How human it is to speak with a drawl
to define and expound and interpret it all,
naming objects and assigning a label
placing a meaning and fixing it stable.

Is it really that thing that we named, overweening
or is it's existence outside of our meaning.
A teacup exists in a ritual of convention
a utilitarian Chinese invention.

But it's also a collection of bone dust and clay
the function transforming the substance this way,
the matter and molecule existed before
and after it's broken it's bone dust once more.

We build a construction of nouns in our head,
the meaning assigns a convenient "instead"
As the vessel returns to it's matter
language and labels and meaning will scatter.

Impermanence is both fickle and cruel
but in a grand triumph of human renewal.
we impose hope in our order once more
pretending that chaos bends to our lore.

Some poems
                     Offer reflection
                     Memories
                     On still water
                    
Some poems
                     Become the water
                     Converse
                     As ripples
                     In a breeze

Some poems
                     Become infectious
                     Inflame emotion
                     Penetrate your skin
                     Have a half life
                     That lasts generations

Hare?

Is it stuck up?

Tired of reality?
You just hope
You wake up in a dream.
Do you know you risk a nightmare?
The mind hatches awful plans,
Sets up terribly dreadful schemes.
What's it all mean?
I don't know?
Maybe?
Do you know?

And this is how it ends!
And this is how it begins!

It's all alphabetical,
All numerical.
Can you hear the song,
Read in-between the lyrics?
The structure of its wording?
Have you tried at singing?

Is it all spiraling?

Chelone?

Sa paglubog ng araw at pagsikat ng buwan.
Sa ihip ng hangin at patak ng ulan.
Sa pagdaan ng taon.
At sa bawat paglagas ng dahon.
Pangalan mo ang baon.
Sa pag-agos ng luha at sa paghikbi,
Sa pagsibol ng mangilan-ngilang ngiti.
Pauli-ulit na tatanawin,
Mga ala-ala mo na kumikinang kasama ng mga bituin.
Ikaw ang hiling.
Ikaw ang tinatangi.
Ikaw ang minimithi.
Ikaw ang sinta.
Ikaw ang payapa.
Ikaw ang pag-ibig.
Ikaw ang dalanging, nawa'y marinig.
Ngayon at sa paglipas ng panahon.
Pangalan mo ang sambit ng puso sa bawat alon.

I am a mouthful of wind,
a bell ringing past the hour,
a flame that does not know how to hush itself.

I speak, and the walls lean back,
startled, disapproving.
They say I should shrink, fold my voice
into the palm of a quieter woman.

But love is a confession,
a cathedral of echoes,
a mouth stretched wide with its own urgency.

I do not know how to whisper it,
to ration it out like breadcrumbs.
I give it whole, body and bone,
a flood, a monsoon, a fevered hymn.

Do not make me bite my tongue raw
for loving too much,
too recklessly, too ruinously,
as if devotion were something to be buried.

You-tight-lipped, unshaken-
do not tell me my love is too large to hold.
If your hands are small,
if your heart is locked shut,
do not make me the trespasser.

I will not shrink myself down to fit you.
I will not carve my love into a quieter thing.
Let it be known: I spoke it aloud.
I will not regret the sound.

Poetry is romance in the mind
A conduit, to the changing  faces of truth
A careful way—to convey  
Our exaltations—
of vision and beauty
Of duality and love
Of moment and memory
Of the heavens— above
To strive with hopeful humility  
Of shaping and elevating— words  
For connection, for visibility
For just a glimpse of that perfect light
That soft brief touch—of the divine

If they let me,
I will lead,
I will carry this torch,
Through the storm and flood.

For if not for poetry,
I would be one with none,
This art is a language,
We must carry on.

how dare english
or any tongue we know
fail to forge a word
that lifts you beyond a throne

".............",
his eyes said
without
saying

"and I, you",
I sighed
with
saying