
"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.
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AM00000090000000130 10, 2007 | Categories: anonymity, artist, arts, artworks, destiny, diary, Drawing, fate, flight, forever, friend, Inspiration, into the dark night, Jeques traveler's soliloquies poetry collection, Journal, journal entry, longing, love, love poem, Love-poems, Memoir, Pen and Ink on paper, Personal, Perspective, Philippines, Poem, Poetry, poetry collection, romance, Sad Poems, search, Soliloquies Collection, Thoughts, Travel, vacation, writing | 2 Comments

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
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PM000000100000000128 10, 2007 | Categories: 2010, a flyer, art collection, artist, arts, artworks, damselfly, damselfly painting, daring heights, destiny, diary, Drawing, Dream, flight, Flying, home, hope, Inspiration, Jeques traveler's soliloquies poetry collection, Jeques Web Nook, Jeques's Traveler's Soliloquies poetry collection, Journal, journal entry, life, longing, Love-poems, magical realism, Memoir, Pen and Ink on paper, Personal, Poem, Poetry, poetry collection, romance, Sad Poems, Soliloquies Collection, soliloquy, Thoughts, touch, Travel, untangled, vines, Waiting, winged-deities, writing | 3 Comments
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
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AM00000010000003731 10, 2007 | Categories: 2010, altar, anemone, artist, arts, artworks, awakening, breed, broken heart, bullies, Childhood, claws, clownfish, cub, destiny, diary, dome, family, Father, fish, growing, happy new year, herd, holy slab, hyena, Inspiration, into the dark night, Jeques traveler's soliloquies poetry collection, laughing hyenas, lessons, life, Memoir, memories, mother, muse, mystic, obloquy, Painting, painting collection, paintings, paintings of "Jeques", Personal, Perspective, Poem, Poetry, poetry collection, predator, prey, redemption, rejection, remorseful, ridicule, Sad Poems, school bullies, Soliloquies Collection, soliloquy, solitude, symbiosis, Tamed, Thoughts, white cub, white tiger, year of the white tiger | Leave a comment
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”
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AM00000010000000231 10, 2007 | Categories: better days, cliff, color, Dawning, destiny, diary, enmesh, Faith, fate, gorge, gossamer, hope, Inspiration, Jeques traveler's soliloquies poetry collection, Jeques Web Nook, Jeques's Traveler's Soliloquies poetry collection, Journal, journal entry, liberate, Light, love, Love-poems, Memoir, memories, moments, Personal, Perspective, Poem, Poetry, poetry collection, retrospection, Sad Poems, Soliloquies Collection, soliloquy, Thoughts, writing | Leave a comment
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.
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AM00000010000005730 10, 2007 | Categories: church bells, destiny, diary, Dream, far away home, Father, gazelle, hearken, hope, Journal, journal entry, letter, life, love, Love-poems, maze, Memoir, memories, Personal, Perspective, Poem, Poetry, poetry collection, romance, Sad Poems, shipwreck, Soliloquies Collection, spirituality, Thoughts, wisdom, writing | 2 Comments
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.
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AM00000010000003330 10, 2007 | Categories: Autumn, autumn 2009, destiny, diary, Faith, Fall, Fall 2009, Filipino Immigration, foreigner, home, home sick in autumn, homesick, hope, Immigration, Inspiration, Jeques traveler's soliloquies poetry collection, Jeques Web Nook, Journal, journal entry, lessons from autumn, life, longing, love, Love-poems, Memoir, memories, moments, muse, Personal, Poem, Poetry, poetry collection, Sad Poems, Season, seasons, sense of home, Soliloquies Collection, Thoughts, wisdom, writing | 2 Comments
Fate dropped me
Bewildered in this forest,
Untamed,
Hazed with drapes of vines ~
Trying to find the answers
From this tangled passages
Resolving the maze
To find my pathway
To you.
I stand before a forked path,
My head loaded
With question-filled sack
Keeping my balance,
Avoiding pitfalls:
To my right are hedges
Of thorn-filled,
Truth-concealing,
Tendril-climbing vines.
A single wrong move
Through their bowers
Would cost me stings
From their spines of truth.
To my left, an inviting path
Strewn with petals,
Promising comfort
From gossamer of lies
Misleading me away
To dead ends,
To lost ways.
To my center is an easy way
To nowhere,
A direction that would lead me back
Here. To choose. Sooner or later.
If only your hand would reach out
From the bower of thorns,
If only heavens would send signal.
If only I could hear your heartbeats
Pounding from the other side.
If only, but . . .
Armoured only with longing,
I don’t know if it could shield me
To last the stings of truths
I would discover (I need to reveal),
To straighten the tangled pathway
That would bring you
And me, together.
Smothered with veil of tears,
I take the path to truth,
Taking chances
In the hazed bowers,
Following bloody hints
You left in the thorns,
Like trails of breadcrumbs,
As I soothe your pains in return
With balms of found answer
To our sacks of questions
I slowly unload from my head
Leaving them to mark the blind alleys
That would lead you
To me.
From separate spheres
In a labyrinth,
We clear a single
Entangled passage
(Closer than we thought),
Daring to defy the easy way.
If that’s what it cost
To find our way,
I surrender to my fate.
