Backporch Hush
Weekend games
of tag, hide-and-seek
Our backyard was the airstrip
of our dreams.
We were never without action
enough for our folks to worry
Except when one of us left
for the big city because we were all out
for the big send-off—
We sighed back to our homes
shoeless on stony cow-paths
while our mothers silently fed our pets.
When the dust settled, already the sun
waved at us on the edge–one foot dangling
in the unknown—
Someplace to haunt us
Someday. I will remember—
Even paper-boats love the push
of stifled goodbyes.
Emeniano Acain Somoza, Jr. is a global Filipino worker at a steel manufacturing multinational in the Middle East. Some of his poems have appeared in Moria Poetry Journal, Haggard & Halloo, Gloomy Cupboard, Troubadour 21, and others; while his short stories have been published in The Philippine Studies, Vol 53 No 2, Ateneo University Press; ANI, Annual Literary Journal of the Cultural Center of the Philippines; The Philippine Graphic; The Philippines Free Press; and The Philippine Star. A staunch follower of Ayn Rand's Romantic Objectivism, he is the official spiritual advisor of Gordot and Dwight, his roommates—the first, a goldfish, and the other, a Turkish Van cat. When he is not workshopping with fellow poets on Facebook, he is busy tweaking his personal poetry journal at http://emeniano.yolasite.com. His poetry anthology, A Fistful of Moonbeams (Kilmog Press 2010) is now available at http://kilmogpress.blogspot.com. You may drop him a message him at emeniano@gmail.com.
Weekend games
of tag, hide-and-seek
Our backyard was the airstrip
of our dreams.
We were never without action
enough for our folks to worry
Except when one of us left
for the big city because we were all out
for the big send-off—
We sighed back to our homes
shoeless on stony cow-paths
while our mothers silently fed our pets.
When the dust settled, already the sun
waved at us on the edge–one foot dangling
in the unknown—
Someplace to haunt us
Someday. I will remember—
Even paper-boats love the push
of stifled goodbyes.
Emeniano Acain Somoza, Jr. is a global Filipino worker at a steel manufacturing multinational in the Middle East. Some of his poems have appeared in Moria Poetry Journal, Haggard & Halloo, Gloomy Cupboard, Troubadour 21, and others; while his short stories have been published in The Philippine Studies, Vol 53 No 2, Ateneo University Press; ANI, Annual Literary Journal of the Cultural Center of the Philippines; The Philippine Graphic; The Philippines Free Press; and The Philippine Star. A staunch follower of Ayn Rand's Romantic Objectivism, he is the official spiritual advisor of Gordot and Dwight, his roommates—the first, a goldfish, and the other, a Turkish Van cat. When he is not workshopping with fellow poets on Facebook, he is busy tweaking his personal poetry journal at http://emeniano.yolasite.com. His poetry anthology, A Fistful of Moonbeams (Kilmog Press 2010) is now available at http://kilmogpress.blogspot.com. You may drop him a message him at emeniano@gmail.com.
