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GOODREADS FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER TOP FINALISTS’ POEMS — PLEASE SELECT ONE!

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS MONTH’S FINALISTS

* Voting is anonymous and choices are listed randomly.

Thanks, as always, to our judges, Wendy Babiak, Tara McDaniel and Ruth Bavetta for selecting six finalists from this month’s group!

Eggcorns –Heather Kamins
After Falling Down. Again. –Robert Masterson
People Like You –Jim Pascual Agustin
an e e afternoon –R.A. Munroe
Wife’s Lullaby –Deborah Hauser
His Life –Burgess Needle

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Please read the poems and decide for yourself which is the best. Although you do know which one I am hoping you would choose.

Another Shot

My poem “People Like You” got selected as one of six finalists in the Poetry! Competition at Goodreads.com

CLICK THIS LINK TO SEE THE POEMS AND VOTE

Please vote for my poem – at least to keep it from being last in this particular popularity contest. Tough not having enough friends. Or maybe it’s the poem. hahahaha.

You have to join and vote quickly because they close the polls soon.

Sea Fireflies of Mindoro

Sea Fireflies of Mindoro
for Veronica

That was the last time
We laughed like children.
Water warm as the tropical air,

It was impossible
To grow cold and wish to leave
That darkening, calm beach.

We took moments to see
The water held
No mere reflection
Of the silent bursting of stars.

Points of light gathered
Round our limbs.
Wave a hand and they grew more
Luminous. We were surrounded.

Stilled. Galaxies
Unfurled with the gentlest
Sway and curl
Of our fingertips.

Beating lights traced our skin
That would never again be this
Close to constellations,
This warm.

-o-

Veronica is a very good friend whom I’ve known for many years. We call her Barok – the name of a character from a comic book back home – or Veroche (yes, it sounds like that other word for a type of bug) which the late Fr. James O’Brien did not approve of (perhaps jokingly? I’ll never know). She has worked with various tribes and sectors of Philppine society that do not often grace the headlines.

This poem tries to recapture a time when we were young. We were among a group of friends who shared the legacy of Fr. O’B’s Tulong-Dunong Scholarship Program. We had graduated from various universities by that time, and decided to go on a group holiday. I can’t remember how many we were who went on this particular trip to Mindoro’s coast, those beaches that are hopefully still as enchanting, though not entirely free of danger: tsunami, earthquake, poisonous sea snakes, to name a few.

It is Barok’s birthday today. Maligayang Kaarawan, mabuting kaibigan!

This poem was first published in UNDER THE STORM: An Anthology of  Contemporary Philippine Poetry (Manila 2011). I hope to see this in a new collection tentatively called The Sound Before Water.

I Wonder if People Like “People Like You”

Ok that just sounded silly as a title. But catchy in a weird way. CLICK THIS LINK to get to the relevant post regarding this poem.