Notes Scrawled on Cigarette Foils

.
One-Night Stand

we pile our bodies on the cold marbled floor
sombered by the stray notes of McLean’s guitar
insomnia strikes at twelve o’clock
as streaks of lampost light
peek through the screened window,
the jeepneyman on the midnight shift
blows his madness rousing us
from a short dreamland trip.

this morning the clinking noise of corrugated
coins sweeps down through our sleep
as a pair of mandarin eyes stare upon
lola ata’s yantok yet to kill our dreams.
I lifted my brows and yawned
and sunk my weight to the breakfast table.
then fed on some corrugated proletarian meal.
***

Light Rail Transit

i. 
flagging down
a cab for a circuituous
ride
taft avenue leads
to the city zoo.
I knew I
will find no red
digits flashing
on this unmetered
trip,
my verbs flounce
a childish pulsing
for a first
encounter of freed
lovers
in the company
of captive
beasts.

ii. 
a short reprieve
for exhausted souls

a long recess
to retrieve lost

ground

in theatre
of a protracted war.

A protracted war grounded in lost theatre
of long recess for souls exhausted by a short reprieve.

***

Cruising Along Edsa

a bus stop ahead this musing came about:

inconsequential images of bloodied beliefs
sprawled on sleepy sidewalks
forming ribbons curled to scalpels
of would have been midwives to a pregnant afternoon
(the day however retreated treacherously
to a red cemetery for dead dogmas and shrinking faith)
as a blue baby's cries circle to a yellow sunset

of a most storied nursery crime.

***

Lovers Alone
Rare the nights when comets pass
when flowers trick the ides of march
when yellow myths and red hymns
are woven in one
magical one.

Now we sing. Gaps are filled with
notes and yes, the world becomes
our song, movie we see,
thoughts we sip from cups we share.
None faults us hence
when for coffee we care,
when our bodies sweat for weekend
sinigang, then eclipses ensue.
Nobody knew.

And we still dream. None faults us hence.

Destiny is where I stand where
comets pass and catch the glow
of moments bathed in silence.

Where I stand I see us lost
not in junked cars or ceiling holes
but freed in colored trances
of framed memories
of china vases and ten roses
and a string of pearls.

Both gratified knowing happiness
is as rare as nights when comets pass
when flowers trick the ides of march.

****

Reflections

Beloved, this may come to you
As a rose petal or as a drop of wine
But flowers wither in pots and pictures
And sweetness is lost in one sip.
So please take this poem in toast

To our friendship. No, we celebrate not
What we conceived in rage but the tears
And laughters our souls reflected and released
Nourishing the land – lest intolerant gods
Redeem stolen thunder we now posess.

Senile perhaps this exultation essenced
Out of mutual longing, as we lock in muted
Embrace. And as we kiss our fears
Away, we choose to envisage the complexities
Moving the years in Marti’s sketches,

steps signals silences.

How jubilant we are despite the gods
Committing ourselves to the freedom

We understand, stretching the limits of our vows.
In love we rejoice, knowing that alone
we survive the storm.

******

Lourdes

Congratulations mother.
Here is your child, teary eyed
skull scarred by truncheon,
rocks missed his thighs,
fist a-clenched in spoken raggedness
unshaved, uncut,
restless in pursuit of ideals you taught
tireless in the struggle for life you enriched.
Here is your child,
This lover of joy, alienated and sad
fire in his eyes, anger in his heart,
sing to your child the lullaby of sunrise.
Congratulations Mother,
this is our day.
Here is your child in the raging of the night
Lost, lost in the thick of the fight.

********