“Amistad”(Friendship)
"Amistad" Pen and ink on paper by Jeques(drawing and poem started while waiting for his flight to the Philippines, 02082010 and was completed and polished in his return to Chicago)
I searched your eyes
Amid the souls
That flock the streets
I travel.
Where were you?
Among the lips
That sipped the juice
Of simple joy
I offer
How would I single out
Your smile?
I ride the tides
To ambiguous blue
With hopes
To find you
Where were you?
The isles dissolved,
And lost my hope
To see you
Where would I find
Your waiting arms?
I climb the mountains
But the fogs had seized you;
I reached the summit
And you’re not there
Where were you?
When the rains
Washed away everything
Down the mountains
Would you catch my tears
In the streams?
I left the stars
And slept in the cradle
Of the waning moon
Where were you?
In dark nights
When dreams didn’t visit
My sleep
Would I catch a glimpse
Of you at daybreak?
I search your eyes
Amid the souls
That flock the streets
I travel.
I guess I’d be forever this way
Til the day I catch true friendship
In the eyes
Until the day
When fate lay on my empty hands
The gift of ‘Amistad’
Where were you?
—
Jeques, 2010. From his “Traveler’s Soliloquies” poetry collection.
Watch Me Fly
pencil and ink on paper by Jeques
A flyer
Perched, quiet
And resigned,
Watching you coquet
With the winds
And winged-deities
Flaunting.
I’ve Lost you in the skies
Countless times
For reasons unknown
And I don’t question.
Content of the little attention
Of few moments,
And gone.
Leaving me
For long days
Of cold hours,
And troubling dreams
In colorless nights, awake
Waiting.
A flyer
Perched, quiet
And resigned
Looking at the clouds
And beyond
For signs
Of your return,
Anticipating
awkward starts
Timid stares
Chats in spontaneity
Endings that come swiftly
Shy divergence
Brief goodbyes
Parting touches that hesitate.
A flyer
Perched, quiet
And resigned
Content in the company
Of sheltering Canopy
That consoles.
Hanging on
To fibers of memories
Finding comfort
In tiny blooms;
Their lingering fragrance soothes
The aches of longing.
Vines that bridge
The absence
‘Til you’re back
To perch beside me;
Love abiding.
pencil and ink on paper, by Jeques
A flyer
Winged to soar
And suited
Daring heights ~
It is time.
In your return,
If you don’t find me
Perched as usual,
Look up to heavens
Where I belong ~
The flyer’s gone home.
Watch me fly.
—
Jeques, 2010. From his “Traveler’s soliloquies” poetry and artworks collection.
Postscripts:
I will be coming home to my country this month until April 2, 2010 for a vacation. I need this time to be in-touch with the navel of my journey to get hold of the loose end of entangling thoughts I struggle to find meaning. Perhaps in coming home I would find relevance in every tangled threads of thoughts, so I could move forth climbing mountains, daring heights with found clarity. I can’t wait February 10 to be home .
I wish you well.
~ Jeques
Tamed
A free-spirited cub
Laid on the holy slab
Donned by my mother white.
A willing sacrificial lamb
To get the approval of my father.
He offered me to the altar
In fulfillment of a promise
To pay his dues,
And left me waif outside a shut door
Of a dome I din’t belong.
He dropped me off the road, unknown,
To a journey never understood.
A life he ordered me to live,
Without a map to follow
And lost myself along the way.
I strayed into the wilderness,
Cruel and unforgiving,
Like a vulnerable cub
Bullied by laughing hyenas.
There was no armor
To shield me in the battles
I didn’t expect exist
Inside the dome
That I thought was holy.
I was an easy prey
To predators in school
And the obloquies of my father
When I returned home.
The life raft
I thought I could cling on
In times of storm
Pushed me away,
Drifting, hitting rocks in the shores
That would not welcome me.
