A FISHY STORY

  Ashen skin glisten beneath incandescent bulbs Lifeless eyes stare wide-eyed at customers feeling their flesh for firmness Sweat and blood mingle on the muddy floor Voices rise voices fall earnest haggling ends in a bargain Ah, the sultry heat seeps out of skins Money changes hands dead bodies are wrapped in yesterday’s news and

FOR KIAN (Victim of Extra Judicial Killings)

Soon the dead will themselves break their silence Rattling their bones, they will march down the streets chanting the truth murderous bullets hid in shallow graves, the truth turns and festers escaping into the air we breathe, sanitized with lies more noxious than death. What sorcery makes saints of monsters and monsters of innocents hoodwinks

MEMORIES OF A TROPICAL RAIN (for DVERSE and Poetry Jam)

The cracked earth hissed at the touch of rain, dust rose like smoke from the ground. The musk of loam hang heavy in the air while heat trapped the breath in our lungs. Thunder rumbled in the distance and rattled the walls of our house The rain that fell through holes in the roof we

GONE

We used to hide among the mango  trees here and there,  behind Lolo Teban’s storehouse. We saved ourselves from being ‘it’ on that coconut tree by our gate. But the winds blew them all away and the floods washed our place clean except for the debris left in their wake. Oh! Look at those little

The Filipino Smile for POETICS

I was thinking in Tagalog when I was  composing this  poem.  An English translation is provided at the bottom of this poem.  Pardon the hiccup at the end of the last stanza of the English version. ANG NGITI NG ISANG PILIPINO Singtingkad ng araw sa papawirin ang biyayang ngiti na kanyang angkin nagbibigay liwanag saan

MEETING THE BAR: GRAFFITI POETRY

Warning:  Rude and crude and distressing, perhaps. 🙂 ALL THE WORLD IS A BATHROOM Ammonia permeating the air more than the nose could bear far more effective a warning could be than the big bold graffiti telling one not to heed nature’s call against the hapless wall “Do not be a dog,” it says but

SUNDAY POST: PEOPLE

I’ve been wondering about what to post for Jake’s challenge.  Whether due to shyness or fear of being sued 😉 , I’ve been careful not to photograph people in my photo adventures.   However, in case I have just the sort of picture that is right for the challenge, I rummaged through my folders and