Thirteen Dreams and One Duterte

[Number1Dream]

A wall diademed with broken glass
    can tear the skin
of anyone who dares to scale the wall

Hot box for a house, a tinderbox of electric fans
    I took to walking in my sleep to
streets with no hills which snaked for miles

[Number2Dream]

Open sewage like a babbling brook of tar

[Number3Dream]

Duterte is a verb as in “to be Duterted” or
to be hunted as in a dream

[Number4Dream]

Outside our compound
   We roamed the streets like dogs
Dogs were aliens among aliens

They came of age and began
   distrusting us
Our lives lived below sea-level

[Number5Dream]

Ubiquitous as smoke, we squinted our eyes
   squeezing long hits from our smokes
At dusk our hair was drenched in it

   Lips glistening with grease
Strays didn’t stand much of a chance with us

[Number6Dream]

The silent g in poignant
   confounds our guild
Failure bestowed upon us like a gift
   The law knocking at our domicile –

without probable cause
   The law would never surrender evidence
when asked directly

[Number7Dream]

The street is so congested
   it’s an extrajudicial killing
Manila is so deafening it’s practically soundproof

[Number8Dream]

The nature of dreams is to affirm our forced
   disappearance                   Duterte’s streets
before the typhoon                               I am
   a typhoon trans-nationalizing

across the archipelago, a balikbayan
   box in a loaded warehouse              They call me loadie

[Number9Dream]

I am an Overseas Foreign Worker, someone’s kuya
   your lola, your auntie Librada, your Liberty
of Strangers, your domestic, a helper

[Number10Dream]

Above the pile of stink and vermin, a bell tower
   where a hammer strikes
Bong Bong, the cruel strain of our cultural legacy

[Number11Dream]

I am 10:30 in the morning, a kali stick fighter
   demonstrating a knife attack       I am a demo
mon confrère in a kicking conference

[Number12Dream]

I hear whispers rustling through the pampas
   a tone-deaf priest
trying to keep up with the choir

[Number13Dream]

My two balikbayan boxes opened without a sound
   no different from two black stones that reach far

[Number14Dream]

I’ve learned to bark in another language
   at the dark I’m meant to watch