[1] I Hear my Heart
I hear my heart howl,
a wounded wolf fighting for shelter
along burning columns of mire
in the cold whiteness of a winter’s chest;
I hear my heart weep,
and his voice is muted by a hurricane
of ebony wings that soar like spears
onto a bleeding, barb-wired sky;
but I do not grieve long, not for long—
for, as I hear my heart whisper
the agony of volcanic ash
it also promises the ecstasy of waterfalls
that subside into a symphony
of rustling rain and playful wind
that plays on and on and on
through moments of a single midnight
onto the eternity of a new dawn
that starts with my trembling hands
finding calm and warmth
upon your breasts.
[2] A Vampire’s Song to his Beloved
I would like you to whisper me a poem
a poem that hisses like copperhead wind
a quiet, intrusive, searching poem
that snaps like sweet poison kiss
that brings me to quick sleep—
as the rain wafts softly
among the trees’ shoulder blades
finding refuge in the cold
damp night, darkness collecting
a weary head.
I am so tired, so please say the words
like the lost language of crows
that find shelter in the wounded intimacy
of an aftermidnight dreary.
Touch me, oh touch me
like pangs that fuses death
and make me rest in the abyss
then wake me up with the song
of healing like sunlight that sneaks
through the flesh of dusk and mends
the cracks of broken blinds…
my love, my beloved
your love is my peace
and my home
amidst the light of night
and the dark of days.
[3] Inside You
Inside you, I feel the rustle of rain
and the nerves of the sea...
Inside you, I lick the sun
and engulf the moon...
Inside you, I break my metaphors
into seeds that nourish
this earthly hunger...
Inside you, I seek shelter
I grope for fire...
Inside you, you handed me the world
that I lost a hundred midnights ago
all after this night unfolding
as we start to feed
the infant of our love
with the defiant wind
and persistent rain
of our beautiful madness.
and the nerves of the sea...
Inside you, I lick the sun
and engulf the moon...
Inside you, I break my metaphors
into seeds that nourish
this earthly hunger...
Inside you, I seek shelter
I grope for fire...
Inside you, you handed me the world
that I lost a hundred midnights ago
all after this night unfolding
as we start to feed
the infant of our love
with the defiant wind
and persistent rain
of our beautiful madness.
[4] If We Try
I can face your storm
and wrestle your wind
if you make me a bowl of soup
by the bonfire that
our sweet deliriums
are bound to stoke
when the hurricane subsides
I can grip the blade
of your turbulence
wound my palm
with your lightning bolt
if you nurse me with
a kiss after these tears
have dripped and dried
and my serpentine heat
has sobered and calmed
I can marry your jagged lines
with my gruff borders
level our rough terrains
then draw the axis
towards a straight line
leading to a point
that would mark our little,
warm space in the wild
If we try.
[5] As the Rain Plays Tchaikovsky
Let it rain, let it pour, let it flow tonight,
let the sky open wide its chest and let stars
drink blood and then let them drip onto
your naked heart; let them wash and drain
the smeared paint and perfumed mud—
then let me in… and so I could draw you
a hundred new poems as I rub my scars
upon your wounds, and then clean up
your insides, and then heal like broken
waves cavorting fresh seashells at dawn.
[6] Serenade
No one could remember
the scent of seashells
that feed tulips in between
the fertile crevice
of your twilight
and dawn;
no one knew
the smell of daisies
that lingers amidst
your throbbing mounds
of clouds that send
vagabonds and warriors
to sleep.
No one, no one but me.
What precious minerals
are embedded on your hips
that warm and nourish
the earthly hunger
of nomadic limericks
as they scrounge for heat?
Let me navigate
your mysteries buried
in your depths,
moist with promises
of warmth, assurances
of shelter.
I shall explore your contours
with a serpent’s tongue
that preys on truths
with no shape
but uncovers mysteries
with a kiss;
my muse of drunken stars
allow me to wander in the moonlit
prairie of your chest,
while I seek refuge
from desolation
and loneliness.
