"Picturebook"

The Thursday he was screening
He saw her in the crowd
     avoiding eye contact.
Somewhere else
A waiter slipped him a note
     and a courtesy:
     "She heard you tonight."
She handed him a picturebook when they met,
Declared it "the only thing I didn't
     pack up from his room."
Two days later she was
     sunning in the park
     with a man -
He
     looked on.


Thursday after that firefighters prepared
To leave the scene of a misdemeanor -
A reel had caught fire and
     set off sprinklers
That wrecked the machines...
As he recouped himself, a boy nudged him
     holding a picturebook -
               and asked for autograph.


In a hushed corner of the city
Among gravestones
A visitor leans back against a
     marble cherub
Preparing himself to
Read
But sobs
     under his breaths instead.

My silly season

I did a pretty silly thing. I've finally forgiven someone but that's not what's silly.

The person who said sorry to me two months ago had left my life without waiting to hear what I have to say. Even if she did wait long enough I don't think I would have been able to utter the appropriate words right then—well... appropriate as for now, not then. I still can't ascertain what could have been an appropriate response then given the circumstances.

So I wrote her a letter that was never read—and perhaps never will be. And that's a bit silly. The original draft was, believe it or not, penned the very night she plummeted me to my death. To be fair: it was a very long night. And what came out was probably not the most forgiving thing anyone could manage on paper. Luckily that wasn't the version that got signed and sealed.

Appropriate as this gesture is a thing to do, appropriateness isn't the reason behind it. I could have held my peace about it for the rest of my life without ever willing to forgive. But then what rights have I to deny someone her pardon, even if she wasn't looking for it, when I was undeniably grateful for what immense beauty I was left with, just in as equal an extent as I was nicked by the sting?

There's this little hope that she would somehow know that she's been forgiven and could go on living the life she chose without the slightest trail of guilt. That would in turn help me to forgive myself.

Words, words, words

We take chances hoping the universe would somehow realign itself to advance our good fortune. And nine times out of ten that doesn't happen. But is words all that lovers have for each other? You could string together the sweetest-sounding words and still lose everything the next moment.

But to the right person it does matter. To the person the right words are meant for, those words aren't just words.

They are an acknowledgment of our lifelong search. I don't like to boil something down to its essence when the flowers are to be found in its elaboration. But to a woman the soul of the right words pronounces in effect a man's converging attention; to a man it extends a woman's exclusive invitation.

But words you can never take back. Then again you wouldn't have known. There are words that felt so right the first time you might never say them again because they had already been said... only to the wrong person. Of course it always seems a waste thereafter. But would you have withheld yourself and left those words unsaid?

If there are things to be said, say it loud and say it well. Leave heartache for the morning. It always comes whether or not you plan for it.

Story of my life (and death)

There are things you learn only in retrospect. But at my 29th year I knew some things right away. For one I know I'm the luckiest man I've ever met, and that all the things that made me who I am, good and bad, were just shadows of what are to come.

People who don't know me, when they read something like this, they'd think that I've probably had it easy, and that this is how I define lucky. I would admit that I have been very good at concealing my inner life even from those very close to me, so that only very few who know me can construct my life story from all the pieces of the puzzle.

They say when a life is lived to the fullest, it overflows and changes others. But my experience of life so far is just the opposite. I seem to have been made a chalice rather than a vase. What's poured into me tends to get distilled so much there just isn't enough to spill over. If you were never intent on tipping me upside down you would never have tasted the last drop of life that's hidden at the bottom of the cup—that's how unnoticeable I designed my life to be... since I first discovered the want for romantic love.

Something tremendous happened the month leading up to my 29th year that converged all efforts and struggles of mine for love in a most unavailing confrontation that led to a climax most unbearable there wasn't an existing category to name it under. It was, to borrow from old idioms, a baptism of fire that could only be described as a sort of death... and rebirth.

For the first time in love I was betrayed. The betrayal brought about death that seemingly must be and most strangely with it, a resurrection from hope. Though it killed me, it gave me at the same time a new name to bear for the rest of my life. And that name I couldn't utter in any language even if I want to. It was made up of certain sounds, but mostly psalms and lamentations, a lifetime of keen questions and deep answers, honors and humiliations, faces, words, visions, terrors, light, and secrets.

So what after all do I mean by being lucky? There is only one reason behind my celebration of this life after death. And that is a pain-filled life is the only life worth living. I do not say this lightly. Every day countless out there suffer more severely than I did. But no one ever suffered needlessly. That is to say, people have without doubt suffered unjustly but no suffering was or ever will be undergone without its rewards. The human soul seems to be just the kind of thing that thrives on hope the more it goes without, and that's all I'm saying.

I'm lucky because I died.

"Answers (And More Questions) From The Lover"

Kind Sir, you would not have asked me such things
If you have yourself in the Valley parched;
But my burdens were fastened on saintly wings
When all my eyes could see were dead souls that marched.


If I were a Knight who gallantly slays,
My deeds would have been told—no, I've seen my days
Through the baptism of utmost Betrayal
From heartbreak of death that drank wine from gall!


And what of my service before comrades and lords?
If love summons, would you not die by blade or quill
(You may not find courage now, but then you will)—
To meet lies with Truth with no thought of rewards?


I bear no secret that has not been revealed—
Unless streams can return to brooks they flow wherefrom!
Do you still suspect I have a pouch concealed?
Hear now: Joy may wane and Love bereave; Hope will come.

"Questions To A Lover"

Dear Poet, you are not a sonneteer by trade,
But by the way you love you might as well be;
Your love is hidden in the swift Everglade,
Away from fading eyes that are not meant to see.


Do you want to tell the world how you worshipped,
Of the distance you travelled just true love to taste?
But the world is not prepared for a love so chaste
And a bedtime story in such sorrow dipped.


How did you do it?—tirelessly you seemed to rise
From culminating deaths that attacked by night,
When food and spirit were ever low in supplies—
This cannot be, but are you also a Knight?


Was there a lost secret we do not know of
That kept you in the battlefield and the king's court?
Tell us now, even of a haven thereof;
Have your eyes seen the city of gold?—love's Free Port!

"What I Have Left To Live For"

What I have left to live for
Since you're gone
Is just the memories of your warmth
That passed through my hands,
My arms, my body;
What I have left to live for
Now that I'm all alone
Is just the ghost of your smile
Lighting up the dark corners of this room.


What I have left to live for
Everyday since you left
Is to stand on the street we used to walk,
Hoping you would suddenly appear
The next time I look up;
What I have left to live for
Cannot fill up the hole you left
When you took my heart away
In the deep of an unfinished refrain.


I could pretend that nothing happened
When someone asks me about you,
Saying you're just a fleeting romance.
But if my heart had a say,
Knowing what's true,
It would cry out your name again and again
Till it breaks into a million shattered pieces...


What I have left to live for
Now and evermore
May not be quite the same as before;
What I have left to live for,
Unless you reappear at my door,
Would be all that I draw each breath for.