COFFEE POEM

By: Gerry N. Peralta

Afternoons when the sky
Turns a shade
Coffee

And the sun creams
The foamy clouds

I sit and sip
Life's bitter-sweet
Brew

Thankful that,
If only for coffee,
Life's already
Well lived.

BONSAI YEARS

When I noticed the roots growing out

Of the bonsai tray today,

After clipping and snipping the branches and twigs

For a hundred weeks,

I heard the sound of scissors in me, crying

Clipping the wings of warm tending

Unto, perhaps, a final fold

The playground of small, fallen aratilles

Turning into a dell of desolate leaves

Still infantile yet infirm in their aged minuteness

I leave the tray on the landing

The next half of stairs, growing shorter and smaller,

As I rush to answer the door

My son - home from a final tour

Of duty?

You are as distant as a sun flare from a sunflower, but you touch me with a nearness the universe has ever since known, the intimacy of a moonbeam reflecting in a dewdrop.

RAIN AND REASON

1s and 0s of liquid gigabytes

God's old telegraph

Tapping on my roof again

Morse code of DNA

Spiralling down the water spout

Telling the long winded tale

Of giga-years -

From single cells

Turning into cell phone users

Their laptops pitter-pattering

How reason rhymes

With rain.

(Below is a Fiber-Glass artwork "PLAY-TIME WITH MIRO'" that I happen to have made and fortunately exhibited at Green Belt 3, Makati City as a finalist at the Instituto Cervantes "Letras Y Figuras" Art Competition 2004)





STAINED-GLASS EYES

By: Gerry N. Peralta


First the mind’s a frame

Of black curves and dark designs


Twisting and conjoining steel

To form the image of immanent glass


Then Aztec gold is slowly laved,

Here, and Mandarin orange,

There, royal blue beside emerald green,

Deep purple conniving

With amber


Slot by slot-

Till the whole is a class act


Of light dazzling through matter

In a ménage a trois with color.


But everything is a play on the eye-

Like a slide on television


HXK-2, the chemical for ice boxes

And bathtubs, is stirred

With a dollop of hardener,


Then poured quickly on glass fibers,

That tighten instantly

Into pure plastic!


No matter-


The Sunday churchgoer

Looks up and beholds

What he believes in


Heaven, the saints and angels,

Garden of Eden, creation!


The word made glass-


Stained by his own eyes!






SANS PINCE-NEZ

By Gerry Peralta

I remove, when I write,
My reading glasses
The more to blur the edges
So words take on a shade
All their own

Darker, than the ribbon
In my typewriter
Softer, than onion skin paper

Then the dot in “icon” becomes
A halo, the “H” in Hell
Grows horns
In mantra the “a's” develop an aura
And the “o” in God
Becomes a heavenly host!

Even the haha in brouhaha goes
“hahaha”!

Then when I put my glasses back on
The words take on-
A glaring clarity
Meant more for my proof reader and/or
Editor

Go ahead, read again this poem
Sans pince-nez

See for yourself!

DALI’S ‘SLEEP’

By: Gerry N. Peralta


He winks in his dream

The nose proud even in sleep

And though absent

I see a mustachio

Waxed and curled to the tip

Like eyes on a peacock feather


I wouldn’t be surprised if he slept

With the other eye wide open

For he saw the innermost dreams


Of Narcissus waking from water

Of a man cradled in crucifixion

Of time melting into stupor

Or the eye itself encrusted with jewels

Or sticking out of a walking stick

Or glaring at the projected light of film


I guess his ego never slept

I imagine it as an eyeball

Caroming and careening

In the vast spaces of his works



I hear it as thunder

That is in fact laughter

Masquerading as a snore


But what are these thin sticks

That prop his face, his sleep?

These miniature creatures

Whose eyes one couldn’t even glimpse


Are they how he saw himself?

TA'PIES

Ano ini, Ta'pies, tapuyas

Na sa lanob nag-dudumig?

O suka, bai baya, o sagmaw

Na initsa kan pirot na katabang?


O bangraw na nalipudan

Kan dampog asin dagang nag-sasangaw?


O bangraw daw

Na nag-kukurahaw nin kamurawayan

Na natamu'rakan kan nag-iitom

Na bulan?


O suka na nagsusuriyaw

Nin anggot na napupuot

Na sa tulak dai natutunaw?


Bul-bul na nagbubulos paitaas?


Dugi' na may dugi o

Daga' na may daga,


Bako daw?


Nudi ini gayod lanob man sana

Na saaga pipinturahan na

Nin pink asin blue

Kan MMDA,

Ay isus.


(June 21 2010)