Cirilo Bautista's Selected Poems

Being Blue in Switzerland
I walk along the shore of Lake Lucerne
The sunlight glimmers on the water 
and pigeons eat crumbs under the trees.

The wind is cold, so I button my black jacket and tighten my woolen mufflers.
Dew still clings to the red and yellow tulips.

Lovers embrace on the wooden piers while slowly
the boat from Gotthard sails into port.
Two swans and a duck float near 
the piers, seeking the bread a man has thrown
into the water, there under the blue sky.

I feel lonely by the shore of Lake Lucerne.
I hold my head high and whistle a tune.

The Fountains at Villa D'Este, Tivoli
As if he owned the ocean.
Here, one man’s dream explodes in 
water, carved in splashing splendour
by lion teeth, angel mouth, breasts
of virgins that do not rest. Day
and night the liquid sizzles, channeling
the dream from terrace to terrace,
from stone to stone, till it gathers to a pool
that caresses the fish. My brain swims
with the fish as they trace their antique
silence to a thousand spouts
and fountains, then back to the pool again….
One dies again, also, bursting through
the skin, and flings his wingless wars
to the sun, broken and raining sadness
on the soul; but just for a moment,
like spumes in air, or the swing of swans
to shore, no longer, no better. Bodies
bloom and reel in space, juggled and spun by
light, by water, to flash a brilliance,
no longer, no better. Was this what he
thought, he who planned the garden of his mind,
to freeze that brilliance? Did he, in despair,
command the water to move his mind
to each crevice, each pool, each silent
sibilance, each flowing,
each song of many endings, each murmur,
while he slept, as if he owned the ocean?

Offering for Picasso
This poem
is for Picasso
who didn't have hair and looked like cheese.

He divided up
the bodies of people
and a new form of art was born in the world.

A circle of yellow
became the sun
a rainbow sprouted in an intestine exposed,
a lost bicycle
when pounded and earrings thrown
let grow in the world to a thousand green beans:

Now that he's gone
Picasso, what machine
would keep order in our dreams? What charm
would vaccinate
against the blood of war and abandonment
so that the tattered world would again be beautiful?

Oh How To Find Silence In the World
Being spotted in the color of skin,
why I take care in San Francisco,
waiting for the bus to Iowa.
They say racial prejudice is strong,

Negros and not whites kawawa,
and because of this they will revolt.
I shiver and shiver from fear and hunger
because I just landed from Tokyo.

A Negro came into the station—
naka-African hairdo; he holds a small
whip: it’s scary to look, so
I did not look at him. Kumakalansing
the metal on the strings of his shoes

and he shouts, “Peace, brothers!” Smiled showing
white teeth. Looked at me—
maybe he laughed at what he saw—

a tiny dayuhan, dark and from
some lupalog.

Upside down
my insides went in fright and pulled
a cigarette so the redness of my face

wouldn’t show. I nahalata
that the Whites there too were quiet
so quiet, unable to speak in front
of that Negro. Only when he left returned

the normalcy in the station—others
read again, neighbors gossiped again,
laughter, the janitor sweeped again.

After a while that Negro passed again
two white Americanas on each arm,
blonde, their beauty with no equal.

The janitor stopped sweeping.
I thought, “So this is racial prejudice.”

Lyrics of We Are All God’ Children by Jaimie Rivera

 This is the lyrics of the official theme song of the visit of Pope Francis to the Philippines this 2015:

We Are All God’ Children

Have you walked the pavements where they sleep?

Do you feel their hands

When you give them alms?

Did you ever give them bread to eat?

Have you seen their homes washed by the floods?

While a mother tightly holds her child

Do you hear the wind

Of the raging storm?

Can you tell them where it's coming from?

Let us show our love and mercy

With true kindness and humility

For God loves the weak and the needy

Just like you and me

We are all God's children

We are all the same

He is calling us by name to help the poor and lame

And learn what life is really for

It's to know and love and serve the Lord

Stand together and let's do our part

Hear their voices mend their broken hearts

Choose to be brave fight for their rights

Give them back their honor and their pride

Please do not be blind and just leave them behind

To struggle in darkness or give them empty promises

We are all God's children

We are all the same

He is calling us by name to help the poor and lame

And learn what life is really for

It's to know and love and serve the Lord

It's to know and love and serve the Lord

It's to know and love and serve the Lord

Inspring Quotes from Pope Francis

The whole Philippines was blessed by the holy presence of Pope Francis during his five-day visit to the country. He left everyone inspired to be better Christians and with a resolve to be more compassionate to the plight of others. It will be good to ponder on some of his messages below:

We only see through eyes that our cleansed with our tears.

We often forget what truly matters.

Let us learn how to weep for others.

If you don’t learn how to cry, you can’t be good Christians.

We need holy young people.

The youth must learn how to think, to feel, to do.

Feel what you think and feel what you do.

Let us allow ourselves to be surprised by God.

Empty your pockets but come with very full hearts.

You help, but do you allow yourself to receive?

You lack only one thing, to become a beggar, to learn how to receive with humility, to learn how to be evangelized by the poor. They have so much to offer.

Teach yourself to receive with humility.

Learn how to love and learn how to be loved.

Only be becoming poor ourselves, by stripping away our complacency, will we be able to identify with the least of our brothers and sisters.

Be living examples of love, forgiveness, and care

You may be poor yourselves in material ways, but you have an abundance of gifts to offer when you offer Christ and the community of his Church.

When you lose the capacity to dream, then you lose the capacity to love, and this energy to love is lost.

Be courageous, don’t be afraid to cry.

Reality is superior to ideas.

Gemino Abad Selected Poems

The Book of Embraces

I’m vexed with myself tonight

that I, fitful tiller of words,

cannot write you a poem,

warm as your ironing-board,

well-shaped like your finest vase,

which should tell everlastingly your truth

clear like any ordinary morning

when the smog lifts to wide-open skies.

