God of the Hour-long Rain

of vast long cities
hidden by tap-taps, gutter-gurgle,
stone-scatter, the affairs of a day
 incapable of sleep.

God of dishes in a bucket outside the house.

God of tadpole symphonies,
of morsel upon morsel aswim
in water-glyphs curlicued enough
to dream, meaningful enough
 for tomorrow’s forgetting.

Lord of the chili plant under water,

of the shantytown bending its wood,
 secreting candlewax, dog piss,
hour-long stories, its pots and pans against
the faltering logic of rooftops wedded
to rubber tires pressing on sheet metal as
paperweight under the waterfall.

God of paperweights eroded, of jelly
documents, of burn victims washed away . . .

Half the world away someone else is naked
 someone under another rain,
 a different name of cloud.
But closely, watch us move, witness our joints,

Old Eye, only you can tell:
I believe we have been dancing,
 across a wet earth, together.

* * *

Bird of Makiling

Who blooms in every color, even violet
Who sings the morning into incandescence
Arrow of the sun against the nimble gnat


To whom we reply in formulae, in stories
Of seek and evolve, in terms of human-eye—
View: our daily spawn of aeroplanes
Sopranos, children bred with envy of you


Wordless, how did you sound our hollows?
We yearn for spirit who hold no spirit, who
Grasp only clouds that feed from your shadow

* * *

Paracale Underground

were the greeks—underneath
all this—so mistaken
as to hinge the god of wealth
between the massive
birdcages of death? or
for the ice floes to whisper
the embraces of fire and coin
within the sleep of dragons?

from manila the stethoscope
(multinational precision,
from the fabric of china)
joins my ears and snakes
quicksilvery
toward the chests of fish,
of emptied stone, of tree,
of children there perched
in play,
in search of fathers.

all day long the lungs whistling
in a single breath.