Mumbaki

mumbaki is another word for witch doctor in the philippines


"mumbaki"

i would like to believe that we are a song, you and i
the same song of ifugao and ibaloy shamans
chanted in lush sacred mountains
of lost ancient texts
that our footsteps are echoes of gongs
resounding across cliffs and mountainpaths
all carved by the hands of god
of light and shadow alike
but we cant be more than ghosts now
that haunt dark industrial alleys
far from the cordilleras
where i listen for echoes
that sang of your palm imprints on my cheeks
indelible like the blood of god
of pain and darkness alone

Blood and water

waves of absence run
deep within oceans of solitude
this absence, yours
fill the torrents with
shades of doubt
sparkling like a pink sea

airplanes take you away
to the farthest corners of belief
where you wont even hear
the faintest echoes
of my deepest sighs
but the clamors of desperate oceans
pink with blood and water

you were always beyond my horizon
even then
so i should not forget
this imprint of your memory
running deep within roads of flesh
sparkling like a pink sea

eve leaves zion

"eve leaves zion"
by paolo macariola

i pray to the heathen gods
the sanctity of your untruth
my divine nonexistence
-- our myth of zion

hence a lost divinity
i call myself a pagan
left in zion
to worship idols of your untruth
of you leaving
under the traitors moon

tomorrow burns the heathen gods...

The tryst of the desert flower and the midday sun

like
the desert sun
i shall
hang myself
on
the afternoon
sky
where
shall i
burn
the petals
of
your cheeks
and wonder
why
despite
such
radiant heat
you
still
fail
to burn

this aint finished yet..

"Fragment"



we are fragments you and i
that has scattered from broken window panes
along with a thousand other smaller fragments
forgotten in time
unsung by bards

but until the time is ripe
we remain no better than dust
on the marble floor

we were one before you and i
painted, unbroken

I am the little prince

"I am the little prince"
by paolo macariola


little princes watch trains of skylights
to be reminded of pain
from flowers that grow on barren planets
kept under crystal domes

now i shall be one of such little princes
travelling planets
one yard at a time

these planets
are caught inside the four corners
of my musky room
where wild animals of thought
wander through broad daylight
or shadow

here in the galaxies of my private universe
i shall wonder at simple marvels
such as the growing of petals
from every consonant formed

dropping from song

and just like a little prince
await dreams of crystal domes
pleased by the warmth of my palms

just behind the baobab trees
i have kept in my closet a lifetime ago

Spaces

"Spaces"
by paolo macariola


i have come to know spaces

as the unfilling of weights

or sometimes as the simple lack of object

or existence

such spaces exist between stars and planets

continents and stones

life and breath

my space of breath

is wide only when the space

beside me is full

and now as i struggle to breathe

i find the space besides me

a space still....