Egrest Poetry

10/06/2025

One sometimes needs to write just to let it out; just to exercise those literary muscles. Like jogging is to an athlete, you don't have to be perfect, you just have to make sure those muscles don't give way to lack of use. Here is a poem that I wrote for the heck of it, not aiming for perfection.

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𝚂𝙿𝙰𝙲𝙴𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝚂 𝙰𝚁𝙴 𝚃𝙴𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙴𝙳 𝙱𝚈 𝚂𝚃𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙶

I used to watch the astronauts being at their loneliest
when they are high enough to be with everyone,
tethered to the spacecraft by air piped
cables: tethered to us by mp4 files piped
through cables. Watching videos of them as if
we were there, cheeks pressed against the cold
hard glass. Coldness is an absence to heat,
yet why does it pinch the skin
as clear and as real as the weight of your skin
that once pressed against my own?
But now it is a consigned thought,
backed up to saved files—
rather to the trash where things are gone
but not really, they can be saved.
I clicked save.

08/06/2025

From this morning's Irish Times - 'Percentages' by Nuala O'Connor...

02/06/2025

Sometimes inspiration comes from the least obvious of places. Sometimes, it is as cliche as the stark colors of the sunset amongst a vast sky. At other times it comes in the form of a rather passive-aggressive vase.

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𝑻𝑯𝑰𝑺 𝑰𝑺 𝑨 𝑽𝑨𝑺𝑬, 𝑵𝑶𝑻 𝑨 𝑮𝑨𝑹𝑩𝑨𝑮𝑬 𝑪𝑨𝑵

It says,
(not 𝙞𝙩, but the paper above 𝙞𝙩)
as a means to correct a wrong
because too many times it was mistaken
as a repository for the disposed
scraps from strangers.

Was it so hard to remove the “vase”,
or clarify its being with an evident plant?

Was it so necessary to insist on what
it is supposed to be,

than to let it be what
it is?

27/05/2025

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/05/22/ai-reading-writing-graduation-books/?utm_campaign=wp_opinions&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwY2xjawKiIeJleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFscnZFb2l1aTNLbEpnak03AR5X-NnJWr3XgOZAinUPnSVrpmOI7ksP-iCM4THE7u6xTwKUNUCv2iYcs0-x-Q_aem_wm1lYUXV9MDelamgYw70pg

Why graduation season is so heartening to me.

25/05/2025

A haibun is a poetic form where a non-versified prose poem is book-ended by a haiku. Today, I tried to convert an old poem of mine into a Haibun.

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𝑺𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝑷𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒕 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 20 𝒀𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝑨𝒈𝒐

Back then there was object permanence, and the glimmer on my eye was a meaningful thing. Now there are 24 hours in the day and 7 days in the week and 9 hours to sit as time fast forwards out of your own watch and into the open hands of another. Back then there was a difference between living and living. Now I could only believe in the god of the 15th and the 30th, waiting. On the edge of the backyard from an old house, there is a toy soldier, half-buried in the dirt. Its color, from the hip up, faded, from green to lime, cursed by the sun’s aging cruelty. He points his unloaded rifle towards the brightest sky, but the gun is bent, trampled, stepped on and stepped on by those that had forgotten all about him. Now there is only scrapped plastic buried in the backyard and no one knows that he is still waiting there. I used to have a basketball as I dream of becoming the Michael Jordan of my league in the way that I took my shots. Now I hate basketball. And back then these aspirations were silhouettes of stone rather than ghosts. Now they are resounding echoes saying the word if as if it was the mating call of one forgotten animal, tied to the softest edge of remembered history.

𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨,
𝘳𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦, 𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘮 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥
𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬’𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥

22/05/2025

There are times when I would walk alone along these streets and think about the lives of those that I will never get to know.

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𝐌𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝
𝙸𝚕𝚘𝚒𝚕𝚘 𝙲𝚒𝚝𝚢, 𝙳𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚁𝚘𝚊𝚍 𝙾𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜 08:20 𝙿𝙼

There aren’t as many stars as there were
during my childhood,
Those once glorious beacons now fell to the streets,
too busy to meet my eye for a moment.
Life pauses for a moment back then,
but now it dashes across as if a diversion
to the daily hustle and bustle,
the path where I walk atop them all
to avoid these stars with dreams
of feeding their families back home,
is a path often avoided.

20/05/2025

Thank you Lit Life Comics for this wonderful collab!

Title: In the Memory of Stones
Poetry by: Me!
Art by: Lit Life Comics

19/05/2025

I often wonder if we can turn back time and whether their culture is still any more or less different than ours now...
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𝑻𝑯𝑬𝑹𝑬 𝑰𝑺 𝑵𝑶 𝑭𝑶𝑶𝑫 𝑯𝑬𝑹𝑬

There was sand and some stars
that littered the beaches before they docked.

It’s been four-hundred and some years since
Then and the marks from galleons

leave blood splatter trails on our beaches still.
Like the dried paper towel on top of knife wound.

You take what you can from bird’s nest
and leave nothing for the bird, ,

instead give her your young to raise for you.
White sand turned red, starless sky red,

bodies of ancestors.
The ancient ones would look to their children now

and witness foreigners that are hungry.

15/05/2025

I wrote this during an especially cold and lonely night.

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𝑻𝒐 𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉

To those first maggots to gnaw
into my well-prepared co**se.
𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦, 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘭.

To grass watching above
my grave like the god I forgot
to believe in.
𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦, 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘭.

To gatherings in tears or lack
thereof in front of casket or urn,
I haven’t decided yet,
𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦, 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘭.

To whoever discovers my molecules
with their mouths as they bite into the fruit
where I happen to be.
𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦, 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦.

07/03/2025

I'm so glad to be a part of this! Kitakits WFH Fam!

We warmly invite exhibitors, vendors, artists, and authors to be part of the 8th Iloilo Mega Book Fair (IMBF), happening on April 11–13, 2025 (Friday to Sunday) at Atria Park District, Iloilo City, from 10 AM to 7 PM. This is a fantastic opportunity to showcase and sell books, paper-related goods, and literature-inspired products to a vibrant community of readers and enthusiasts.

A minimal registration fee of PHP 750 covers participation for all three days. Tables will be provided for all exhibitors. This year, we are excited to welcome book distributors, independent writers, publishers, and artists eager to connect with audiences and share their creative works.

For inquiries and registration, please email [email protected]. Don’t miss this chance to be part of Western Visayas’ biggest literary gathering!

Register Here: https://forms.gle/tuXCzzKSgeAn9kaNA