Never Be Merrily Gone

(Classic undone)



Lonely crystal clear
Dove grey
Silent gray waters
have one voice
My heart seeks song
My ghost dreams lost
Smoke, pale, alone
Grey doves

Alevera Throwaway Lines

pretty face
stupid man
smart once
brains gone

New York
loves shamrocks
Furtive looks
shame hard knocks
She tells me
to move
I jump,
how high
She has me
in the palm
Of her hands,
fortunes read
Like
psychic bombs

Eating green mango strips
in Decembertime chill,
scrunching her pretty face
in sour buds kill.
Wind blows her hair.
She pulls a band from her wrist
to tie her tresses.
Her dimple sinks.
I die again.

The Day Before Silence

A day before the 8th of the month
of leaves falling and leavings
was the day you went dead silent again.
There was no reason given,
no words thrown in anger,
no frowns etched in scorned banter.

There was nothing just like before.
There will be nothing from now on.
Nothing comes from a vacuum.
There is a reason.
I am on a quest.

(The) Police and (Romantic) Thieves

Cold wind from the hills
from the east
brushes off the chirping of crickets
from the west,
never fails to dredge up memories
of broken hearts and tired dreams.
Shut up, fool,
say the romance police.
We have a warrant for your arrest.
Put you hands behind your back,
your heart in its socket.

Lead Day In Bed

You died from me again;
came back in red gown,
bending from hip to lip,
pulling keychains from your mouth.

Explanations are still strangers
that don't age past decades.
I know your middle name.
I know where you live --
on the be ever early hills,
flatlined on glens.

Love as easy as a smile.
Every boy is your father.
I wanted to be your lover
not your dad.
Dead before leaving.
Sad before dying.

You dare throw pebbles
on Narcissus' pond,
but unwilling to grow roots
by the bank.

4 Verses

(Image by Alexander Semenov)

Dusted off 4 verses of mine published in the Weekly Sillimanian. Enjoy and/or abhor.

Pass

Days go by sluggishly.
You don’t know what you miss
until you do.
The moon creeps behind
begging for lies.
Expedience can only be kept
through smiles.

We took baby demons
silent in unsuspecting throats.
Mortals kept away.
Mere fear blunt whispering
at the other side of curtains.

Magicians played,
weaving laughter, paranoid tones.
Neighbors mum.
Loose skirts still hang.
Never will the sun rise,
unless stars bow,
smirking beer in weird glasses.

Muses will never run out,
never run out,
for wizards
with broken wands,
clean cauldrons.

Die every night, lie every day.
Close shall it stay.
Ripped apart when omens fail.

Sing, sing for leaving.
Forget it. Fool.


Lost Border

Travel Seashell Tunnel.
Walk, slide in laughing.
Your hair turns to salt.

Coconut leaves whisper wind,
taking nothing for granted.
Feet splash to high tide.
Stones sharp, image waves
stand guard in excess.
Dwarf fish the deep expect
find their way into pots of dusk.

You can’t land on the beach.
It has been stolen.
Living stones under,
smoothed by years of waiting,
stand in the way of mountains
threatened with extinction.

Let worries worry alone;
savor the moment,
no matter how consuming.
Eat the tempter away.
No weakling to sway.


Destiny

When I was young,
there were many ways
to get to the roof.
I am not young anymore (some say I am),
and I don’t even know where the roof is.

* Written as “Billy Yang-Yin”


Pregnant Spider

Moves, split time
on an unmoved plane,
heavy with a world to be borne.
Born on when who knows where.
Beauty mapped on a back,
symmetry bloated to beauty.

And when the time does come
for the giving forth, the giving away
of tiny crawling web-spinning lives
to a world indifferent of such displays
of donor and donee;
juxtaposing jubilee
with famished droughts
of scientia dementia --
a world spins on its own.

As easily lost on its machination.
Predator peering on prey.
A thought lingering on a moment,
captive of a motion,
of an emotion.
Creating a universe all its own.

God’s Karateka

“I will appear before God with empty hands.” -- St. Thérèse

Illustration by Daya Callan

Dame Edith tells the story of a Catholic girl
who fell in love with a Protestant boy.
She was determined not to let a little matter
of sects get in the way of her happiness.
It didn’t harm that Ed loved stories
as much as she did. They wrote of words.

Asking Jesus’ mom for guidance;
the Virgin Mother let all the flowers
in the garden bloom the next morning.
Edith had her answer.

They married, had kids, didn’t exactly
live happily ever after (Ed went away)
but were as close as they could get
to ecstasy and literary paradise –-
words brilliantly uncommon,
words garden variety, words warring
east and west, words begat worlds.

