the past and pending

Pep Talk 29

2012-01-03T01:16:00.000+08:00

First of all, here, listen to this.

You're 29 years old today, and you don't feel a day over 21. 21 the way it's meant to be experienced.

You spent a lot of time in your early twenties stuck in a rut, secretly envying your friends, pining for a stupid girl, neglecting your body, and ruining your mind with really bad ideas and really good herbs. When you're young, you want to feel cool. You want to be adored. So you act smarter than you actually are, and waste what little intelligence you have on foolish things like obscure music and indie graphic novels. You have absolutely no control over your desires, so when you don't get what you want, you punish yourself by eating, or smoking, or drinking, or having sex with people you don't really care about. You don't take your job seriously, you don't take your relationships seriously, you stop believing in grace, and you lose all your sense of self-worth.

Thank god you know yourself much better now. You know that old saying, "know thyself"? I just realized how important it really is to know yourself. Because who you are isn't just some strange face that comes to you every time you look in a mirror. Your thoughts are not some drug haze coughed up by another dimension. They are in this bag of flesh, and they affect the fabric of reality in more ways than you can comprehend. You matter. You are a definite animal who likes videogames and hates cats. You're lazy, but you're working on that. You want to lose 70 pounds of fat so that you can finally stop hiding what a stud you really are. Because you used to be afraid of being desired. Because you didn't want to be who you are. Because you hated the things that went around you and you couldn't do anything about it so you thought it would be better to be someone else. But that never fixes anything. You learned that the hard way. You had to face all your demons. And you're struggling to catch up to what other people have known. That you are someone who deserves to be loved.

So I am going to tell you this, Me. This is something I realized I should have told you a long time ago. I love you. And I will spend the rest of my life proving to you that I care enough about you, and show you that I don't want you to fade away. Chin up kiddo. It isn't over yet. Whatever happens, stop eating those damn chocolates.

A Drunkard's Guide to Heartache

2011-12-26T01:43:00.004+08:00

“There is no space wider than that of grief,

there is no universe like that which bleeds.”

-Pablo Neruda

I can come to only one conclusion.

One that is pillared by starlight

and teaches me how to dance.

I can only dream of spaces that

dignify my sorrow with a view

of dawn, and sound out my loneliness

among all of yours. Let us leave

the world for a while. Turn our

minds to the span of mystery.

We are all children of feeling.

So hurt. Because what we require

is the opposite of space. A wall.

A tide of self. Whatever it is

you fill, know that you still hold.

Remember your family and breed.

Don’t waste your purpose.

And if you don’t have a purpose,

sit down and drink until

you reacquaint yourself with need.

That delicate ache, that beautiful

cliche. I want to hear you feel.

I want to dream with you and search

for our ghosts. I want desire

to keep me away from my desires.

So that I may suffer space. So that

my hands may know the reaching.

So that tomorrow I may still be

too alive to believe in emptiness.

Let me keep my days filled with

quarrel and deceit. This is what

I know, this gravity, this life, that

pulls all light and turns it into beating,

A rhythym, a form of art, my being.

2011-12-21T23:32:00.002+08:00

your soul's the cobra

sketches of an afterlife

2011-12-02T20:01:00.001+08:00

"and if one isto express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all,

it must be donewithin the strict confines of dignity and beauty."

-Leonard Cohen

if time were alive, i would give her a name and feedher every day on the dot, look into her sad eyes and proclaim to her mysoul by letting her see herself in my eyes. for that is the only kind of love,one that embraces passing.

ii.

oh to fail, that i may rise above worship and be the air.my father says i will never win anything in my life. i say, i will never needto. for the soul is your hardest day turned to bread, and the only way toend it is to fill yourself.

iii.

tell me more of the devout. all i know of them isallegiance. i want to know more about their destruction. i want to see themland on their knees and try to divine their fates in the dark. i want to seethem lie. i want to discover each betrayal in all their covenants, hold fastto knives and tuck the sheen away in sinew.everybody’s faith deserves to be tested by the body. that is what the world isfor. to grind us in its blue audacity and make us crumble away into ideas.

iv.

there is a kind of booze about your pity. the kind thatgallops down the throat roughshod and grazes in that little knoll in your gut. ifthe heart were a sunrise, then i would end this poem now and bow in silence. ifour words could do anything, i wish they’d yield to our voices and tear thereal just enough once in a while for us to play in perfection.

one day in the early 1960s in the province of Montreal,there was a young Spanish man who took his own life. the only thing he leftwere the six musical chords he taught a little boy the day before. that boygrew old making poems and songs with those six chords.

vi.

a droplet joins a pond and muddles its gloss. you willall be my ghosts.

just a sad little song tonight

2011-10-11T22:40:00.000+08:00

It's a Wonderful Life :)

2011-09-13T21:45:00.002+08:00

the perfect form

2011-09-02T02:40:00.002+08:00

what is new with devastation? the rock heaved against the wave,

a child torn from play. prized by time as the new, he must fail.

we draw to the lorn like the shape of drowning takes to the fill

under a drivelling release. i should know. i died once. my lungs

were forced the condensation of earthly moment into something

i keep on facing but always forget, like a most immense dream.

all our waters rise beyond their life giving and take our histories

to the deep. the resistance is just like the giving in. because dissent

is just as ancient as foundation. two wheels that grind together

to make the spark. confound it all! that is how i wish to be. between

the being and the nothing. that i may walk among untouchables.

like hell and ardor. until they stick to my skin like dew and

trickle into me as the mysteries of how we earn our weight.

i solidify, with my chest, and my own breathing skull crackling

with the push and pull of so much compensation: to be born,

to have nothing, to take, to be too weak to take, to remain,

to return, to have nothing, to be nothing. i am like a song. so

much trouble when i hit you like a sordid day. and then will move

along. the wall and the air have always been at war; that clash

pervades and we are made. between stone and the escape

from it. i have learned to swim since then. because water commands

a perfect form. the smash. the flow. the murder. the ascent.

happiness

2011-08-28T02:42:00.002+08:00

“Seize the shit!”
–Jonathan C. Nepomuceno

when i die, i will go out laughing.
i will remember the sorrow,
an ailing dog on my doorstep,
the way i kept it in the house
and fed it bread. i will remember
parting with my lovers and holding
down the razor in my last long
looks. i will hit the fan, the one
that never seemed to push wind.
i will swing with all my care rushing
outward for that mighty wish. that
our troubles never find us lesser men
when our dooms cascade full-chance
upon our days. because life is so
long. and we will keep on running
‘cause we can. we will pocket all our joys.
a weekend by the beach. the taste of
prime beef. our memories about children.

the wiser man will die, stomach full,
and will have made love to a beautiful
woman. that is the world’s foreground
to fulfilment. that reckless careen that
blunts the mortal to his crash: suicide
or marvel. from destruction, recreation.
there’s a reason why the first miracle
was the mass-production of wine.
god bottled joy. he toiled for it, and he
turned us with barley. so don’t forget
the scotch, brother. sing badly about
heaven but keep that heart. the one
that turns wisdom up its face and
bleeds into it new weight. that we graft
our own nirvanas paper-thin onto the light
and box in luminosity. that radiance be
voiced into cheer, and lavish our sins
with the natural innocence of love.

here. take my dime. give it to the sheltered.
tell them to come outside. promise them
anguish. swear to them that if they make it
through alive, they can take their place among
the men. ruptured, enraptured, renewed.

2011-08-23T16:18:00.000+08:00

i have a new obsession, and it's called chillwave.

