A Poem — With reading from the author
I could not sleep last night,
I spent the night staring at my phone.
A friend text me as I woke,
“I dream of you and me staring at Mt. Fuji. Crying.”
I told another friend a day or so ago,
“My home is at the intersection of airports and doors.”
The gate is not a gate. It takes you to another world.
The mountain is alive, I know: I had a child with one once.
Gigantic strong legs jumped between planets,
He did not want to be burned by the hot sun.
My child swam in oceans among stars
(He…
A Poem — Scrittura Saturday Poetry Prompt: Relationships
I imagine you in the breasts of others.
Full of milk and adiposities that soften with nipples that harden like in our first time. Or the last one.
I imagine you in the way they smile.
As they see, I don’t know what in me. When I pass running, staring in the distance without looking but seeing.
I imagine you in the way they touch me.
It may be a passing hand resting as if not wanting on some part of my body…
On the meaning of my name
While roaming the corridors of Medium, I encounter a piece by Christyl Rivers, Phd. who sent me down a fascinating rabbit hole. The meaning of our names.
At the end, she invited her readers to share the meaning of their names. At first, I tried to resist. But I gave in.
Pablo
I was expecting a definition related to the apostle Paul, but I encountered urbandictionary.com.
They said, “Pablo is the sexiest penguin in the Backyard.” I think meaning The Backyardigans. If you watched The Backyardigans, you would think this is a great compliment!
Invisible Cities: A Vagabond Voices Writing (and Living) Prompt.
Sand and Dust, Imagination and Life
The description of the city will be insufficient and dismissive at best.
The rendition I offer will be vague, like a half-remembered dream among the fog of time.
At times will be just that, a dream.
Others a fantasy it will be.
For the one whose sight can see far enough, nothing matters at all. Because, in the end, everything is sand and dust, and the components of that.
Its compounding principles: imagination and life.
The city extends above the cloud of madness. The one through which the ones afraid to deviate from the marked path walk.
It flourishes among the…
A Poem — 17 April 2021 Saturday Poetry Prompt: what about the pace?
Part of me is what you told me I am
(This insomnia irreverent, unrespectful)
Part of me is the way you perceive me
(And I wonder why I cannot see myself that way)
Part of me is this constant fight against grammar
(Why cannot I understand myself)
Part of me is this fight for desire
(Before today, it was against desire)
Part of me is the insecurities I harbor
(Why can’t I sail away from this place)
A lightness
Of heart
I feel
At times
(That’s when I don’t think about writing)
A night
Not dreaming
Lost
Not myself
(That’s when I abandon my…
A Poem
The rich’s appetite is insatiable
Its belly always hungry,
It eats and eats
And does not fill.
Its soul is like a void,
A hole taking it all
Never finding its fill
Always wanting more.
The poor are now content,
Their belly fill with love,
With the bread they make,
The fruit of love.
In our Western society, we equate poverty to a lack of money and resources.
And I wonder, who is poor?
I’ve been poor, and I’ve been rich.
I crush on friends’ couches, some friends crushed on mine.
I spend the night on the side of the road, one night when…
Poverty and Society
It was 2015 when I traveled to the Philippines to help facilitate a training class on emergency medicine and risk reduction during natural disasters. A part of me had a colonialist idiosyncrasy worldview with the mentality to travel halfway around the world to help the poor. Part of me wanted to visit a place where I believed people were happy. To that time, I had yet to meet an unhappy Philippino. The ones I met seemed happy and in great disposition even under adverse circumstances. …
A Poem — With Reading by the Author
Am I worthy,
Of calling myself your lover?
Am I worthy,
Of in your presence to exist?
‘Here you are,
Trying to recollect an image or idea,
Of who I am, but in my physical appearance,
Too focused you are.’ (This is what she said)
‘See beyond,
I feed my body
With the fruits of this earth,
Garlic, onions, ginger roots.
But my breath scent is jasmine,
My saliva is like creeks,
Of running spring mountain waters,
On a hot summer day: Your body.’
‘But for you, I’m an idea
(Because you don’t know yourself)
And for you, I’m an illusion,
(Because you…
A Poem- With Reading by the Author
I’m lost in time.
My ages are attacking me all at once.
Confused, I try to escape to a place of quiet,
Where noise is no more
(Outside, the Earth keeps on orbiting the sun,
Another revolution, another day goes by)
Inside I reside in my jail of stillness,
I don’t want to live nor write,
To spew the poison of despair back into the world,
“You are doing so by existing,” is the message of the voice.
“Were you not supposed to tell me something else,
Something pretty or edifying?”
The voice smiles. I’m too tired to smile back,
And…
A Poem- National Poetry Month
As the river that once ran through me turns into a dribble,
Barely moistening the dry land through which it runs,
No, this stream will not turn into a river,
No, this forest is not black.
We are in an arid desert, where winter only gives respite to heat,
In the summer days, all get expeditiously dry
My tears, my hanging clothes,
My willingness to dance.
(Wanderer shoes caress the road,
unwilling feet to touch the ground,
One day the nakedness of soles,
Will grip me firmly to this land.
Between cracks hiding in the desert,
moisture escapes up to…