At St. Therese’s little church
north and south united.
Blades swirled in blurred motion,
poetry bouquet caught in blades.
Petals and blood nectar splattered
Edith’s story in sequel.
The necklace winds its way
back down to the clasp.

Demons Don’t

The Jews all live
by the coast,
the sea that Philistines
said they’d drive them to.
Abraham cries in heaven
looking down on his progeny
wipe each other out.
While black rain falls
in bushels full of torrents.
The Torah birthed the Koran
by way of the Bible.
Bile in words that spawn
wars of race and pride.
Landlocked hatreds,
giants taking sides.
Fires smolder in silos.
The devil smirks, I smile.
I got a shot at heaven.
Demons don’t.

Ode To My Unborn Fourth Child

I would have taught you
how to play basketball
on a 3-by-4-meter hardcourt.
I would have taught you
how to scribble pencil marks
on bare walls.
But you wouldn’t have needed
my help with that.
I would have taught you
how to fish with bamboo pole,
nylon line, sand centipede on hook;
cook little ciclids
on open fire of coconut leaves.
I would have taught you
one-step sparring
and disarming pretty girls
with quick footwork and a smile;
as you put me in my place
with a stern look.
But love wasn’t so kind
the first time around.

Rain

(Image from www.rossphillips.net)

Before tropical storm Ondoy/Ketsana gave Luzon island in the Philippines its worst flooding in memory, I had written down Rain. Whatever relation you may find in this particular verse with the storm in question is totally unintended.

Needles fall, piercing leaves
down roots of memory ghosts.
Pain, guilty moves, singling out
the skin of Avalon’s wounds.
Luck, a hook on string,
waiting for the bug
dumb to vision quest.

It doesn’t last,
this deluge refused
Nirvana’s iconoclast.
The ground still thirsts
heaven won’t fill up.
The sun doesn’t shine today,
it tires of unceasing play.

Caffeine Fix

She lives on coffee
The deep dark seas
That know no waves
She sips the foam
From surface tension
Of romance circumstanced
Skimming divine approval
For unplanned conceptions
It turned out OK
Like rum on java
Kids calling daddy papa
And you stir your cup
With a teaspoon cold
Steel on porcelain
Stares on sweaty skin
You need a glass to drink
Leave the tap open to suggestions
Let liquid fill the sink
Air turns to water
Everything swims

The Land Of Ire

The land of ire
is not far
from anywhere.
It is a word
and an act away,
at arm’s length.

It has two seasons:
warm and burning.
The devil was born
in this place;
hands curled
in a fist,
with no face.
He exults every time
someone settles
there, here.

Guilt is the only rain
allowed in the land of ire.
It is a worm gnawing
on rotting flesh on a silent battlefield.

Ballads and lyrics
like bullets litter the ground;
gestures mean,
words with no sound.

Channeling Discovery

The strange things sudden electric discovery makes one do. I normally post verses only on Sundays. Let this Monday be early or an extension of the previous day, birthing a serendipitous event. Nah, it’s just another post.

I have had two women name their sons after me
without the benefit of sex.
Is it better than the real thing?
I can’t tell you,
but I know it’s not mine.
One woman has half my wife’s name,
the other is the first spark
dying on the wick.
The wind knows not where it blows.
The night knows not when it trips
in the city light, the urban blight.
The old ticker warms
at dawn, while mosquitoes
feast on legs.

We Will Not Be Lovers

Lest anyone gets suspicious ideas on the title, let it be known that I lifted this from The Waterboys’ fourth studio record Fisherman’s Blues. It is the second cut on side one of the original vinyl release. It is an intriguing and romantic line begging to be duplicated and expounded. So, there. Let your mind be at rest –- to whom it may concern.

Like when I knew I didn’t want to marry you
I know too that we will not be lovers
You call me friend
I say your eyes enchant
Your lips lie, but you slay me under the night sky
With promises of keeping it chaste
As the stars fall to crush the fields
Where the grass fail to grow
Let flesh putrefy in adulterous want
I will not lie in your bed for its own sake

More Of The Same

From the century that went by, more of the same...


Two Worlds From My Window

Colors divide
Sounds subside
No escape from life
And none is asked for
Dusty morning
Jaundiced afternoon
The world is one
From my window


Guiding Light

Lost in time
Evening eased
A rainbow breathes
Haloed on a lamp’s flame
Swaying with the cold wind
Leaning without breaking
Burning shadows bent
The sole guide
For an old man’s shortening candle
Lest he stumbles
In darkness’ urge
To answer nature’s call


Ascent

Venus, you rose from the depths;
resplendent, curvaceous and wet.
You dried the spit on my lip.

