever the filipino may go,
he carries his faith in god.’

~A.

to want (in a twilight)

title offered by t. kiriyama
. . .

a line begins, me, we: arcane
as whispers, we wash the
twilight, a blue world,

with amber logic: we fall into
our moment, surrendering
everything:

i claim your scent of ripened guava.
i claim your history, your name.
i claim your cacao-pod waist.

you hold my virginity so it won’t be
lost again: we resolve to keep
everything so.

we slither from saffron to hunger’s end.
we gather, along our pathways,
game and grapevines.

we pluck softly, one by one,
verses from our mouths:
everything swells so.

we offer glances, warming flights
of meditation: a tuneful stride
and blaze till we tremble,

unfurling a storm of arrows. our
dazzle fades like candlewicks,
the ends of all songs:

you, we: two teardrops
converged upon a
twilight’s dream.

:
:

after a poem first drafted spring 2000

~A.

old soul soliloquy

a song sparks memory, a thought, and this:
i longed to say a thousand words, but
seasons changed. i’d sacrifice
tomorrow just to have you
here, today. oh, when
i was a boyish body with a mature heart: strip-mining
pop platitudes, model-bashing poems that might’ve
gotten someone to like me or, at least, help me
feel less alone. for a time, i was okay at it:
cute for a kid so driven, willful.
i think of mork from orc: aliens like us,
our lives’ll end the same way. time
teaches lots with little patience or
mercy, not caring if we fail or
fall behind. and now i’m
an elder soul with a boyish heart. each day
i wonder what part of me, body or mind,
will break first. weekends were once
about friends and shared delights.
now nothing’s worth my time.
i’ve only monologues where i dump my hope for
the love i’ve always wanted, as if i’m waiting
for a postcard that was never sent. i’ve only
this big quietness, like an inmate counting
to his final day.
all i can feel for sure these days is this pressure
to hold on – for what, i may never find out.
this melancholy is the one steady thing i
have. i think of others: i can only think,
good luck with whatever.

:
:

~A.

breaking the fourth wall

a poem could be a verbal drizzle:
determined, but not magical.

it can be a chemical solution for sensual
explosions: powerful, but pointless.

it can confess the poet’s nakedness:
burlesque, titillating at best.

it can chronicle and tell so much, but in
doing so be more prose than song.

this poem likewise fails. some
of my experiments work,
most don’t. but see how

it’s still a poem: there might not be
magic for everyone, but there’s

some for someone; it might
fizzle but something is

happening – is this my nakedness, or
am i undressing you somehow?

however these verses try,
say it with me: a poem

needs only to be: maybe
we are the poets we’ve
been hoping for.

:
:

~A.

#unposteddatingsitebio

hello, and thanks for visiting
this #geeky, boy-faced, newly-forty #poet-professor.
#filipino in unimagined ways. tall,
non-athletic, but fit (running, kali/fma).
morose #loner, abstaining alcoholic, but
fun, surprising, a site-specific #extrovert
rich with comic charm, surprises,
and tenderness.

you: must have a classical
heart and a modernist spirit.
tall, curvy-fit would be nice,
but not required. golden state
lady preferred. okay if you’re
not a #poet but you
must deeply feel good #poems,
#discourses, #socialjustice. must adore music,
movies, food, nature, art. must
practice candor and militant humility.
find me

in the #greatoneeight of angels
alone, reading, writing in solitude,
recalling an old mentor’s advice:
search and manage time for
a #darling who will hold
you and lay upon your
heart like your sweetest and
warmest #holiday.

:
:

homage to allen ginsberg’s ‘personals ad’ (1990).
note the cadence and mostly five-word lines.

~A.

a world more full of weeping

come away,
o human
child! to
the waters
and the
wild with
a faery,
hand in
hand, for
the world’s
more full
of weeping
than you
can understand.

(thanks to
logic we built pyramids and androids.)

so few
among us
will do
much; most
will watch;
some might
comment; some
might weep.
or, we’ll
go through
the motions,
just enough
to quietly
hurt less.

(yet, always,
i chase delusions only i could see.)

:
:

title & initial verses taken from yeats’ ‘the stolen child’ (1889)

~A.

b-side to the hustle

a mid-aged hustler wearing a ballcap
with “artist” tagged above the bill

comes up with something s/he hopes
everyone might love and pay for:

video uploads where s/he lip syncs
rick ross and nicki minaj. s/he

keeps trying, hoping to outrun
the filth metastasizing in

her/im: the knowledge that we’re
in this together though we’ll all

die alone, and most of us’ll go
unremembered, unwanted

in heaven, unwelcomed in hell.
a faker knows a faker: thus,

we know ourselves best when we
pretend we’re something else:

tools for each other’s stupid hustles,
using each other while being used.

:
:

~A.

thought balloons

|* i heard a )
|* story once. )
|* as a matter of )
|* fact, i‘ve heard lots )
|* of stories in my time )
>
( they went along with *|
( the sound of a tinny *|
( piano playing in the *|
( downstairs *|
( parlor *|

{ cue to a wild finish: a guy standing
. on a station platform in the rain
. with a comical look in his face
. because his insides have
. been kicked out. . . }

(my love life rips off*|
(‘casablanca’ too often:*|
(a hard-boiled drinker whose*|
(romantic sacrifice paves paths*|
(for a paramour owed happiness*|
>
|* rick blaine had paris. i have my poverty: )
|* a comic book full of glances from )
|* that one soul who paid me mind: )
|* dreams are more reliable than )
|* lovers )

:
:

first three stanzas adapted
from bogart’s dialogue

~A.

chiaroscuro

evening slips over our avenue.
the trees shed ruby foliage.
the air smells of herbs
and almonds. safe
from the cold,

we rest at last. you give a word:
we indulge till we’re full and
happy. the moon promises
perfect hours; we’ll later
taste our morning kiss,

though we’re in no hurry
to get there.

: : :

the pain of beauty, a beauty of pain:
i can’t remember if you left me
because of my dark, or if i
darkened because
you left me.

my day starts with water, pills,
no time for proper meals. i
yearn after a morning that
keeps an unbroken
promise:

love will never take
more than it gives.

:
:

tampuhan by juan luna, 1895:

~A.