Kan akì pa ako igwa akong ayam
Mahilig siya magkawat sa mga masetásan
Pipoy an saiyang pangáran
Daí mo nungka lingawán
Ta daí ito nagsisimbag
Pag bakô niyang pangáran
Saròng aldáw dinara ko siya sa umá
Mahihiling mo sa saiyang matá
An káugmaháng dinara
Dalágan igdi, dalágan dumán
Sigeng dulág pag nagrarani sa damúlag
Nagpundo lang kan
Nakahiling nin kulagbáw
Sa irárom kan hablondawani

Sana árog lang kaini kadali
an áro-aldáw kan buhay

Nakatukaw ako kaibahan si pipoy
Habang kinakakan kan umá
An palubog na saldang
Asin saro-sarong dinadaklag
kan bulan an bitoon sa langit
Saròng aldáw nanaman an nakalipas
Saròng rebolusyon pa kan kinaban
Makakaabot man kita
sa satuyang padudumanan
Pasarosaro sanang lakdang
Arog ngani kan pirming sabi ni pipoy
"Aw!! aww!!"

—𝐔𝐦𝐚, a Bikol poetry.
About how I and my dog travel the world one step at a time.

I sit at Robert Frost Farm
On a bench so tall my feet can’t touch ground
I move them around and pretend I’m sitting on a cliff
But I’m surrounded by twigs
And dead yellow grass

It feels like spring but it looks like autumn
The trees are still bare and the landscape barren
Stripped down and beaten
Like a hollow survivor
Waiting for sunlight and just a little water

I sit here blindly like a silent on looker
I stare right through the tattered survivors
An old lady in the distance yells something friendly
But I can’t hear her so I stare and smile

I am running at the farm market,
For buying three pounds of organic enlightenment,
Glutes tight, chest stiff, a little bird pooped on my forehead,

Hoaxed by this joke I stepped on some dog ****,
An old lady asked me
                                     to carry her over the pit. I mimic, wait
“I will give you help after,
Now, I am in a hurry,
I want to buy three pounds of organic enlightenment.”

Looking for a plan
to homestead with honey
You find the land
and I’ll bring the money.
Start with 8 hens and
then get a rooster.
Sunlight and dirt are
the best immune booster.
community grown
no, you won’t be alone
walkie talkies instead of upgraded iPhone.
remain lean and fit
use up every bit
for excellent compost mix in chickensh!t.
swale in the roots
of a filtering lily
irrigation to grow
what I’ll use in the chilli
weeds in the cracks
seeds in the snacks
a little help from the axe
and the *** makes us stacks.
And I’ll spin what I comb
from the fellows who roam
on the sod in the loam...
All we will need is
some land and some money,
a pocket of seed,
and true love for honey.

Which came first:

The chicken or the egg?

Well, the **** of the walk

Of course!


You ought to know, silly kid,

That he has always ruled the roost, —

Kicking up dirt

Crowing all the live-long day

Fighting anything that he sees

All to prove his strength.


That's how he has always been, —

One day, he just wanted to take his dominance

That little step further

And so, the world gave him a hen.


So quiet and gentle

Sweet and demure

She balances him out quite nicely.


She spends most of her days

Resigned to her coop

Laying egg after egg

In her warm, dark room.

She attends to the ****

Whenever he wants her

Then becomes a living factory once again, —

Producing babies and food

Food and babies.


She does this for most of her life, —

Until she gets too old, that is.

She dries up, gets fat

And, by Sunday,

She'll be on our table for dinner.


Laughing and chewing

Clucking and squalling

We'll sink our teeth in,

Never once thinking

About how her entire lifetime

Was defined by giving

And the ****, —

Well, it won't take him long

To pick out a younger, prettier chick

To take her place.


Which came first, —

The chicken or the egg?

Obviously, it was the **** of the walk, —

The one who screams his triumph at every sunrise

The one whose meat is too tough for us to devour

The one who will never, ever die.

Everything else is just a page in his never-ending story, —

Everything else

Is merely consequential.