Ode to Summer

Went looking through some of my old poetry notebooks and I just figured I'd post some interesting ones which might fit the current brain-warping, hot and humid season.


* written for the boy beside me
Anda, Pangasinan 1999



the heat incapacitates
gets into your system
fraying nerves

stretched fully on the mat
you are at arm's length
the noon sizzles

white light on your white skin
it pulls on my guts
stretching it painfully

how the hot sun burns
yet never as much
as your hot skin.


* nababaliw, naiinitan



sucking on ice.
refreshment from the burning
of my whole mind.

it soothes
the temporary hurt.
it smooths over
the constricting pain.
this
sucking on ice.

rythmic
teething
tearing
sucking

ice.


*the summer i had a crush on a boy
who ignored me for a pretty chinita



sometimes, laughter could be so phony.
you open your mouth
sound coming from yout throat
but it stops there.

nothing is swelling in your heart.

sometimes love could be so unfair.
you fall deeply in love with somebody
just as committed to somebody else
and it stops there.

somewhere between here and nowhere.

sometimes, I get lost in myself.
I spin uncontrollably, all about
the laughter, the love, the wanting
and it stops there.

And it stops there.