What solitude now guides my hand to write down man? Will, reigned by skin and action. But we were once all ghosts, until the sun climbed to its source and begged for our forms. So cleft that fate and chance might form two astounding sources for all our reason. To be foretold, and to chart through our lives unguided. Chance and order sovereign to the jest, that we are murdered by our very being flesh. Beginnings and ends are so human, so let us trace one illusion to the other and tell the history of truth. What drives our urge for glory is to do justice to our permanence, that our passing be sure. Between the body and the soul lies a chasm of fictions. Vengeance from divinity for our power to be torn. You and I are leashed to time, and time is strapped to rings of waiting. But the heavens we find here will have to do. Mist-etched lakes and cold mountain streams. Our dreams cascading through all rungs of sleep until we lose them in the wake. The humbling weakness in desire. They rain our days with shape, and make our tales swell with the meanwhile-eternal-here-i-am. Like sitting down for dinner and loving the barbecue. Like driving through the city with the radio full on. Like lighting a fire in the wilderness. Like standing still and holding out your hands.

sampaguitas

2011-08-17T02:27:00.001+08:00

another mother seen weeping on the streets. another shanty torn down. another long December wandering the coves of new anguish, stuttering in the dark for a cave of voices to come back. this is not the self. this is the air rippling fresh howls again and again. we are walking down the street when a beggar moans against our jackets for coins. something to feed on. so i hand her my twenty peso bill and take a tassel of sampaguitas from her bony hand. i give her a wilted chance for bread. she offers me a day’s worth of crafting. her only leverage is pity. the flowers drink the light from her skin, then pass their sweetness on to me. i wander around ortigas like a shut-out mouse traversing all its familiar hovels. down streets named after jewels. concrete closes in on the people; their shadows turn into caverns, the few animals that are left in the city all scamper to the sky-eyed children sharing their meal. i walk tall among the last few trees inside a parking lot, then enter the mini-stop to buy some tea. let me count some of the absurdities in the world. one, minted metal is used to sate starvation. two, lesser animals take from the world without punishment. three, mercy.

kicking back

2011-08-07T23:35:00.002+08:00

i went downstairs to start

my junked-up van, when the radio

came on. they were playing a song

i never heard before. but it made

me think of this girl who i’d buried

in grade school. the one i first

held hands with. and then another

song came on, one i met when

i was in fifth grade slitting my aunt’s

upholstery because it looked like a

dragon. (he told me to do it, i calmly

explained afterwards as i pointed

to an album of the doors). and then

a new song came on from a band

i can no longer call from my past.

they were singing about a girl in

high school with pretty little jeans,

and then they blew my mind with

their jagged new riffs. i snatched

a shot of whiskey and ran back down

to keep my ear to the airwaves.

on a cold rainy Sunday alone in

my garage. reacquainting myself

with the idea of youth. when all

my good moments had to end

with a monologue. and all my sad

ones were buried beside the girls.

when i thought my friends would

cling to my story like they had none

of their own. when i sauntered into

danger by binging and whining and

being all emo. “god kill me. no, don’t,

i want to live.” hah. kid. listen to yourself.

energy

2011-08-07T23:35:00.000+08:00

the people woke me. people

in their worst clothes running

through the streets to the light

beyond the skyline. sirens

slaughtered the peace my neighbors

craved that night. all of them

gathering to the burning gas station

beside our village, like children

flocking to one descending god. oh,

what proximity does. we were moving

closer to our dooms, half-naked

and wet at the toes, climbing walls

and passing on pails. swayed by the sight

of our children in fear, and the tremors

in the atmosphere bidding the humans

to run to the heat, and borrow its fierce

motion to fight. i enjoy stillness, too. but

i relish any resistance to it. to keep families

from disintegration. to wield courage

is to yield to your maker, to your weak

but whole will. to be so near the glow

you feel it on your cheeks. to be

so bare and dire like life,

the call of fire, our changings-forever.

it took two hours to go home safe.

the moon flared the sidewalks white.

the streetlamps singed them orange,

as our footprints blackened the trail back.

when i hit the gym

2011-08-07T22:12:00.001+08:00

my insides light on fire. like a candle
has touched the tips of my toes and sent
the pain shocking through my system.
i hear the footsteps in my bones as they
throw my weight skyward to the yoga
instructors. stretching my limbs beside
a goddess with a dragon tattoo on her
thorax. i need not my iPod to imagine
possible futures. in my room listening
to sweet funk in the hellish summer glaze
that is the evening. running the tracks.
or maybe melting the part of me
that keeps me down, oh, i'm in chains! i must
sweat off my restrictions! i cannot believe
that sitting still and eating potatoes has
turned me into a slab of nothing all my days.
sloth, thou art a beast! vanity! to my aid!
show me the will of the warrior in all my
mirrors! sunder my cock with such need,
that i might carve it a proper vessel. clench
by clench. heartbeat by heartbeat. drown
my mind with movement. and shake my core
until it arches and maintains its shape.
so that i might bridge my body and my power.
think about the tremors all those vaginas will
endure once i fill them with my smut. holy
fucking sex! that sounds like a great idea!

12 bar blues, key of e

2011-07-25T21:30:00.001+08:00

beat the world with a stick. drink some whiskey.

smoke some dope. poverty is the song of holes.

the devil is bitching. he says “i had too much soul for dinner.”

i fuck like i need a son. i don’t need one. i just feel it down.

it takes a hundred crimes to turn a boy into a man.

it takes one bullet to turn a man into a criminal.

it takes one criminal to turn a hundred boys into dinner for the devil.

when you get to a crossroads, just turn and kick the dirt.

when you have a bad day, howl about it.

walk on down the road with two tones:

a hum and home. walk on down the road.

it’s crying time. so pawn your woes and give me hope.

avoiding indention

2011-07-18T04:15:00.002+08:00

i’ve broken so many things

in that house, gotten into

so many fights with my brothers.

and now my mother is on one line

making demands. my father is on

the other phone screaming at me

to fix it. i make them turn

away. i do the taxes. i am

the wire stretched out across

their lives. when you are young

your family seems like shackles.

until one day you’re old enough

to know that love can be a mistake.

even when we are held together by it.

the birthday gifts. grandfather’s

war stories. ninang’s secret recipes.

there must be a reason we can’t

undo anything. we can only carry

what has happened, because

tomorrow is tremor from contact.

there is little that separates rage

from joy. the brief years in our lives.

the faded old things we’ve taken

from the voyage. what we’ve given

up. we sold our old house today.

so now I am busy moving out

the moth-eaten rug, eerie old

paintings, unused cutlery.

the living room has squeaky clean

squares where sofas used to be.

what’s left in the kitchen are two

tin cans remained unopened for years.

Like a Boss

2011-07-14T20:34:00.002+08:00

:)

2011-07-05T01:10:00.002+08:00

echo

2011-07-04T23:38:00.001+08:00

when the mountains rise against me, i will turn my back to the sun and cut the earth with my shadow. when my mouth is dry, i will flood the heavens with resounding mercy. when my money runs out, i will write another poem, and beg the world for more time. beg it until my hands are frail with typographical errors. i will beg until someone weeps for me. so thrash about, you monsters and angels. call for the mongrels and bark out your rage. turn into a valley, exhale. and then move your chest outward with a greater force than quake. the human grain. the quest for place. trace your future to the most difficult endings. all of them should be terrible. there is nothing more glorious than to be daunted. to be halted by an ocean you wish to cross, to have no plans, to be broken by love, to be punished for your innocence, to be raped, to lose, to be so, so hungry. there is nothing more solid than transcendence. you are ninety percent blood. red, because it is as day’s end. an overcompensation of all our grief. and your body is the stone your parents cast into the still waters of creation. spill it over the silence. split your skull and let the doves fly. fly them dumb into the decibels i have left for you in the far stretches of the sky. hear me echo out my absolution. the whole of night will be my knife.

unfinished

2011-07-03T04:08:00.000+08:00

the world does not need us. it will be immense in our absence. tigers will live longer. there will be no words at all. pock and frond will still out the same meadow's length of time until breeze turns them loose on mooring, hooves, petal, and the hawk will distance itself from the dive. calamity will be what it was intended to be. erasure. fires will rise on the grasslands and serve death fully. there will be no chase for mystery. the world will be kept intact by gravity alone. monkeys will breed themselves into supremacy. until the very first of them has a thought. what is that? that swivel in the dark.

the art of running

2011-06-29T02:03:00.000+08:00

just take a walk outside.
find your breathing against
the rhythm, resisting your
body's silence. gnashing
at the towards. and then
flap your heart on the threshold,
this big world in front of you.
grab momentum by the wrist
and shoot on. break your woe
on the wind. until you have
your back against everything.

the mind wanders sometimes.
where does yours go in the rain?
mine goes towards the ocean.
where my footprints are barely
left, but in a moment, deeply
on the sand. and then the sun
comes up to take me away.
i wash up on the surface
of another dream. in it, i am
on a road. where doesn't
matter. not even its direction.

somewhere i am on a road.
and i walk until i'm beat. until
my sweat drips and my lips
are sliced at by thirst. my
knees are giving way.
my head is spinning.and so
i catch my breath. and sit.
and watch the world
pass me by for a while.

the usual fading out

2011-06-25T02:11:00.002+08:00

day like liquor seeding
touch of sorrow, patter
harmonics, guitar ballad
snow. end. sensible
twang plucks
the scattering heart
into moment after moment.
all your sweet distractions
like a child's furrowed brow.
too young for creases. only
there for motion. help us
move between windows,
desperate, addicted to
crescendo, and lapse.
like watching the spaces
instead of the raindrop,
denying the violin
its elongated cry: crushing
echoes into one wave,
the breadth of it like
a small diamond hauled off
into a sentient mind.
i heard my sister's grief.
tremolo, and no more.
all her voices meld
into snow, and flame.
tangible as distance.

reimagining part 1

2011-06-20T22:14:00.002+08:00

i have failed! i have put my ego back into my blog. not like anyone cares, anyway. so what the hell? might as well start typing the night away once again. welcome back to my life!

okay so where are we so far?

i'm 28 years old. i just broke up with my girlfriend of three years, six months ago. i've been putting most of my time into getting back into shape. i barely made it out of college. i dropped out of law school. i'm a burnt-out poet. i work for my dad. my best friend, a golden retriever, is dead. the girl i've been hanging out with suddenly drops out of my life, and now with all those things, i don't know what the hell to do with the rest of it.

