First Sex

a poem by Roger B Rueda

I hugged his leg tightly to my chest.
His leg hairs like thin threads were tickling
my cheeks and lips,
his hands pushing my head off from him.
I moved his underwear
strap from his waist
towards the tops of his legs
with my teeth.
His penis like bubble gum touched me
on my clam-like lips which were ready
to close together to swallow
it as he put it
into my mouth, it getting
firm and more
difficult to bend and he
having a masturbatory
fantasy, I felt it was a golden
opportunity.
In a sudden paroxysm, it burst
a salty flavour.
I ate it the way I eat raw oyster,
thinking
lucky me. Then, we undressed and got
into the bath. I washed
his penis with
Safeguard, its bubbles falling
into his hands.
I licked his lips, cheeks, ears,
neck, and nipples,
he on bended knee and we
showering together.
Then he stabbed at me
with his penis.
I was bleeding, he sploshing water into
my flesh wound, the wound
which made me feel
a sense of freedom and baptism.
He kissed me on the mouth
and whispered
I love you in my ear, I was crying for
the pain in my bottom.
In a sudden paroxysm,
it burst whitish lotion
which I gently rubbed in.
Then we hurried back to school,
we put on
clothes,me taking up my bag
with my Grade Five
workbooks and he his folders and class records.

Wall

a poem by Roger B Rueda

A wall made of flat-sided pieces of stone
keeps a tight rein on emotion as if
it was a horse frenzied and out of control
when I’m feeling full of fear or dread.
It shields my body from cruel eyes
when I’m in the buff, and theirs
from mine, dagger-like, so sharp.
It wards off assailants of my poems:
as words surge from my mind
and spill over from my right hand,
nobody can rabbit on about the PDAF
or the DAP or the yellow ribbons,
or the flood in Iloilo City.
No one, even on the justice selling
of the NLRC, where crooked arbiters hole up.
Only the smell of my meals is lost, unbound –
it passes through my neighbours’
imaginings but never their cats,
which snaffle my other neighbours’ viand.
And, yes, when I snuffle but
never their fists or strikes with the foot.

The Lunok Tree

a poem by Roger B Rueda

Its roots and branches rigorously pruned,
the lunok tree rests with beauty
in a clay pot filled with soil and some
stones, everyone filled with wonder
as they sit at table, waiting
for the director’s visitor to go,
its leaves like small balls of paper
and its bole, a roll of shredded tobacco.
Its yellow buds like lolly.
When the fan blows, it blows too
as if in the wind, the kalachuchi outside
growing to a height of several feet
reeking of loss but celebrating indulgence.

Crab

a poem by Roger B Rueda

You’re a crab - you can't crawl or scuttle
on your legs and grasping pincers
out of the bucket full of hot water
loosening the shells and killing
you gently: your temperament
is barely believable: you clasp others
tightly to yourself in the surging crowd
of crabs lying in wait for their death.
You think I’m a crab, but never am I:
see, I’m boundless. I have no broad flat shell,
antennae, and five pairs of legs. You do.
I don’t scavenge through slurry.
We eat respect and conviction.
We’re not bound by lies and deception.
My cronies and I can take wing anytime.
We are eagles: we wrangle, we put
others forward, and we cut
and run together.Bye crabby!
I hope you put up with the warmth of death.