ARS POETICA

One Love

by Carlos Abanilla

As the sun turns out its light

All I conceive and muse

The look and smile in your face

The times when we're together

Make me wanna hold you forever.

It took a long, long time

Now I'm so happy I've found you

And if you could hear my heartbeat

You'll hear your name and the words

I long to tell you.

We found that there's only one love

Yours and mine.

And the promise that we've made

Will keep us together

A love that will bind us

Forever and always.

There is nothing I would do

And this heart will only bleed for you.

We'll hold each other's hand

Till you and I cross the bridge of being

But not our love.

Drum Stutter

by Clifford Marshal Ablaza

To stare upon the lockless key, turning,

I see you walk towards the western sun

driving off its cattle away from us.

I tucked in my unbottoned soul

in fears you would see through my

reflections

as I returned into building statues

in my backhouse

(I should wrap them in ember clothes

if they have to wander off down-

stairs, unnoticed

but I falter without my steps leaving

marks

Upon the ledge of truth)

I hold on to the glass table and coffee stains

as if they can climb me back to the comfort

of your hands wiping past yesteryears

that I have not known between glances

you have thrown out of the windowsill.

Nothing rings out, apart from the silence

that echoes against the telephone lines,

and nobody lifts up the vessel of your voice

that I carry in the visible darkness

of putting out the age-old fires

that were burning the leaves of recognition

even as the ashes fly away.

Not even words remain abundant

as their ghost spills into the front parch

that the wind dusts when evening glides

past the chair that rocks itself.