Midnight Musings and Blanket Kisses by Raymund Tamayo

Midnight Musings and Blanket Kisses

Poetry Books by Raymund Tamayo Ten (Lovepoems) (2000) Ang Ma-Dramang Buhay ng mga Superhero (2001) Heartstrings (2002) Pormang Makata (2003) Caught in the Warmth (2006)

Published by LEAF速 Books

RAYMUND

TAMAYO Midnight Musings and Blanket Kisses

LEAF速 Books Olongapo

LEAF® BOOKS Published by Leaf Publishing Company, Inc. 6 Jacaranda St. Gordon Heights, Olongapo City (047) 223-56-89 If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book”. Copyright © 2007 by Raymund Tamayo All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission in writing from the publisher; except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. Printed in Olongapo City December 2007

For my wife, Denielle, and our little girl, Ryah

The Poems YOU ARE NOT LIKE ANYTHING MUSINGS SLEEPING TIME SUNSET, CEBU, NICHOLAS SPARKS, AND POETRY THREE OCTOBER POEMS I FEEL HAPPINESS AND KNOW YOU”VE COME INTO THE ROOM LOVE ISN’T BREAD, IT’S BETTER NOW I HAVE THE TIME I THINK OF YOU A GOOD MORNING

Midnight Musings and Blanket Kisses

PREFACE When the old memories you call back to help you do the things that will put you to sleep don’t work anymore, and even the aphrodisiac of books doesn’t help, and there is nothing to watch on tv and nothing to eat in the fridge, try thinking about the night. The way it cradles the moon and the stars in its arms, the way it follows you as you take a walk, the way it highlights moonlight in the hair of strangers, the way it runs behind bicycle tires, the subtle way it envelopes everything with silence as it deepens. Reaching midnight, its strength grows whole. Silence then becomes deafening and you can only hear the scratches of your pen on the paper. I have loved the night – when it brought me songs and sonnets, smells through an open window. When it amplifies the rain, and I get caught on its comfortable chill… when it caused the wind to rustle tree branches and shower leaves upon a still lawn to signal it’s time to rest… I loved it, and while loving, I wrote. So much can be done in silence. So much accomplished without word. I read the Bible in silence, attend to it like a well-loved making love. Silence is the keeper of the times that stay. And yet we use whole paragraphs to say what saying nothing could have spoken better. I toast silence, and the night. A cool - calming company, given the chance. I have seen the night bring life and silence stirs it. And love, that mystery of all mysteries, completes the cast. I write about love often, in all its aspects. If, in life, the feelings I’ve been willing to share have not always been those in the positive light, I can’t complain. I’ve known certain minutes of pleasure worth millenniums of pain. When I was younger – perhaps a lot younger – I stated “the 16

hardest part of love is forgetting.” I would amend that statement now and say that I have never loved and not learned something valuable… however difficult the circumstances may seem, however lean the possibilities, however big the risks, I always came away with more than what I gave. Even when I was sure I’d given a lot, if there’s such thing as a lot (all there is) to loving. With that, you can never have regrets. Every poem out of me has a story. It is fact, even in its imagery. Any disguise is a defense not known to me as yet. My poems are always a work of fact… accompanied by love. The collection of poems I have picked for this book were no different. The only difference in them, I suppose, was that they’re done in silence, in the comfortable arms of the night. I treasure these poems and now, I share them with you. I pray you get as much as something in them for your needs. Although sadness is synonymous to night, I wish to clarify that those included here were done with more of longing than sadness. That feeling of being away from the one you love, you know how it is. Because time comes, when love grows to its fullest, just a second of separation from your beloved means yearning beyond understanding. If love is but the shadow of the evening – as I believe it is – think how deep the night becomes, and deeper with the years. While young, I caution you to start having someone you can count on, nurture her, grow with her year after year, provide for her as surely she’ll provide for you. So that when midnight comes, you’ll have more than a cold blanket to kiss and to hold.

Raymund Tamayo

YOU ARE NOT LIKE ANYTHING

You are not like anything except yourself. The summer displays beauty, the rain speaks the same, but they are of a lesser plane.

Your eyes are not the stars twinkling in the night sky. They are peerless, inimitable, and not to be compared to satellites. One day skies will fall, the substance of everything will change, but not your eyes or your stare's language.

Some things are alike, but most are not. I thought that I had caught the taste of sugarcanes once when I was resting deep inside you, but it was only that sweet dominion that is you, while making love or making bread, or making silly efforts to make me laugh while watching FRIENDS.

You are not like anything except perhaps yourself. Never has one goblet contained you, nor one song, nor one man, never has one poem seized you. How many more should I write to have you? One, ten, twenty, fifty, maybe a hundred, a thousand. A million, more or less, then I'll give up.

MUSINGS

I do not know what is more beautiful than your honest clear smile on a dark rainy day. I have thought about it all morning and decided not even sunshine or white clouds or flowers in the hills above our home can compare... If I had money I would not buy a lip gloss or braces to adorn it. Instead I might lease new worlds so you could walk in them and everyone could see your smile.

