Dream of Knives” by Alfred A. Yuson

 

Last night I dreamt of a knife

I had bought for my son. Of rare design.

It went cheaply for its worth—short dagger

with fancily rounded pommel, and a wooden sheath

which miraculously revealed other miniature blades.

 

Oh how pleased he would be upon my return

from this journey, I thought. What rapture

will surely adorn his ten-year princeling’s  face

when he draws the gift the first time. What quivering

pleasure will most certainly be unleashed.

 When I woke, there was no return, no journey,

no gift and no son beside me. Where do I search

for this knife then, and when do I begin to draw

happiness from reality, and why do I bleed so

from such sharp points of dreams?

Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud By John Donne

 

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Problem Is By Conchitina R. Cruz

 They say poor Filipinos multiply

like rabbits since they have nothing

to do but fuck. Living in houses with room

only for the inevitable brush

of the hand against the buttock in between

chores, on the way to switch

channels to the daily noontime show,

no money and little space

lead to nowhere

but to coupling. We used to joke

and call our selves typical Filipinos,

broke and empty-handed,

when all we did was touch, and for all

the movies we missed, fancy dinners

we didn’t have, books we borrowed

but never owned,

we compensated

by making love.

You told me not to worry,

that someday the worst

would end, just a couple of right

moves and it would be over.

Should I have told you then

we’d never been better,

should I have told you then

to hold your tongue, but we had

no room for such words.

We were rabbits,

Seeking the other side, bent on

Crossing the pasture.

Lament for the Littlest Fellow By Edith L. Tiempo

The littlest fellow was a marmoset.

He held the bars and blinked his old man’s eyes.

You said he knew us and took my arm and set

My fingers around the bars with coaxing mimicries

Of squeak and twitter. “Now he thinks you are

Another marmoset in a cage.” A proud denial

Set you to laughing, shutting back a question far

Into my mind, something enormous and final.

The question was unasked but there is an answer.

Sometimes in your sleeping face upon the pillow,

I would catch our own little truant unaware;

He had fled from our pain and the dark room of our rage,

But I would snatch him back from yesterday and tomorrow.

You wake, and I bruise my hand on the living cage.

Deception By Antonino Soria de Veyra

 

ten floors up

a lizard

punctual

at six o'clock

crawls down

stopping

every now

and then

along the

slender

tree trunk

and kisses

the ground

nitrified

loam of the

arboretum

ten floors

up

Be Beautiful, Noble, Like The Antique Ant By Jose Garcia Villa

Be beautiful, noble, like the antique ant

Who bore the storms as he bore the sun,

Wearing neither gown nor helmet,

Though he was archbishop and soldier:

Wore only his own flesh.

Salute characters with gracious dignity:

Though what these are is left to

Your own terms. Exact: the universe is

Not so small but these will be found

Somewhere. Exact: they will be found.

Speak with great moderation: but think

With great fierceness, burning passion:

Though what the ant thought

No annals reveal, nor his descendants

Break the seal.

Trace the tracelessness of the ant,

Every ant has reached this perfection.

As he comes, so he goes,

Flowing as water flows,

Essential but secret like a rose.

 

Lyric 17 By Jose Garcia Villa

First, a poem must be magical,

Then musical as a seagull.

It must be a brightness moving

And hold secret a bird’s flowering

It must be slender as a bell,

And it must hold fire as well.

It must have the wisdom of bows

And it must kneel like a rose.

It must be able to hear

The luminance of dove and deer.

It must be able to hide

What it seeks, like a bride.

And over all I would like to hover

God, smiling from the poem’s cover.