'Geography' & 'Shapes'

A little background: Back in 2014, I submitted some poems to Sentinel Literary Quarterly, an online magazine based in the UK, and two of them got accepted. Part of the deal was a contributor's copy (always the best part for me, more than the pay). Then, the months started passing with no word from the pub. I emailed the editors, even contacted the literary editor through Messenger (I was seenzoned several times), until finally I decided they were probably a fly-by-night thing. Fast forward to a month ago, when on a whim, I checked to see if the pub is still up. Been running smoothly, from the looks of it, except for a blank in the timeline corresponding to that period when my poems should have appeared. I emailed the editor, this time without expecting any sort of immediate response, but the very next day, I got an answer. They told me the issue where my poems should have appeared never got published, and that they can publish my work in their next issue, if I like. So here we are. And here's the link to the issue's pdf:

http://www.sentinelquarterly.com/october-december-2017-online.pdf

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Shapes

The lemon tree makes a curious shape

in the way it bends to the sky: stooped,

slight dent along the delicate stem,

as if praying to heaven or asking

what shape the rain takes as it plummets

in a raging storm. To be old and still bear

fruit--yellow, flock of children navigating

an empty museum at daytime; sour,

the aftertaste of troubled marriages--

is quite enviable. It means the capacity

to create is still intact, like looking

beyond the window and asking the glass

what shape the moon takes at midnight,

hoping to imitate its spectral glow, the curve

where darkness meets the light.

This morning, the lemon tree travelled

one inch farther from its mound of earth,

but also, nearer to when it shall finally stop

trying to outgrow the rest of the garden--

the nonstop pendulum of bamboo stalks,

the roses blossoming in summer--

and learn to let go of the one perfect fruit

hanging from the one perfect branch,

the shape of sadness trapped in the bubble

of tears, when a father's face has turned

away after his daughter's wedding.

Tonight, the lemon tree stands content

with the geometry of its place--the triangle

of leaves moist with dewdrops, the parallel

branches bearing weight of the future fruit,

the shape of the unborn seed in its watery

womb, where even strangers tend to its needs,

and an old man's need to see circles and squares

take the form of boisterous grandchildren,

like saplings breaking through the soil

for the first time.

After Larry Ypil

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Geography

Tonight, my lover promised we would go places:

edge of the sun or rim of a lunar crater,

circle the burst of stars in our patch of sky,

hitch a ride on a spinning asteroid

and feel how space invades the distance

straddling two electric bodies.

Here was our house, next to Moscow

and the frost that permeates its empty squares.

Every morning, we woke to bells ringing

from the onion domes of St. Basil's,

sounds we imagined mailed to our window

by melting snow, the hurtling wind.

My lover believed in all things real and imagined,

and I, the rest that hover in between.

In the place where they sell coffins,

I first saw her, looking from beneath the glass

reflecting the whites of her eyes, her body

a lazy shadow supine in its polished casing.

I took her, there and then, on a trip around the globe,

painting portraits of ruins and walls, hillside

trees, a field of wildflower, mountains.

She devoured the sights, the moving pictures,

down to the final shred of celluloid.

Stop--Touch this acre of soft earth.

Here was the place for the invention of promise:

bend of the harsh ray of light

and spark of the first gleam of life.

Notice how everything collapses to its core,

how nothing seems able to withstand

the pull of gravity. This is also a place

for broken things, and for things to be broken.

Shards of glass collect on the bleeding feet,

wounds refusing to close with every washing.

Here was where we landed last night:

not in Zurich or Oslo, balmy Barcelona,

the lofty heights of Denver or swampy New Orleans,

but a house of stone and fog, both solid and wisp,

like whispers inhabiting the space between our mouths.

Here, our words are nothing but air.

'Flat Places' & 'Good Vibrations'

I'm finally--finally--in the Philippines Graphic. The day my dad died, I received the acceptance letter for two of my poems. One's inspired by Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese," which we briefly tackled during the IWP Workshop last April. The other's inspired by the movie "Love and Mercy," where Paul Dano does a mean Brian Wilson.

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Flat Places

Let your body fold into mine, soft

as the animal that fed on Mary Oliver's

despair and chased the wild geese

straight to an imagined moon.

It isn't real if the retina

can't remember it: A sea of lunar craters

dissolves in the chiaroscuro glow

of a dying afternoon.

You are still, and I am still

a mile and a decade away, still as a body

of water beneath the cyclone's

eye. Fly to me,

where the ocean is real,

and nothing eludes vision, for I know

how good you are. I know

what tragedy

looks like: the lambent gleam

of a nebula falling on an empty house,

watched over by a skein

fleeing the hurricane.

I know the thrill of running

away from home, thinking you will end

this running someday. But you

never will. Trust me, you

who weep over places

you believe you will never see: flat

places, torched places, torn

and toppled places,

not knowing the only places

that matter are the ones hidden

in the folds of your body.

Trust me, baby.

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Good Vibrations

--The Beach Boys, 1966.

The trick is in pretending she never really left.

After supper, two shots of gin, then a brandy

finish to start off the night. He plops himself

down on the couch, curled like a comma

a billion sizes too big. If you look

closely, you can see the hurt in him

throbbing like a thickened artery. Close my eyes,

she's somehow closer now, goes the phonograph

she bought from a yard sale next door. Cities

grow and fade, leaves turn a lush green

then the rich color of rust, but here he remains

in the crux of all this neighborly flux, gentle

as the last dream she had of him. It was Brian,

she said, on a moon-drenched beach, undulating

into the creased horizon. They looked

at each other, and that was the end,

and now her epitaph reads, When I look

in her eyes, she goes with me to a blossom world.

He likes it, he thinks, likes the way

it makes him think of orchids and poppies

nestled on the sand. Somewhere, a shot

is being taken: two people, the waves,

and the smooth bend of the edgeless blue.

Nobody smiles, eyes yielding blanks

stark as black pearls on the wrong ocean.

Nobody blinks, and nobody leaves.

New river, full moon

Finally got back to walking today. Used to run the Iloilo Esplanade--twin trails on the banks of the city's river, an outdoor recreational attraction modeled after Singapore's Clarke Quay, but without the swanky lights and party vibe--until the left leg started hurting like mad months ago. That was after the Japan trip, and so had to go to rehab for a month and a half. Lumbar strain was what the doc said.  Suspend all physical exertion for best results.

Did a round this afternoon, plus a side trip to phase three of the Esplanade--a skate and bike park on what used to be a seedy, sleazy hotspot, or so memory tells. On the way back, saw that the mangrove saplings planted a year ago have significantly grown, but on their feet, garbage, probably brought in by the tide, as can't imagine how one could summon the audacity to litter on such a place. What a sorry sight. Perhaps that audacity does exist among certain people in this city, this heedlessness to cleanliness, to self-discipline.

Crossing the bridge, witnessed a bird migration, or what looked like a migration. Those specks of fluttering wings probably numbered upwards of a thousand. Impossible to arrive at an exact number, but the whole aerial parade seemed endless. They flew close to the water surface and rose along a path to reach a considerable height once above the bridge's human traffic. 

Full moon today, the moon already hanging on the sky long before sundown. Bright as a pearl immune to gravity. Perhaps mother will return to walking these trails again. Perhaps it won't remind her so much of father, who walked with her after work.