Then let me in, let me
surrender my world
inside you before
I lose it again.
[7] A Love Letter to a Sleepless Dawn
Why can’t we dry tears in our eyes
and say, “We will work things out…”
instead of uttering, “It’s not working…”
Why can’t we kiss and let warmth
live on through twilights of our days
as each new dawn moistens our lips again
and again, instead of shrugging,
“A kiss grows old, anyway…”
Why can’t we respond to our fears
with just a silent whisper of love
in the dark, instead of feeding
more questions to the darkest
of our most persistent fears?
[8] Couch
Falling autumn leaves dried
tears as petals of half-broken
hearts cracked upon our palms
as we snuggled sorrows past
and present to 15-minute naps;
snow flurries danced with
our mouths and hips,
flirted with the sun in between
throw pillows and our eager legs
on the couch.
[9] I Don’t Believe in Love but I Believe in Fire
I don’t believe in love,
I don’t believe in three red roses
transparent petals like cheap table napkins
that crack under my tears,
I don’t believe in phone calls
programmable hellos that strain
like $10 phonecard rituals.
I don’t believe in serenades
Shakespeare is dead
and the bard is down and out
homeless and hungry in Central Park,
I don’t believe in till-death-us-do-parts
silly internet cards
kiss and hugs and chocolates.
I don’t believe in love
but I believe in fire
I believe in stealing a firelight
from up the bosom of a vagrant star,
I shall collect that serpentine fire
and run its heat
along your naked chest.
I believe in patiently stoking a spark
and building bonfires
in between your legs…
There, there we could shelter our lost
wandering spirits
there, we could warm
our cold, homeless hearts.
I don’t believe in love
but I believe in the pain and pleasure
of my passion
like blood that oozes down
from a virgin’s unknowing
like an in infant’s wail from
a mother’s womb.
I believe in the insistent rush
of silver bullet
thrusting deep down
a vampire’s breast…
Murder eternity’s flamboyance
with the silver bullet of my heart!
I believe in the uncompromising
sincerity of the rain
like tiny persistent arrows
whose voyage to the ground
can never be stopped
or refused.
I believe in the scorpion heat
that burns in the confines
of this dark and lonely room,
poison fangs that lose their sting
as we tame each other’s rage
and fears
and doubts
with the insistent language
of our hungry bodies
devouring each other.
I believe in the security
that we derive in treading
this jagged line,
warm distraction
from our perfect worlds,
I believe in the comfort
of the endlessness of
these suspended
moments.
I believe in marrying our tears
with our dissident sweat
juice and saliva
as we intertwine.
I believe in the pain and pleasure
of our passion
as we break the stars tonight...
in painful aloneness
but sweet solitude
of our vagrant love.
[10] Hips
Like a quiet seashore that offers refuge
to the ocean’s turbulence and calms down
the waves’ frolic and adventure;
like a riverbank that pacifies rapids
and neutralizes overflow—
my rampage and my meekness find
solace and frenzy, sleepy surrender
and sweet unease around your hips.
[11] A Nightingale’s Song
I.
Autumn seems so long…
I wish they’d wash away those drained
wine glasses still moist with distant words
that don’t seem to connect anymore;
Evening piano sonatas that only
the void of humid could talk with,
emptiness that sneaks out
of weeping windowpanes…
I wish this is winter
cold, and dark, and isolated
but at least, I could feel lightness
in between the cracks of my gaping wound;
reminding me that healing starts
as we anticipate pleasure
in the comforts of our dark.
II.
You always sing like a lost
nightingale on a rainy night,
I knew you don’t mean it
to sound that way,
although you manage to blend
a smile with the tune…
But these nights are for lovers
not for losers,
I was there to find refuge
on that stage where your warmth
lingers; your ghosts were there
but they were invisible
in the mist of your newfound space;
your song was meant to cure
the night’s bleeding—
not to touch the scar again
but to let a new flesh grow
from its infant warmth.
