Once, When I Went Back to My Hometown

I knew the sceneries did not exist only to welcome a
daydreamer like me. I knew what they looked like once
when I traveled in this spooky place. Way back, the
roads greeted me as if I was back from a long journey.
I thought I didn't see the buildings before and some
new road construction, perhaps it transformed into

stronger, prouder but smaller build after I left this wee
town two scores ago. Probably, I became used to the
cold the west gave me, or it could be another heat which
has been missed for a long time, the sunlight, jeepneys or
some native tongue. My language still did not change,
though I could speak someone else's . I thought I would

be an expected visitor that day - ushered, catered, loved.
Instead, I saw crude facial emotions, some new family
members who called me aunt or an unusual bypasser. I
knew they smiled out of respect, but they were so cold that I
shared stories they can't relate to, or shared images which

they defined nonexistent in this other part of the globe, that
I lived in my own generation, or they were stuck in an olden
time. I thought it would be another two scores to put things
back - so I'd realize snow never existed here in the first place.

- Sarah Gamutan

(featured in the poetry forum 11.11.11)

editor's note: Sometimes going back doesn't work for those who moved forward; it doesn't have to snow to be cold. - mh

Passenger Seat

- Still I belong to the progenitors

Steering wheel
Fill me in - your ego.

When I stow away
This wee car-

Is the roof
Over my head

When dad slaps
Me just like when

He points his gun
At my temple, but

Then I paint the
Picture back in July

When we ignore
Him for he is snapped

Still he is my
Dad - lost psycho

- Sarah Gamutan

(featured in the poetry forum 08.28.11)

editor's note: Auto safety is complicated when you're the passenger; it's nerve-wracking enough, just worrying over whether the driver paid for side-mounted airbags. - mh

Tyndall Effect

That Brownian Motion which has super-sized particles
Triggers exhibition of earth's passive resistance
Traces of mobility scrape the land and where
Membranes manufacture propane and butane
Making sure Krakatoa falls behind

Where blood dripped from carbon-dated skeletons
In which it labeled Mozart's Historical Death
Of being impish and awry doesn't
Mean this soul sees no music

It has resonating eye movement under
Regeneration stages of Milky Way Galaxy
Curdling suds of evolutionary tides
Decomposing sediments of calcium carbonates
From a perfectionist to whiten these blemishes

Stripes and circles of armaments with mist ripples
Across the ocean she wades through
Intermixed dates and cosmic structure
Bleached with titanium oxide suffocate
Nostrils of humans getting only very
Minimal hope from that ray of light

- Sarah Gamutan

(featured in the poetry forum 07.11.11)

editor's note: This proves that random molecular constructs may refract visible light, but will not show us the soul of God. He may have created this saturated solution, teetering upon crystallization; but it's up to us to create the hope that such will be a good thing. - mh