II.

at least the hard part is over. i've been through several relationships, some good and some bad, so i know what love is. i've worked in the corporate sector and know that i hate it. i've played successful gigs in a band and realized that i can't afford a rock and roll lifestyle. i'm off the pipe. i've put my intelligence to good use by winning the most prestigious literary award in the country. i know where i stand between god and science. i have principles. i've learned from all my mistakes, and am level-headed enough to know i will make tons more in the future.

III.

so why do i feel like i'm thirteen years old again, sitting in the middle of my kitchen, fearing for my future and feeling abso-fucking-lutely like there's nothing in store for me in the years to come?

IV.

i think conan said it best in this speech. something about your dreams always changing and your path in life right now never being the one you'd expect it to be.

i don't really know what i want to do anymore with my life. that's the problem, i guess. i want to just sit here and watch tv all day until i die. typical underachiever syndrome.

VI.

check out that epitaph. this here is the tombstone of the greatest underachiever in the world.

VII.

check out this loser. he didn't even try and everybody fucking loved him. until he shot himself. fucking idiot.

whatever, loser.

VIII.

for this guy, it was effortless. it's not that he didn't try. but he died anyway. so fuck that.

stop fucking shoegazing you fucking loner!

IX.

now this guy moved motherfucking mountains. a real class act.

dead. next.

X.

let's try someone with shorter hair and a sunnier personality.

he killed a lot of jews. also dead. so no.

XI.
won't any fucking living male cultural icon give me some fucking hope here? someone who's alive, confused about his destiny, has a good sense of humor about the ups and downs of life, knows he is a good man, someone i can look up to and say, fuck, i want to be like him and rip the world a new one!

works for me!

XII.

ok i'm not so depressed anymore. i have a new goal. be like fucking Conan.

hello, it's me.

2011-06-20T20:40:00.000+08:00

hi blog. guess what! i'm lonely. haha. lame.

maybe it was too much to hope for that i would be okay.

there was this girl i once loved. and when she left me, i didn't even fight for her. i just let her go. which begs the question, did i really love her? was it better to let her go, or did i just want it to end, too? in any case, after a while my time alone felt better and better. then i kept on working. and working. and running. and making myself look and feel healthy. and then i met this other girl. she was cute and all. and bat-shit crazy. our meeting was, for lack of a better term, magical. it was like we were both drawn to the same place by something greater than ourselves, and then that big beyond made her look at me, and smile, and do all those things girls do to a guy to drive him up the wall. god, listen to me. i sound like a total fucking chick. maybe i should just shoot my penis off and just bleed until i synchronize my period with the cold dark abyss of nothingness.

well anyway, we hit it off real well. lotsa tension and shit. she even asked me to make out with her a couple of times. and i said no a couple of times. and that is just really really sad. i don't really know what my problem is. i'm usually a total stud (a total stud who blogs. yeah right.) really. i could have done her in if i wanted to, but i didn't.

i don't know if i'm in love and afraid to be hurt again, or if i'm just not emotionally available, or if i'm afraid to commit, or if i'm sick of getting into ill-thought-out relationships that have the potential to last but crash and burn because I'm always too afraid to go to the next level.

maybe this is what K.D. was telling me about when he said too many great expectations are thrust upon me all the time because i have so much of the ineffable in me. way to go, obi wan. you've just turned me into my worst nightmare. a hybrid between Darth Vader and Woody Allen. but really, what do girls expect me to do? i wish they would just fucking tell me! without having to IMPLY! implication is for poetry, bitches, not real relationships!

i got the looks, i got the talent, i'm rich, i'm funny, i've got shitloads of friends, and i'm quite smart. so why the hell am i alone? she told me she wanted to be just friends! she begged me not to take advantage of her! she made me promise to be her best friend through a tough time in her life. and i did all that. i was there for her. every time she fucking called at 3 in the fucking morning to cry about her fucking indecisiveness. i was there to listen to her rant about a guy who dumped her for another girl, and told her how fucking special she was but she didn't believe it because it came from me, her gay best friend, the one who wouldn't fuck her cuz he's such a nice guy.

well, fuck you very much, i've got more important things to do than sit here and mope and whine about your cute little smile, and the curve of your face, and your beautiful voice, and your fickle soul, and your romantic ideals, and your belief in magic, and your god damn veggie diet, and your cool sorority sisters, and the way your ears turn really red when you drink, and those cute little kung fu shoes you wear, and that simple but elegant way you motherfucking dress and the way you always have too much belief in me and absolutely none for yourself. go eat pray love, you fucking bitch. go away and don't talk to me because it's not healthy for you. go find your balance. go look for someone else's shoulder to cry on you.

i'm going to sit here, and move on with my life. i will be lonely in a proper fashion. with lots of porn, beer, and video games. and my fucking hash pipe. BITCH! that's right! i don't need love! i don't need companionship! all i need are drugs! and dvds!

FUCKER!

end of rant.

okay im back to being just sad now. time to listen to some Bon Iver and sigh the night away. :(

imagining quantum theory with minimal math

2011-06-19T15:40:00.000+08:00

so i've been watching morgan freeman's show on the discovery channel about the universe. and there's this guy who is trying to unify the theory of relativity with quantum theory by finding the elusive graviton.

his theory suggests that the electrons and bozons are there to explain electromagnetism, strong force, and weak force, within a mathematical structure called the E8 Lie Group. his problem is that although particles for electromagnetism, strong force, and weak force have been found, the subatomic particle hypothetically responsible for gravity -the graviton- cannot be identified or found/identified. it also predicts several undiscovered particles.

i got a D in Math. but i have a rudimentary sensitivity to all forms of language. i was watching the 2nd episode of "through the wormhole" about black holes and their nature as the hypothetical center of galaxies. the problem with black holes is that they are very difficult to find, if not impossible. but scientists and mathematicians are strongly convinced that they are out there.

so now i don't presume to understand completely the language of mathematics, but if it's anything like English at all, then scientists should probably take a look at the power of silence within their theoretical constructs. sure, there are positive and negative particles, but they are all presumed to have calculable or at least discernible features that may be punched into mathematical equations. now say for example that you are able to find a way to punch in an un-variable, a non-number into the equation (after all aren't black holes immense gravitational sources that seem to be tied to entropy itself) or perhaps if the elusive graviton emanates from black holes, or is within a black hole, and thus cannot be found by our top brains around the world, then maybe if they use their imaginations and work into their Lie models a way of compensating for that enigmatic abyss of pressure that is produced by stellar collapse, then we might be able to find a way to unify everything into one beautiful, stunningly logical presentation of the fabric of reality itself.

some soft facts about the world

2011-06-19T01:33:00.000+08:00

1.

diamonds grow in the mining fields of Zimbabwe.
a Mickey is the smallest movement of your (peripheral)
mouse
that a computer can detect.
Kermit the Frog is left-handed
Jupiter's magnetic field is 14 times stronger than Earth's.
a flamingo can only eat when its head is upside-down.
our sense of direction is relative.
Morgan Freeman is God: http://science.discovery.com/tv/through-the-wormhole/

2.

the Mona Lisa was once stolen
by a man named Vincenzo Perugia.
octopi are completely deaf.
Zero was invented in India.
one teaspoon full of neutron star
would weigh billions of tons.
ants never sleep.
Anu is the Sumerian name for God of Sky.
poetry is for dummies.

rays

2011-06-17T12:55:00.003+08:00

this is nowhere, and you are
careening through dream-time
about to orbit a planet of
answers. every atom consists
of a soul. every virtue exists
in the forces. e=mc squared,
this means that your doubt
is made obsolete by prayer.
the most immense of them being
that you matter. that your
matter exists for reasons beyond
reason. and so i pray to you.
you alone. not god. you. you.
you. you. you. you. you. you.
you. hold on to your demons.
they will fight for you.
until heaven appears
when the light goes away,
and you see the dark in all
its crystalline simplicity.
entropy is too far away from
us to be of any importance.
what matters is the shining
chaos of the stars that you see.
and your pains are answered
by the dim calling of nature,
that we all exist as a matter
of praise, that your disbelief
makes you gigantic, because
faith requires the opposite
of immensity. it needs a long
and endless shrinkage into abyss,
that the nothing you face be
pierced by the prickle of your
mind, the one now dealing with
all this searching. an answer
for this life. an explanation
for that time you were gone
and the world returned to you
only fog and an empty cage,
your human heart, so frail,
so powerful, that when it breaks,
your will begins to beat,
and you peruse the database ether
for that one single yell that will
shatter your feeling into many
many things: a song, a fight,
a lonely night, a murder, a flight,
seven thousand poems about madness.
and you resist. and you surrender.
and you are space dust. sure.
you are so small that it doesn't
even matter. sure. and you are also
sunlight. sunlight. sunlight. that
is more than enough. that is
the beginning of everything, that
is how we will go, that is why
we are so very much alive.

