Debris

Debris,flotsam, jetsam, garbage, wreckage, floating trash,
Corrugated metal folded like paper, a book destroyed, all junk.
Carcasses of trees, shards of glass, iron rods, a refrigerator door, a hand,
A shoe without its pair, unidentifiable things, soggy rubber, clothes off somebody's back,
Dogs, cattle, pigs that could not swim, a child's plush toy, a bench, a lucky charm,
Somebody's father, a neighbor, a stranger from another village, a lot of stuff.
What used to be a roof, a student's backpack, now all useless crap.
Uprooted crops not ready for harvest, a teenager not ready to die,
Shanty dweller, man, woman, child, elder, sister, enemy, friend, someone's lover,
She who lived in a concrete house, he who had two cars, they who had none,
Business man, kanto boy, tambay, police man, priest, a convicted thug,
The village gossip, the righteous one, the one reviled, and one well liked.

Residue of a life that was
Remnants of days that now seem so long ago
Of that quiet time before the storm
Wreckage of families, separated, decimated,
Bodies of children who escaped their parents' grasp,
Corpses never given a chance to say goodbye,
Drifting to the sea,
Carried helplessly,
Washed away from home,
Swept away, then gone.

The angry water did not choose.
The storm surge had no favorites.
The howling force of the wind did not discriminate.
Yolanda was blind; she took without regard to who or what.
The fury vengeance of mother earth simply struck everything on its path.
Everything, everyone was equal, all fair game.
It wasn't the clever nor the richer who survived.
Not the braver, the stronger, nor one more deserving to die.
Just whoever, whatever, whichever.
Random and impersonal as can be; they're all debris.

She struck, swept, smacked,
Stole, swiped, slayed.
And then just as abruptly, she left.
And in her stillness, the shock.
The deafening stillness after the roaring waves.
And the last struggling leaf fell on the littered ground,
Waking up those who did not die.
And they stirred, and they moved, and they searched
Through the debris, the flotsam, and the jetsam
Searching for hope, for nanay, for kuya, for remains of life.

Debris, detritus, sludge, scrap, and crud
Cover the earth for miles around.
Under the garbage, signs of life.
Under the rubble, somebody rises.
Behind the glazed eyes too tired to weep,
Remnants of a heart ready to fight,
To eat, to lash back, to survive, to fight for what's left behind,
To move on, to forgive, to forget, to flee, 
To find a new place, a new reason, a new season, a new cause,
Amid the debris, the vestiges, the leftover matter, yes, hope remains.

The Saddest Month

September is the saddest month
When a sister sighs
When a mother cries
When her man reaches out to empty space
When a child grows another year older
Without a mom
When the wind whispers her name
And hearts remember the pain
When years are counted
Stories recounted
When the nightmare of ten days
Of the longest goodbye
Flashes slowly in the mind's eye
When memories of a sweet, innocent past
Of living oblivious to loss
Untouched by death
In the bliss of ignorance
In the happy shadow of denial
Are relived and achingly replayed
When fervent, hopeless wishes
Are whispered to heaven
To please, please go back to that time
Before naive peace was shattered
This saddest month
When a father hugs the air
And best friends stifle tears
When dreams are haunted
And photo albums revisited
When songs awaken
Sleeping sentiments
When questions are asked
And secret regrets surface
When wrinkles deepen
When the the rifts in my soul widen
When the anesthesia wears off
And the numbness turns into
A smarting tender sore
September, sometimes I hate you

Not Here

In the middle of raucous chatter

Of familial ribbing and laughter

The noise of nothingness shatters

That familiar emptiness shouts out a whisper

And then I remember

I miss her

Ode to the Invention Called the Shower

That first collision of the cold splash of water

With the steaming heat of my scalp

Followed by the explosion of ecstasy

And the escape of a moan

From a mouth minutes ago was cursing summer

And I feel like I was the one to discover

The opposite of fire

And so I melt in a ball of exquisite joy

Of utter surrender

Whispering a prayer to the God of water

And I let the rivulets of pleasure

Drizzle my hair

Trickle down my face

Tickle my back

Embrace my chest

Wash away the grime

Obliterate summer’s sweat

And expunge the heat

And erase the hate

For this torrid bleeping weather

The curse of being a tropical creature

Ah, this magnificent shower

This splash of relief

If only I could stay here forever

A Stanza for my Sister

A whisper in my heart, 
a conversation in my dream, 
a gap in my soul, 
a universe of memories in my mind, 
a tear in my eye, 
an ache in my gut, 
a hope in my spirit, 
a yearning in my chest, 
your absence
a never disappearing presence in my life.

