EMBRACE OF A POEM

To blossom like a sun, I
have done a thousand times
as I rise in front of you
to captivate you
which I secretly rehearsed
before the clear and cold
ocean water.

But dear, my face seems
a blank horizon.

Even when I am
talking to you
you shake your hair
while my broken voice caresses it
but you hear nothing.


If only I could turn rainbows
into bracelets for your arms
or could stack the stars into
a stairway for you to reach the sky
and as you cast your wild eyes
upon them in wonder
I will roll gently the thread of your sight
around my heart.

But these dreams just end up
to a flowing line of words
to frame a poem,
a poem that cuddles my sorrow
and understands my feelings
which you never do.

NOW THAT YOU LEAVE ME

At the corner of my eye, I  see
our trembling hands held together
for the first time.

But our desires prevailed
and like just freed angels, we
zoomed up to the sky.

We played in the garden of heaven
and as we got tired, you
gathered ripened stars
offered me a bite and I did the same.

Now , you're beginning to let go of my hand
and the depth of loneliness
is pulling me down.
remember you're the strength of my wings
but if you let me fall
I'll close my eyes sadly
and succumb to the darkness
of the cold space.

What caused this riddance
is it because you're in spring
and I'm in fall?
If we were in the same season
would you still abandon me
like now?
why  have you propagated a feeling
from this strong heart
transplanted it to grow in the  greenness
of your time?

I say this to you:

even the wind
the moon
the stars
and the dew agree with this reality
with all my heart
I fall and decompose
to join the comfort of the soil
fertilizing your budding youth.

HERE I AM

Like the kneeling eyelashes
Of the moon, I
Beg for your smile tonight.

Unfold your chest
And my brightness finds
Your hidden heart.
Don't cover your eyes
With cold feelings-
Look at me down here
And pull me up by the hands.

When will you notice my radiance
Which is your reflection
While I compete with the luster
Of belittling stars?

WONDERFUL DANCE

Like a dance
of quarreling lovers,
you turn your back to me
and start to walk away.

I come after you,
touch your shoulder,
you  push  my hand
to the side
but still, 
I pull you close to me

until your entirety goes inside of me
where you're put back
to fill in my hollow heart.

Then,
we breathe as one.

Let's join the rhythm
of passion:
Let's clasp our hands,
raise them up to the sky;
let's slide, walk and slide again
to the beat of the rain
dropping on the windowpane.

O how sweet is the reconciliation
after being pinched by the cold breeze
caused by teardrops.

O how wonderful it is
to dance
the waltz of quarreling lovers.

MASK

Tonight I shall try again

To pry open the wooden

Trunk I have wrapped

Where I have kept my memory;

I shall spread out

And put it on as mask

One of the smiles neatly folded;

In the deepest recesses

Of my pure heart, I shall search

For wellspring

Of the pulsing that is the fountain

Of the chest and your eyes

Will appear in the middle

Of desire gathering a whirl.

In the morning, before

Your dream snaps to an end,

I shall run after

And relay my poem

That will be recited

By the murmur of leaves

Eavesdropping, this poem

Written in the caress

Of the breeze's page;

You will hear again

The word repeated as pleadings,

This flows with the current

Of my warm endearing

To your feeling

That has gone so cold.

But I know that in every

Stroke of the paddle of love-giving

It remains there that there be no trace

Of the worth of my endearment

Left on the face of the water.

And so I keep on

With journeying once more,

I shall be bold in prying open

The wooden trunk I wrap

Where I keep my memory;

Again, I shall spread out and wear as mask

One of the smiles left folded

Where there are the eyes in full watch

Ever-ready to pop out.

-----------

*This is the  English Version of my Iluko poem, MASKARA, which was published in KALLAUTANG:  Poetics of Diversity, Displacement, and Diaspora: Ilokanos in the Americas Writing by Aurelio S. Agcaoili.

I LEAVE YOU NOW

I feel dizzy of this fast 

revolving 

troubled mind.

I could not stand the sound 

of the wind whistling 

when time passes by me, 

with its oozing glamour; for the redolence
of such adoration 

makes leaves sigh with eyes rolling

of the unpleasant smell of yesterday.

Now, I'm choked 

by the  grip of silence

as I am latched on the decaying fringe

of sprouting sorrow, wrapped with 

our undefined feelings like when 

high and low pressures meet to spark 

a lightning bolt of displeasure

and the sky shouts out loud 

its deafening thunder

as your abhorrence 

to my quiet heart.

But to  think that I would fight back, 

no, for I would droop my head humbly
and turn my back  away.

I know that you won't  hold me
to stay and I will just go

and while I am gone you won't see 

how I shoulder  the boulders 

of detestation which you
asked me to pick up 

as my heavy load
pinning me to a countless fall.

WORDS ON THE MIRROR

*English version of the poem, SURAT ITI SARMING.
_____________________________________________

“Only you,” my index finger wrote

on the foggy wall of the bathroom

while I was washing you off my body.

The strands of water

above my head were warm

but I was freezing

as I watched the words

slowly melting like tears

flowing down towards the drain.

I know, flowers don't blossom for us

unlike they used to and I could no longer

dress February with 

the fragrant garments of May.

In our room, the wind

comes an goes

through the window like a robber

who steals piece by piece the scent

of love we have made.

But the power of the wind and water

couldn't sneak into this heart

and mind to remove your memory

or to let the pages of the calendar fly

with the rest of the beautiful may of February

you left me behind.