2011-06-12T19:48:00.000+08:00

i like blogging better than tweeting.

speech to be given when i am called to give a speech

2011-06-06T02:27:00.000+08:00

when i think about power, i crumble under the many thoughts of its use. and then everyone in the world vanishes but me. that is what it is like to grasp thought. so say every mighty word on your tongue and rumble when it washes you out of your nostrils, your eye sockets, and your lungs are emptied of yourself. i was born and saved in 1983. every day of my life has been an answer. i was taught in school to question. i was taught elsewhere the futility of too much thinking. and through experimentation, much stupor, and delicate chance, what i found was this. i announce myself. being is not enough.

you are a great resistance. because the body urges you to recede into the dim arches of death. time does. and the grand idea is to push farther than your tiny little space can accommodate. this is the danger. when you push into someone else's space. it can lead to two distinct outcomes. the creation of more life, or its diminution.

so whenever you announce yourself, the grand walls of your body spill forth. we are meant to ooze out from the core. it is our birthright. we are creatures of explosion!

i, is meant to be the most selfless word in any language. the individual who does nothing but take, and take, and take, is a flimsy mass of being that will die sooner than the one who struggles, makes compromises, one who suffers and relents, one who sways and barters and falls in step with the rhythms of nature. i am meant to burst into your life. and help you burst into mine. that is what lovers do. that is what warriors do. that is what bankers and bureaucrats and poets and musicians do. the most useful thing to do is to offer your resistance to the great movement of eternity.

if you did not understand anything i have just said, do not blame me, or yourself or the production of this brief speech. all i mean is this. offer yourself, proclaim your worth. this is power. this is how you use it.

doing time

2011-06-06T01:43:00.000+08:00

i understand why my hands both shake when i ache for dying.
it creeps in the seams of my mid-week dreams as i yearn
for my paycheck and a date with the lady that i seem to have
seen in another life, where she was my wife, and we had
five kids that i could afford to send to the best of schools
with the best of friends, as i muttered out my thanks
that i could afford a style that was farther from the truth
than this woe-begotten ride of a real lifetime where i
learned as a child that there's no such thing as love
as our dishes and pans all but shattered on the sink and my
mother used to pray as my father beat her down, and my
brothers looked away as we all scattered about, and so now
here i am writing verses while i think ahead, to another day,
when i'm already sixty-nine. all my best years behind,
and i have no time and the work that i did is now buried
in my spine, and everything is mine, all the happiness,
all the work, all the luck in the world, which is less absurd,
than a life in verse, where you're stuck in the dirt,
without a girl, without a dime, without a choice, without
a decent rhyme, and all you're thinking of is crime,
so that someone comes along and stabs you and you die.

it is still

2011-06-06T01:13:00.001+08:00

summer. the heat will not
give way. even the clouds
cannot defend our lands
from the whitewash. grass
tilled by fire. sheep
kept hungry and made to
hunt. all our tongues
are made vestige, our
teeth now rattle, our
throats now empty huts
dusted by prayer. my child
asks me to give her a song.
i hum her one of sleep.
and she fixes her mind on
the last leaf in our yard.
sky, blue sky, won't you
accept our thirst? won't
you wet our hands with work?
i want to dream a bit longer
every night, and listen
to spray and crackle
dwindle into hush and
lonely cricket and cloud.
i want to shine in the night
without sweat or tear.
i want my final thought
to be about girls, and not
of my desires shifting
their weight from one
cheek to another.

2011-06-06T00:27:00.000+08:00

some evenings

2011-06-05T23:45:00.000+08:00

2011-06-02T23:42:00.002+08:00

i hope no one panics, because i just have to say this truest thing i'm feeling right now. i don't want to be alive anymore.

kill the

2011-06-01T01:09:00.000+08:00

man staring down throngs of whitewashed pedestrians in their casual game of walk and die harbor fugitives in your muscles until they scatter when you run into the track, the den, the parking lot, cemetery, grocery store, smell liquor but never drink it take down the fashionable fix and ride the ugly high to somebody else's morose rendition of heaven where there are no locks and every intrusion is a hymn to the bright layers this world has never wanted because the flip is harder than the fold and your magic eyes cannot see past its creation and the world does not run on the fantastic but this thin thread of meekness running down everybody's spine and will only respond to Armageddon and the eerie absence of mammals since nobody ever thinks that reptiles will be such a loss and the ultimate lizard the final one the biggest one bigger than Godzilla or the Great Dragons of the Deep epitomize myth and that is something now worshiped only by children and those who see menace in every cold eye like a storm or a a corpse's vagina which i imagine to be what the devil looks like one big heaving smelly pussy chewing out the sinners until you return to fearing the old goat with his massive cock and his eternal lust and when these two aspects of sin meet a child will be born in hell with his mother's looks and his father's seething penis and he will flay us all with his imaginary fingers which look like dead leaves deader than the deadest autumn deader than the final fallen tree that will ever exist when the galaxies shut out all heat and the spirals that hold our reality together form a long straight line to the outer edge of madness.

youth out there

2011-05-31T16:05:00.002+08:00

i accept the twill
sky and a small edge of future
i find in every

sunset-sullen
leaf. up there on that tree
slicing away

at my loneliness.
i am staring out my window
and listening to

deathcab for cutie
streaming on the web. my
neighbor is cutting

her grass. the rain
is forgotten. even by birds.
they are playing

a song. my body
aches to run outside and smell
everything. wet

pavement. gardens.
the valley i live in is full
of both. linking

me to city. I am
ready to resume my story. I am
ready to go

toe to toe
with bougainvilleas and angry
dogs. I am

steady enough
for junction. Quick stop at mini
mart. Coin for

cone. Other
Filipinos hurtling through this
hurtful economy.

A jeep to Lanuza.
My barber Ed watching basketball
while his wife

hands me fish balls.
Thirty minutes of snip and alcohol,
then an hour at Ultra.

Going in circles.
Running onward through the evening
and my soft dying

body. I love
today. I will love it until I sleep.
Until I rise.

There was this dog I once had

2011-05-19T21:15:00.000+08:00

I was around 18 when I saw Milo for the first time. A beautiful Golden Retriever. He was about 6 months old. Huge black snout. Hazel eyes. Floppy ears. Wild with energy. Running around our garden without a clue what was going on.

His masters were going to leave him; my aunt bought Milo for her son, but things in their lives took an unexpected turn. They were moving to an apartment that didn't have any room for a dog in it, so my aunt looked for someone who would be willing to adopt the frisky little creature now wandering about sniffing out our plants. My mom, despite her reputation as an animal fur lover and an elephant tusk collector, always had a soft spot for dogs, so she offered to give the animal a home.

He went by a different name, originally. I think he was called Robin. But as my aunt and her son left him on the porch that day -the other boy's face gleaming with contempt for me- I wanted him to have a different name. I don't know why. I guess I just didn't see him as a Robin. I thought he should have a simple name befitting his simple-minded nature. I searched myself for the simplest name I could come up with for a dog, and settled on Milo.

Milo proved to be the least simple dog my family would ever have. And that is why when we put him to sleep two hours ago, we were all there around him, sobbing and whispering our little private messages in his ear, one at a time.

I can only tell you what I know about my dog. How he changed my life. Mostly by how he alleviated my loneliness.

