The coming of war chariots

it was almost 15 years ago when i last saw
the bluest sky of manila
the buses then did not resemble the war chariots they are today
nor is the mud after the rainstorm
the sludge that it is now
the sky then was empty
like an imaginative nirvana
i was 5 years old then

it was almost the same sky a year ago
when rusty heaven stroke your cheeks
with the rouge you never used
you were asleep
and so i thought that you must be searching
for the most prosaic explanation
why in our own poetic versions of imaginative nirvana
do we feel the coming of emptiness
how did our sky
drift into the shadows of war chariots
scorched like dying brimstone

the sky is full of smog tonight
that filled my head with the madness of war chariots
so i drift into the shadows
into emptiness
poetic like the imaginative nirvana of your memory

where i shall wallow in the slidge
under the same sky
waiting to be trampled by war chariots