Poetry for a cause….

ashes

She flicks her last cigarette
on the ground and steps on it
then grabs a broom to sweep
the street of the ashes
that remind her of him.
She doesn’t stop
until the asphalt is clean–
no filters left in the ditch,
until there is only the quiet
that comes after the sound
of the last embers fizzle out
like her memories of him:
how he loved to smoke
after they made love, how in turn,
she loved to watch him hold fire
at his fingertips without getting burned,
how the smoke he inhaled through his nose
always looked like they were tendrils
of her hair he loved to smell.
She sweeps these thoughts
into her dustpan and allows herself
to only recall the sound of her voice
when she promised to quit smoking
at his death bed.

Dear readers,

Please sign this petition I authored. I really need your help in getting this message out. I will be eternally grateful.

-rax

===============

Sign now.

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ghwphil/

* Over 30 M Filipinos will suffer debilitating diseases and painful deaths due to smoking. Another 30 M Filipinos will suffer the same due to second hand smoke.

* 40 of the chemicals in cigarette smoke are carcinogens, like carbon monoxide, butane (used as lighter fluid), cyanide and formaldehyde, arsenic (rat poison), and ammonia (toilet cleaner). Ads do not disclose this.

Right now the textual health warnings for tobacco products cannot be understood or appreciated by the Filipino people. Other countries have recognized this and have since used picture based warnings in order to warn their citizens of the hazards of smoking. Statistics will show that such method is effective as it has significantly improved the overall health of their citizens.

The Filipino people have a right to life and health just as much as other citizens. They have the right to a better if not the best method to warn them of the danger inherent in smoking. The text warning right now is STILL NOT ENOUGH. Many are still smoking and dying while the young ones are curiously taking up the habit not knowing its effects, creating a vicious cycle of death that could be prevented through the use of picture based health warning that is universally understood by the people, especially the many who cannot read and understand.

Sign now. Because a picture can save millions of lives.

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ghwphil

==========================

identity

I don’t think I’ll make a real transvestite,
wear my heart in fire-engine heels,
and still walk straight, head high.
No, every morning, before I put on
my acceptable black pumps,
I cup the soles of my feet and
feel the weight of regret at
what I could never be: proud
and comfortable with my identity,
unafraid of being packed away in
the labels that would make
anyone craven, shirking
inside their own closets.

---

[this was a free write in gotpoetry.com’s tag-team-poem project the first line from lordfuznut]

breathe

today i hope for tomorrows breath,
once I resurface after swimming
from my dreams to yours,
breathing through your lungs,
stealing memories, ones
I could never own.

---

[this was a free write in gotpoetry.com’s tag-team-poem project , the first line isn’t mine, its from hotstuff]

pen pals

I found you in this mailbox
when my hand reached
inside to look for a laugh,
little did I know that
when I pulled you out,
you tickled my heart
so much, I just had to
keep you

Scrying in the Carnival

Come one, come all, The Ringing of the Bards Poetry Carnival will be coming to my soul phantasm blog on August 4, 2007. So mark that date on your calendar, folks, it will be a fantastic show!

However, I will be on hiatus for a while so please send your entries preferably by August 1st as it is my only free time to prepare the post (I’m taking a break from studying since it’s my birthday 🙂 The carnival post itself will be up on the 4th.

For those who want to participate, send the following information to rax[AT]i.ph

1. The name and URL of your blog
2. Your screen name
3. The name of your poem
4. The URL to your poem

Hope to see you there.

stitch

At the mental seams
you and I were conceived,
(stitched from the rags
of empty arms)
souls joined at the hips,
grinding against each other’s need
to be. Above the bed lay
its parallel line (contract, horizon,
point of rest) where slept
the discovery that you and I
were not supposed to meet
in this illusion of a future woven
into our past-entangled arms.

---

[this was a free write in gotpoetry.com’s tag-team-poem project where one posts a poem and the next poster in the topic has to start the next poem with the last line of the previous poem…and so on, and so on… in short, the first line isn’t mine hehe…from Tekay]

rain cups

Let me kiss the earth of your hand
and plant my scent on trembling lands
numb with flashing hunger for thumbs
to circle my nipples, for palms
to carry my breasts like they were
vessels for cupping memory
while waiting for the sighs of rain

sick sick sick meme

Because Ozy decided to tag me with the sick sick sick meme I shall have to come out of my closet and list 8 disgusting things about me. Guess I’ll find my hardcore readers this way hahaha who still wants to read beautiful words from a rather gross poet nyahahaha

1. I pick my nose. Yes. Same as ozy’s #1 though not in public (awww) BUT BUT BUT now here’s the gross part, I use my thumb 😛

2. I used to bite my fingernails when I was little. Some friends helped me try to kick the habit. They made progress…now I just like ripping them off (big toe nail only)