We didn't get off on the best foot, he and I. Once I came home with a poster of "The Who" that I wanted to hang on my freshly-painted wall. This was around Freshman Year in College. I left the poster on my bed and hurried off to school, and when I returned, Milo, to my horror, was lazing on my bed, which had the mangled remains of Roger Daltry and Co.'s image into a thousand pieces scattered all over my room. I was mad with grief. So much so that I lost it so bad and ended up hurting the stupid mutt, spanking him on the snout with enough force to be considered a slap, really. Several times. Screaming NO! and other obscenities.

The typical dog would have bitten me or mangled my face when I raised my voice and my palms in anger. But this one just took it. Looked at me with his puppydog eyes, and whimpered. Then, when I was done with my fit of rage, I just sat there and realized the mess I had made. Milo lay there still, on my bed, motionless, shaking, and I sat there feeling like the world's greatest douchebag. After I realized what I had done, my heart sank. All this violence for a god damn poster. My favorite band in the world, mind you, but still.

I didn't mind him for a day and he would avoid my angry gaze every time I looked at him. He would find relief in the presence of the others in the household. My brother most especially. I don't even remember anymore how we reconciled. I just remember him waiting outside my room, flopped on his belly like a big yellow carpet, waiting for me to call for him.

I suppose I was always aware of how special, intelligent, and quirky Milo was, but I never knew how sensitive and kind he was until one particular incident. I will spare the details, but let you know that it had criminal repercussions for one member of my family, and I was the subject of much misdirected rage. On one of the darkest days of my life, as I lay on my bed whimpering in the dark I heard a scratching on my door. When I opened it, Milo slid into my room and pounced on me so hard he knocked me back onto my bed. He was whimpering too, and started licking my face. It tickled so bad, that I ended up laughing and wrestling with him on my bed. It didn't suck as bad from then on. As long as Milo was there.

He loved to have fun, as well. I remember having him beside me when I took my graduation yearbook photo. He was there with us for all of our house parties and stoner sessions. Yes, Milo loved the ganja. Knocked him out good every time. I would also give him a bottle of beer every once in a while when I felt like I had no one but him to tell my problems to. Because no one would understand. And I knew it was stupid to think he would understand. But I knew also that he would somehow transcend the limitations of cross-species communication and commiserate with me no matter what the hell it was I was going through. And I've been through a lot. But I've never been through this. I've never been so attached to a dog that his presence was more valuable to me than most human beings. I can truly say that I loved this dog. Loved, loved, loved him.

I am going to miss, most of all, our walks through my village. Milo never thought of me as his master. I think he really knew I was his best friend. Every time I would tie the leash around his neck, he would grab one end of it with his mouth and be the one to drag me through to the park, where he would go around sniffing out the world. I am going to miss that big old snout of his. And I am going to miss rubbing his belly with my foot. I am going to miss singing to him. I am going to miss his foul breath and picking the ticks off his fur. I am going to miss giving him a bath, and writing poems while he watches tv. I am going to miss going down to the kitchen late at night and probing the ref for a midnight snack with his snout as my munchie radar. I am going to miss introducing him to my girlfriends. I am going to miss him getting along with all my friends. I am going to miss the way my cat Morrissey would sleep on top of him. I am going to miss his bark, which would only be heard when he knew someone he loved was coming. I am going to miss the hard smack of his wagging tail against my calves. I am going to miss coming home every day and seeing him in the doorway ready to greet me. I am going to miss trying to figure out if he's happy or sad or just hungry. I am going to miss him making a mess of his stuff. I am going to miss the patience he eventually learned as he grew older. I am going to miss his youthful recklessness. I am going to miss seeing him ruining the flowers in our garden. I am going to miss the sight of him smelling them and leaving them be. I am going to miss holding his beautiful face and admiring his eyes. I am going to miss that stupid dog, and if I do get lucky enough to get into heaven, I hope I see him there.

Milo San Diego (2001-2011)

some notes on dissembling

2011-05-03T23:41:00.000+08:00

this is how i learned how to deal with people.
by diving into my soul to wrench the machine
that holds me still. i drown every fear in the roaring
ocean of my heart. i smile at the slightest joke
even if it isn't really funny, and wait
for an explanation. because reasons call for
calm. because compassion requires restraint.
i wait for the perfect thought. even if the time
for speaking it never comes. because all stories
are important. and as i listen to every one,
i harmonize them in my head with the lyrics
of patience. you don't need my answers.
what i truly feel is what you truly feel.
this is the bridge that only silence can build.
one of attention. reaction not required.

Lit Major Studies for a Math Exam

2011-04-26T01:30:00.000+08:00

I look for love between the integers
and pace my mind for long answers.
This is a language that has no room
for lies. You cannot use it to woo
anyone. If I had a word for every
couple of people whose trains cross
at ungiven hours, then I'd have
a reason to shake off all that motion
and accept that when the second is up,
Joey and Jane will never meet again.
Like that line they say never touches
zero. Always inching toward the impossible.
I therefore conclude that there is longing
in every curve that aspires
for the infinite. But who am I to say
that when the day comes, I give up on
calculation and just pencil in the arrival,
that my teacher won't notice that I cheated
the mystery? He will still probably give me
a big fat zero. I will touch that zero
with my cold living fingers, and never ever
show it to anyone ever again.

One Year Later

2011-04-07T20:22:00.001+08:00

"...you travel to stumble into the unvisited corners of yourself." - Pico Iyer

I still believe in the soul, although mine now wanders and looks for post-war mercies. My silence has been more pronounced. Unless you ask me about mangoes. I hardly need to be destroyed nowadays. Perhaps because I'm happy, I can't ruin anything with perfect contempt. Too bad leaves remain uncrushed. Too bad nobody's heart breaks when I sing. So I'm writing an album with my friend in the hope that it will all make you shatter in belief. That as we march on to the end of the road, where we walk is where things will grow, and follow. Until those in our wake are forced into character. We are beings of legacy, you and I. So follow. Follow until you are followed. Until we can count on each other. Until we are old and fond of everything. These days you will find me reaching until I touch those things I desire. Like a ripe fruit freshly grown from my farm. Like someone's lasting impression. After so long I still fumble from failure to failure. I am not a paragon who sits atop his ivory tower and rejoices alone. I will sit with you and tell you about my breakups. I will play you a song and take your photographs. I will drive you home and buy you beer. I will write when I am lonely, or have found some version of an answer to a question I haven't even heard. I've been bullied and beaten and threatened. I've been laughed at and scorned and forgotten. I'm not a genius who rises through life from level a to z without so much as a piss break. I am the kind of man that sad things happen to every day. But I command the chaos in my life. I've come out of cataclysms with jewels in my mind. My ashen hands shake to write them down as the rest of me looks on. Because my destiny is to stumble upon my destiny. To be happy, I believe you should aspire for many many many things. At least one of them is bound to happen. And when it does, call me up so we can celebrate.

Romantic Cliché’s From Another Dimension

2011-02-13T22:43:00.001+08:00

The moon is like your face, darling.
It feeds the wolves their loneliness
And drags them to the hunt. I love
The way your shoes are shined.
They make your feet look like mangoes
With five little berries on top of them.
I would suck them dry if you gave me
The appropriate straw. Your voice
Is like a storm when you have your period.
A storm of harpies calling out to the Maker.
Oh divine shape, oh harp of Ishtar,
I will walk a thousand miles to Turkey
to find you the finest hashish. You mean
so much to me, that when your eyes
close, they tear down my own light.
I am muted by your nipples, dearest.
They are dark pearls that taste like salt,
Lambchops even, when you take a bath.
I would dive the seven fathoms of your
Clothes to find them. Oh my heart,
My god damn heart. How it clenches
Again and again. How it urges me to
Stop thinking about your vagina and
Tell you something beautiful. But I ache
Too much for you to open. Like a ripe atis.
Like the stingless abdomen of a dying bee.
For you have taken my every weapon,
Woman. My cock now sits here like
A soft, sad mushroom in the forest
Where there are no sows. Oh most
Delicious chick I have ever seen,
I will give you a thousand tomatoes,
If only you’d say yes to me, and Jennifer.

How to Break Up

2011-01-24T22:06:00.000+08:00

chapel

2011-01-20T22:19:00.000+08:00

temples beat gentleness
onto slab. they form corners.
wrought from stone and
mended by chisel, for echoes
to swing through dome and
mind, when faith requires
that a little music be played.
so i pray a little and mind
the little boy whose head
is slumped over his mother's
shoulder. he is about four.
his eyes are closed. nothing
more. and the stone angels
pretend to be singing forever
while they cast my woes to
the great beyond. this is where
my mind goes when i need a god:
into a small chapel at the edge
of the milky way, where nothing
awaits me but a candle and two
frightening glowing eyes.

