“When I kiss your chest in the morning / for good tidings I know it’s a test / When I see you shimmer in the gloaming / the simple things are the hardest (I guess?)”
By Lawdenmarc Decamora
An APWT Publication
in response to South China Sea/West Philippine sea tensions
1.
Catch a glimpse of my moon-shaped heart / sire a vision / as you sail across my sea
of affection / Take a look at my three-bodied musica bolero / singeing (meta)phors /
grey skies over disputed waters & remedial Spanish / our Pacific mono no aware
w/ second-to-none maritime territorial integrity / What is it like living in
your afterglow / when sea & sky never touch each other / & the planet is forever
a mystery to explain / supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
2.
When I kiss your chest in the morning / for good tidings I know it’s a test / When I
see you shimmer in the gloaming / the simple things are the hardest
(I guess?) / Silhouette’s a stitched woe / faith I reconcile w/ lightspeed & lost
vermilion / like the throb of first love on spindrift spree / shaping my outlines
is a siren on a West Philippine Sea island / filling my eyes w/ the sound of sand
/ & an emotion you don’t have a name for / Give me Hallelujahs! my dear / Bones
will sing as we ossify the present year after year
3.
My beta Man Booker understanding of nature spells out / a discourse
of amaryllis / or blooms divorcing the flight of birds of higher power / semi-
somnolent souls lured in by tramadol / Tell me how many squawking signs
can afford us a U2 concert in Manila / how many super-trees can protect human lives
from the world’s nukes / how many moonbeams can deny the pulchritude
of exit marriage / of marginal rights & the nine-dash myth / & how many
stereographic indecisions are out there / how many seas / how difficult & free
Lawdenmarc Decamora is a ‘Best of the Net’ and Pushcart Prize-nominated writer with work published in 23 countries around the world. He is the author of two book-length poetry collections, Tunnels (Ukiyoto) and Love, Air (Atmosphere Press- forthcoming). His work has recently appeared in Welter Literary Journal, Bosphorus Review of Books, Osiris Poetry and Amsterdam Quarterly. He is the Assistant Editor of the century-old, Manila-based multidisciplinary journal called Unitas. He lives in the Philippines.
The banner image is by C. Z. Shi and downloaded from Unsplash.com