[12] The Taming of the Wild Woman
I want to negotiate the depths
that reveal ladders into your dark
into your steep cave of treasures
into your sleeping volcano—
and then, I will thrust my head
upon those black clouds, swallow your fire
and clear the smoke as I unravel
and claim my home in your heart.
[13] Winter Sonnets
Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sÃ, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.
dentro de sÃ, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.
--Pablo Neruda, Soneto XVII
“I love you like the plant that never blooms,
but conceals within itself the light of those flowers;
and, thanks to your love, the darkness of my body
houses the suffocating aroma that arose from the earth.”
but conceals within itself the light of those flowers;
and, thanks to your love, the darkness of my body
houses the suffocating aroma that arose from the earth.”
[1] Love is the Rain
Don’t say love, don’t even mention it
when the love that you hold
upon your trembling hands
lingers like winter’s cold
that bites a fractured heart
and sends it shivering for cover
in a faceless musketeer’s
moonshadow; ignoring a starlit
warmth that slides through wounds
and lasts longer than
the quickness of deaths
of scorpion trysts,
stays closer than
the fleetingness
of serpentine heat.
I can write the saddest poems tonight
but these are not meant for tears
or forgiveness or consolation;
These are meant for the rain
that nourish the earth
cold, dark, and empty;
yet it feeds, it nurtures
it waits, it comforts
no matter how seasons go—
for love is not flesh
that gets cold,
not words that drain
upon a snow’s
flawless void.
Love is the rain
and it is as old as earth
yet it never dies
despite decay;
young as sunlight
that sneaks out of the cracks
of winter’s bronze chest;
new and warm
as phantom touch,
deep in the heart
of the night.
[2] Ode to a Passing Autumn Midnight
Her voice that was the breath of moist grass
has been muted, fallen in between
the cold crevices of black ice;
her hair that was a soft cascade
of sunshine has dried and lost its fragrance
along with the vagrant summer breeze;
her smell that was the smell
of full moons has lost its scent and
her touch that took me far
far away on a single night,
has been swallowed by the wafting snow,
lost in the quiet dark of an overstaying
autumn midnight.
[3] The Promise of Spring
Madness is love,
the life of fire that burns only
upon our eager provocation;
like snow flurries that kiss the earth
in quiet motions, distant touch—
but don’t despair, let our bodies’ flames
keep the lamplight alive.
Summer and winter are nature’s song
in two contrasting sentiments
that are rewarded by warmth
as earth opens wide its heart again
to welcome the gentle rustle
of the first rain of spring
deep into her depths.
[14] Dance
We are hands, waves that crawl upon the shore;
we are limbs, wind that strengthen trees’ hold
of the earth: But we are also mortal passions,
heat and cold on fiery collision like lightning’s
spark on thunder’s mischief—and subside
as dancers with vagrant hearts in an endless
motion of dread, daydream and rediscovery.
[15] Aftermidnight Proposal to a Moonshadow
My love for you
is as long as a second—
like the fleeting eternity
of a lightning’s kiss upon a rock;
And my love for you
is as short as a thousand years
like the elaborate trek of dews
along the bare chest of a leaf.
[16] Love, deliberations and musing
Love is not a rose...
Love is a cactus plant
left alone in the desert
to fend for itself
distant, immobile but undying,
ugly and hopeless in the outside
but immortal and beautiful
in the inside.
It pricks the skin, it cuts deep
but amidst an empty, vacant expanse
of deceptive awe and dry wonderment
the cactus is the only unmoving sight
that breathes so loud,
the only sign of life.
Love is not a low-flying dove...
Love is an angry, ruthless vulture
it hovers menacingly
over rotting corpses,
dying flesh, and pools of fresh blood.