Ride

2011-01-09T04:05:00.001+08:00

Only the wicked live forever.
Quit school. Start a band.
Wake up with booze still stuck
In your veins. And then fall off
The edge of the world. Then
Wake up. Leave your dreams
at dawn. Go to school and
graduate. Go find a decent job
and a nice girl to bring home.
Die as all men do. Forgotten.
Even as you are herded into
Eternity by everybody’s memories.
No one leaves this world innocent.
Because we all must taste the bad.
Tarnish our bodies with desire.
Take the devil’s hand, and run
Down the mountain screaming .
I have enjoyed my life. So much so
That I hope for you only good times.
Toil. And then take. And then leave.
This is the current, and you are the
Drop. Follow me to the other side.
Don’t look up. Have a good time.
Do not worry. You’ll survive.

it is dark outside and i am a light

2011-01-02T05:29:00.000+08:00

i hate it when people expect more from me. i'm not some special morning star. all my potential has been set ablaze on the wrong events. you win something and everyone else loses around you. how does one celebrate in spite of everyone else's mourning? i am supposed to be happy. but people are dying around me and i am not supposed to smile. i no longer believe in will. i believe instead in tragedy. all movement pertains to loss. i am little more than a sunbeam, dangling from a blue mote in space.

today is new year's day. that carries absolutely no meaning. people only think it's special because it's supposed to mark new chances. that means nothing. you are always new.

it is difficult to live in this world. there is nothing worse than to bear its pangs. there is nothing better than to enjoy its brief explosions. i want death. i want the extinction of all possibilities. but i demand nothing more than flux. so i wait every day come sunrise, and weep for the absence of miracles.

i don't know what the hell i mean when i say things half the time, but i make it sound beautiful all the time. that way, it will be mistaken as poetry most of the time.

this is a prayer: hold out your hands, close your eyes, and mutter out your desires. the whole body turns into this vessel blubbering out for the relief of our little human pains. little as absence. here is what i learned about prayer: it is most beautiful when nobody cares to answer it. that way, your body, when in repose, is a single trembling bright speck in an otherwise godless void. and when there is a god, the purpose of your suffering is to make him useful.

i would like to believe that god only exists sometimes. that would make all of us right. some of us, only half the time. but those are still good odds, i think. as good as tachyons flickering in your vaguest microscopic thought. your dreams will make you do impossible things.

there are so many compensations for all this longing. i want to die. but my life is beautiful, and free, and full of adventure. what we should all aspire for is the dissolution of all our options. that our hands be bound to the limits of nothing. that our eyes see in the void. that our bodies burn to finer things than flesh. and our thoughts float on through endless nights until at last they stop, and finally, end.

Grand Matador #1

2010-12-23T03:58:00.001+08:00

All my feelings I commit to memory.
So that when the facts fade, I have
only to handle the impressions.
Like a faded night out with friends
when we were young. There ain’t
anything but the sensation that it all
made sense. Like looking at a baby
or finishing your first hard drink.
When I was a boy, the world meant
nothing more than joy and loneliness.
In the arms of my folks. Knowing
nothing of what is wrong or sad.
Tonight I realized that I am growing
old. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I just want to die in grace. I just want
To finish with a smile on my face.
Complete what I must complete. And
then fade out of history like a tide.
Wide as sea. Flowing. Nothing more.

Short Story #1

2010-12-07T04:22:00.000+08:00

So one day my shrink said, "Oh come oooooon, motherfucker! Drink your god damn pills." And when I did,

last will and testament

2010-12-07T03:20:00.001+08:00

the only way to deal with your pain is to answer it. you do not cauterize the wounds. you toy with them until you shatter. And bide your time 'til madness takes your sleep and paves the dirt with its face. I blame myself for killing chances. Blowing my schooling away as I rot in this human carcass. When I should be in a riot with the brigands in every fable I know. All the psychic cyber-punk androids. All the demons and overlords. All the quasi-sentient cosmic vacuums. All the incalculably absurd mass murderers. All the giant earthworms and tentacles from beyond. The warlocks, the mutants, the super-villains, Galactus, The Grinch, and vampires. Fuck, I swore I would never use the word vampire in any-fuckin-thing I write. But fuck. Here I am thinking up ways to make it sound like I can mean things to you even without being there and looking into your eyes. Human to human. Making sense of it all. So I'm sending you this message, my last will and testament, so listen up. Take care of my dog for me. He's getting old. If he's still alive, tell my dad I wish I could have been more. Tell my mom she's going to be alright. Recharge my iPod and give it to the poor. I want all my CDs and my guitar and all my comic books to go to my best friend Kuya Dondi. Whoever my wife and children would be by the time I died and you find this, give them everything else I have and tell them I will always be with them. And for you, who holds and reads this, if you happen to see a window with a sunset, reach for the blinds. Then shut my life behind you with a bullet from this page.

Something Positive

2010-11-12T06:03:00.000+08:00

I admire honesty. I admire people who can look at each other and smile without holding a thought. I admire fistfights and too much wine.I admire the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. I admire insects that look like jewels. I admire the technology behind pesticide but not in its abuse. I admire cab drivers. I admire the people who design rubber shoes. I admire people who don’t need to say anything complicated. I admire corporate takedown strategies. I admire people who fight back with ideologies on liberty. I admire their vehemence. I admire the complexities in every thinking being. I admire monkeys and computers. I admire a good bottleneck whiskey and I admire death. I admire potato chips, and the sun, and times to say good night. I admire rock and roll and its distance to my poor thirld world nation. I admire the Blues. I admire Jazz. I admire the internet for taking me to them. I admire choirs and the sinners in them. I admire people who can cook and make chocolates with their bare fucking hands.I admire people who admire things more crazy than their puny minds could ever fathom. I admire the bright chaos in every fire. I admire people who stand up for what they believe in. I believe in sitting down.

Dream Recording Session, Take One:

2010-11-08T01:53:00.000+08:00

Once Upon a Time, there was a kid who was exceptionally stupid with everything in the world but mathematics. He couldn’t spell shit. But ask him to crack algorithms and he’d snap his fingers and blink out the answer. Like an order of fries. Fast and crispy was his brain for the natural logics of the universe. But then an evil wizard turned him into a big bland bowl of normal. In order to win back the only thing that makes him special from everyone else, he has to use his newly found powers of ordinariness to catch that wizard, beat the math out of him and fracture his tibia.
But the wizard would not so easily allow it. He sent all his dark minions to the depths of outer space to collect this gigantic crystal the size of the moon and use it to build a lens so immense it could refract dimensional wavelengths. With this crystal the wizard would try to focus it on his own dimension to make it implode and scatter the elements of reality so bad that it would reshuffle and make everything different.
For example: trees are blue. The hydrogen atom has FIVE protons. WTF. That kind of messed up shit, right? And so Normal Boy has to stop his evil plan to ruin the fragile pile of the building blocks of reality. The wizard’s minions fell one by one as Normal Boy swooped and dodged his way out of harm’s way every time the evil minions tried to attack him. Normal Boy smashed his way to victory by studying the various weak points of his structure and commanded his lazy ass to get out of bed every morning so he could go to school to learn about algebra and stuff just enough so he could come back and kick that wizard’s ass. So he went to a school for normal youngsters and met bullies and weirdo psychopaths who flung cats from the second story of a building. He met beautiful girls who didn’t notice him at all. He met ugly ones who wouldn’t leave him the hell alone. He met all sorts of friends along the way. Crazy Psychopathic bullies who worshipped Spider-Man. An All-Knowing Guitar Master Guru Because His Parents Are Hippies Dude. A funny mutant dog who could play the drums like a rabbit dumping its spawn. And Doctor Awesome, some guy from his Biology 27 class. They all teamed up to form a garage band that eventually went nowhere.
Normal Boy got a diploma in Astrophysics after 20 grueling years of training so he took off his suit and teleported back into his own dimension. But by then he had lost some of his strength because he was no longer a boy. He was now Normal Man. Normal Man used his newly acquired power, the Astrophysics Degree, to figure out how collect enough dark matter to displace this impending dimensional death ray. But by the time he finished solving the equation the universe collapsed and destroyed everything.
Normal Boy failed. A lone consciousness in the middle of the dark, the last survivor of another dimension, skittered through abyss and crawled his way into another dimension. Drawn to inhabit the body of an earthling living in Pasig City. And as he swooped down and slammed himself back shut into my imagination, I woke up from that silly senseless dream. But at least I learned a valuable lesson. You’re perfect just the way you are.

