What lurks beneath the deep blue?
perhaps sinister and tenebrous
perhaps the Mystery's a slew
for away from it the angels flew
and towards it the afreet cadaverous

The mangled face behind the calm
the gelignite in the pacific
the shore is awash with qualm
as if in Gilead to search for balm
the wanderers are sophomoric

It is where hope is obsolescent
and faith in a state of torpor
where love is not incandescent
where wisdom is an adolescent
where all my dreams are in stupor

The phantasmagoria is inchoate
a glimpse inside the deep blue hell
the misery I inculcate
a law I dare not desecrate
the unspoken only time will tell

We've been to a lot of doctors
(and none of them have a clue)
                                         as
                                    to
                              why
                       the
                heck
did
       I
              suddenly
                           woke
                                     up
one day with a gait problem?

At first they said it was my Lumbar spine
then they claimed it was a Stroke
thereafter it became Multiple Sclerosis
and now it's called Conversion Disorder

1   E   l   e   c   t   r   o   E   n   c   e   p   h   a   l   o   g   r   a   m
1   E   v   o   k   e   d   P   o   t    e   n   t   i   a   l   s
and   4   f   u   c   k   i   n   g   M   R   I   '   s

from   10   D   i   f   f   e   r   e   n   t   D   o   c   t   o   r   s
with   10   D   i   f   f   e   r   e   n   t   I   n   t   e   r   p   r   e   t   a   t   i   o   n   s
and   10   D   i   f   f   e   r   e   n   t   D   o   c   t   o   r   '   s   F   e   e   s

Still nothing
My case is still not resolved
I would love to trample your lovely flowers
just to assure myself that I can still walk normally
To run against the wind on a cool December afternoon
Walking without dragging my foot or lifting it as if in a Goose-step
(which I haven't been able to do for four years now)

So to you Mister and missus Doctor,
tell me again about the time you graduated from U.P. or U.S.T. because,
I forgot to tell you,
M    A    Y    I    U    S    E    Y    O    U    R    D    I    P    L    O    M    A  
T    O    W    I    P    E    M    Y    A    S    S    W    I    T    H    ?

The Case

I used to be a wide-eyed dreamer, and perhaps I still am nowadays. I used to dream of flashing lights, cheering crowds, and explosive concert endings. I wanted to be a Rockstar. I used to think that music encompassed the entirety of my existence, and therefore my destiny. I wanted to be a musical artist. I used to delude myself into thinking thoughts of Rock n’ roll grandeur and it costed me money and time. Precious, precious time. I used to say to myself that music is the way to go, that all else fades in comparison, that again, music is my destiny calling.

The Trial

But then life kicked in. I thought I could hold on to these fantasies but realized I couldn’t. I thought money wasn’t spent uselessly, I thought I wasn’t wasting anybody’s time, especially mine, but lo and behold, I totally was.

The Verdict

The simple fact of the matter is that I’ve moved on. Childish dreams are no more, fantasies are gone, and false hopes long extinct. I do not claim to know more about life than the average young adult does, but I surely know now how it starts. It starts with a bit of cuts and bruises, but we all have the choice to not end in tragedy.

The inevitable lessons brought forth by education and time has given me a new perspective. I’m truly grateful for that. I now no longer see the world in rose-tinted glasses wherein I was a Rockstar and everybody else is my audience. I now see a world that is glamorously covering up all the horrible wounds it has acquired through the ages, caused not only by natural events, but by ill-willed people short of being called Spawns of Satan. I now long for the glorious past, that glorious past that has slipped through our fingers because of wars fought out of greed and envy. I ache not for change, because truly, what has happened before will happen once again, and what will happen, already happened before.

I ache. I ache for the time I wasted, but there is nothing I could do about that now, is there? I ache with satisfaction knowing that I had to waste time in order to appreciate time. It is Providence’s way of teaching us to use time wisely. And I ache to learn just how wisely I could use my time.

Hope

The rhythm of life…I now know I co-manage with God Almighty. The task at hand is not to search my destiny with delusions of grandeur, but to appreciate that fact that I, like everybody else, is but a tiny speck in this universe, although we are not marginalized to such an extent that our dreams should be become unreachable.

I still dream. But I dream with my mind alert to reality, and my eyes open to possibilities. I dream not for the entire world, but for myself. I dream to be a child of God, I dream to fill the world with Poetry, and I dream to learn to be good. Starry-eyed? No. Dreaming and hoping is essential to living just as much as breathing fresh air.

I learn to hope, I live to learn, and I live. Simple.

kokak goes the frog from
Somewhere at the farm in
Salapungan, Gerona, Tarlac, the
place where me and my family
get mangoes
             
                                that we sell

for a price at the palengke
                      the
place where me and my family
get the money for my tuition fee

for
four years in college where
I took up a course that
sounds good in a diploma
it’s called philosophy
       
                               but the
only philosophical thing
about it all is how
I got a job which has
nothing to do at all with
what
                                    I
                                 studied
for four years-

a funny thing because
me and my family
got the money for my tuition fee
at the Mango orchard albeit
it’s quite sad

               that the mangoes
nowadays are sold in the palengke
for a cheaper price exactly at
a time when I could see
that there is hope for me
after all

                                   (oh, oh!)
But,

     bach bach bach goes the chickens
in the farm in Salapungan, Gerona,
Tarlac, how I loathe their noise
chickens send chills up my spine
ugly as they are with their
bach - bach - bach - bach
at the place where me
and my family get mangoes

                                that we sold

So I could get an education
(I just want to point it out)
though it has a cheaper price
nowadays

would you like to have
some mangoes?
     
                              Please help yourself
to one tiklis
until your blood sugar
goes up ohwahtwillwedo
but I got a job
somewhere far from Salapungan,
Gerona, Tarlac,

                                  away
From the kokaks and the
bach bach bachs

                                  Please have a mango

What’s in a picture?
     A White Man
           
        Was his hair brown? CuzInAllPicturesItIs

Was he a Jew? Nah
                        CuzTheyBelongToTheirFatherTheDevil

                  Kosher Jesus
                  Hippie Jesus

                        in San Francisco, circa NineteenSixtyEight

White people want their Jesus White.
                 
                  White Jesus

The son of man
       (though not the son of a white man)

              I’d like to walk on water too
     
                          -and turn water into wine
                      (except I prefer Coca Cola)
   
                  Cola Jesus

He died for my sins
-AndWithTheRateI’mGoing I guess He’s DyingEveryday
                                            BUT,
The pastor will burn in hell anyway,

                       that’s what he gets for
                                believing in a long-haired Jesus
                 
                   Jesus saves
                   Jesus shaves