With every step I took
you leaped into garden beds.
What I thought were flowers
was gasoline.

Dark Rainbow Love Poems

More poems from the past. These were among the first ones published in a local Sunday supplement magazine. I am still digging for more. Don’t hold your breath; I don’t intend to stop doing this until all the dust is blown off the covers.


And Now

(The morning was for him,
Free to be had.
Everything beckoned, everything cried.
But he was brought up in isolation,
Strong enough to be sad.)

He closes the windows,
Snubbing half the din.
Still he can see the flowers.
Their fragrance hangs
On his cheeks.
Tempted to reopen the windows,
He remembers his strength.
To darkness he gives in,
Allowing a crack to exist.
The morning is screaming.

With grace and an unsettled mind,
He notices dust
In an untrampled corner of the room.
Bending on seldom-used knees,
Hearing lightning tear,
Thunders his back.
He draws a heart on the floor.

Powder sticks to cold fingers.
He tastes it, bitter with age.

Frowns won’t take away youth.
Amid the wavering dawn,
An attempted smile
Will settle for a smirk.
Feeling safe,
He takes three rabbit strides.


I love you

You face wrapped
by ancient roots
like jealous lovers.
Kites lay their eggs
in you ears.
I don’t know why,
but I incubate mine
in your mouth.
When I sleep
I huddle tight
in warm breasts.
I am the perverted parasite
too scared to say,
‘I love you.’


Unblinded

All that is white
come crushing in.
What is left must
all be black,
close behind follow.
Sleep and will,
the lack of it,
tempt what comes.
Then war is given birth to.
Somewhere around here
must be the rainbow.

9 20th-Century Poems

Illustration from loonybinart.wordpress.com.

Time to dig up some chestnuts from my personal oak chest. I may just be tired of coming up with new poems for this blog or I love reading old stuff. Whatever the reason, here are a couple of verses of mine printed in the defunct Focus magazine. If I remember right, this was the first time I got published in a national mag. You will also notice that at the time, I detested punctuation. Except for some tweaking, this is how they appeared in Focus, in this order. PJT

For A Chink In The Index

How I tried to imitate your shrewdness
Evident in a one-hit parchment
The wit snatched from tight crannies
Jolting my silent mile walk
The pleading of fading nature
Of rain from lips
And clouds from eyes
But when I saw your visage
Without baroque carvings
Almost a blank
I was almost convinced
The most ordinary-looking
Befriend the extraordinary, coming easily
Your number is in the book
Only the finger is reluctant to call
Nowadays you may be teaching
Same as what you once were
I am still being taught


The Absentee

At the appointed time
You did not come
It was foolish
I waited
Knowing well
Even your shadow is timorous
Of voices in the hallway
I trusted hope
On a passing cloud
With flowers jutting out
But it just passed by
I knew you hid in it


Plea And Pleasure

Please take away
The splinter from my eye
I cannot do it myself
For I’m blind in the other
Be gentle, be delicate
My eyelashes are raring for war
Your petal fingers they can pierce
A pond of blood
Pretend to be a heartless surgeon
For a moment
(Make an impartial choice)
Orbs are starting to mesh
Into a solid mass
Inside a wooden ball
Be quick with it
I’m losing patience
Doing all the talking
While you gape
With a dry tongue
If you hate all the sticky trouble
Do it now
Be done


She, The Devil I Love

Raving mad because she eloped
With my basketball
Instead of my soccer ball
She’s going to invent sports
In the middle of the street
Remembering her confession
When she was a child
She dreamed always
Of a big blue screen changing shades
She was also blind then
Success she’ll find
In her scheming and dealing
I have prepared a valley
To bury her soul when she dies
Lucky for the farmer
Who finds her skin still taut
Dry as the stone, her heart
There is wealth in breaking
Her bones to oil


Life Tales

Those were the days quite carefree
Love was a non-existent word
It lived only in the act
Barely making ends meet
We survived but didn’t mind
When everything isn’t everything
Without noticing the second hand
Running out of a fixed orbit
Looking down at the floorless pit
Swallowing every available passage
Yet every dark hole
Is a rainbow in disguise
It takes but a little patience to brow-raise
Maidens simple and fair
Ponies and mares
Cavorting in one playground
Skies run aground
Finding songs in a splatter of tears
God’s fingernails edged
Are discovered the stairway to His heart
Why does supremacy
Set booby traps of tests
Taxing indeed
Maybe that is why
I am getting better at getting bitter


