This City by the River

It could have been called the city by the river.
And it is. Bridges in steel and concrete
arc through its gateways and lead to the commerce
of this place like the cathedral with its cross
and memory of a God that came in a long time
ago in His immaculate whiteness, His skin
beyond our imaginings as its countenance.
We could not have known about the vicissitudes
of conquest like we do have now
with the speed of motorela faster
than our rapid response to fucking shit!

It is a city with the flow of water
as it is a city where they seed the clouds
because: number one, the rains forget
what they are for in this earth, and number two,
the floods are for other cities like my own
and there leave their footprints on the number
of bloating bodies and dead dreams.

You have come here to word what word
is in this struggle we have since waged.
We hope magic will come to all these
like the enchantment of lovers
without their beloved but with all
that which is theirs in the first place.


Cagayan de Oro, Philippines