Man in the Mirror

The old cliche goes

as you stare into the mirror

you see the depths of your soul

a reflection of an endless sunset

a bottomless sea

shrouded in darkness, ashen gray

you stare at it,

that thing you call your soul

what is it really?

The glimpse of an eternal sunshine

or torrential rain

a ceaseless fire burning within

its slowly eating at you

what are you going to do with it?

The man in the mirror never really talks

he just stares at you

never says a word

but yet in his silence

you hear everything.

The man in the mirror never does anything

he just sits there

looking right at you

forever omnipresent

within the corners of your mind.

He comes out even if you don’t want him to.

He shows up at inconvenient times.

He has no time and no place.

He follows you wherever you go

in the bedroom,

in the bathroom,

everywhere.

You open and close your eyes he’s there.

The man in the mirror

staring right at you.

What are you to do?

The Nothingness

Nothingness stares into the mirror

looking for something to see.

Touches the wall to feel something.

Nothingness breathes the air to smell something.

eats the chicken set on the table

to taste something.

A semblance of something

whatever it is to define a semblance of something.

Nothingness.

Absolute Nothingness.

Groping for air.

Arousing the orgasm of molecules and atoms.

Grasping something whatever it is.

Nothingness sits down.

Melts into the background.

The sound of silence ignites the pale fire.

Without heat, shapeless, senseless.

Nothingness crawls into the abyss.

Searching for something, a semblance of something.

Nothingness wants something. Whatever it is.

Something to eat. Something to see.

Something to hear. Something to taste.

Nothingness melts into something.

The Day I Die

The sparkles of time shine brightly above the moonlit sky.

Pervading astoundingly.

Its brightness reflects the shadows of darkness behind it.

The round earth spins on its axis meticulously.

Round and round, same-old same-old.

Nothing much going on.

The buildings and houses are built each day

across the streets of Manila.

It’s 7 A.M. Monday, over and over again.

The buzzing blur of speeding Toyotas fill the heavily polluted air.

The street kids meandering about the sunken roads.

The twilight of their being doesn’t bother them…

it’s just a shadow lurking in their midst.

They run in the streets brandishing their souls with their hands

daring fate to rescue them.

The circle of names repeated over and over again without a doubt.

Doing the same things over and over again like a broken phonograph.

Returning to the same street of memories.

Playing the same songs again and again,

its lyrics fills the rustling of the wind.

Always on rewind.

Time stands still never moving forward.

No past, No future, just today.

The sweet temptation of a beautiful memory wrings me by the neck.

Its sweetness chokes me. I grasped for dear life.

Fighting and screaming for that bittersweet to end.

I wake up again to the same songs, the same sounds, the same pictures….

It’s 7 A.M. Monday again.

Virtual Reality

The blue sunrise  raises  the dew covered  concrete to its feet.

The buzzing sound of cars at 8:00 A.M. Monday morning

fills the empty crevices of silence.

The tick-tocking of alarm clocks says its time for work.

Getting up taking a bath, dressing up

eating that box of Fruit Loops.

Then off to that advertising firm before the boss

yells at a frenetic pace.

A thousand words per minute.

Effortlessly shifting from gear to gear as he cruises

along the highway of thoughts

colliding into each one at the red light.

The street turns gray and the cars take shape and color.

That black BMW and bluish Camry.

He walks into the firm.

A multitude of colors flash with a gleaming radiance.

Indistinguishable hues of watercolors  mix  with the

empty canvasses of the blank faces.

The computer sighs signaling the end of the day.

He finishes his Starbucks coffee and drives home.

He sleeps and wakes up in a room with four gray walls

with a white monolith standing by the door.

T.V.

The flashing lights of red, green, blue

molds into a picaresque sunset.

the dancing thoughts across a silver screen

form into an ephemeral being.

The aimless movements of abled bodies

dissipate into another time and place.

The gleaming lights of Paris.

The roving toys of Japan.

The music of America.

All meld into one thing.

The glaring hues of the rainbow.

The meandering shadows of the day turn into dusk

“Oh House must be on right now, I wonder what will the doctor do tonight?”

The re-runs are on. It’s Friends Season 2.

Like the good ol’ 90’s, I didn’t know TV could turn back time.

The remote holds the power.

The off button is pressed.

The screen is all black.

The mind goes astray.

The thoughts are paused.