The Scent of Mother

At night, she gets out of the shower

A scent of alcohol and baby powder

Trailing after her

Smelling like clean and comfort

And sweet dreams and safety

She throws the sheets up in the air

Casting off dust and bed monsters

That whiff of happy

Filling the room

Assuring, protecting, calming

When my tummy aches

When I cry in pain

She fills my lungs

With the scent of magic potions

Vicks vaporub and manzanilla

No medicine's more potent

Than her touch like magic

Her kiss a healing tonic

And the scent of  mommy's love

Chases the pain away

She comes in from the garden

Smelling of sun and soil

Of nature and nurturing

Of green grass and growing things

The biggest wonder

Is that no matter how dusty

And dirty she gets

Her sweat is the scent

Of freshness and health

Of rainbows and garden joy

Nothing in the world

Can smell better

No factory can make

No shop can sell

Nothing can top
Nothing can comfort like
Nothing will replace

That heady scent

That heavenly embrace

Of that perfume called mother

Ode to Summer

When it's summer in the Philippines, it sizzles. So much so that I've been inspired to write poetry. Two poems, in fact. One in Tagalog and another in my version of Shakespeare English.

These are just poems for fun.

Pambahay

Kapag tag-init, payatot, tabachingching pantay pantay
Normal lang na ang mga outfit nating pambahay
Ay saksakan ng nipis, iksi, at kupas ng kulay
Mga tisert na sobra nang gutay-gutay
Napagkakamalang basahan ng kasambahay
Mga perpec shorts na super mahalay
Kasi naman ang ineeeet, haay!

Shakesfear (written after reading some Shakespeare)

Praytell, what's this mefeel
Raging heat from head to heel
Burning innards, sweating crook, oh dear
Yet still, I need to wear a brassier!

No Choice

She stands in the middle of the intersection

with no hint of shade for cover.

Her sweaty brow,

her carbon filled lungs ignored

as she makes cars go to and fro.

No time to whine,

no time to wonder

if all is worth the exhaustion

as she inhales the exhaust of the city,

exhales the unheard sighs,

even manages to smile.

He wades in morass

in a little cube of stench.

To worry about bacteria

that an ocean of hand gel cannot squelch

is a rich man’s concern.

To be alive to smell the shit is bliss.

He thinks he’s lucky

for to be working today,

to be called to swim in other people’s crap

is a blessing, an assurance

that today there’ll be food on the table

there’ll be a scrap of cash.

Her father says she’s doing it for the family.

Her mother says she’ll do it anyway for free.

Might as well be paid to open her legs

to men too ugly inside

that they have to pay for it.

Her innocence is worth nothing.

Her honor cannot be eaten.

What use is worrying about a lost childhood?

What point is there in saving her purity

when staying alive is not a guaranteed option?

She just closes her eyes and takes it

as she tells her soul to die silently.

WYSIWYG

From Wikipedia on WYSIWYG:

The phrase was coined in 1982 by Larry Sinclair, an engineer at Triple I (Information International, Inc.), to express the idea that what the user sees on the screen is what the user gets on the printer while using the "page layout system", a pre-press typesetting system first shown at ANPS in Las Vegas. The phrase was popularized by a newsletter published by Arlene and Jose Ramos, called WYSIWYG. It was created for the emerging Pre-Press industry going electronic in the late 1970s. After three years of publishing, the newsletter was sold to employees at the Stanford Research Institute in California.

The prhrase "Whay you see is what you get," from which the acronym derives, was a catchphrase popularized by Flip Wilson's drag personal "Geraldine" (from Rowan; Martin's Laugh-in in the late 1960s. Geraldine would often say it to excuse her quirky behavior. 

*end of quote*

And what do you know, my other name is Geraldine. 

Now, tack to the poem.

