poem – PERSPECTIVES -so to live fully-

Got a Crush on Teacher

I. Infatuation: Only In My Dreams.

Let him dwell there

where he wants to go now,

now that he’s freshly hatched.

Let him poke about his head

where he wills

now that he’s welcome.

Give him the benefit of the privilege

of cohabiting with your plans,

your illusions, your hazy moments

between sleep and reality.

Let him stare at you at his will

at his whim, at his time

let him be, until no more.

II. Differing Realms.

When I nod with them

in agreement that you’re just an illusion,

I wonder at the authenticity

of my indrawn breath

whenever I witness your approach.

I wonder at the rush of clear air

entering my head

as your shoulders advance to the vicinity

of my aural space.

For I haven’t seen anything more real

than your bespectacled face,

moisturized with exotic genes and whatnot,

open to my guarded scrutiny.

For I haven’t heard anything more real

than your carefree voice,

rich with the realities of your existence,

at times rude, at times erudite.

When I nod with them, I mean to agree

that your realness is beyond my realm of defined possibilities.

III. Letting Be.

You’re a detached performer

fulfilling your obligations to your freedom,

always in the present

until all the presents are gone;

so that I have no notion of the future

where you’re concerned,

me, a silent bystander with arms akimbo,

always as watchful as a dumb sheep.

(March 8, 2000)

Lack of Words

When there’s a lack of words to put up an architecture

of my feelings I spread out wide nets of gropings

out about me, my sensitivities vigilant

to that rare abundance of inspiration.

Like today when the air is dry enough for perpetual

non-awareness I try to squeeze out from the

molecules themselves instances of wisdom that

have been recycled for ages.

Though I must say I do not see at all a

positive correlation between an abundance of

feelings and an abundance of words.

Like that time when I let go of Daddy.

I knew it was a day when my net of feelings

choked me into chitinous silence,

when angry glares and pursed lips were all

I could manage just to stay calm.

And for years now my wellsprings of expressions

where this monotonous pause is concerned has been void

of promptings, though my rhetorics have been abundant,

string upon string of them passing through my temples.

There’s still a lack of words, though bits of my theatricals

have been shamelessly aired to two handfuls of

down-to-earth trusted friends

Jalex, Nonoy, Atan, Toto, Magal, Nene, Emilio, William,

and you.

(written 5 years after Daddy died, missing him)

Growing Up

I fought through this long journey

with stacks of innocence.

I went through the road with nothing on me

but knowledge of others’ wisdom gleaned

through long years of monotonous rote

learning through reading and hearing

of possibilities happening to journeyers like me.

As I went through the road with

almost nothing on me, the gleaning along

pointed out to me in shock and in

envy, in fear and in worry, that

either I’m on the wrong road, or on the

wrong side of the road, or behind

the road, or on the road that

leads on and on.

As I am going through this road

with very little on me, I know

I have my own with me;

what precious very little I carry I earned,

paid with precious shattered innocence.

(15^th July 2002)

Photo on top by Isaac Wendland on Unsplash

Having My Sabbath

Leave me alone in this small space I own.

I am having my Sabbath.

Do not share my breath and my ears.

Do not touch my skin.

I have wrapped my arms around myself

and have settled for the ritual.

Do not steal my time.

You do not see the damage you inflict on my face.

You are carelessly cruel and greedy.

You envy the precious nothing that I have.

Why are you still killing the dead that I am?

There is nothing more I can give.

I only have my breathing, my heartbeat, my tempered will,

and all these precious loaned, limited. Precious.

Oh my God, make the circumstances merciful toward me.

(composed 3rd week of July 1997)

Scatterbrain

Brains melting on this sweltering afternoon.

Sniffing once, twice, fluid bits of binary operations

oozing from tips of fingers

tinkering with minute details of

impossible Computer 6 programs.

amalgams. anagrams. space jams.

To the beat of Michael Jordan,

whirring on the ceiling, on puerile fans.

one understands

that if I flunk this, man, I’ve gotta scram!

though it was fun blasting away

at 30 minutes a time, sautéing my brain

for a computer scan,

tying bits of ends of puzzles

too crazy to understand, comprehend,

apprehend, suspend,

the inevitability of it dawning on me,

man…

understand? —

had no other stand but to take it,

banking on my passing it;

so when the box is on, I am.

And when things flicker on the screen,

man… my brains scatter;

then I have to reach out with both hands,

fingers extended in a trance,

no chance

to capture that rapture

on my teacher’s stance

as he converses with the air molecules.

All askance.

(composed 19^th March 1997)

I dug this out today, made me smile at my funny attempts at “poetry”, and it also coincided with what I have been doing these past 2 days: learning how to navigate an LMS, a learning management system, which is a platform used by schools to facilitate online learning. Whew. I passed the training with perfect scores! Nope, doesn’t mean I got it all perfected, ha-ha-ha, but that I was able to survive the pressure of producing outputs at the end of the sessions, so that I’d be given a certificate saying I’m not totally ignorant ot it! 😀

Some words I used, defined; copied from different sites (thanks!)

scatterbrain = a person who is forgetful, disorganized, or unable to concentrate or think clearly

askance = to look at or think about someone or something with doubt, disapproval, or no trust

amalgam = a mixture of different elements (not necessarily of the chemical kind)

anagram = an anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word anagram itself can be rearranged into nag a ram, also the word binary into brainy and the word adobe into abode.

puerile = childishly foolish; immature or trivial

**This GIF-art is by “Segawa 37” or “Thirty-Seven Segawa”; [Segawa Atsuki].**

Finally, I Begin

Written in February 20, 2014.

Three years I surfed the pages,

arms extended, fingers outstretched,

the gray continental sky indifferent to my need for light;

Three years I paced the shore,

back and forth, tracing the break’s contour,

shifting, ephemeral, undulating;

On the beach on the sand that is my brain,

lets information, like water, in,

pass through, then away, soaked;

Three years the troughs and crests and I

kept holding hands and letting go.

The other day I traced the shore at the bus stop.

Concrete platform undulating like lapping waves.

Cigarette butts like flotsam lining the pavement.

I saw the sea foam in my mind.

I smelled the salty air.

I heard the rush and splash.

I felt the breeze in my hair.

beach (8) — A fisherman cleaning his net.

Three years came to pass and I arrived

at how it should have been all along. I have beached.

Today is July 15, 20021.

It was a tremendous relief when my Doktorvater, my dissertation supervisor, finally agreed with how I envisioned my research work to proceed. When I wrote the above meditation-verse, I was celebrating with the sound of the sea in my ears, the wide sky looking down on me and the extensive beach, and my feet getting ready to wade through the vast ocean of information ahead. I knew that I had a very long way to go.

Landing on the beach is also a picture of restfulness. I felt that I have reached a base after a long time of aimless wandering. That was a great happy time, just me and my beach in my head and the almost empty university bus-stop, newly constructed, in Regensburg, the concrete platform edges gently undulating before my downcast eyes as I gaze, in my usual fascination, at the cigarette butts strewn all over the pretty pebbles.

It was a dreary winter day but I felt spring light my spirit.

I. Infatuation: Only In My Dreams.

II. Differing Realms.

III. Letting Be.

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