chapi-chapi

[23III09]

dead kites hang from electrical wires:
a row of entangled corpses and
jellyfish tentacles swimming in the wind
in garbage-bag black and polyethylene green

this is me getting rid of the random notes saved on my phone.

"Hallow blocks" : sign in Isabela. Does this mean they're to be used only in the construction of holy buildings?

Libag Norte, Tugegarao: where bathing isn't so popular.

Smart Kapigsaan: it all boils down to...?

IPs (Indigenous People) do not want to be called as such because they read "IPs" as "ip-is" [cockroach].

Ang pagbayad sa jeep ay isang laro ng sungka: Pasa-pasa ng barya, palit-kamay sabay kwenta, hanggang makarating sa palad ng nagmamaneho — ang hinihintuang bahay ng sigay mong piso.

scalding sun, razed face, glimmering asphalt, gas-fume shimmer.

"Kita po sa body formation n'yo na nagjo-jogging kayo tuwing umaga." - Kuya Sherinel the guide (gee, thanks, kuya, I think)

Hand gesture for "diretso": poke your hand out straight, then let it veer to the right reflecting the curve of the road. confusing but funny. by the way, "malapit" is a relative term.

There are swastikas in Santa Fe.

God is a Brit

[18II09]

A tea-stained sky
spills over the rusted rooftops
of our neighborhood.
I walk, dreamlike, in a dim sepia photograph
lit by incandescent streetlamps
and the yellow-eyed glare
of passing cars.

the eternal waltz, or, while walking in UP, i look up and see a canopy of leaves.

The arboreal embrace of tangled branches began a hundred years ago when a row of acacias looked at each other from across a boulevard of unbroken dreams. They felt the rising sap dance through their fragile trunks and the breathing wind shake their leaved limbs. Over time, these tentative fingertips reached over asphalt, boughs bowing and pulling close, finally twining together in an eternal waltz.

(original thought as saved in my phone: Branches tangled in an arboreal embrace/ Waltzing eternal to the wind)

yesterday

[10II09]

yesterday, the clouds ate up
the penumbral eclipse
the same way a thick blanket
swallows your white fetal form

I have a sentence that never developed into anything more because it's perfect as it is:

Boracay is as familiar as an ex-lover's fuck.

the moon through a windshield

[11I09]

night's ignescent eye
dilatedly stares
against a background of black
and white noise

sitting on the roof deck, waiting for breakfast in bora

[02XI08]

I do not want to talk or listen.

I want to sit here and watch
wind-herded clouds,
fat with rain and white,
trek with glacial speed
across the sky.

a jete of the mind.

to speak like a dancer is to speak like someone unused to words; the voice forgotten as an instrument of communication because of the exhortations of the body. excited vocal cords oscillate out of tune. jangling sentences unsure of grammar and syntax grate on the ears and stumble unmodulated through the air — poor graceless cousins to silent pirouettes and pas de poisson.

they have traded speech for the eloquence of flesh. straining sinews beg you to listen with your eyes. a cutting gesture, an exclamation point. a sharp intake of breath, a period. a delicate shrug, a question. each nuanced gesture pregnant with meaning. for hours, dancers poeticize without so much as a stutter — their cursive bodies writing their thoughts without benefit of pause.

kalinga

[08X08]

the persistent clang of gongs
reminds me of you
and the shrugging dance
of your bare shoulders

nueva vizcaya

[07X08]

we go deaf at different altitudes.
in the high silences,
we do not hear the mountains breathe
but we see their sighs.

go ahead and hit me

[25IX08]

symphony of slick tires
on rained road

my fifteen seconds of fame
caught in the headlights

i take a bow for i, too,
am a creature of the night

a whisper on a window competes with pacing footsteps, both from the anxious alone on a rainy night:

i get sad sometimes
like a single lightbulb
on a lonely street.

sitting in the swing, i see a butterfly

[13IX08]

It is a sad commentary on our times
that Darwinian evolution has favored
an ashen-winged butterfly
over its vary-hued sisters.

The drab lepidopteran
flits wraith-like against concrete,
invisible and unbothered
against the monochrome theme
of urban life, while appearing delicately out of place
in the loud company of flowers.

palm reading

[04IX08]

my pen peed all over my hands
and stained my fortune
with rorschach inkblots

crying wolf

[08VIII08]

these lupine
ululations of sadness
are coherent
only to the moon

wet socks = worst feeling in the world

[31VII07]

(they're quantifying popularity)
my feet are cold and my shoes are
leaking gutter water

(they're whispering about galleries)
i look out the window and
contemplate rain-grey hours

(they're buying paintings)
outside, traffic is a tired millipede
belching plumes of smog

(they're skipping dinners)
my black umbrella lies wet and
forgotten on the floor of a cab

i think i'm coming down with something.

[23VII08]

the sick is in my nose,
behind my eyes

and inside my throat
there is a desert

that neither swallowed saliva
nor drunk water can touch.

sometimes a sentence wakes me up.

[16VII08]

your back is a canvas
painted with the sweat
of my palm

--

[11VII08]

i miss talking with you
my flesh does not crave
but my mind lusts after you

meet me in the dark
we will be two voices --
no-bodies --
just two minds
in a sweatless,
smell-less night