Old Poems Lost and Found

As I was trying to reorganize my old stuff- piles of paper, dusty books, old photos-I stumbled upon a collection of old poems I wrote ages ago. They were among the early poems I wrote and published in the Philippine Graphic magazine. And so here they are coming back to life and seeing the digital light for the first time...

Original Version with Artwork

GUIMARAS

by Alvin Bulaong Cruz

Human breath is held,
human thought weighs
like sand in an eternity
of the moment when man
and sea hold each other
as Time holds the sand.

One flows into the other.

In this equilibrium of
weight and silence all
is heard and nothing falls.

Lying on the shore with
outstretched arms like
Jesus crucified, my body
is the fall of silence
on the sea's sun-kissed
lips, and the sea is one
big human thought that
weighs heavy on my floating
mind.

Before the wave breaks
to erase my traces I say
my last words:

How can eternity last but
a moment?

O Jesus put an end
to this endless human thought
that weighs us empty.


IMAGINARY LOOKING GLASS

by Alvin Bulaong Cruz


Nothing exists that
we cannot see
through the imaginary
looking glass.

Unlike ordinary mirrors
here nothing looks
the same way twice.

It is this mirror,
always a mirror without
our face, that keeps
staring back at us.



FORGETFULNESS

by Alvin Bulaong Cruz


What has long been said
remains unsaid in our
forgetfulness, in the
long-forgotten silence
that dares not speak its
name: the memory of our
non-existence.



FOREVER

by Alvin Bulaong Cruz


To dream once and lose
that dream many times over

to break your life
into tiny bits of hope
like a day that ends
with stars,

eternal promises of what
remains,

to keep forever from going on