I sustained wounds
That bleed inside me
Nobody understood
I leaked many years in silence
To healing ~
Nursed the white cub inside me
And made myself whole again.
I was a reject at 13,
A loser at such a young age.
A picture of defeat,
Expelled from the dome
That many thought
Would determine my future.
The once free-spirited cub
Suddenly became a pariah
Retiring to his digged burrows
Leaving behind no egress,
Descending farther
To a different kind of confinement.
I tried to mimic the hyenas
For awhile to earn my protection
From the harsh world.
A symbiosis I welcomed
Like the anemone
To a clownfish taking shelter
In its stinging tentacled folds
While I build my backbone,
Training my fins to swim
And find the lost me again.
It was a moment
I’m not proud about, and remorseful.
I feel for the souls I stung with words,
For who could understand them better
But me who once was a dartboard
Of ridicules of the hyenas.
I learned to sound like their laughter
But never become them,
For caged within me was a crying cub
I heard clearly
When I chose solitude.
I didn’t belong to any herd
And refused to take their colors,
For I chose to become a new breed
That grows its claws
Not to harm, but to protect.
To weave words not to distroy,
But to re-build the broken spirits.
It took me years
To understand my purpose,
Like the clownfish to survive
Free of my imaginary anemone.
It took me awhile to recognize
The true sound of my laughter
Muted by the loud hyenas.
In solitude I redeemed my voice
I once lost in my desperate attempts
To seek the approval of my father.
I swam the ocean, arrived in the shore
That my creator intended me to be
And found the white cub still clad in white
His mother once donned him,
But now grown
And tamed.
—–
HAVE A WONDERFUL YEAR OF THE WHITE TIGER, EVERYONE!
I wish you well.
~ Jeques
Better Days
We’ve seen better days,
But are now diffused
In colors, in lights
With the passing of time
As it nears twilight.
I watch waves of parting
As the sun sets,
Recalling, clinging
Til the delicate fibers
Of better days shared
I held on so long
Slip away.
Better days hover
In places we’ve been
And things we’ve done.
I sigh driving around roads,
Enmeshed in the gossamer
Of memories we left behind
When time knows no bounds
And deadlines.
Joyous raptures
I spend in retrospection
Like letters sent from the past
I read too late.
We had such moment
Of better days,
But wasted
To the ever changing landscapes
We throw ourselves off
Unguarded,
Cascading like waterfalls
Lost in endless gorges
Never to return,
Flooding ravines
With tears.
Trickling
Streaming
Flowing
Surrendering to the ebbs
Of destiny
That would empty
Us to the reservoir of fate
That would bring our union
To the same end
At the right time
Where dawn of endless lights
And lasting colors
Of better days
Await.
—–
Jeques, 2009. From his poetry collection, “A Traveler’s Soliloquies”
Unrequited
I understand the books in the shelf,
Untouched. Covers gathering dusts
Pages turn yellow, words unread,
Wisdom unhearkened.
Banquet prepared by writers
Wasted to termites
Leaving disinterested heads unfed,
Hearts failed, voices neglected.
I understand the bud in the wild
That awakens at dawn,
But nobody drops a visit til midday,
Not a single butterfly, not a bee,
And wilts unnoticed at the end of day.
I understand the tree along the river
Bearing fruits all summer;
Realeases sweet odor filling the air
Inviting reapers, but nobody came.
Fruits dropping in the stream like tears,
Wasting her gifts again this year.
I understand the green patch of meadow
Hedged by dense forests, bordered by a cliff
Pruned by gazelles and deers
Year after year,
But nobody ever arrives with a mat to picnic;
Not a single soul carrying an easel reaches to paint.
Picturesque view wasted on the wilds.
I understand the sea-shells stranded
In a far-flung coast, unfrequented,
That the surf polish
And washed white by the brines
But no one comes to pick them for souvenir.
Encapsuled songs of the ocean
No one hears.
