Jaywalkers

a poem by Roger B Rueda

Is there concern that you will soon
become extinct
in the streets?
Of course, never.
This idea is rubbish.
Yes, like the streets
strewn with it
every day. Colourful.
Commercial. Those are
very artistic
streets they have there all over.
The flyovers
are home of old beggars,
Dinagyang families,
and glue sniffers.
Never mind them.
They need to jaywalk.
They are rubbish-like,
aren’t they?
It is a happy choice
for them.
Everyone can feel safe going
out alone at night.
Hey, mind!
You, the ex-jaywalkers,
have mutated
from stupid citizens
into obedient urbanites.
Pedestrian crossings are set
on every mind.
The traffic lights need
a radar.
Do your cars have one?
Or at least
Inside your bags?
Poor jaywalkers,
whose happiness
Are you when
you are gone? What have you done?

An Advert

a poem by Roger B Rueda

A baby girl with a dummy to suck and being
carried on his back,
a father does the weekly
shopping for the family
at a local shop.
His son about all of five
pushes a shopping trolley,
putting packets
of cereal, biscuits, crisps,
and chewing gum in it,
the father putting them
back to the bottom shelves.
The boy then pushes his trolley
near the shelf crammed
with boxes of chocolates
and candy bars, the father
stopping him to get them,
the baby girl crying herself
to sleep.
The boy cries his head off,
throwing a fit,
squealing with anger,
going  wild,
shoppers swarming
onto the aisle,
the father calming him
by rocking him back and forth.
At the end of the film,
the camera zooms in to show
Want respect?
Use a sheath printed
onto a T-shirt. Cut! shouts the director.

La Paz, Iloilo City

a poem by Roger B Rueda

A woman, one evening, was pulled
from the street
near a village green
and raped, the rapist,
who’d offered to bring
her home, stabbing her
several times in the chest
and the back, a voice,
in pity, screaming
and crying for help,
most villagers totally deaf
and busy watching
a soap on TV 6 or TV 10.
The next day, the news
that a nursing student
had been killed took
everyone by surprise.

A driver was shot
dead inside his taxi,
his wife, at home,
looking lovingly
at their sleeping child.
His wallet was gone.
It was a shock
to see him looking
like so alive,
he was bleeding heavily.

Smaller local money
lenders were chasing
after men who had snatched
their bags.

A policeman
was found slain,
his soul must have
been nervous
around multiple
stab wounds
to the neck and
upper body.

A passenger lost
her underwear
and her virginal
innocence
at the rubbish dump, pinning
the blame on her saviour,
a maniacal taxi driver who
brought her, after, to her
destination—
and who is at large following an escape.

His Hair Is Pomaded

a poem by Roger B Rueda

And livid; slanted
Over his brows,
It makes
A keyboard.
And I am all ears.
He doesn't rhyme
His a cappella,
Just opens his chop
And lets
Anguish spill out
All over the solid,
Sliding, scuffing,
Submerging
His miseries
Into my totes.
Flogging dearth
For fifty pence piece.
I scour together
A few wooden
Beams
And let them fly
Into his string casing.

Your Needle Knits

a poem by Roger B Rueda

And takes great care
Of the shade,
Sketching graceful bends
Of the span into tacit
Motifs and scruffy
Flourishes.

You scowl and tot up and
Hit it off, plaiting
Woollen vocables
And yielding reproofs
That prickle when stretched
Out across the cradle.

In the Heavenly Silence of Night

a poem by Roger B Rueda

I opened my eyes to the timepiece
And I slouched there,
Breathing the certain,
Sluggish gasp of slumber
For a second, a few,
Until I came up,
At 5.30, to turn off the radio
Alarm before it slashed the still.
Sliding to my reading,
Nescafe in hand, I paused
At the front flap.
An associate had said,
Have a rest—you've had a busy day. 
I had rebuffed it then, but now
I seemed to see eye to eye. 
So I went outside instead.
There was not a shudder in the leaves,
No violence to agitate the stars.
The air was a cosset
That indulged me, fresh silk
Touching my ears.
Cross-legged, I parked myself on a bench.
The mantle I had got
To enfold around myself
I swathed across my lap.
Farther the valley to the east
Rose the pulse,
The slow growth
Of a brandish of resonance
Moving ahead like a deluge
Upon the vicinity:
The ooze first, then the swell,
Then the surge that beat
And then the deliberate recessional.
To be wide awake of my life besides
As a throb making headway
Along a thread,
A vibration felt by every bit,
Wheedling from each
A gauge of dew
To moisturise the lips
And enlarge the eyes
Lest there had been something
To utter or make. A clamour never
Died down only if someone was
Snooping. It became, lastly,
The outcome of a ricochet,
The nuance out
Of which the next
Pulsation rang: a cat’s yowl
Thrilling the space.
Like this, don’t revisit to forty winks.

