Category: General

—-POEM INFO: A Barangay in the Philippines is what every little division within a city is called; sometimes a Barangay is just a simple village — all alone. But in “calling” a destination within the Philippines without the precursor of “BARANGAY” one commits a faux-pas.

I WALK IN THE PHILIPPINES

In Barangay Pit-os briskly I walk
And turn into the village center
Smelling the market stands
Full of splintered fish and hairy fruits,
Sitting with vegetables so exotic
A combinant taste properly satisfies
As my movement slows at first
Then slower still as scarcely I move.
The people in Barangay Pit-os
Seem to never frown when I
Move from stand to stand
From suspicious fish to shaggy fruits
But only smile with curiosity
As to whom I might really be.
I stop to talk but never to reveal
Who I am, because they know
Who the tall stranger is to them.
Content they are that I am here to
Buy their goods and give them all
Unsolicited smiles of gratitude
That makes the people here just
A little happier that today again
I took this walk with them.

wake up wake up
i see you sitting there with your eyes wide awake
sitting there sleeping in your head
when you could be doing so much more instead

Death leaves the heaviest mark
engraved on our souls

memories come and gone
now vivid, vibrant
pushed to our consciousness
by the heaviness
weighing on our hearts

Death leaves the deepest mark
sunken far beyond our bones

memories come and gone
now vivid, vibrant
pulled from our deepest reprieves
deeper than the marks
far beyond our bones

Death weaves with strongest thread,
linking us to places unknown

it is this mark that
solidifies in our hearts
in our minds
who and what we loved
but mostly why we loved.

I know every day is a battle,
no less for the young than it is for the old.
When you are young you need to remind yourself
that you are, INDEED, young!
The future is still a malleable uncertainty …
unfixed….and yielding to your ambitions.
There are certain things in life that I know I can never do…
time and opportunity make them unrealizable dreams.
However, you have unnamed decades stretching out before you
that are unmarked, waiting only for you to make your move.
Whatever you dream to do, awaken its blood-rich soul!
it is forever wintertime for those who flounder in slumbering thought!
Life is a space measurable by fullness or emptiness…
you are the one who moves the mark.

I felt the ribboning of my skin
a soft scar slowly forming

How delicately our bodies do sin
as our minds, gently, are storming

Heroes have come and gone
to vulnerability no longer we are prone

A sea of self-saviors has reached its dawn.
no help, we shuffle along the darkness alone.

Steps fall, darkening paths,
echo no longer do our laughs

Scars from our righteousness form
slowly, ribboning our flesh

reminding us always that we are
Vulnerable.

You see dreams fleeting across faces
You see the steady rise of a chest
You see a tossing and turning body
You see a nightmare gripping with fear.

I see an attempt; one that ended too soon
I see hopes beginning and ending
I see struggles to exist
I see pain clenching a heart.

You see someone asleep
I see someone alive

I see the potential of what is unseen.

A smile flees
ever so quickly
a tear flows through stormy weather
oh so slowly

Your sigh seems to linger
as does your touch
as does your laugh
as does your smell
as does your time.

My sigh seems to linger
my hands feel cold
my laugh so short
myself so distant
my time so alone.

I feel the twinge as I remember
the time you fell asleep in my arms
the time you pressed your cold hands to my skin
the time you kissed me in the rain
the time you told me you loved me
as we laid sprawled on my
small, bedroom floor in innocent talk; and then
the time you told me you loved me no more.

I watched a blind man once.
I wondered how he walked.
Was he aimless?
Did he walk or wander?

I wondered how he thought.
Did he despise what he never saw?
Did he listen to his head or to his heart?

Did he allow temptations
lead him astray?
Did he walk along
simply to be walking?

Had he lost a purpose
simply because he could not see it?

Then I saw someone approach the man.
I heard, ever so faintly, say,
“I was looking for you.”

Empty does the sparrow soar
when love it has no more.

A desperate stroke of wings
leaves none left to sing.
A watchful eternity does ring;
from this despair will rise a king.