I understand the fate of weeds that grow
In the unwanted crevices
Of the concrete pavements of the city,
Sprouting to embellish her flaws
Cruelly treated, uprooted, tossed.
Seemingly, life undeserved.
I understand the child begging for mercy
Strayed in the maze of life
Without the guidance of a father.
Growing without a map to follow
With promising tomorrow to give,
But dreams wasted on vagabond.
I feel for the logs decaying in the forests;
Treasures lost in the ocean;
Shipwrecks forming rusts in the harbor.
I feel sorry for a bench
That awaits in the park
Comes sunshine or rain;
Pews empty on sundays.
Envelopes not opened,
Letters left unread, unanswered.
I understand the purity of intentions,
Unrequited.
I feel for every little things
With so much to offer,
But are never given the chance.
Unanswered beaconing of the church bells.
When are you going to pick up
My heart’s calls?
—
Jeques, 2009. From his “Traveler’s Soliloquies” poetry collection.
Home Sick In Autumn
What is there left to write,
When my sense of home has faded.
Fallen souvenirs pirouette in the air ~
Leaves dancing downwards ~ like specter.
The ink must wait, and rest til winter is over
(My spirit retires to quiescent under the covers)
Things freeze like the trees, even the lake dozes.
As wakeful hours become less and less,
Mind loses its bluntness,
The page speechless.
Distance drained my veins bloodless
Even the pulse of my pen ceases.
I’m losing grip of the eidolon of home,
It’s warmth I no longer recall.
Like the trees losing their leaves to autumn,
The hands of memories that used to lift me,
For a time, fail to save my spirit to fall.
I let the cruel wanton winds to take me;
I trust the higher will would be kind.
I write my thoughts in the palms of the season,
I trust them to come back in time.
When my sense of home fills me up again;
When revenant of home,
Like eidolon,
Returns.
—
Jeques, 2009. From his “A Traveler’s Soliloquies” poetry collection.
White And Blue
And it’s as if some hands
Just suddenly
Switch the whites
The blues,
The lights off,
And everything else,
All the other colors
Blend with black,
Dissolve to darkness;
Blue and white vanish
To shadows of memory.
Like white and blue
Of summer fun
Kite flying in my mind,
And then a raging storm came
To claim it
Paper kite dissolves
Never to return.
Like paper boats
Sent off to blue ocean,
Wilting to uncertainties.
Cotton soft clouds,
Pristine white
Smudge on blue
Like powder
On cheeks of youth,
On the calm face of heaven.
And then came
Some turmoil to claim
Pristine mirths
Lost to time.
Like some hands
Just suddenly let go
Of their grips,
Leaves falling from the trees.
- “autumn” pen and colored pencil on paper by Jeques B. Jamora, 2009
Canopies losing their verdant color
Green is naught,
Belonging to distant
Summer dreams
As green concedes
To the will of the season.
Like some hands
Switch all the street lamps off
Just like that,
And the once lighted alleys
Dimmed to fears of uncertainties.
White and blue
And all the vibrant colors
Dissolve to melancholy.
Would it be nice
To walk the dark alleys unafraid,
Holding hands with someone ~
To catch the falling leaves,
To feel warm around each other’s presence
In the midst of rain;
To watch the kite dissolve to skies of memories,
To sail the seas on paper boats,
Re-live mirths,
Summon lost colors
Celebrate white and blue
And to feel safe
Even in black.
—
The poem is written in memory of my white sony vaio computer, the only thing that stayed and gave me company for the last 3 years, just suddenly went black, and all files gone to untangible memories. My lost made me retrospective of things I lost that I could never re-claim, but my heart is large enough to contain all the memories.
It was total darkness for the past few days, and the leaves are falling outside my window as autumn claims vibrant life from the trees, to give my lost such a gloomy backdrop.
I found company in my new computer, it’s still our getting to know each other stage for now. And oh by the way, my new pc notebook, his color is black.
jeques
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