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Philosophers have argued
whether a tree that falls in the forest
that nobody hears makes a sound.
My mind’s arms are not large enough
to embrace such anodyne puzzles.
But sometimes I do
wonder
if the words that pour out of me like raindrops from elephantine clouds
move and make any sound as they fall
into the dark humming spaces of your absence.
These words that can only fail
To paint the true hues of longing,
Echo in the mind as they are uttered,
Like fervent prayers to obscure gods.
I don’t know, I don’t know
if they act like trained pigeons
that faithfully find their home
–or float about listlessly like lost balloons
and childish wishes,
carried away by howling winds,
–all of them nobody’s,
wandering about without reason,
irredeemably lost to the world
*This poem first appeared in Little Fish Magazine
Hospitals
They run on everyday hurt
Bodily youth slowed by daring or disease
Old age impassively resisting its shrinking nature
In nameless steel beds and rolling chairs
Patients form congregations of creased foreheads
Trying small talk and uneasy smiles
Nearly perfected out of politeness and habit
They wait in ever hardening seats with others
Whose sighs are as long as drags of tobacco smoke
While looking, feigning, and not looking
Being there is a tug of war of questions and clues
Of consuming malaise and alien contact of skin
It’s hiding behind wide drab curtains
Pretending to screen life and limb from other misfortunes
To enter is to make a failing promise
To assume the role of object, thing, animal, sacrifice
To exercise patience in
the stop-motion of
sleepwalking
from room
to room
*This poem first appeared in Little Fish Magazine
A.D. Capili hails from the Philippines. He came to Belgium to study philosophy and literature and he currently teaches at a European School in Brussels. His poems have appeared in Little Fish and DoubleSpeak; some of his poems, fiction, and non-fiction pieces have recently been selected for publication in The Brussels Review.
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