The Road Not Taken Then

a poem by Roger B Rueda

We have lived on busy and quiet roads, which
from here to there have gone
through some beautiful countryside,
some as ugly as sin, blades of grass
growing up against the edges of the roads
or the grass is just coming into leaf—
Some time ago there were long and bloody
battles and many Filipinos were killed, perhaps as
road kills, we carried the wounded
from the battlefields,  the roads we took decades ago.
Conditions on the roads were often so bad,
and soldiers were on the point of mutinies.
Crowds marched  through the roads carrying
burning effigies of the presidents and flags of the US.
Police arrested several of the demonstrators,
water from their guns was spraying everywhere.
Some were hit in the legs or arms or heads
or bodies by stray bullets. Some buildings
were bombed out.  A lot of civilians were
massacred and buried along  the road.
Whole communities starved to death
during the long drought or flood. People
needed to put a stop to the plunder of rain forests.
Unemployment had fallen again and again.
The land system was crying out for reform.
Terrorists had seized a lot of hostages
and were threatening  to kill  one a day
unless their demands were met. There were
many scams, insurance and fertiliser. The whole
government was riddled with graft, bribery,
and corruption, children learned by observing adults.

Now this is quite unfamiliar road, it’s a bit
confusing.  Eight tourists, held hostage
by the gunman dismissed from his job, died
on the road not taken then.  This is quite a difficult road
for novice trail blazer to run on, it is a rough road,
full of stones and huge holes. The straight road,
perhaps, is nothing but a dirty great blot
on the landscape  though we can drive fast along it.
But it is envisaged by the trail blazer as if we were
in Elysium, so let’s live in a fool's paradise—
Let’s hope we’ll not find ourselves in a slummy back road.

Kith

a poem by Roger B Rueda

Two weeks ago on his eleventh birthday,
I was very giving and complaisant.
I went to SM to get some pretty
things on display: I was certain he'd
want a dirndl and a lavender mini,
with some coryphée babouches
and a sequined chemise. I guessed he'd
want many moppets. He likes reading—
so I chose a crimson Ladlad paperback
by Garcia and Remoto. I preferred
a headdress for he were a silky stocking,
who should show off, and a bunch
of flexures and scarves for his curls.
I know I'm much too thoughtful with gifts
but he is worthy of it: four months ago
on my birthday, he bought me a Barbie,
a souvenir from his holiday in Disney.
Then he kissed me with poise, showing
as if he'd been a top model or the real Barbie.

Matriarchal

a poem by Roger B Rueda

for Nenita

I had been praying to Him to let
You stay until I had carried some
Of the crosses borne by you for years
For our family you raised your own.

And when I had, it all happened
So suddenly, you left home, a home
Where you got lonely then that he
Had left and set his new home.

But by His grace, I wore then a look
Of pure contentment for your relief
And respite at length, I was witness
To how you suffered in silence.

Your leaving your makeshift home
Was laying all your crosses down
Specially the one your blood soaked
Into, your lungs were fairly weak—
Your room was whooping-filled,
You had a very nasty cough—
I knew you’d leave towards your
New home around which and your
Head and Grandfather’s are haloes.

I knew.  Even you saw a doctor about
That cough, it didn’t gradually heal up.
It is up there that you get your rest.

Now sorrow felt over your leaving me—
And Mother, your daughter—
Envelops me, I am longing
Of your adobo, dinuguan, and paksiw—
Too, your roaring with laughter
And my giving you a kiss. You’d
Hug me tightly to your heart then.

There's nothing like I knew you.

