I’m clever; I write the most
magnificent illuminations.
I let my invisible ink
ruminate with passionate flames.
In my fist, I unclench its ash.
I ball and toss; I’m not clever.
Words of trust and faith say something
in common on the hope they bring;
letting the last leaf firmly cling
midst blowing wind that makes couch swing
as the birds on the branches sing.
Note: This form is called Pasion, a traditional short Filipino poem which is only composed of 5 lines, having 8 syllables in each line with a 4-4 caesura. The rhyming scheme is aaaaa. It may have a maximum of 2 stanzas.
Where you go…
where you’ve been
One port of entry
leads within
Its grand canal
flows North and South
Meridian deep
—to anchor doubt
(The New Room: April, 2021)
REVELATION
It was ages since we ‘d met. I dread her visits.
The melodrama and discord leave me unmoored.
My sister’s hugs morphed into stones, dropped one by one.
Words hitting dark water. Circles of disbelief spun around me.
Not one scintilla of truth.
I glimpsed her self-satisfied smirk.
We’d been close in our teens…
A deep breath. No , Sis, it never happened.
She tossed her curls. But I was there. I saw you. Him too.
Did counselling
and hypnosis bring her easy certitude?
No sis…
She glared. It’s true. Do you think I’m mad?
DECIMA WRAXALL
The only certitude I'm still sure of
~ is the certain grace of Gratitude
Today she Decided,
To expose all sentiments without trepidation
Though broken by another’s dissatisfaction,
Inhumane and callous betrayal of her certitude
She chooses to unveil and unmask all residual pain
And focuses on His everlasting, unrelenting beatitude
Today she Decreed,
Never to allow her haunting past to hold ransom
Her subsequent future strong like a transom,
Though at constant war with doubts from her other
She vows to love him still through good and misfortune
And embraces all of him without a trace of a bother
Today she Prayed,
Supplicating to The Almighty to heal his humble heart
Discarding all perturbed doubts of the unknown depart,
So he sees her through untainted eyes of pure certitude
Breaking free from ghosts of past gone miles yonder
And taking sanctuary in the wings of God’s great omnitude
Can anyone say
"with certitude" that scandals
in Congress will cease?
In life anew, relate deficiency:
a heart that yearns for anything but this
and suffers for its inefficiency.
The hope, the future lost in just a kiss,
the need, the ache for breath of coming days,
a heart that yearns for anything but this
where, in the place of fortitude, fear plays
to bleed our vision from your tearful eye;
the need, the ache for breath of coming days,
that hold no others here but you and I;
no force unseen can ever breach the soul
to bleed our vision from your tearful eye;
to fail not, heart, the mind need not console –
no heart still unsearched disappoints again
no force unseen can ever breach the soul
and bring renewal of this present pain.
In life anew, relate deficiency:
no heart still unsearched disappoints again
and suffers for its inefficiency.
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