have you seen --------- already?

"have you seen champasak already?" a colleague grinningly asked.

sensing an altogether different meaning to his undertones, i meekly replied, "i would love to see and taste champasak."

"oh difficult to see champasak, not like lp or vtn."

"champasak seems to be expensive... and big. maybe one time we can look around."

waiting

on a crippled tree stump he sits waiting. perhaps for a bunny cloud to pass by, in time for him to pluck it from the sky. it appears blue. not as blue as anyone would want to see in a summer escapade in one of the many islands in the pacific. or the carribean. or the atlantic. or wherever bluer seas one would want to find himself or herself or itself seated and contemplating. the sky appears blue, bluer in fact in contrast to the rich brown that spreads the life of this wide river mekong, in contrast to the redder soil of this seemingly wide pakse town at the southern part of laos, long minutes before the border to one big (expanding by crook or by force) thailand.


he waits. perhaps for dandy long legs to walk pass by him, smooth as ivory cream, but not too much as to blind his eyes. inviting seems to be the proper word, ivory-not-too-shiny cream legs inviting him to follow and see what lies beneath.


he caves his hands to cover his face. feeling sweat build up on his temples, he grabs a paper towel and wipes his face. he waits again. could be for a phone call telling him he won the lottery. he remembers an acquaintance of a friend of his local friend who recently won the lottery amounting to 2,000dollars (in conversion) from almost 100dollars investment to play it. lucky. what if he wins the lottery too in his hometown, he could stop working for 2years maybe, but rethinking back, he could not stop working for 2years. he could not stop working for what he has learned to live with. fortunately maybe, he doesn't know how to play the lottery.


he waits. the sky turns freshly-squeezed concentrated orange. a bit darker. add a tinge of ashen clouds and reddish grounds. turning darker. darker. street lamps flicker by the roadsides - barely noticeable. turning brighter. brighter but just enough to counter the building darkness around him.


he waves goodbye to the day, recollects himself, stands, and walks away.

fodder

it felt almost like yesteday when we had the whole world as our canvass - free -
the vastness of the sea equals that of the sky
our minds could attempt to fathom or fly
or just sit be

until

just a few moments it felt
the ground shaking
walls growing
fences building
cages bending

the laws that men make
create
for us a small box
within which to draw our spirits break.

magaso falls, antequera, bohol

april 2008

ban phonekham, vientiane province

march 2008

ban thalat, vientiane province (march 2008)

had dead

b was attacked by a smorgasborg of depression wasps around a week ago. the bites on his head sizzled with the thirty six degree celsius arid rural air. he wheezed for a cool draft but fate was not on his side, as every particle around him conspired to eat the only vestige of happiness he had --- they all whispered, "you cannot have."

he did not miss home. he never missed home, as he was firmly set to believe that life had him born with the world on his feet. despite this, he was disturbed by the lingering thought that he should find someday, one way or another, to slow and eventually settle down. a wife to share with. children to pursue his legacy. just when he seriously thought he wanted all to fall into place, he broke into shattered fears of losing it, them, and never recover it, them again.

it could be now. or never again.


just start with "i like you". her forehead on yours. slide her long hair behind her ears, whisper incomprehensible sounds that mean to say "i like you" or "i love you" or "i want to spend my life with you." cliche.


b felt so alone. his comforts collapsing inside him. the noon sun glared at him, devastated and falling, he had to die.

oddly dead

it was odd.

the moment he woke up. from a disturbing dream.

where locked inside a casket, lifeless within, and more
depressingly, lifeless outside,
without the slightest hint of mourning
or even cajoling
in what seems to be his funeral -

he oddly felt
out of place
out of time -

alone and despairing
desperately grappling at some connection.

it was death from within.
had he

to die outside?

around

i leave again and will be gone for roughly two weeks.
if someone looks for me, just tell them, i'm just around
and will be back again.

fifty-five around the thatches

"i think i stepped on something." jack climbed up the beanstalk, or was it some sort of a tamarind vine that only grows in far mountainous forest landscapes of mainland asia.

"but i am not jack." or so we think.

we turned a fifty-five a week ago, a quarter meter away, snooping just around the thatches, in eve's humble garden.

dayo

the other night, a young man was traversing his way home, embarked on a public bus, frantically waiting for the roads to lose sight of tall skyscrapers and graffiti walls, away from carnation grills and early-bird profile banners for a future local elections. the young man anticipated something he could not direct his attention clearly at - he wavered from the left bus window to the driver, and back to the right bus window beside him, glanced outside and saw the multitude of cement faces gradually disappear behind him. he felt re-assured, and as he glanced towards the night, he saw an ever familiar face smile down at him before the clouds swept her away.

he remembered very well what he unconsciously blurted out to his colleagues, and it somehow troubled him - the very conception that - "i strongly feel that i am not of this world, and i have dreamed this for the longest time that by the time i reach mid-age, someone from far away will fetch me and take me away to my real home," as he did feel alien to the very place he grew up to know as home.


blasa subtly played as he felt his mobile phone vibrate from within his knapsack. a message from lanexang came and read phong gives his regards. he tried reading your message but could not make any sense from it. he asked if you remember what happened in loohangpabh. they must be drinking he thought, and what did happen in loohangpabh that had to be remembered and emphasized in a drinking session. does he mean noi? i do remember her quite well as she even manages to haunt me in my dreams. she did manage to haunt him, seeing her barge teasingly inside his room, frolic young and naked to his bed, and slide within his covers. he remembered her very well indeed.

she also dreamt of you, phong said laughingly. he asked if you want her number so you can contact her. and he had to be the main subject of their drinking session - it could not be about the dream of course as it was his unilateral unconscious gesture of his fantasy about her. but if she did dream about him, he relished the idea that it was a fated cosmic meeting to consummate their desires for each other. i have her number already. although i'd be more interested to know about vilay's number.

then he realized the bus had reached its final stop, more or less ten kilometers from where he had to disembark. late at night, without any recourse to go back, he scrambled away from the terminal in the middle of nowhere. finding a guesthouse hidden by patches of rice fields and grasslands, he knocked for a room. after paying fifty, he was given a key, a towel, and a bottle of water, and slowly walked towards the end room, where brightness was gradually being consumed by the dark, thinking, believing, that at the end of the line, someone was waiting to pick him up.

in time

it was that i found her kneeling before a pagoda, sunset flowers on her hand, with two lit candles and three burning incenses before the altar in front of her, praying desperately for - a sign maybe, or someone. alone in a midst of a throng of devotee mothers and visiting families, a budding flower she glistened lost in a pandemonium of prayers and offerings.

as if a breath of the ancient river drew her attention to where i was standing, observing, waiting, she glanced quietly from her shoulders, and i felt my eyes aflame with recognition and gently douse of an innocent longing at a face i did see more than once in my dreams, as we found ourselves drawn together astride.

the falling leaves drift by the window. the autumn leaves of red and gold... i see your lips, the summer kisses, the sunburned hands, i used to hold. gradually, she wrapped her arms around my waist and clasped her hands behind my back. her gentle face deftly pressed on my left shoulder, it was an embrace that somehow intimately meant... forever. i fretted to reciprocate but nonetheless found my right hand caressing her head to her hair... and my left arm - cupped gently towards her waist.

i felt her shun a tear from her face, subtly wipe her eyes on my shoulder. and i could not but allow myself to be engulfed by this moment - with her and whatever deep-set burden she was heaving, even if it took eternity to waft her loneliness away. since you went away, the days grow long, and soon i'll hear ol' winter's song. but i miss you most of all my darling, when autumn leaves start to fall. as it took for her presence to cure mine.