To You Who Smile So Well

 a poem by Roger B Rueda

 I see you
With half any eye
My heart of Cupid
Kept in mothballs
Springs a leak
Of another spell
I lie in my teeth
Though in my somnambulism
Love wells up
In my mouth
I have a skin
Like a rhinoceros
But only in this verse

You Are the Many Fallfish

a poem by Roger B Rueda

Smacking me
In a gleaming fissure
You are gush and spout of me,
As you would have
Thought juice,
Raw of firewood trunk,
Lilac petals dripping
You suture my words
Inside your
Sun-hat for afterward,
A silk tattering
You swathe your mouth
When you chortle, the end
Of the shooter having
Shattered the teeth
And skeleton
Of the past
You cover my mouth
With your
Mouth in the tip of the room,
Tender bauble of lattice,
Button
You are a silhouette stretch
Of brown birds in the dooryard
We are shy of one another
Since the bold patch
You are the tree
And the bashful birds
Roosting, you are the opening
Woods
I am an outbreak
Of plum petals,
Always the lilac blooming,
Lavender periwinkle
By the path you are the lad
Devoid of aside
I am the lass devoid of

Hunger

a poem by Roger B Rueda

I want to live in my old haunt—
And scathing—
With fins sketched out like post
Of brine heaved
From the bottom,
Flashing up at the flare,
Bleaching in the arid warmth.
Feelers of seaweeds,
Willowy, yielding, pungent,
Reaching out to the rhombus fishes
In the water-hide above.
A tongue like freshets—
Fluff and blast
Talking vigorously,
Smoothing out the subsoil,                                       
And lips like pink polyps.
Words descending inside and elsewhere
Like damsel fish—
Dazzling, nippy,
Dashing though passageways
Of esophagus and lips, swung
By gyrations, made off to the deep.

In the Back Garden

a poem by Roger B Rueda

He rolled out toxic there. Sometimes he made me savour the shots.
I liked to stare at ants bond
Themselves to gooey rings around the trunks
Of star apple trees.
But this verse tracks away from saying
What it desires to utter.
By the true fruit shrubbery, he had set
Serving dishes filled with snifter: a family formula
For sinking gastropods.
He taunted me to eat one,
Drooping lifelessly athwart a porcelain mould,
And when I said no, he cleaved to the plump grey cadaver
Like a dear heirloom, dulcet nugget, and
Plunged it in his maw. You just play that it’s               
An earthnut, the boring snail fell down across his tongue,
Or a bit you like: chewy candy, Glycyrrhiza glabra, a sticky maggot.
This is mock metaphor.
There was no whack. No patch and no goad.
This verse should be set inside the lavatory
Or the poorly lit
Lounge, at the rear windows with drawn gloominess.
This verse is about the darkest enchantment,
Castle in the sky. It knows how tongues can forward roll
Laboured spins. It knows how
Con tastes. He ingested
Hard and put his extremities in my locks: It’s like that with anything
You lay in your maw. I smelled
The toxic on his gasp. I sensed the iciness of the overlay floor
On my naked knees and heard the soar—
There is no creepy-crawly in this view, but the post of a jeer.

On The Coast

a poem by Roger B Rueda

I being awake at night, the air was so still that not even
The leaves on the trees were moving as I was sitting
Perfectly still on the wooden bench along a coastal
Highway as if someone had been taking my photograph.
My legs were overtaken by a sudden wave of tiredness.
Most houses were lying dark and quiet. The boys’ breaths
Were smelled of rum. Mine as I blew in my hands on my
Mouth was of semen. The rum bottles were taken already
By the children sleeping rough, for recycling. I looked
For the old queens, my companions, but they had disappeared
Into the dark, their shimmering colourful sequined dresses
Were fairly unattractive but the Roxases I’d got on me. I'd got
A lot of mournfully poetic images and I was edgy to leave.
I managed to flag down a passing tricycle. I rode to the city on it.
I closed my eyes and went to sleep. It was still dark by the time
I arrived home. The old queens, in full ceremonial dress, were
Snoring so loudly in bed, wearing a lot of make-up. I wrote down
My ideas on a piece of paper and happily slept the night.