Imaging A Plot in Compostela

Under the shade of Sapodillas
Blotting out all colors
Allowing light in unnoticed cracks
Why should I always wonder
About internals and externals?
When only the ground trembles
In its own chill
Then you appear
From out of a wink
With arms outstretched
You glow from within
Pointing to a grassy trail
Which leads to a house made of wood
I know I built it dreaming
But I am awake now
And without a will of my own


Lines Wayward

Slam the drawer silently
Lest you disturb
The stolid pictures on the desk
Imprisoned by a glass pane
Open the other boxes of dust and rags
Flying fleeing poems of moths
May you discover anthologies
The world will never know and savor
If you yourself would escape
Spider-web traps set up for adventurers
Kiss my elbow in farewell
Leave your lips
A memento


Meandering

Open the door at the fool path’s end
Someone told us home would be within
Breathe in the dust for old time’s sake
This emotion we both grasp
Is painted with hatred and forgiveness
The first to choose the latter as a weapon
Will look noble to other lovers


Journey Of Lovers

Trekking together to my refuge
A couple of kilometers away
The wheels under us are full of eyes
Knowing you are deathly afraid
That the closing of the century
May come too close, too soon
You wonder then why all stares
Have broken into slits of smiles
Your blue skin can feel
The sea and the passengers are one
In wishing both of us
Good luck

Emulating Ariel

Emulating Ariel is easier
read than written
Plath had so much wrath
and bitterness
Not exactly exclusive
She hated her father
She hated Hitler
That attitude and vision
cut through races and ages
A successful suicide for an idol
Is like worshipping a demon
in place of God
Riding a race car
in the safety of an armchair
Ovens have their uses
Baking bread and wiping out races
Taking your life in winter
When you can’t wait for summer
To thaw and rot in the sun
Ariel was a Tempest sprite
An archangel, or a mad woman
Who took her own life
Two times unlucky

579

Three odd numbers in a row
Is like three straight love affairs without a heartbreak
If all things come in threes, it sure did with ’70s icons
dying one after the other
Kenny, Mike and Farrah kicked the bucket in close proximity
(although there might be arguments about Kenny being an icon)
If the sixties ain’t dead, just three decades older
The seventies sure seemed to be on its death throes last week
If you are one of those still listening to Top 40 hits of that decade
When “disco sucks” and “punk ain’t dead’ were T-shirt staples
Check your calendar
You might be signing out yourself
It won’t do you no harm if you update your last will & testament

Sorefly

it’s enough I see
your eyes
past fluid shoulders
languages rendered dark
upon sight
your hands are gifted
with the power
to mislead
are no match
to your wellsprings
of light

Sandra Smiles

(illustration by Sandra Chi)

The rain never stops for Sandra.
It gets too excited with her smile.
Let foreign invaders pose their art,
let native collaborators prance their dance –-
don’t let Sandra smile,
it is the end of romance,
or the beginning of revolution,
the breaking of idols, the falling of gods.

From on high, angels sigh,
scatter seeds of confusion & inspiration –-
the silence of sacrifice.
Hearts on slabs, wheels on fire.
The gentlest of touches,
the wispiest of dews;
all bear witness to the promise blank.

Men never tire of the chase,
Bear witness to desperate disparate deeds.

Sandra smiles.
Anything exists.

The Rain Falling

The rain falling
on everything
is the only sound
I would like to hear,
drowning out thoughts,
killing the feeling.
Falling down and falling
in love again
are the same.
You feel pain,
regret too late.
You are in this
for the pleasure,
ending up
with the torment.
Your soul feels
the warmth
of hell’s flames
nipping at your feet.
She was always like this, sweet and bitter in equal woman-child parts.
You sought to play, never expecting to pay the price of a flood of fear
and lust. The rain keeps falling. I can still hear my heart beat.

Twice

(For Gift)

Bitten, my loves, bit,
ate their hearts
Out, over a jewel they are not: cannot be, have.
Had felt it just twice in six.
Years go by like
so many sweet spells.
Sour fuels, nervous energy
keep me running.
I stumble & don’t notice,
too late, too deep, the wound –
Smiles & bleeds.
I fight & get worse.
I hurt & curse. We fight.
Have I fought enough for peace, for friends, for trust, for tranquility?
For complacence, I don’t do anything.
The feeling runs its own course.
One does not notice until it’s beside you.
Neck to neck, heart to heart.
You can’t keep hungry hearts apart.
Born to run, afire from the start.
Corny is just another word
For love’s the truth.
Told her.
Went for broke.
Nothing & all.
Wasted.
Was that all there was to it?
Get close, then get lost?
Spilt, nothing saved.
The floor’s still cold.
Warm, as long as the sun stays.
It will go away, for sure.
One got away in silence,
three years stretched.
One about to,
Go away. Away, yeah, away.
Scat!
Twice bitten, I died. I die. I keep on dying.
Damn death deadbeat heart hurts.

