Life is not short,
for it is yet
the longest thing
we can
consciously experience.

Realize instead,
that death is sudden.
It waits for no one
to finish preparations.

It is certain
it shall steal from you,
the days which you
own, but paradoxically
dont even have yet.

And when it does
Your life becomes
A wave
Of farewells
And nothing
Else.

Amnesia

I hardly forget things. I remember details well. When you say or do something, it will unlikely escape my memory.

I am trying to make a list of the things I have forgotten. It surprises me that I cannot name the things I have managed to forget.

Maybe I am after all forgetting too much. I am forgetting too much that I don’t remember that I forget.

I’m Okay

“How are you?”

Telling the truth is sometimes too much of a trouble

And (long) conversations are not always desirable

So you say

I’m okay.

It says everything

Without telling anything

And it cuts short the conversation

That would’ve been awkward (and long.)

So next time someone asks

Two words would effectively mask

You’re done and good to go.

Say “I’m okay.”

even if it isn’t so.

Today Was For You To Be Blinded

Open your windows.

Peer through and watch how clouds never wear the same clothes, two days in a lifetime. Not even the same color in an eternity.

Breathe deep.

Let your lungs make your heart beat differently. Let it beat to make you a song – a song that even you thought you wouldn’t sing.

For once, close your eyes, and you would realize that even if you were blind, you still would not run out of things to call beautiful.

You might even smell something you will comfortably call love.

Try to explain what you’re feeling and you will find out that a hundred of the biggest words could sometimes still fail to explain what a single smile would.

Open your hands and just by the time you have nothing to hold on to, just by the time you realize how empty they are,

clasp them together and the God you thought you’ll never know listens.

Can you imagine hearts thrown in the sky?

I watch as people hurl their hearts in the air
Like frisbee discs they want for someone to fetch.
Some are thrown too high to be caught Some are just dropped on the floor

Mindless…

…that if no one catches, they just threw their hearts away, with no one to blame.

A heart lost out in the open air.
Too many hurled, and it’s raining with them.

Love: of all the hearts scattered around
Fat hearts, thin hearts, dead ones, pretty ones
You choose one, and never let it slip your grasp.

You pick up a heart, you dont dump it to someone else or leave it anywhere.
If you can no longer keep, return it to the person who threw it away.

Truth in Lies

You told me you would never lie.

What are lies to you, I now wonder.

You did not change the story, I know.

In fact, you didn’t tell anything at all.

Are lies just when you change the face of truth?

Aren’t lies also holding back the fact?

When would you stop lying?

For the lies aren’t worth anything now.

When would you tell me the truth I already know?

I don’t write poetry anymore

I have none to write about…

Except

 

For the drama queen

And the invisible foes

That never left her alone

 

For that hopeless virgin

Waiting to get laid

Impatiently for the first time

 

For the fathers

Who work so hard for their children

That they forget their children

 

For that loser in the crowd

Taking pictures of a concert

So he can brag about what he heard

 

For those who keep on dreaming

Breathing air dense with ambition

Of an atmosphere with not enough hope to go about

 

For the women

Who want to mother

Fatherless children

 

And for the poet

With countless stories to tell

But have no words to begin them.

July 6, 2009

I sat by the window of a restaurant,

inspired by the lush greens smothered

by the cold pouring rain.

 

These days I eat alone, yet I talk to strangers

They talk back, as if it were a natural gesture to start conversations

with people you don’t know just because

they shared a table with you.

 

I don’t have a story to tell, but I have a name that I can tell you

I do not make music, but I hear the thunders echoing -

Maybe we can talk about that.

I’m sure the rain is falling hard, and you say you have to cross the street

Sure, that’s a story, I will listen

 

The windows are big and wide enough

for us to see a world we can watch and talk about

But you rather want to tell me what you do.

 

I can listen anyway.

 

I can listen as the man I’m following with my eyes,

trods in an awkward stance – lopsided

I can listen, as I read the lips of a man sitting on the chair outside.

with his feet perfectly aligned together

I think he’s gay

 

You tell me that you have to go ahead and hoped I wouldn’t mind

You apologize for having to, and I assuredly say,

“No, it’s fine”

You’re a nice stranger, you even waved goodbye

 

I smile back and say thank you.

And glance back to the table, at your emptied coffee cup

You left an empty coffee cup, and it’s fine

 

I just want the view by the glass window -

of lush greens smothered by the cold pouring rain.

 

________________________________

I know that it wasn’t exactly a lyrical poem, but I just had to press it.

I was alone eating my late lunch, the resto was half-filled and there were a lot of tables to occupy.

The introverted me would’ve loved to just watch the heavy downpour of the rain, when this old woman approached my table, apparently with a lot of stories to tell.

I wished I were alone, but I was polite enough to sit through the chat. I remember it was relieving when she left me. Then I started to write this poem.

Be the poetry, not the poet.

Grab me like an opportunity
And take me like a risk
Believe me like I hold the truth
And imagine me only in a way
You think I’m a possibility

Prepare for me like a storm

Reach for me like I am your melting point
For I will expand you

Do not write me a song
Dance me, dance with me
Breathe like poetry
And we shall rhyme

Live the metaphors
And be the ink my pen bleeds

For now, however
I remain the empty sheet

2 Days in a week.

Though ghasping for air, I may not be
I find my chest skipping a beat
As this world I know drifts me by
Here, motionless, I lie
I try to figure out what this all is about
While I can only keep on going
Though not forward, just moving
And as people say life is a journey
I could only wish to stop
Be at rest, and say
This, where I am, is a destination.