--- END SESSION ---

It's not that complicated

2010-11-07T06:14:00.001+08:00

It’s so easy to crush a flower, or step on an ant.
The sun lets go every single evening.

A family destroys generations when they eat.
A wound is another road you pave.

And at the end is the beginning of more flesh.
Or the pause to a very sad memory.

And when you cover that wound, the memory
goes on. Piling on itself with one

simple desire in mind: happiness. My friend,
do not fear tremor or silence.

They are the very aspects shaping our days.
Like the land we walk on

or the inimitable heat beneath it. Glowing
and ready to shake the plains

and make walls crumble at its pulsing. You
bear the changes. You wait for

breakage. You search for meaning. You are
the world. It does not stretch

into you like the veins in a leaf. You are that
mighty green tree. You become

the flight of every song you hear. You are
what makes them invincible.

I ruined my life today. I shook down the walls.
and then I turned to my friend

And begged for a listen. Because all I have
Is what I can convey.

My friend, do not fear ash or renewal. Do not
search. Do not worry.

The world takes back all things. It’s so easy
To let go. Just open.

Go Figure

2010-11-06T15:09:00.000+08:00

Because the random is the true occurrence.

And because we are afforded this moment.

Something is there, I feel it, breathing into

the leaves of the Acacia tree outside the window.

Wind, a good enough, all-around name. But the pane

is newly cleaned and nothing is more inhibiting

than that invisible divide, insisting there is no wind.

Tell me, dear friend, when have you last keened up

to the impalpable? I ask because feeling betrays most,

boiling beneath all the senses. Science cannot offer

consolations. Faith is nothing but a surrender to

frailty, disguised in nobility or excused by unearned

debt. So if you know no one owes you anything,

if you don't really need to be somewhere else,

then go figure. Help me carry the dead, lift

a body. The universe can expand or implode

in the meantime, in theory, in eternity. But

our lamented impermanence or possible divinity,

remind me of these things, again. Sit with me

and let's study all these old cruelties leading to

too many whitewashed Novembers, unattended

grass surrounding the cold, cold, stones.

-Joel M. Toledo

Insomniac food trip sulat session #4

2010-11-04T06:38:00.000+08:00

"Is it possible to know the truth
without challenging it first?"
-Some wise dude from National Geographic

If The Truth was anything like a wrestler, he would know that I hate vegetables. Except maybe potatos. Which they turn into all sorts of fun stuff, like vodka! I also hate people who wear animal fur, and am suspicious of those in business suits. I hate venom. It looks like a bad way to die. I also hate typhoons, ringworms, and a certain eel whose name i can't pronounce. I hate chicken soup for the soul. I hate soy products and I generally hate vegans except for a certain hippie or two. I hate crackheads who give up and go into rehab. I hate old weed and stale beer. I hate pretentious know-it-alls unless they are talking about something insignificant like Star Wars. I hate gorilla poop. I hate phone call operators who put you on hold for thirteen minutes and then cut you off mid-rant. I hate expensive Shawarma. I hate most avant-garde films. I hate the government but only when it's the popular consensus. I hate cancer. I hate people who talk about you behind your back even when you're right in front of them. I hate soggy cheese curls. I hate insomnia. I hate bad hangovers. I hate chicken pocks. I hate cats. I hate that they have to ban cloning. Other than that, I love the whole world. Boom-te-yayah.

Insomniac food trip sulat session #3

2010-11-04T05:17:00.001+08:00

Hey dudes, what’s up? Me? Aw. You know. Just chillin. Talking to myself and pretending I’m talking to you. It’s like, so what? So what, ketchup? Pssssss. Just passing through. Just stream writing here. Thinking about nothin’ cuz I’m bored and I can’t get to sleep so I’m just saying whatever the hell comes to my mind. I can tell you this. Right now there is no way I will ever believe that the fingers have the capacity to type as fast as the mind forms words to say. And so I wonder how novelists can ever live with that sort of lag. I wonder how all those short story writers ever managed to finish a damn 3-page plot. And then extend it until your mind blows over, you have to go to sleep, so the ideas wasted on your dreams are worth their weight in clouds.

I will try not to suffer.

I will try to find the meaning in pain.

And if that fails,

I will throw away all

My drinks and cigarettes, and watch

The dawn more closely

Every time it comes around.

By this I will endure title, and name,

And all human desire.

By this I will fight my way

Into heaven. Even if I have to make it

On my own. Even if I have

To rise above my sins and

Say I am god. I am lonely. And I command

That nothing will become

Something eventually.

Aaaaah damn, I missed blogging! It’s right up there with drinking orange juice and getting good grades.

So what do you say we tear this hole a new one? How is that even theoretically possible you ask? I therefore conclude that physics is for dweebs and the real science is in the synapsis of the cortex? Eeeeew. Look at meeee and my fancy nerd words!

I must assume that there is a nerd under even the dumbest of people. That urge to discover. Watch documentaries about dolphins and say, “Aaaah. What a marvelous creature.” I trust in the desire. I fear the loss. What? That sounded like a line from a bad star wars yoda impersonation. Lame. Lame like a goose at duck season. Waddling into their fates as dinner. L

Will the official English dictionary makers of the world ever accept : ( into the list of accepted written figures of speech? My favorite idiom is “fire in the hole!”

I want to launch grenades at the moon.

And then go to a pizza hut and scarf three down

While the world crumbles around me.

In Soviet Russia, videogames are all about

Surviving the cold. They should invent a game

That gives you points for shivering correctly.

Like this: “BRRRRRRRRR. Dasvedanya!”

And then going back to staring into the pyre.

I shiver at night. From ghosts. I don’t know

If I’m going insane or if someone’s watching me.

The world terrifies when faced with silence.

Black is silence. There is no other color for it.

That is why the lions hunt best under no moon.

Because this is the way the world works.

The hunt begins when the sun goes down.

I had a dream once. In that dream someone came up to me and said, “hey kid, watch this!” And then he opened my mind to a new dimension. Where ravens could talk and statues could move. Golems, they were called. And they looked like giant robot cartoons from my childhood. In my dream I was a fantastic librarian named Emcee Bullman, who could ram his head through walls and not get easily hurt. Not very assuming of a librarian alter ego, now is it? For what dumb fool would look for a rhinoceros in an antique shop? The same for this bonehead and his quiet profession. Tending to dusty old words like a bulldog watching over sheep.

Through many adventures Emcee Bullman went on quests to defeat these evil golems, and gain the power of a crystal that held an ancient word. A word so ancient that when uttered it could create anything out of nothing. This word was censored by the trans-theocratic council of cosmic linguists (a.k.a. TCCL) into a magic crystal whose shards had the ability to reform and spell out this crystal name, and make another universe.

But Bullman failed at the end of the dream when Ultimate Golem Number 4 smashed his head into an antimatter nega-brick wall. So when the shard finally shattered, I woke up. Dammit.

28% of the time, I am hungry for chicken.

Insomniac food trip sulat session #2

2010-11-04T04:27:00.000+08:00

The art of blogging is like bruce lee, all but an ancient secret only handed down now by jeet-kun-do masters. “Be water, my friend,” he once said. Then he stared into another man’s soul with his fists. How is it then like blogging, you ask? Well if I could recall the reason, then I wouldn’t be writing this entry right now, now would I? I would be writing a poem about Jackie Chan and his drunken style. I would be emulating that chi gong kick. With my words.

What do you call a poet who knows how to fight? Aside from samurai? I call it “Raven Lord”. I call it “Cthulhu”. I call it “Scary Clown in my Nephew’s 3^rd Birthday Party”. I call it “Zombie Apocalypse III: Rise of the Skullmasters”. Exalted by the violence. Humbled by the quiet. And then transformed into a falling leaf.

Insomniac food trip sulat session #1

2010-11-04T04:15:00.000+08:00

Nearly 30% of all chickens have no reasons for crossing the road. They just do it without being asked. And so I wonder sometimes why it has taken so long to establish that the chicken comes first 30% of the time? If you were to race a chicken and a turtle, then I guarantee that the question will only be: can I take this home In a bucket with fries?

People eat chicken around 50% of the time by my rough estimate. The fat ones usually eat 65% more pork and sugar. But if say 20% of the world is awake and having lunch simultaneously, and half of them were eating the poor doomed animal at the same time, then I would like to hope that there must be as many of the chickens on earth as there are in heaven. I wonder how many people haven’t had chicken In their entire lifetimes. Like the starving children of Africa who only get to eat rice porridge and the occasional gazelle. I wonder what chicken Flavored beer tastes like. Mmmm. Beer.

