Silent scream for a dollar

Sometimes you contain it
it reverberates through your bones and blood
blood brewing, boiling, bubbling,
bubbling over into conscious asphyxiation and a gasp--

gasp for air

air enters your lungs but the breath is shallow
(shallow drowning is the worst kind)

kind enough to smile at the crack of dawn
dawn on you yet that at dusk, you can't hide the fury in your face,
face the inane conversation at the dinner table,
table the issue of what's cracking you?

You sometimes can't contain it
it reverberates through your teeth
teeth grinding at the letters scrawled on the check
check your math but not your temper
temper your voice about a billing mistake
mistake the waitress's ambivalence for malice

malice escapes as the tone of your voice
voice your complaint bitterly and the battle is lost

lost twenty pesos for no fault of your own
own your frustration and let it spread,
spread through your blood and your bones.

Metamorphosis

Once she dreamed of Baucis and Philemon:
the intertwined branches of two lovers immortalized as
the oak and the linden, in vibrant embrace
shimmering golden leaves brimming with life in the wake of an angry destruction.

Time ticked and tocked its way through xylem and phloem
and her own roots grew deeper into the earth.
The hope turned to sadness to anger
and back to hope again
and then all emotions oozed out as sap.

Wind will rip her leaves away,
locusts will descend upon her trunk,
their dead shells will stain her bark,
even if she gives the gods the wine and the goose.

It's still possible to stand tall and weathered
with a heart that pumps from empty veins.

Kokyu Ho

The believer and the skeptic said
they preferred not to hold hands in battle.

They once picked wildflowers together,
forded rivers,
climbed trees.
As they grew older,
arthritic kneed,
they separated.

The believer says they bickered;
the skeptic insists they fought.
Too proud to admit these untruths,
they grew apart.
"I keep you alive," smirked the brain.
"Isn't it the other way around?" inquired the heart.

The moment for reconciliation arrived suddenly:
the tingling hands of the one who drove them apart,
harnessing heat,
hovered.

The believer raced
The skeptic panicked
and finding themselves unexpectedly in the tight embrace
of fear,
they clutched each other's sweaty palms
and renewed their vows.

what they never told you

When every word matters, when there is a word limit,
they never told you how swiftly writer's block would strike.
Your typing fingers are constipated,
your mind clutches for words desperately as you sleep,
your legs thrash off the covers and you wake up in a cold sweat
blinking away the after-image of a computer screen.

You no longer remember the pleasures of paper and pen
those days of carefree spiral notebooks, privacy and poetry
replaced by deadlines and judgment
(these have slowly etched themselves into your forehead
horizontally
you never knew your reflection
would turn to hand over eyes, thumb and index rubbing temples
staving off the ache of words locked in)

A progressive death

There is no adverb
for living in a deathly way.

"She woke up dyingly.
She got ready dyingly.
She lived her day dyingly."

And then she went to sleep
--not the ultimate sleep--
but well aware that with every ticking second,
with every jerking second hand,
that there she was headed.

Time Comes Towards

Cool air, post-dusk air
A rambling mind sees the sky as black,
incessant black.
Drawn from the periphery to the center
a tingly blue.

I don't want to be afraid of you,
man with the swaggering walk
arm bones loose like jellyfish tentacles
your silhouette softened by your vulnerability
your gait so perplexing I can't tell
if you're walking away or towards me

My eyes play tricks
with your tortuous intoxicated path,
backwards,
forwards

I slow
I stop
I am still.

Simplicity is

Simplicity is

a head covered with a white plastic bag
raindrops pit-patting in unpredictable rhythm
infiltrating the cuffs of my sleeve

a dark blue plate covered with striking white feta
more than morsels left behind
radiating a guilty ambivalence

a sidewalk covered with animal crackers
blue-lidded container atop a brick row
sitting humpty-dumpty style

my hands covered with wrinkles
the smell of dish soap
nestling between each fingerprint ridge

Simplicity is breathing,
knowing that in the moment comfort is finally achieved,
all this must be given up.