Fast-forward into the future.

Goody, the Simpsons are on right now.

The button was pressed, whoops!

That was the off-button.

My mind was turned off.

The Place Where Everyone is

The darkness fills the ebbing rays of the sun. Dusk swallowed the invisible city walls. The noiseless sounds of time-traveling thoughts dissolve into the clutter of echoes by stray dogs. The blind man walks on, riding the MRT sitting along with the gray and white faces. Molecule Man stands by the door thinking of mixing water with black paint to make oil. the sound of the hour announcing that the curfew starts in two hours. The booming voice trailed across an empty expanse behind his ears. He poked his right ear and rolled up the wax between two fingers and threw it in a garbage can. The train stops, people flood out the doors. Hurting the countless molecules sauntering in the yellow brick road of time. The blind man leaves, the door closes. Molecule Man disappears and walks into a building with a sign that says Incorporated. The blind man walks down the stairs as the world spins upside down and right-side up.

Hardboiled Wonderland

The high-paced profile of body switching

back and forth through an ephemeral

metonymy of the outside world.

Slowly engulfs the meandering thoughts

through a funeral pyre.

The drudgery of consciousness seeks no end.

The light at the end of the tunnel widens but

closes at each speck of sand

whisked away by the wind of tomorrow.

Ding-dong-ding-dong. Cuckoo. It’s 6 A.M.

The seamless darkness travels through a

street filled with empty faces.

The computer is jacked on. Through the moving and receding

turmoil of bytes scrambling space and time.

Where am I?

Whose body is this?

I can feel it move but it’s not mine.

The mind tells the body to move.

It jumps into the twilight.

It’s “all white”

Who am I?

Time

The clock with no hands

The shadows shrinking

with each passing day

Changing faces, varying heights

and varying colors melt into one

The sound of silence

The past and the future

are in your midst.

The Land that Time Forgot

The candle was drips slowly as the rain of twilight covers the remains of the day.

The shattered mirror faces the clock with no hands in the empty room.

“Where has time gone?” an androgenous voice asked.

The sound of crawling ants along an empty white surface

swallows the candelabra of silence.

A figure standing on two feet with an indiscriminate face shouts

mute sounds of words dancing along the gray road.

Another figure standing on two feet catches the sounds and flashes

a ray of white light across an empty field.

The light broke through the darkness and a shape of unknown features appeared.

Walking with an air of assurance and nobility of a King.

It was shapeless yet it had a face….

Eyes, lips, nose and ears

yet it can’t be seen because of its brilliance.

It reached out its hand to the two indiscriminate figures.

A sudden flash emblazoned the space between them.

Two faces looked at the clock.

It was 1:00 A.M. Monday.

Invisible Man

The red-blotted sky sinks into the sobbing moonshine.

the dilapidated walls are held up by 2X4’s of collapsed houses.

The little brown faces stare dully up at the starless sky.

The howls of empty stomachs fills the sound of silence

awaiting for the day that food comes.

The white expanse of their little brown eyes

drowns the blackness of the surrounding dung heap.

The surreal reality of the run-down house

and entrenched smell of garbage

etch onto their minds like a caricature.

The blaring horns of cars arrive with baskets of food.

Their stomachs’ prayers have been answered.

The low growl for absolution was heard.

The empty faces with placid smiles hand out bags of food

across the blank field of haughtiness.
The sun sets, their shadows disappear into the night of day.

The placid smiles and empty faces vanish like the rays of the sun through the shadows.

The little brown faces stare up at the starless sky.

Substantiation

The glowing pinnacles of a bright lit-day

are emblazoned on the expanse of the blue skies.

The eerie wind rustles in the twilight of dawn.

The empty carcass walks about wearily

through a never-ending road.

Looking for a sign from Heaven to come

crashing down or a glint of silver

in the empty expanse.

The ebbing sunshine hides its face

in the graying sky as the carcass

walks at a deathly pace.

The sands of time dissipating as his feet tread slowly.

Across the weary road  lies a being of unknown character.

Looking right at him with an unseen face.

The glowing eyes cut him deeply

like a knife thrust in the chest.

He thinks twice and walks by him to the wide road ahead.

Joining the herd of Sheep-Men drudging along.

A flash of light enters his eyes and sees a face.

He is there at the crossroad with the unknown

being with the glowing eyes.