Non Sequiturs Enjambed

Encountering Snake A sudden hiss on the grass and there she was – her eyes plumbing the pit of my fear, her tongue – like jealousy – licking the distance between us. My fingers gripped the hoe’s handle, and a whiz whipped through the air; then a thud muted whatever she wanted to portend; not even a faint moan seeped from her mouth. My knees trembled as my eyes cast a final kiss on her broken skull.

Non Sequiturs Enjambed/ 1 of 12

Fathering How can this rage not explode? Her eyes looking but not seeing, glued yet wandering. She’s everywhere, she’s nowhere, seeking refuge where I don’t exist or where I am dead or just a twig she feeds to the flame, blue with her wrath. She has mastered the contours of my anger and I still grope along the fence of her defense. Isn’t silence sweet? Then why the muteness my voice has summoned deafens me now? Where is the shore of this howling sea of reticence? How can a clever plan fail? – trap her in a minor encounter. Squeeze out from her throat a meow to unlock her lies, and trigger the torrent of diatribes I have long nurtured. But how can I bear her empty stare? Her frozen gaze that sets me ablaze?


Mourning Everytime our family comes together, he who gathers us drops from our roll -- he can't sit and chat with us anymore. From the weight of nights without sleep, his eyes are saved; from the toll of vigil and funeral, his shoulders are freed. Once again, we are united by absence; and just like when our other kindred died, our wallets wail, our guts grieve. Do we need to mention? Everyone of us is mired in the abyss of debt; especially that we now atone for what we failed to give to the one we lament. His casket must bear our pride; as seamless as our keening, biscuits, coffee, and cigarettes should stream; on funeral's eve, the karaoke must croon from dusk to dawn. Do we need to mention? We mourn not because we've lost a kin. Death is trite. What rouses our tears is the loss we shall live with back home when we part. Luckily, it's not a disgrace to cry in public -- our brother dear is resting in peace. But deep is the wound his death has left in our pockets. So let us all sorrow -- let us sob, let us weep; well, who can feel the real fount of our grief? We are mourning for our beloved dead.


Innocence Sinewed by the the ancient art of tai chi, he forged the forces of the universe to lure a dreamer into his lair. He stayed silent as a spider; and with seamless gliding of limbs and fingers, he entrapped his prey like a moth entangled in a cobweb. The sky was bleeding then when she asked: “How can I walk through the dusk?” “Just follow me, I’m a pathfinder,” said he. He whispered to her ear: “Close your eyes my child and trust your heart.” And to the tremor of his voice he danced her, deeper and deeper into the night. Soon his lips dripped with her muffled sobs, the stench of his slobber drifted into her pristine dream; and he confessed: “She came to me; I’m innocent.”


Killing a Mockingbird Assure your child she is safe within the confines of your embrace; tell her she is free from fright within the bounds of your sight. Convince her that a voice as sweet as hers deserves no other ears than yours; let her feel that to be free, safe, and sweet she needs no noise, she needs not speak. Make her believe that silence is the air she must breathe; then show her your candor – cut her tongue.


Becoming The man gobbled up a plate of latik-laden kalamay; while his dog nibbled in its paw a bunch of garapata – those blood- suckers that kept on thriving despite the tons of anti- flea powder and lotion the man had poured all over the dog's fur. The man and his dog, together they bit, they chewed with a clack and a click from their bleeding teeth. When the man sneered and its gums the dog bared, a passing geek as if bewitched, couldn't tell which was the beast. The man, with his tongue raked up the crumbs of latik that fell from his mouth; the dog scoured its back for another bunch of grape-colored bugs. And together they bit and chewed with the clack and the click of garapata and latik.


