Poems of Jean Rojas

Body movements swaying

Voices in your eyes

Then the silence broke,

Into a mass of

Convulsing laughter

Fingers tickling my mind

With your scent

 

I brushed my hand

Through your hair

I sensed

Qualities of

Rare innocence

A sensual flight

On a panther’s gaze

Make up an indolent picture

Mesmerizing me

Into a deep ,uncomplicated slumber,

 

I hear  magic,

I hear music

My heart perceives

My touch declaims

The very essence

Of your name

 

There is something

More about you

Than just the way

You wear your clothes

Something more than just

A carve of a smile

Or a tilt of the head

 

When you walk by

Zephyrs whisper

Mighty low

Attesting to the birth

Of blossoms

And the prayer of trees

Accruing to the slow

Dance of sunlight

And the faint swell

Of the dewdrops

When the morning braves

The lush of the

Green grasses

As the world begins to wake…….

 

For: Robin Padilla

1996

 

Filipino movie actor, Robin Padilla, famous for his "bad boy" roles.

 

Solemn and fervent kisses

Of the past

Beholden unto memories

Of golden yesteryears

In your mind

In my eyes

The laughing lies

Of unborn sighs

 

Figure the future

Inside an hourglass

Amused and bewildered

But bending reflexes

The body that cries

In the faithlessness

That refuses to die,

Is the same body

Whose thoughts run

In discord

Without ties…..

 

I see you

And you see me, naught

Caught in amazement

On the webs of a maze

You tell me

What I must decree

But how can you

When we both can’t be

The words to a windsong

In the fall of the summer long

 

(In memory of Roscoe Arbuckle)

1996

 

Silent movie superstar Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, wrongly accused of raping starlet Virginia Rappe.He died unknown and penniless, a sad end for a talented man with a good heart.

 

Between life and death

There is no middle ground

There is no choice where

One must lead

This is a logic that is

Sound,

And to our minds of doubts

Be freed.

 

Life and death betray reasons

As all together they surpass

All seasons

One by one in material form

Shall decay all men

This is the norm

Know not I if souls have wills

To fill these questions

That never fill

 

Is life necessary to breathe

And feel?

(heart of stone and heart

Of steel)

Is death necessary to experience

Numbness?

(alive as one might, still feel

Dumbness)

 

Hand in hand we bend all forces

But still we lack of favored

Resources

To understand without a doubt

What the “manliness” in is

Shouts;

And quivers at the sound of life

Yet trembles at the moans of death!

 

Space was born when

Death took form

Place was traced to life,

A storm…

Life and death are hard to explain

All in all, still harder to expound

 

So why question the difficulty to find

The answers, the questions

The initiative

But life and death have

No middle ground

Upon solid foundations

They are found

And you are either alive

Or you are dead

Or you are nothing else

Instead!

 

 

1992