What is your truth, or what is love?

Where you move without ripple in my blood,

there the clods of deep little hurts –

oh, forgiven, nameless in memory

and yet, without my conscious intent,

let to grow like thorny touch-me-nots

and rankly creep with tiny purple eyes

to demean me darkly in my sight.

How their bramble cut my soul

where I would not look to save myself!

Why do I struggle toward your truth?

Where words and words swirl about,

dust in my speech, without power

to trace their meaning in my blood,

I coax like a conscientious gardener

from dead clods their hurtful bloom,

then look upon my soul’s wildness

that you had loved, and strain

from our days’ erasure of worship,

syllable by syllable,

the struck bliss and dazzle

of our secret ‘book of embraces.

Care of Light

As soon as it gets dark, I turn on the lights
in my old professor’s cottage, and the following

morning before office, turn them off again.

With one key I open the iron gate, and with two,

the main door. I turn the lamp on in her library,

the vigil light for the Sacred Heart on the shelf

jutting out a wall; then I switch on the single

electric bulb outside the kitchen, and last,

the red and green halogen like Christmas lights

below the front eaves.

I follow strictly her instructions.

She loves order in her life, and requires

a similar order in other people’s behavior –

a discipline of mind sometimes terrorized

by the haps and hazards of thieving time.

She needs to be always in control,

but she’s old now and frail, can hardly walk,

deaf and half-blind, and often ill, so that,

having no choice, no housemaid able to endure

her sense for order, she had to leave

and stay at her sister’s place,

finally dependent.

In the half-darkness and mustiness now

of her deserted cottage, all its windows closed,

her books and papers, once alive with breath

of her impetuous quests, are filmed with dust

on her long working table, awaiting it seems

her return.

I think of how a time ago

she’d walk briskly to her early morning class,

dressed in style to shame old maids; then call

our names as though each had irreplaceable

post in her invincible order of things;

and then, her shoulders hunched, teach

with a passion that, before the imperious gale

of her questioning, drove us bleating

on the open plain of the world’s sharp winds.

So; at the day’s end,

I’m her lamplighter on her silent asteroid,

among books, papers, rubble of chalk.

I close the gate behind me as I stride out,

making sure I hear the lock’s tiny click.

I follow strictly her instructions.

Down her street the street lamps cast

my shadow ahead. Crickets in the bushes

whirr according to their nature.

In the same order, the sun too will rise

tomorrow, and I shall be back.

Toys

Now our boys have such toys

as my brother and I never dreamed;

Did the same spirit stir our make-believe?

Yet outdoor was where we took its measure.

But how could I wish it were otherwise

for them, and would it be wise

since other kids inhabit the same quarry

where X-men wage their fantastic wars?

Indeed we knew the hot spill of blood,

with slingshots searched the bushes and trees,

but also knew ourselves pierced

where the world’s songs first were made.

But those video games, those robots,

armaments of glory, sirens of terror,

must root their eyes in our politics

and scavenge for hope in the world’s rubble.

Something’s amiss, or toys perhaps

have changed their meaning.

In the overflood of their kind,

they’ve lost their round of seasons.

It may be the same with the world’s

weather, but in our time,

there was one season for kites

when the wind seemed to make the sky rounder;

There was another, for marbles and rubber bands,

the earth firmer, the blaze of sunshine brighter;

and yet another, for tops and wheels,

as streetwise we vied for dusty prizes.

And when the rains came,

and the skies fell with the thunderclap,

how we would run in drenched nakedness

to dare a lightning race to the edge of time.

But how shall I travel to my boys’ heart

and break their dreadnought of heroes,

and find, as when light breaks,

the pieces of their manhood whole?

O, their heroes create them,

but if they could invent their games

and stage their future, might they not

surprise the hero with their fate?

Selected Poems from Nick Joaquin

Here are selected poems from my favorite author and National Artist, Nick Joaquin: 

 

The Martyr 

 

 Being in love means never having to say you’re sorry
After all, at some point in your life
That love was the most important thing to you,
That love might be the one that you hoped would last forever,
That love made you believe that destiny does exist,
And that love made you question,
Why you were afraid to fall in love in the first place.
At that time in your life,
Everything just seemed so perfect,
Everything seemed so beautiful,
Everything seemed to glow for you,
And you were my everything.
I wouldn't even think twice about sacrificing
my own happiness for yours,
I was even willing to bare up this walled but crumpled heart of mine,
Just so I could be with you.
All I ever did was care for you.
All I ever did was to make you happy.
And all I ever did was love you.
Being in love means never having to say you’re sorry
But I needed to ask forgiveness from the one who was hurt the most… Myself.

 

Happy Never After 

 

How could I possibly stay awake
Despite knowing what horrors await me In this life full of lies and despair
Where the only hope that remains Is having you near me.

And yet,
However I push myself towards you,
The more I feel like we’re never meant to be,
The more we try to reach each other,
The more I feel so alone.
How could I possibly live my happily ever after
Without you by my side

Where even the fairy tales pale in comparison
for how much I feel for you
When will He finish this chapter?
Does it even end
Surely, any end is better than a one left hanging
For a simple No, might simply be the best answer
Rather than to face the agony of waiting
and fear of the unknown.

Strangers at First Sight 

 

How could you possibly start from nothing?
And then end up as everything?
I never thought I’d feel this way again…
More like I pushed myself to never fall victim again
To this arresting feeling
How ironic is it, That what I wanted to lose the most,
Is what most people long for their whole life
I don’t know what to do,
Guess I’ll just ignore everything again,
Time to shut my senses to all the assaults that the world has to offer…
After all, I’ve suppressed everything so far
What’s one more to add?