Flood

The hours tick like sound of punch cards

in this corporate machine treating

people like ants filed into ranks.

Mountain of paperwork  piled up

into sandbags. Bring it on, breach

my levee and let me drown forgetting.

 

Labor becomes a habit. Of numbness

and enjoying the suffering.

 

Like the sound of water from the tap

during a morning ritual in oblivion-

silence resonates like a hidden bell.

I wait until it fills the tub overflowing

down the rim and the clock raced

to the minutes rushing for the train.

 

Like the way the thinning soap glides

my body and the necessity to wash

away yesterday’s worry-rat smell-

that doomsday spell. A thank you note

and the termination letter. The downsizing

and the news keep rolling off the press.

People pick up some gossips to chew

and I am excited to blab my hunger.

 

Like the constant whining of the weekend

laundry, hoping detergents rinse the stains

and filth of missed deadlines. And overtime.

And I got the time to soak away thinking

about the next line to a poem, capturing it

before it goes down the drain. In limbo.

 

And I hope to keep afloat above it 

like a flotsam of dreams in a stream

carried away in the fading of days.

Figuring it out how to bailout myself 

like a straw in deep water.

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The Reading

I hear them screaming through

the sound of falling and splashing

and stumbling down staircases.

Of mangled steel twisting glass

and concrete skins ripping away

from the building’s skeleton.

 

I hear the slithery rush of jet fuel

scrambling down chases and elevators

at first and second impact, the aftershock.

Igniting fireballs through the hallway.

Explosions rocked the foundations

trembling in little earthquakes.

 

I hear the mad stampede roar.

I hear the panic bars unlatch.

Then the cacophony of sirens,

the tolling of alarm bells,

the symphony of shock,

the avalanche of horror,

the carnage of the missing,

and the agony of the trapped.

 

I hear them- peoples of the world,

helpless among the tangled mess

of floor slabs toppled like a deck of cards.

The gradual weakening of their hearts,

the whispers in pain, the unison in prayer.

The slow fragile breaths silently eroding

and extinguished like wisps from a candle.

 

I hear the distant cries of children

who lost their fathers and mothers.

The anguish of fathers and mothers

losing their children in the rubbles.

The lamentations of men and women

losing their wives, their husbands,

their brothers and their sisters.

 

I hear them all within the sound of the water

trickling down over the polished slabs of stones.

I hear them while I listen in the reading,

of engraved names whose innocent fates

were like the powdery dusts in mid-air

frozen, suspended, undiminished in time.

 

I hear the grieving sighs. The silent tears.

The ashes of remembrance, the memory.

The extraordinary day when the world

will never forget the ground zero.

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Drafter’s Board

Room gravitates with clacking sounds from T-square and triangles repelling each other at drafter’s boards. Blood races with time. Sweat drips left watermarks on vellum as inkblots nervously travels the maze of light pencil strokes. There were smudges of graphite dusting above the immaculateness of the paper that the fruity-smelled eraser had not breezed through. Then, forms of squares and circles began to metamorphose into a perspective with depth and of casting shadows meticulously calculated and shaded. I was peeking over my seatmate’s work and my hands are trembling in fear without knowing where to start.

My drafter’s board draped in salmon-colored grid paper  and vellum lay motionless for some minutes. Pencils started to rattle like little earthquakes at its sides. Then my fingers reach out the Pentel Pen and in desperation, I scribbled these words, “no fear, God is good all the time” on its wooden face. I fixed my eyes to the letters, and it appeared as if they began to switch places, jumping like shrimps out of water.

Dimmed visions ensued. I was blackened out. It was half past one in the afternoon, when somebody cursed the other and summoned him to speed up. I was driven like a nail to my senses cutting short a wasted lull. Then like a lightning, I was in a trance. Having invoked the muse, juggling pens upon pens and pencils upon pencils worth of architectural beauty, there was no chance of changing pace. Everybody is on the rush.

Then the noise grew like mighty cacophony of sounds from the drafter’s weaponry. From the other side of the desk, a poor lad accidentally poured water on the sheets, and in  final attempts of rescue, relentlessly waved a piece of cardboard to create pools of air to dry out the accidental and unfortunate wetness. My focus is waning but in great resolve, I need to be a victor over my own strength and exceed what my expectations can afford me.

Every stroke became a heavy etching on the vellum, emphasizing authority. Sketch lines became crooked, consciously hugging traces of sure, finite  lines. I panted and I am beginning to lose my breath. Two hours still, and time is up.  Sheets upon sheets I am flipping through plans and elevations. Of hit and misses. Of trials and errors. Worried to the hilt, if I could catch the time on its tail.

The bell rang. A flag to the finish line have been raised up.  Signals surrender.

The drafter’s board had witnessed a battleground, where black blood stained its wooden face and created slight ebbs and crest on it. Surprisingly alighted out of the tremendous pressure of the examination room. As if the weight of the world on its shoulder vanished after the bell rang.

That was five years ago. The drafter had become an architect.  And the battleground on that drafter’s board had ended on that once glorious day. Its glory that has waned among the many cobwebs of dust which strapped  its once perilous journey to the examination room.

And the day is coming, that these trembled hands will once again redeem its glory. With words “no fear, God is good all the time” written on its face, all will never be erased from one’s memory.  Surely, it will not fade through this architect’s humble life.

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