Swallow Song No.2

A swallow yawns,
eternity is glimpsed.
A hole is punched,
a tear is torn on
a black expanse.

Only the swallow sees. Black eyes on black face on black head on black neck on black body on black wings on black tail on black chest on black feet.

A privilege bestowed by a god who’s first thought-of word
was freedom.

On air on a wing a prayer is answered.

Retribution

You broke the spines
of the books
I keep in a white cabinet.
painted over, twice over,
once lacquered brown
now hospital white.

The pain can be seen
through glass panes:
writhing paper bodies,
bruised, wounded, mangled,
bleeding dry ink.

This crime must be paid in kind.
you must agonize,
learn the pain of writer’s block.

I will pick your eyes out with pencils,
stuff down your throat
pages of pulp romances,
starve you with cancelled stipend.
Grant? What grant?
You will never write again!
Your fingers will turn to springs,
the kind in spiral notebooks.

You will pay.
That will teach you to mess with my library.

Sins of September

Past summer, September,
we were born.
A season neither of us
has seen.
Autumn was waiting
at the end.
It’s on a different time zone
we haven’t been in.

Senses yearn, unfelt;
we don’t talk anymore.
Everybody’s talking.
Letters, souls disguised,
masked, given the benefit
of the undoubt.

It was tense. It got worse.
I left.
You wanted to hang me
for someone else’s crime.

In this land, borders blur.
Men are men. Women wicked.
Femme fatale your ego.
You like that don’t you?
(Mata Hari got shot.
This id is for you.)

Getting even is never easy.
You take as much as you give.
Justice collects its dues.
And September comes every year.

The Cheshire Woman

her smile is the only thing that remains/if you stare long enough into her eyes/everything else vanishes into the blank wall/in unexpected seconds they flash back/to whisper her Eurasian features/she is adamant/she won't stay for long/her tribe is not eternal as the fleeting clouds/you might like to know who her creator is/sad to say in a festivity/he is long dead and gone/to the watery hole that spat him out/whoever watches patient enough to ask/knows he himself will pass/run as fast as your feet would let you/the foreign dust which sticks to your soles' stride/is the lone company fate will allow/don't try to whistle/let alone sing/winds are beginning to be pushy and cold/a raincoat won't do/sleet and rain are having a fiesta/while we snore a siesta/a lady is hard to remember in the middle of a struggle/she has been painted as liberty and equality's flag carrier/one french breast exposed to the battle/sneer at her precious back with punk/panacea is just a stacked pharmacy/mix a new drug to make all others obsolete/cross it with gunpowder and pull the trigger/violence over sex/dance over song/whichever way around/mama mother nanay mater madre/everything means the same/all the rest is the gibbon's business/would she go out of style in the test-tube baby boom?/how does candy taste with the wrapper?/do you make love with argyle socks on?/quiz me baby/this is the era of returning truths/flashbacks and hitbacks/the comeback of tarzan and musical extravaganzas/the return of the carpenter's son/will he be mugged and whacked again?/not on the hair of your chinny chin chin/the greatest legend ever rumored/the making of an international blockbuster/today is tomorrow's breeding ground/alice came limping back to wake up/the cheshire cat is just a puss with a fancy grin/THE END

From College To Cinema

Shot, Died, And Buried
(For Jacqueline L., who saw that movie with me for 3 minutes)

This is the way heroes
come to an end,
not...

A stab at glory
is dangerous to your health.
Fool people to be brave with you.
No meal is free.
Shoot in the dark,
hit Anonymous.
Unshackle chains
for the price of lead.
Believe the man;
power and flowers
are twin daughters
of the same mother
: the trigger finger.

Every story must be told.
No life is unimportant,
no life is boring.
You don't get to being dead
without being alive.
No shortcuts.
Lazy as lazy comes, one takes it.
No second acts.
The stage is the best.
The telling should not be wasted.
You don't get to hear
the director shout “cut!”
What you see
are what memories are for.
And no life could be so short
as to fit into an hour and a quarter movie.
Shot, dead, and buried
in an unmarked grave.


A Love Song After Shade No.22 or Lana's Aria

The woman has a smile like dusk receding,
pregnant with the guilt of rivers dying.
A flutter of butterfly wings, she cries.
Every sound becomes a faint goodbye.