3. I have fart wars with my brother and some very close friends [the more loud, or disgusting smelling the better!!!]. With a poet friend we had a game where we had to poetically describe the sounds or invent unique onomatopeia. For farts my favorite was the wordplay on “brat” (make sure to trill your tongue on the “r” sound)

4.. I also have burp wars with the same people. It becomes sort of a percussion chorus once theres a lot of you burping non stop. hehehe

5. Not grossed out yet? Back in my alcoholic days, I seemed pretty ok and was a quiet drunk…. as long I didn’t move much. One time though had to ride a car to somewhere else and had my first experience with motion sickness. So as soon as the car stopped at a red light, I opened the door (front passenger seat) and unloaded my guts on to the window of the next vehicle. eeeewww. [I am mindful that Ozy has an aversion to puke hahaha read on there’s more…]

6. Now that I had figured out I get car sick when drunk I challenged myself not to (always putting on a brave face you see, and finding ways to hold my liquor) well one time, i felt so dizzy and ready to puke inside the car except that it was my friend’s car and i just couldn’t do THAT there… I ehhhh puked anyway closed mouth and swallowed it all again without letting a drop spill. (groooosssssss…. top that! the korean movie ‘my sassy girl’ comes to mind)

7. Alcohol and cigarettes were an inseparable couple for me back then. I could not have one without the other. Once the drinking session runs late and we run out of smokes, ( either the convenience stores are closed or too far to buy a pack ) I would usually dig through the ashtray and relight any cigarette butts that hadn’t burned down to the filter yet. (eeewww… i would also take this opportunity to announce that i’ve quit smoking. i’ve been clean for one year!)

8. When drinking at carnivals or open air parties, and am too drunk to walk around to find a toilet, I would pee in dark corners of buildings, behind bushes, behind trees, behind wheels of parked cars etc… [with a friend as a look out] 😉 and I am not ashamed. If dogs can do it why can’t I? [hehehe]

—that’s it folks! hahaha. ah well, lets see if anyone will bother to come back. or on the bright side perhaps i’ll find some kindred spirits as well hahahaha—-

i don’t really know who to inflict this meme on. hahaha so I’ll think about it for awhile. But if any of anyone of you does get inspired by this post to write your own disgusting meme, leave me a link, i would love to read [misery loves company!!!] hahahaha famtz I think I might hear from you on this 😉

face off

There once was a man who loved money
so I thought it would be funny
to ask him in haste
why money had a face
and why he didn’t have any

 trying my hand at limericks... bear with me :)

Te Amo

I watch myself move
from place to place, leaving footprints
that gradually disappear- languages,
learned and unlearned in a span
of ahello, muli bwanji? and au revoir, leaving
only remnants at the backs of old photos.

And even those images fade, lost
somewhere between my growing up
from suplada[ to maulawon to this quiet
wariness of one tired of being redefined
every time I translate my memories, tired
of dropping friends as often as I did my R’s.

So when I found out you spoke spanish,
in a Mexican drawl you found I didn’t care to learn,
you brought your lips to mine, in a silence
that became my personal rosetta stone
etching this memory and those yet to be born:
ones where I found myself

whisper between kisses
“Ndimakukonda…je t’aime…mahal kita…”
in a flawless translation
of how you taught me to love:
with everything
I am.

Sidewinder

I am a sidewinder

tongue, licking
thirsty lips as
my thrusting hips
sway their way to you

smoothly, weaving

belly, surfing waves
of hourglass sands,
winding side-valleys
marking hypnotic trails

only eyes can follow

you watch me shed
my skin- silk slipping
from shoulders,
hissing as it falls

on the floor. I am

slithering up your leg
contracting, coiling
around your snake:
pulsating soft flesh

of my sidewinder mouth.

Driver

Late afternoons,
it is this time
that I, a woman,
take my turn to ride
my husband’s jeepney.

I hoist myself up
on the driver’s side
then l o w e r my body
onto the seat and
swing my legs
inside.

My husband smiles and says:
“There, it’s your turn.”

I tentatively touch
the l o n g handle
of the gearshift, close my hand
around its head then
gently
coax it in reverse.

Easing the vehicle onto the asphalt
it isn’t long before I am looking at the
long
hard
expanse
of the road ahead.

My shoulders strain my shirt
as my hands and body
completely maneuver
this sardine can on wheels
as it thrusts
through the gas-fumed streets.

At every stop, a passenger
slithers and squeezes
his or her way between
the wet
sleeves and mixed odors
of other passengers.

A man behind me rests his
big
hand on my shoulder:
“para ho”
I grunt and snatch
the change on his palm.

It is not easy to do a man’s job
toward the end of the day
I drop my last passenger off
floor the accelerator,
speed through empty streets so fast
the sweat beads spatter on the windshield.

And despite the aches
a sudden urge wells up
to see my beloved.
I imagine him waiting
for me knowing that
I could never wait

to come to come god!

to c o m e

home.

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