Three Poems by Jonel Abellanosa

 

Place

 

I knew the gloaming

before I was born.

Rediscovery beyond

my mind’s gray space.

My eyes closed, I visit

memory’s meadows

before I was born.

 

Mindful and aware of shadows

candles use to tongue walls.

Reflecting, I see lowland

minstrels, hear paeans

to my dimensional travel.

 

The moon a manzanita

in my ribcage. Pine groves,

dew dropped smells, in nature -

who I am. I sit on stone.

Grey shade a deer. I empty  

myself like a clay jar,

the river’s last song

trickling out my eyes .

 

Melancholia

 

I name my spiritual sloth

Acedia, apathy a soulful magpie

in my mind’s tree. Bedridden,

my body hosting bonfires, fever

tender to muscles and joints.

Sweat defying the aircon, nape

and forehead melting like ice

sheets, pain sunlight to my shins.

 

If I close my eyes the emerald

place reappears. Heartbeat loud

in my blank mind, ash on my tongue.

I’m at peace, a skeleton begging

my flesh release, longing

for the dug ground somewhere,

desiring sleep like water.

Erotica

 

Night’s temple -

dark, deep, damp.

 

Mossy, teethed

with stalactites and stalagmites

 

Raise your lantern

and enter

Jonel Abellanosa lives in Cebu City, The Philippines. His poetry and fiction are forthcoming in The Cape Rock and Poetry Salzburg Review, and have appeared in hundreds of magazines including Thin Air, Chiron Review, The Lyric, Poetry Kanto and The Anglican Theological Review, and nominated for the Pushcart, Best of the Net and Dwarf Stars prizes. His poetry collections include, “Songs from My Mind’s Tree” and “Multiverse” (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, New York), “50 Acrostic Poems,” (Cyberwit, India), “In the Donald’s Time” (Poetic Justice Books and Art, Florida), and “Pan’s Saxophone” (Weasel Press, Texas). He is a nature lover, with three companion dogs, and three other beloved dogs who have passed on beyond the rainbow bridge. He loves all animals.