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…

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. …

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…

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…

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…

I could read all books on mindfulness, positivity, self-achievement.
I could watch all YouTube videos on psychology, listen to Krishnamurti for hours, or to Cabral.
I could go and meet Jesus and Buddha. Hung out with them for hours, and I’d still be this man I am.

This handful of hormones and thought. Way too much thought. Enough as to tame the hormones I hold.
These ideas of unquenched desire. No. Not that desire. But the desire of being and becoming. The desire for perfection no mortal should achieve, except in slim moments of eternity and present.

We are who…

As I open my eyes,
I see this pandemonium.
The demons dressed in beauty
Spewing silky noxious words,
What has became of me
and my poisonous tongue?

I see bulls all around me,
But they are no more than sheep.
No. Not even that. Like dogs,
Chasing their tails, are
Infatuated with the scent,
Emanating from their arse.

And their God is only silent,
They forgot of how to pray,
While their lips move and their faces,
Constrict in impious impossible ways.

Why have you forsaken us? They cry, not even to the wind or sand, They seek to fight…

A voice is all I want to be,
All I aim to be,
All I ambition to be.

A voice with a set of ears
attached to that voice
or a listening device
And to learn to be quiet
to listen
to the reflection of the voice
the other voices
accompanying me in this journey
through life.

A voice.
Because who cares about the time,
when all we have is present and present, all we have?

A voice. Because if you look at time right into its eyes expanding far, far, far away into the eons and billions of years…