All Hallows

2010-10-31T18:26:00.000+08:00

Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
Sleep in their blue yoke,
The fields having been
Picked clean, the sheaves
Bound evenly and piled at the roadside
Among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:

This is the barrenness
Of harvest or pestilence
And the wife leaning out the window
With her hand extended, as in payment,
And the seeds
Distinct, gold, calling
Come here
Come here, little one

And the soul creeps out of the tree.

-Louise Glück

Chaos Theory

2010-09-24T02:55:00.000+08:00

We were formed in

the chaos of absurdity.

Adept enough

at our own wills

to turn into people.

People who bleed

and need to eat.

If I were the world,

I'd make us turn

into wormholes

and suck the marrow

from our days, lead

our lives to the rhythm

of early jogging.

I would make you lonely

by giving you

a solution. And then

go out and play

in my own planet

until everything

goes dark.

Stargazing

2010-08-29T07:17:00.000+08:00

“The way is not in the sky.

The way is in the heart.”

-Buddha

I see a cloud covering the moon.

I see a lamb stretching its body

and turning into a wolf. I see Jesus

for a moment, waving as the cloud

tilts westward and the moon

lights his face. I see a bear about

to dance. I see a car smashed

into a tree, and a spirit departing.

And as the night goes on what is it

in me that changes? Like all

the pieces of this corner of sky.

Like the doom on every street,

the children begging, like mayas

drinking out of the gutter after dawn.

What is it in me that is calm? Like

the boy beholding the cow. Like

all cows. Feeding on grain and

growing larger with every empty moo.

On this evening, the 27^th of August,

Mars is so huge that it sits beside

the moon like a utensil. Propped

against the darkness, fine mattress

trimmed of all violence and peace.

Embracing everything. Even thought.

I am fine. That is what we all should say

When racked with grief or awe. Because

here in the world, we are larger than

any star. Larger than all this mystery.

I see another cloud. Shaped like a gun.

Pointed at that star. Across the field.

Among another body of clouds.

Shaped like lions.

for full circleness' sake

2010-08-13T12:28:00.000+08:00

dear blog,

you are where i began, and you are where i return now to celebrate that beginning. i apologize sincerely for handling you badly in the past. writing asinine juvenalia, ranting about my days, treating you like a diary. but yesterday I won a prestigious literary award and it made me think just now about how much i owe you for putting up with those tons and tons of words i wrote on you. growing pains, my darling blog. i would like to thank you for carrying some of those winning pieces for a while. i would like to thank you for helping me grow as a writer. i would like to thank you for being plain awesome. i would like to thank you for teaching me the responsibility i have for what i say. everything i say must be precise, gracious, and always thoughtful to those around me. this is what i've learned from the five years we've been together. also, that i'm a pretty good writer. i think. so i'm gonna let this post settle into you for a while. i'm gonna let it shine like a wet balloon. i'm gonna go out there, live my life, and come back with better things to say, and in better ways. thank you, blog.

yours truly,

Waps

What I've Learned

2010-08-10T15:45:00.000+08:00

Here I am, thinking

about the holy.

That beam that shoots

through rooftops

and chases the dark.

Like a silhouette

chasing after color.

I do not understand it.

All I've learned

is to close my eyes

and sense its permanence.

Here I am. Sleepwalking

across Manila. Talking

to people. Accepting their

silence as much as their

noise. Under mountains

of darkness. Darkness

as high as bamboo.

As numerous as shadows

in a city. A city made

of children. Children

hinged on flight, or ruin.

You must run, if you can.

You must follow the human

to his weaknesses.

Bombard it with song.

Run on into your own legend.

Where birds are as bright

as a jukebox as it chooses

your favorite memory.

Fall in love with drink

in your veins, and dance

until the clearing. The dawn.

When you and I awake

to each other mid-spiral.

Most of the day you will want

only to feel time slip by you

like rain on a bare chest.

Anything you choose is holy.

For instance, an old

photograph. You in it,

a child, smiling at yourself.

2009-11-16T00:05:00.000+08:00

"If there is anything after this existence,
I say no to the politics of heaven or hell.
I hope it would just mean rest."
-Corin Arenas

Mondays are for Abandon

2009-10-04T01:49:00.001+08:00

Mondays, my friend, are for abandon.
Mondays tell you to move outside your
bathroom, and call me crazy but I think
there's some heaven in leaving.
Mondays perch on your shoulder as the
suns grow heavy with lifegiving speed.
Mondays will whistle with you, or if not,
sit down beside you and weep
if they have to. Mondays break promises,
and dive. Mondays go to bars and thrive
on the people who live through them.
Mondays go as they please.

Tuesdays dine at parks and weave
through babies' hair, and sink into
televisions. Tuesdays forsake
mother time and leave strange notes
on their pillowcases. Tuesdays love
to eat grapefruit. Tuesdays are boring
but they swear they are trying to be
funny. Tuesdays slide away and avoid
swimming pools at all costs.
Tuesdays are ready to get married.

Wednesdays are not. Wednesdays
comb through everything that's ochre
and spit it out into a ball. One Wednesday
is enough in a week. Wednesdays
will save you from zombies. Wednesdays
will stay up at dawn and forget themselves
when they see that they are no longer
needed. Wednesdays light cigarettes and
take their coffee black. Wednesdays
always watch their backs.

Thursdays play in bands and volunteer
at shelters. Thursdays never forget to take
their meds or partake in all this dividedness,
or swindle their ways into another side of
the half-truth, on the rib cage of a science
thought lost beneath the bellies of Tuesdays.
Thursdays complain about the apex of the heart,
about the martyr who would stand still,
about the room in which a parcel of history
they so desire was created.

Fridays let the tongue in through the back.
Fridays are supposed to be quiet, but they have
no plans and are hence, inquiring. Fridays get
no sleep nor want for food, nor need love
at its bare minimum. Fridays lick the stale air
they were born from and feast on art. Fridays
last for millenia without decomposing. Fridays
cannot argue, thought with the fact
that they are going to end. Fridays betray
themselves over and over again, until, at last.

Saturdays burn so easily that they are used
often as a drink. Saturdays recognize the harmonies
in any song on the radio. Saturday's favorite word
is a myth that had forgotten how to be properly
told. Saturdays secrete the listless, the pardoned,
the survivors of a madman's memoirs, droplets
that coalesce into the funniest jokes, many other
selves. Saturdays rust. Saturdays must. Saturdays
get dizzy inside bookstores but stayfor the smell.
Saturdays rhyme with nitroglicerine at the back
of a basketball court and spin on the floor like there
ain't no tomorrow.

But Sundays insist that there is. Sundays will steal
your sadness and turn it into a crisp consonant at
the edge of every child's new voice. Sundays are
made to know that the best thing to do when you have
lost is to accept this, that you, dear friend have lost.
Sundays will walk with you down the stairs. Sundays
are doting on thier many unused coffins. Sundays
bleed enamel and have the gift of telepathy. Sundays
are arranging the dinner table. Sundays will break
bread with you and call you home.

Phenomenon

2009-09-23T16:30:00.000+08:00

sometimes what happens is instant.
the wave becomes a long white hush.
imagination crystallizes into machine.

sometimes tears turn into trees
when the moon is too pretty and
it is difficult to be sad. this happens

when the lover and the loved, love.
this happens when a light turns on.
as one intuits his way through sleep

or when an eagle is befriended, when
a tribe marries another tribe, when man
and city meet, when the pen i hold

suddenly becomes a reason. discover
what must be discovered. a fountain
of all the things that make us wake.

2009-06-20T02:08:00.000+08:00

this poem has a name.
i lose it while listening to the rain.
this poem gives itself time
to walk across my life as though
i were a lake, dark and warm
with the reflections of stars.
i believe in hope. i believe it is
the origin of sin. and this poem
listens sadly as it holds my face.
come rise with me, it says,
to the places you've forgotten:
the carousel and its lifeless horses,
grandfather's afternoons spinning
music on his turntable, music
coming from nowhere. and i lose
my face. or the idea of my face.
i lose my terrifying body and turn
in stead into water. ready to be
walked upon by things more faithful
than the human heart. this lie. this
poem and its name. telling me
what it is like to turn into the dark
river of words, into a spinning wheel
of memory. and loss. this poem
has a name. a name like any other.
a word. a sound. music.