WYSIWYG

What you see

Is what I am

I won’t pretend to be deep

I won’t cast furtive, sideway glances

To make you think I’m enigmatic

I won’t give you cryptic lines

To show a shadow of something dark

Hidden, lurking behind a half-smile

No. If I try to be perplexing

And pretend to be mystifying

I will laugh at myself

And then I’ll make you a PowerPoint slide

To be sure you get

What I’m really saying

If you call me mysterious

I’ll say you’re full of crap

Figuratively, of course.
Figures of speech, I shun 

Preferring the literal

What you see is

What there is

Yes, I have my dirty secrets

But who doesn’t?

But the Venn diagram

Of what I show outside

And what I am inside

In the well-lit caverns of my psyche

Is a fairly expansive circle

Because my life is one big open book

The spine split wide open

The pages dog-eared and well worn

With nothing much in between the lines

The story of my life is open source

Password not required

Because I can be a whore for attention

Desperate for a reaction

My status even strangers
And their friends of friends know about
What I had for dinner
Snapped and posted
Liked and commented

Shared and quoted

My brain is not a mollusk shell

With meandering paths

And unexplored tunnels

My guts are spilled

For all the world to see
My innards exposed
My heart bared

If anyone cared to look
Every little pang of emotion documented

Every imagined poignancy exploited
You see, I’m in the in the business of sharing
Distributing the little that I know

People pay to learn about the stuff 

I manage to google and stuff inside my

Pretty uncomplicated noggin

I prefer the efficiency of information

Over the enchantment of the unknown

I have no time to be coy

I have no patience for innuendos

Unless they’re the funny, dirty kind

Which you say with an obvious wink wink

That makes me guffaw because I got your joke

I know, I know

I’m boring
But really, the need to be clear
Far outweighs the need to be sublime
Metaphors confuse me
The metaphysical can never trump

The clarity of reality

The ambiguous leaves me confused
Hints flummox my simple mind
Just hit me with the truth any time
And I’ll say thank you for telling it to me bluntly

Yes, that means I'm shallow

Like a saucer
Wide open
Unlocked, ajar
Spreadeagled
Uncovered
Your irony will probably escape me

If you say no, I hear no

If you say you’re hungry

I assume you need food

And not that your soul  

Is famished

Or your spirit ravenous

For some nebulous craving
Look at my face
And you see pretty much the wall behind me
Transparent like cellophane
Predictable like August rain

Symbols my ass
Semiotics—a pain

What you see

Whether you like it or not

Is what you get

So the question is
Why rest from prose
Why poetize
Why deviate from paragraphs

And delve into stanzas

I don’t know
It's just that sometimes
When I least expect it
A word gurgles out

From somewhere visceral
A bubble of a thought

Refuses to conform to the regular syntax
And the enter button insists

On moving to the next line

Leaving the last one unpunctuated
To form narrow columns

Instead of broad walls of text

I don’t know where they come from

There is rarely rhyme

And even less common—reason
I don't even know

How to do it right

But who cares

I just write

What feels like poetry

Listening intently

To the uncontrolled sentiments

The unstructured statements

And I relax my silly grammar rules

And let the words flow

Unfenced by patterns

Unhampered by justified margins

And they just pour out

Unbidden

Uninvited

Unhinged

Disorganized

A jumble of misplaced ideas

And molted musings

Spewed out

From a place uncharted

Maybe somewhere

In a body drenched with words

Somewhere in there

Where I’ve never bothered to look

Just maybe

Just maybe

I’m deep after all

Or not  

When Walls Talk

Stained, blotched, faded

Silent walls, three decades standing

Now heaving heavy of only memories

Housing emptyness

Covering only remnants of everyday living

The leftover matter

Once considered valuable enough to store

Now discarded

Or just waiting for the next truck to fetch them

Walls sheltering no breathing creatures

Just ghosts and lingering scents

Of food and events and human beings

They stand, lonely, lamenting

Mocking me for moving on

After years of faithful protecting

From rain, heat, and bullets of soldiers rebelling

From a world so harsh and ugly at times

From the glare of the sun and scorching truth

From the stench of the city

From the poverty some call reality

They’ve done their best

To be a fortress, a haven, a default safety

Where masks, bras, and pretensions are removed

Where one puts on a bullet-proof blanket of comfort

How dare I leave now

Where is my loyalty?