My womb, my tomb My beloved womb that birthed me, with the salty fangs of your froths gnaw my body into a tiniest sand, lest the sailing light smell the scent of my rancid solitude sighing for death beneath the moon’s golden hull. I once waded against your current, whipping whirlpool upon whirlpool of youth on the virginal azure of your flesh; but your wounds heal quicker than a whip; and I, a, how swift my robust breath succumbed to the smallest of your ripples. Now a piece of broken pride, please send not my body ashore. Just gently disintegrate me, my beloved tomb.


Waterwomb How many swiddens must we scour before we could find signs of water? The sun seared my nape and sent sneering waves beneath my gaze; sweat and dust turned my slippers into a rain-soaked ricefield. Just below us, the reservoir that has devoured our town lay placid – an abundance, our thirst! Move fast we must; the dusk never tarried nor rested. Soon our neighboring towns would blast with light; in our huts, atop the mountain overlooking the lake, candles and kingke would flicker through the night; I saw the turbines reeling light for Subic and Clark. I saw the spillway sending every grass abloom in the plains of Central Luzon. My lips and soles cracked as we traversed hills upon hills in search of waterwomb. My heart seethed with rage as we tried to revive moribund brooks gradually breaking into million mudcakes.


Grooming As he writes his name, his nails grate against the blackboard; the chalk crumbles between his fingers. Every bit of dust heralds he is the boss – the deity that decides what is beautiful, what merits a nod, what deserves an ire, what warrants a ridicule. He squeezes out from every bran of his students’ brain the knack of chasing shadows that took him a lifetime to learn. He orders them to spin a yarn in a minute and shows that in a slash of whip he can dissect their hearts, beat by beat. Blitzing their ears with diatribes, searing their souls with his devouring eyes, he makes them tremble and pee their pants. His is the only way to become, so he hammers into their heads that they flop to flap because their idols and ideals are idiots; making him appears not only to be the boss but also to be the best. He never stops tutoring them how to twitter his words, not until they master his style of dribbling. Then, like cows off for butchery, he brands them with a seal of excellence. All for having perfected the techniques of making their tongues glib and stink of his spittle.


Salvation Salvador devotes the rest of his life praying to save the world from hunger and war and pestilence. He preaches to the beggars: ignore hunger, thank God for the beauty of this smog- infested sky where the moon and the stars and the fireflies succumb to the blasts of neon lights and flares of profit. He preaches to the beggars: endure life as you sleep in pavements among blots of bubble gum and dirt and spit and morsels of pity. This hell tempers your faith. He preaches to the beggars: learn the ways of gadflies -- know with pinpoint precision where to look for carcass to feast on. But the beggars gather away from Salvador’s prayers. Cradled by their pus and grime and lice and love of life; with their hard-bitten fingers and sermon- broken eardrums and bleeding hearts, they heave the birthing of their own salvation.



Candle Aching to be Lit She disappeared and failed to come home after seven years. Waiting is a jungle where footfalls, greetings, and sagging windowpanes all melt and blend with the mist embracing the ferns; a fusion of dawn and dusk that disintegrates at every moment of sighs. Without shape, without color. Neither coarse nor smooth. Not a straight line of finding that follows searching that follows losing. Neither a single stab nor constant thuds in the brain, or in the heart. Waiting is a cobweb of despair, rage, death, hope – a crisscrossing of obituaries, candle lights, confetti, burnt garlic and onions, formalin, fresh paint, colostrum, navel, fontanel, diaper, combat boots, truncheons, family photographs, baptismal certificate, college diploma. Numbed knuckles of knocks pleading every gate, every door – military detachments, jails, government offices, television stations, hearts of barangay officials, ngo workers, priests, nuns, neighbors, owner of the factory where she worked and was last seen: “My daughter, help me find my daughter.” Framed frown. Searing sea. Cascading hill. Parched rainfall. Plucked nails. Rotten breath, heaps of cigarette butts, rusting thumb, gun powder. Granules of sweat, blood, phlegm, semen. Waiting, a crumpled hand floating between a door that has forgotten the warmth of its frame and a candle aching to be lit.

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Non Sequiturs Enjambed