To find my egress
To you.
—-
Jeques, 2009. From his poetry collection, “A Traveler’s Soliloquies”
AM00000010000005330 10, 2007 | Categories: balm, bower, breadcrumbs, destiny, diary, egress, fate, fears, forked path, hints, Inspiration, Jeques Web Nook, Jeques's Traveler's Soliloquies poetry collection, Journal, journal entry, labyrinth, life, longing, love, Love-poems, maze, Memoir, passages, pathway, Personal, pitfalls, Poem, Poetry, poetry collection, questions, reach, Sad Poems, smothered, Soliloquies Collection, soliloquy, soulmate, taking chances, tangled passages, tendril, thorns, Thoughts, untamed, untangled, vail of tears, vines, wisdom, writing | 2 Comments
The heart knows another way.
If I should, I will.
I will circumvent the distance,
I will bear the pain of longing.
Let it fuel me to endure
Long, excruciating voyages
Of this rescue operation.
Be my precious reward that awaits
In a rapturous morrow
I will build for us
With the muscles of my heart –
Only my heart – for that’s the ransom
I promise to bring,
To buy your freedom.
I will circumnavigate
Desolate terrains.
Let your picture in my mind
Be the stars at night
So I would not falter
Even when darkness strips
The coat of my courage.
Let the memory of your smile
Melt me when solitude is freezing.
Let the songs of your touch
Bring back my equanimity
When I become anhydrous from your absence.
Let the echoing sound of your laughter
Be my beaconing light
To safeguard me from the mirage
And its deceitful promises.
Let me drink from the cup of your abundance,
Satiate my thirst with the precious
Liquid beads
We weaved together
In the festoon that ties us
In an invisible knot.
Before I leave,
Memorize this face,
But anticipate wrinkles when you see it again
For time will paint my empty fecade
With wisdom I will collect from my journey.
Hold my hands for the last time
And trace the creases of my palms.
My travel will harden them,
But know that its direction is defined
And points to a definite end.
Keep still,
Fear not the metal bars that separate us.
Trust the oil of our will, combined
To desolve this cage.
Stay where I leave you,
Hold the promise of my return.
And if distance is the only road
To the altar ~
I will take the chance, If I should.
I will circumvent the earth,
Chase the elusive chance of our union,
To arrive where you are.
Be sentient of the genial whisks
When my breathing blows your nape,
And when my hand rests on your shoulder
They will hint my arrival.
Hands clasped,
Barriers desolved,
Together we will claim our piece of the skies
To our enraptured flight
We are free.
—-
In reference to my poem “Caged,” I thought the conflict was unresolved in that poem. “I will Circumvent” is the sequel to the poem.
Jeques, 2009. From his Traveler’s Soliloquies poetry collection.
AM00000040000000431 10, 2007 | Categories: Caged, circumnavigate, circumvent, Creases, evanescence, fecade, festoon, flight, Flying, freed, Freedom, gay, grace under pressure, grace/composure/equanimity, Inspiration, Journal, journal entry, liberate, life, longing, love, Love-poems, Memoir, memories, moments, muse, Personal, Perspective, Poem, Poetry, poetry collection, ransom, rescue operation, Sad Poems, sequel, Soliloquies Collection, soliloquy, soulmate, story, strong grip, Thoughts, touch, wisdom, writing | 3 Comments
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.
PM00000050000001231 10, 2007 | Categories: Aging, Autumn, Celebration, color, computer, diary, Fall, Fall 2009, Inspiration, Jeques Web Nook, Journal, journal entry, kite, Light, lights and shadows, Memoir, memories, paper boat, Personal, Poem, Poetry, retrospection, Sad Poems, Season, seasons, sony vaio, Thoughts, white and blue, wisdom, writing | 4 Comments
Briefly
Our hands clasped
Against the grated wire screen
Separating
Keeping
Our worlds closely
Apart.
It’s a painful union.
We see the flowers,
But we can’t pick them.
A banquet is laid
On the table,
But we can’t celebrate
The feast
Together.
We both have wings
Watching the unfriendly
Sky
But only one
Of us
Is free to fly.
You pulled me
Closer ~
“Does love hurts
Like when the barbs
Pierce the palms? “
Being close to you
Feels painfully
That good.
I draw you
Towards me,
But you hesitate
Acquiesced to the customs
Of your world
That defines
A different you
From what I know.
I don’t have a heart
To force you out
To my world,
Even if it would mean
Your freedom ~
If the barbs
Pierce your wings.
I know how that hurts.
I let go
Of our clasped hands
And free you
In your cage ~
Aversely ~
I claim the Sky
To a lonely flight.
I am free.
(Jeques, 2009. From his A Traveler’s Soliloquies poetry collection)
PM000000110000003030 10, 2007 | Categories: broken heart, Caged, destiny, diary, emancipation, flight, Flying, Freedom, gay, heart, hope, Inspiration, Jeques traveler's soliloquies poetry collection, Jeques Web Nook, Journal, journal entry, letting go, liberate, life, love, Love-poems, Memoir, memories, moments, Personal, Perspective, Poem, Poetry, poetry collection, reflections, romance, Sad Poems, soliloquy, story, Thoughts, wisdom, writing | 1 Comment
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