On A Jeepney

a poem by Roger B Rueda

A man about all of forty and I were facing each other.
His feet were spotlessly clean. His nails were
Cut neatly. His brownish leg hairs looked
Soft and breathtakingly beautiful.
His pair of denim shorts has a good wash,
I thought, and it was ironed properly, its colour
Fading and having no holes or lumps.
His thin polo shirt was a bit old judging
By the look of it.
It wasn't the usual brand of shirt
I used to see when I
Commuted from my house to my workplace.
It was practically transparent.
His shirt was open to the waist revealing
A very hairy chest.
He folded his arms across his chest.
His arms had fair skin but had a lot
Of brownish hair, looking
Healthy enough, he must have put
Sunscreen on his skin to prevent
It from being burnt by the sun.
I admired his rippling muscles.
He had a silver chain around his neck.
He shaved off his beard but kept
His brownish moustache.
He cast a quick look in me.
I gave him a shy smile.
He smiled at me, too, with his eyes.
His incisors were perfectly glistening.
I found his bowed lips,
Which were naturally curving up at the end,
Very attractive. Sa lugar lang, he had such
A manly voice.  The jeepney pulled over,
And he got out and walked the rest of the way.
There was a roar and a cloud of smoke
As the jeepney pulled away.
I felt forlorn. I felt I'd broken my heart.
I needed to mend it with a potion
That is forced up into the air through
A small hole of his penis.
I stressed over it. I couldn’t admit defeat.
In my ideal world he is the man of my dreams.
But I just endured it. I martyred my different love.

Death

a poem by Roger B Rueda

for Nenita P Biñas, my late grandmother

An image flashed through my dream:
A chair on which leaves and flowers were carved
And with coat of varnish, deserted in a grassy field,

Was left in the rain, its legs almost rotting.
Who created the sculptures? Whose chair is this?
I asked myself.

At midnight,
Death, a seed as though, was blown by the wind
To my heart , it clogged my drain then.

All my instincts told me to wake up, my body like
Dark earth, a plot, and I thumped myself in the chest:
Death sprouted faith, growing up—and flowering.


I closed my window then. My Sculptor,
A dove, perhaps, of a ray of  light, was by me.

Then, there I saw I am a chair, too—

I realised then darkness, both within and outside me,
Contrived to hide my soul.

To My Fabulist Facebook Friend

a poem by Roger B Rueda

Your hands have a gift from a powerful evil:
They hunt-and-peck something very bad and
harmful in your mind, on Facebook. I knew
you then to be soft touch. It was all boo-boo:
I know you now, bitch. You are like Ricky,
my other side and the matriarch of repugnance
and the infernal clothes room. So, bide with her
and work fingers to bone there.
"Let's see each other when you have time,"
said you, bitch. I personally replied, "Can I meet you?"
You gazed at your Facebook in mute hissy fit.
Don't keep the truth hidden from me.
I know your green thumb: there is none.
You lie to yourself every day. And I know you
will until you die with it, your cockamamie idea
about turning dumdum ones into dumdum ones
by you, a dumdum scholastic.
Unfold what you have and let it be barely
visible in how your new kids on block
write and speak their English, shyster.
I know your beau ideals: Professors X, Y, Z.
I think it is your classical fire in belly.
My only bum steer: be verecund always and
show the ropes behind their backs.

To Ricky, My Other Side

a poem by Roger B Rueda

My wounds have almost got well
After years of being despoiled:
Your cohorts, now your other sides,
And you, you know, have minced
My heart and my brain. It is you
Who have made me burn and
Almost breathe my last.

Your glowering at me has made
My wounds weep again. Now,
I am dead duck. Does that make
You fly high? Oh my goodness,
What awful brains. Perhaps yours
Is of the crab or the frog.

Don’t bend their ears, they already
Know you are archangelic, you are
Lily white. But I know, God knows
Too, that inside your chest of drawers
Are your dainty heart and your
Infernal soul. So, when you drop
Off, are you ready to fly in face of
Maker or me word for word?

What pageantry are you drawing up?
Is it not really to be here, but in great
Unknown? Well, it is your spark—
The spark that has cut me to the quick.

My only prayer for you is that you
May pick up your stars soon. Your stars
Have slurs but are glazed with my gore.
Be careful: your stars have fine ground
Spires and they might do me in next time.
Or is it you, and not your stars, who could
Do me in? I know you now, Ricky: You are
Like my frothy sip at Coffeebreak.

Paolo

a short story for children by Roger B Rueda

Jonadel Aguirre was trying to finish her schoolwork. But observably, her seat partner, Paolo Baito, wouldn't let her. He was too busy talking.

"Paolo, be quiet so I can finish my work," Jonadel spurred him.

"You mean you haven't finished it yet? That was simple! Look, see I'm already done." Paolo jostled his completed paper beneath her nose.

Jonadel crumpled her nose. His writing was horrifically messy and he had somehow managed to blotch pencil.

"I don't care," she said prudishly, giving his paper back to him. "Your handwriting looks unattractive." Although Jonadel was only halfway through with her paper, at least hers was tidy and organised, every letter and number written accurately.

