Jomerl Gomez

Jomerl Gomez is currently a graduate student at the De La Salle University in Manila under the Creative Writing program, where he hones his skills as a writer of poetry, fiction, and, perhaps now, literary nonfiction and drama as well. A versatile artist, JM also publishes song covers on Facebook and YouTube.

Bakunawa of the Deep

When the earth had seven moons in her skies,
Bakunawa of the deep fell in love with them.

For each night of the week, one moon
accompanied solitary travelers—softened
shards of silver illuminating roads untaken.

Bakunawa wanted their light for his own.
When eyes were resting, he rose
from the deep and swallowed one sister
after another, until only Bulan remained.

Bulan, waxing and waning, forced and forlorn,
now navigates the cosmos all nights of the week.
Her tired face scarred with sharp bamboo shoots
placed by Bathala to repel Bakunawa’s advances.

Sicauay saw what Bakunawa did to the sisters.
Sicalac saw what Bakunawa stole from the world.
Now, their nights are eclipsed, the tides higher,
their gongs clashed, the winds harsher.

Is that why the intruders bastardized you, Bakunawa?
Your need to bring light into your darkness
made you—then, a deity—now a demon?

The same way they demonized Yawa
for using her magic to avenge a beloved?
Yawa whom they used to cast out the Babaylan
so they can tame our lands and raise their cross?

The same way they demonized the serpent,
banished from the garden for suggesting that she
take the fruit and he take a bite from it?

She was there, Bakunawa.
And he was, too.

As with Yawa and the serpent, perhaps
the real reason for every eclipse
is not you, Bakunawa. 

A Procrastinator’s Musings

I

I spend countless hours
listening
         to temporal dialogues, imaginary
                   unless breathed to life,
seeing
         how no second slips unnoticed
                   from your scrupulous hands
                             twisting, weaving, intertwining
                                       seamless strings of endless scarlet.
And I hear you
         marching to no end.

II

I lock gazes with a mango tree
swaying
         with the weight of winged warblers
                   on her shoulders,
breathing
         sunlight through her nostrils,
                   supplying the breeze that turns
                             her verdant ornaments auric,
                                       falling to the anticipating earth.
And I see you
         falling with them.

III

I wrestle with my pillow
wondering
         if you ever get tired enough to take
                   a short afternoon siesta,

thinking
         that even sauropods suffered
                   under your perpetual watch,
                             transient against everlasting—fearful
                                       what happens should you take your rest.
And I taste you
         metallic on my tongue.

IV

I go on with every sunrise
surrendering
         rhythmic rhymes and refrains
                    unwittingly to you,
singing
          a poem to immortalize you,
                    you who memorialize mere mortals
                              from millennia then and now—some
                                        turning silver, the lucky ones gold.
And I feel you
          blink past all existence.

V

What was there before
          it all started?
          What would take
                    for it all to end?
And when will you
          ever end?
          Will you even
                    ever end?