But they oblige

They shrug shoulders they don’t have

And give in to the inevitable

They say go, go, move one

We cannot stop you from living

After all, you left a long time ago

When you married that man from the south

And the walls envelop me

Forgiving me for leaving

Trying to hide their weeping

But before you go, they say

Let us talk

And I let them

And they talk of a family too eager to move in

Bringing salt and icons in a home filled with dust

And furniture too few that the house shook

Then filling the house with dreams and plans

And stories, not all of them fun

Filling the home with people, even not their own

With all sorts of things and things and things

And things and toys and books and stuff and things

With love and love and love and love

The walls talk

Of new wave parties in the 80s

Of college buddies hanging, chilling

Of sleepovers too many to count

The corners whisper of sins and secrets

Of stealing daddy’s ciggies to learn how to smoke

Of playing hooky and getting a hicky

Of stealthy kisses

And experimental gropings in the dark

Of growing up and throwing up

Of grounded days and loveless nights

Of love or what we thought was love

The walls snicker remembering

Bad fashion and worse music

Of bawling teenagers thinking

That this is the world ending

Of emo moments and bad hair days

And angst-ridden diary entries

Of children hating parents

Who loved us even when they wanted to strangle us

Of two silly brothers fighting over briefs

Killing each other over nothing

These walls giggle about jokes and pranks

And Ogs’s many emergency room trips

The walls cannot count how many nights

A father waited anxiously

Inspecting rooms, doing a roll call

Praying for the safety of those not yet home

Of losing sleep worrying how the hell

He would find tuition for

These lazy, reluctant students

Who only cared about Saturdays

Whose expensive books remained unopened

Of children oblivious to the love

They speak of a mother always screaming frantically

But just us passionately giving all, loving us loudly

The walls confess of hearing confessions
Of people alone in rooms
Of pains shared in the stillness
When nobody else was listening
The walls sing of hidden joys
Of the smiles one hides
Of hearts being punctured
Egos being bruised
Of brothers and sisters fighting
Not talking, pretending not to care
Of love unspoken
Because it's uncool to be sweet to your sibling

The walls hush of family secrets

Of pregnant announcements

And embarrassing separations

Of family dysfunctions we thought

Nobody else had
Of dirty linen kept where they should be

Hidden, forgotten

The walls speak of heart-scarring hurts

And gut-wrenching breakthroughs

Graduations, weddings, birthdays

The walls saw the growing up

Of awful kids transforming into awesome adults

The walls remember
Parties, preparing for parties
Dreaming of parties
Parties that went too far
Of drunken people sprawled on the floor
Of cleaning up after the nights of reverie
The walls will miss
The people
People visiting
People overstaying
But more than anyone,
The people who lived, slept, breathed, dreamed, grew, gave, loved in it

And then the walls grow silent

Remembering a sister

For whom this house is just not big enough

To hold the love

To bear the pain of losing her

And maybe that’s why we have to move

Maybe this is where they outlive their use

This is when they say goodbye

One last hug, one last look

To let us move on for fresher air, for new stories

For more graduations, weddings, birthdays

For more love, love, love, and love

They're just walls
Concrete, immobile walls
But they speak
They witness
They remember
They cry
They confess
They love
They hurt
They die
Those walls did talk

And I am glad I let them

Do you remember the twenty first day of September
When I grew up and the child in me died forever
When my heart broke into tiny gooey pieces that could never be put back again
That now it’s all patched up and cracked, alive but barely recognizable 

On the twenty first day of September
My sister went into coma
Because that stupid tumor just decided to erupt to flood her brain 
And all that gray matter just could not be fixed again

On the twenty first night of September
The floor beneath my feet collapsed
And I crumpled into a kicking, writhing ball of denial
Screaming the truth away, bawling the undignified howl

The days after the twenty first of September
Were engulfed in pain that turned to fear that turned to pain again
That turned into a numbness pretending to be strength
That turned into silence pretending to be peace

Ten days after the twenty first of September
We were one less sister
A million joys poorer
Wondering about the meaning of forever

So here we are
A year after the twenty first day of September
Healing, but not quite there
Better, but never like before

I sigh.
I weep without tears.
I just want this day to be over.
This twenty first day of September.