Jonadel went back to doing her maths work, and trying to pay no heed to Paolo. He was always trying to get her to talk to him when they weren't supposed to be talking and she just wanted to be left alone. Paolo was just so aggravating! She had wanted to sit with her best friend, May Mart, but of course her teacher Mrs Boglosa had put her with Paolo.

It had seemed Paolo had soon got bored with just watching Jonadel do her work. "Aren't you finished now?"

"No! Go away."

He did for a little while before having to bother Jonadel again. This time instead of trying to talk to her he just began messing with the paper on her desk. Jonadel ignored him. This time he to mess with her clothes, but she still trudged on writing each number completely.

Nothing was getting her attention! Desperate times called for desperate measures, and Paolo was ready to go further than was necessary to get Jonadel to talk to him. So, he resorted to his last measure. He jerked on her black hair.

When Jonadel felt the tug on her hair she was suddenly mad. 'He did not just touch my hair,' she thought. Her big sister Wella had done her hair this morning because Jonadel had been begging for weeks. One piece of her hair was braided and then it was all pulled back into a ponytail tied with a ribbon. Her hairstyle was the same with Jerlyn's today, and no one was messing it up, specially not Paolo Baito, of all people.

"Don't do that another time!" she said frantically, and Paolo felt himself get excited. If this was what got her attention he was going to do it again for sure.

Surprisingly, Jonadel whirled about and slapped him. Smack! That was not part of the plan. Paolo put his hand to his cheek and felt the burning skin there. Their teacher, Mrs Boglosa, rushed over to their chairs.

"Jonadel Aguirre! Why did you do that?" Mrs Boglosa demanded. She couldn't understand this, usually Jonadel was the perfect student. That's why she had put her with Paolo, to even things out.

"He messed up my hair and I told him not to!"Jonadel's eyes were filled with tears now. She didn't want to get going under.

"Well, you still have to go to the principal's office and look for Mr Botavara. And Paolo, well, you need to go to Ms Biboso and get some ice. You need to learn to leave Jonadel alone. Do you understand?" Paolo nodded seriously.

Jonadel paced to the principal's office thinking that smacking Paolo had certainly been worth it.

Santi and His Dear Tilapia

a short story for children by Roger B Rueda

 

"Santi, go and put your new tilapia in your room," a caring mother ordered.

Santi, just a regular child from down the street, ran up to his room, carrying a plastic bag in his hand. The bag contained a fine-looking, whitish male tilapia from a close by fisheries college. The fish seemed distressed by all the sudden movement.

"OK, mum!" Santi cast off his new darling into the fish container.

"I'm going to call you Tiwi," Santi beamed and stared at his new favourite.

Although, Tiwi wasn't going anywhere; he was in the same place, staring back at his new owner with his small, yellowish eyes. Santi was getting appallingly uninterested with Tiwi.

"Come on Tiwi, do something! Do a trick, swim about!" The irritated boy cried out, running his fingers through his black hair in an aggravated way.

You see, Santi was very intolerant. He was all of six. He has dark hair, brown eyes and some freckles speckled on his face. He was a thin, little boy. After a few minutes of an insipid moment of staring at his fish, Tiwi, Santi sighed and left Tiwi alone in his container. Santi went outside to play with a couple of friends on the block from his school. After a few hours of playing football, Santi came back home.

"Hello Santi," his mother greeted him by the front entrance.

"Hey mum!" Santi greeted back, then running up his timber stairs to go and see his pet, Tiwi.

But still, Tiwi did nothing special for the annoyed, young boy. He still just swam there, as deadly as he could. Santi became goaded with Tiwi.

"Come on Tiwi, do something cool!" Santi shouted at his fish, but still Tiwi did nothing.

Santi growled and opened his fish tank. Santi grunted as he put his dirty finger in the tank, trying to touch the whitish-coloured tilapia. Santi lightly tapped the fish, forcing Tiwi to do something cool, but failed. Tiwi still did nothing. Santi put more force in his finger and tapped his fish a bit harder.

"Come on, Tiwi!"

Still, nothing. At last, the anger that was building within Santi, made Santi put a ton more force on the poor fish, hitting the tilapia quite hard with his finger. Tiwi the tilapia instantly died from the brutal force. Tiwi's unmoving body floated up to the surface of the container. Santi couldn't believe what he had done. This isn't the first time this happened.

This has happened far too many times. Now, as Santi flushed the tilapia down his toilet, Santi was thinking to himself, watching the tilapia go down the cylinder in sadness.

"I should be more unwearied."