SLEEPING TIME

I remember you years before so timid when I wanted you. so trusting so tender so unsure

it's different now when the lights go out hands find their way lips know where hips know how

love is a funny shape at least mine is it lies next to you every night and when it wants you it signals ever so silently

if this is love... then I love you if it is not... then I am glad for there are so many other reasons to love you

SUNSET, CEBU, NICHOLAS SPARKS AND POETRY

this is a september sunset but grey clouds are cheating us of the stars

I mark this spot on my calendar this 28th day of september that you’re not around like days in roadway inn like nights on madelaine’s place

I circle it in red so next year I can remember laugh and say I over-dramatized your absence

I am alone in this stormy island hundreds of miles away from anything I can call home do you know what cebu means? it means “change everything… but us” I know it’s corny, yeah, it is

but as corny as it sounds you know it’s true and longing hearts were always like that

sitting here at the airport felt like Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m the best-selling author of nights in rodanthe just thinking, wishing, just that wanting to write, but like you absent were paper and pens if I could tell you one thing this lonesome september night Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll say it as loving as I can donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait for love but do attend to it when it comes

THREE OCTOBER POEMS

Cebu, one

Today, two hundred miles from home I reflect aloneness and the mystical river of myself as I wander the streets of this gracious island down south. She has treated me well, that’s for sure, but you know me and my heart, it can’t enjoy without you.

Walking along the halls of the Park Lane I can’t get my mind off you. Tried to entertain myself with model townhouses and dreams of the future, still the road leads ever back to you. Maybe it’s the way that you touch me, like the warmth of the sun, or maybe it’s the way you smile at me, looking at the lobby mirror it was always aloneness that looked back at me.

Can you come and save me?

Sometimes Superman was the one who needed to be saved.

The heart says help me but it does not say how. The mind knows all the ways but will not shift from idle into thinking.

Time is so slow when you wanted it fast and goes so fast when you wanted it slow. Maybe God designed it that way so we can learn and appreciate patience and the little things in life.

Davao, two

If I could write one hundred one lines upon a clean white page that so expressed how I love you detailed in every trivial and grand detail if I could tell exactly what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like to dive into you and within myself then back inside/outside you again, if I could say face to face to you how I feel this day that I miss you just now, say it straight to your ears so thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no complexity and that you would understand, then I could write my final poem and be done.

It’s exhausting sleeping here again in this old Roadway Inn, traveling only to work not because of choice or even need. Although I preach that if you love your family you should love your work still it would be better to not pass this way.

How often I’ve said no by saying nothing. Meanwhile, the heart has bigger things to think on than old hurts.

Such space is there between your back and my chest, such emptiness my body and the sunlight cannot fill. But I’ll try, don’t worry, I will.

Baguio, three

Finally, you are here we are here, together and clouds seemed to be like cheeks of angels. But they’re only clouds, you know friendly sometimes, but you can never be sure. That’s why I have this big umbrella in my left hand while Ryah ‘s in my right arm however heavy it or both may be. If I am Superman I’d pull the clouds toward us or make them hang just above us as we walk this Session Road. But I’m just a man who needs and wants… mostly things he’ll never have.

I’ve been missing you most of the time these past few weeks been away from city to city, island to island, and along the way I’ve learned some things, you have to make the good times yourself, take the little times and make them big times and save the times that are all right for the ones that aren’t so good.

Thank God, for, at last, together we are here in this city where you can kiss the clouds and hot drinks of ChocolatĂŠ de Baterol are served with the ones you love.

I FEEL HAPPINESS AND KNOW YOU’VE COME INTO THE ROOM

I feel happiness and know you’ve come into the room. Standing still you do so in a way that peace saturates the room, the bed, the night, the world where you choose to be. There’s a sweetness in you that covers everything it touches so that smell, feelings linger even when you’ve only passed. What makes you extra ordinary in every way is that with you, within my life no day is ordinary or alike. While you move easy or stand still, inside the room or walking out, know that you have strengthened, sweetened, straightened out, made my life complete forever.

LOVE ISN’T BREAD, IT’S BETTER

See how easily we fit together, with God’s own hand clutching us and this warm home, and this wide bed, waking up safe and sound. I miss breakfasts with you around. Gardenia and Anchor butter with bacon strips and a hash brown two perfectly fried sunny side ups, instant perfect match. When the wind starts singing across the backyard and into our friendly kitchen, love fills the air and nobody hears it but us.

NOW I HAVE THE TIME

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quiet now on this sweet Monday evening.

Now I have the time to write you letters or unplanned poems to be with you in secret beaches or smile with you while hearing the wind.

Now I have the time for singing our songs all night long and to apologize for little lies and big lies told when there was no time to explain the truth.

I am finished with whatever tasks that kept me from walking in the woods with you or sharing whatever it is that I have.

I now have so much time that I can build for you orc castles or the Osgilliath or Minas Tirith itself, if only you’d ask.

Candle-lit dinner? Moonlight drive? Watch the Lake House? Tell me what you want, and I’ll buy us Doritos and hot Picante for snacks.

I’d hoped that I might take you traveling down the block of your mind tonight or to wherever.

Now I have the time to be bored to be creative to be patient to be understanding to give you all the time that you need.

Now I have the time. Where are you? 35

I THINK OF YOU

Alone in this hotel room with no one to comfort me I think of you… And suddenly my pillow is your face and the blankets are your arms.

Eating with Jay in this rain-drenched Cebuano night, the night cold stings me, seeking warmth, I think of you.

And it’s as though I’m under the midday sun.

How did I get from night to daylight before you knew me? How did I learn to have hope before you passed by? Was there any hope at all until you explained it to me? How did I move on without me knowing it?

Who knows how many times I pause every day to think of you? Maybe as often as the second hand ticks without your smile around. And if you’re wondering why I like to think of you, it’s because I want to be as close to you as you’ve become to me.

A GOOD MORNING

Waking up holding your hips and slowly seeing your face, I cannot get enough of these lit up mornings, birds shaking mist from the low branches of our bare guava tree, the early sky now shaved by clouds.

After shower, I go back to our warm room. Did you know that every hour each minute given to me verifies the way I feel toward you, more than how you care for me?

I look at you, and Ryah, and suddenly things get clearer. Songs you make only by smiling, steps you dance while lying still, oceans we cross just by holding each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hearts.

Isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t it a miracle?