It preys upon the weak and the helpless
it pecks and bites and devours
it kills slowly, slowly
like morphine needle
buried on beaten veins,
only the strong and the brave
survive this fatal assault.
Love is not the sweet song of summer...
Love is the intruding gash of wind
that arrogantly roars over the prairie
a swath of rage that punishes the grass
and overturns stones,
a bolt of lightning
that startles the constantly sleeping,
disturbs the quiet, and scares the protected,
only the invisible and the invincible
survive this deadly intrusion.
Love is a lonely flute’s cry atop the hill
it conquers the world down below
with its meekness and calm,
yet it frightens the night
as it lingers in the dark,
like a thief with serpent mouth
and fox eyes.
Love is a pair of beaten armchairs
by a railway track
respite from a wounded journey,
shared by two wrinkled hands
and resurrected hearts—
No words, no promises, no apologies.
Love is the grime in an immaculate heart,
the unseen white in a crow’s breast,
the mud in a child’s cheek, the scars
in a dying man’s chest.
Love is…
Love is when we see light,
when we feel warmth
in the dark and cold
of the unpleasant.
[17] Hammock Poem
The night sky wanders its hands
loiters its fingers into the mountains
and finds us clenched like one set
of limbs on a hammock: bound
by silent wind, witnessed by wet pines
like heat melting overdrawn snow
like cover to a rain-soaked earth:
The night sky rediscovers us like
the first evening, like the first kiss.
[18] Shape Shifter
A black crow under a full moon’s
glare stands guard by your open window;
a grey cat with eyes that burn
like fire when dark, cold nights
invade your sleep; a butterfly
whose wings could blanket
your naked body with silky warmth:
I could be any shape watching
over you but I will always speak the same
language as the spirit that shapes my heart.
[19] Night Moves
1.
Like feline wavelets teasing
an unsuspecting dune,
my long black hair
navigates your bare chest
that reveals the immortality
of supple clouds,
making their way
onto your virulent crevices
and mounds, seeking
rediscovery of what’s hidden
beneath your damp earth.
2.
Your mouth’s mischief
upon my mouth teases
like a viper that rubs heat
on cold stone, striking fire
in small provocations
of lightning bites; your hands’
sweet hunger for a willing prey
is like the mighty sea that swallows
an uneasy river onto its realm
without hesitation or reserve:
you are both conqueror
and conquered on one singular
battle of passion and longing.
[20] Invitation to a Moondance
The sun is frozen on this
early autumn night,
the crickets probably think
it’s the last week of winter,
look at the way they
chase their shadows
under back yard trees
The moon is burning
on this cold evening,
it’s nestled inside a cone
of dark, slowly
melting like teardrops
flooding the shades
My spirit was trapped in between
the frozen sun misplaced
in snow’s womb,
my heart was about to turn to ashes
and drift away with
dissolved moonflakes
Nothing made sense,
it seemed
until you emerged
from behind the aftermidnight’s
vagabond shadow
I would like to pull my wings out
of my broken limb
and fly by your window,
just watch you sleep
like a raven that stands guard
against monsters that might
scare your stars away
I would like to wait till you wake up
and then ask you
if you’d want to walk with me
by the lake,
I’d like to hold your hand
with my magic words
and give you a piece of
a frozen sun
and a fragment of a charred moon
that are still resting on my backpack,
would you want to reconstruct them
with me?
I do not want to frighten you away
with my sudden intrusion,
I just want you to give me a chance
to make you believe that
there is a frozen sun
and burning moon,
and crickets who can’t seem
to figure out the time of day
I just want to prove to you
that things that don’t make sense
sometimes make sense
when these are shared by two,
and that we can see beauty
within if two eyes watch,
no words
and hearts read,
no movements
No explanations
But first, do you believe that I have wings
and that, I could fly you a few meters
to the sun, without burning
or share you wine made of rain
by the a full moon’s shoulder
like it’s the first day of spring?
By Pasckie Pascua
