Jonel Abellanosa – Five Poems

Mindspeak

Afterimages are echoes of my apparitions, your
Brain maze not quite to my unconscious tunneling.
Consciousness is my whimsy’s stream, not lucid
Dreaming: irrationals in bird flight, emerald frogs,
Echolalia to pebbles. Surfacing the viewing of
Futuristic bats, and in the silvering skyline the
Godservant of lights: vermilions, mauves, beiges.
Hierophantic they wearing the peacock’s colors,
Intuiting prophecies, totems of the bird-eyed.

“Juju” is how I spell tooth. In the close-eyed
Kaleidoscope, peace is
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the depths
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . of fish
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . knowing
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ness.

Love is a rainforest
. . . . . . in the waking cusp, mixed
Metaphors winged avatars, otherworldly lights
. . . . . . piercing
Numinous canopies.

Order of the Illogician – a
Priestly order, an out-of-the-box sect.
Quaint quietness the ritual of illogic.

Rarity is my gift to recognition, multi-reflected
Solitude and an edge-enhanced awareness.
The vastness of recollections is truest to
Understanding if diligence is the same as
Violets – whether flower or something else.
When you open your eyes take my blank blessing,
Expressiveness lulled temporarily.
Yearn will grow like a deep yawn,
Zests of vision halted before the ceiling

Teacher

Astuteness of flowers is my law of attraction, for
Bee is the mind in belief’s absence, without the
Causalities of a caterpillar. Stems look sturdy,
Drawing to its unperturbed illusion, roots and the
Eternal meeting halfway. I’ve nothing more to
Finish, nothing new to say. I suggest, but won’t
Go past the butterfly, and I never point the way
Home, for that is the task of mountains, what is
Intuited by rivers, still trustworthy stars. I’m still a
Jongleur at heart, traveling in my mind, and
Knowledge used to shine. I was faithful to the
Luminous, seeing no distinctions between the
Marvelous and pebbles, and emeralds were
Numinous. And then the blinding levity of the
Ordinary, the way leaves droop to the sunset,
Perhaps the summit of a lifetime’s discoveries,
Quests that at last rest on simplicities, some
Returning, turtledove coos of remembering. If
Solitude were the vastest space of knowing,
Tabula rasa is among the aims, the way true
Understanding slides into a dew of silence.
Vision is verity’s soil, and above the toil is
Wonder – warmth and clouds – passing to
Exit the day, fading greens, shimmering whites.
Years nurture the sacred outdoor dwelling, and
Zen is stillness with sounds of water flowing

Otherness

Amniotic silence – vaguest abstraction I spend
Blissful sleep deprivations recreating, the mind’s
Clairaudience graying gaps. This sound absence
Defines a leaf’s arc, for instance, when seeing
Exits the way it feels in closed eyes. Numbness,
Feathers, emerald odors, clay, stone – shifting as
Gewgaw of thoughts. Delight rises as the heart’s
Harmonious blue, impossible not to notice
I’m materialized observer, of crystal images, the
Jesus-sac of stillness embracing as the night
Keeping me like an aware stuffed panther. I
Listen to winds whirl 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21…
Mixing metaphors the free mind’s playfulness:
Noetic lights, lightning roots, thunder, chorus
Of trees, wafts of wet wood. I’ve been recalling
Primal preoccupations – as fetus floating in the
Quaint – weightlessness my sense of security.
Reflections must have felt like serene sparks,
Solitude thick as what is hearable underwater.
Transparencies I bring to the page later, when
Understanding is no longer necessary, and
Vision is being itself, being as remembered
When it is shape, smell, color, sound, heft –
Existence that isn’t motion, contradictory of
Yearn, without animations from cannabis, or
Zones of colorful music in the womb of DMT

Illusionist

Azure is my most abstract sky – color lullaby
Bluer than the briefest shimmer of my sigh. As
Conjurer, my cat-hearted desire, sensuous as
Distraction, stealthy the way unsure or doubtful
Eyes echo to the mind. Not all outcomes are
Felicitous, not all denouements deepening into
Gemstone green. A kind of polished ending,
Hinged in light, is sometimes a golden leaf.

I’m tantalized, too, but into a woven boding,
Jarred like a waved sound, a resonance that
Keeps repeating, as if I’m measured by what
Limns the apprehensible melody. I’m also
Mesmerized, as I pass by the window, the
Numinous like sacramental wafer, a full
Orb in passing clouds, silvering the night.

Pauses like pebbles in a pot centered in paths of
Quaintness, the mind returning to symbols,
Recognizing the bonsai, epiphanies birthed in
Solitudes of the barefoot, following circular
Trails, marble implying footprints, the heart
Undergoing tilts of an imagined forest. Inner
Voices are glimmered like birdcalls, and I
Walk my meditation as if searching no more,
Expressing the visionary to myself. Am I
Yearning to immerse in other realnesses?
Zen is one redefinition I keep to myself

Juggler

Apples or oranges rotating like lottery balls.
Bowling pins tumbling midair. Torches of
Coordination, hands and eyes synchronic.
Drawing circles in the air, I imagine starlings
Evolving their murmuration, visualizing
Ferris wheels as I toss artistry to its apex, the
Ground holding my balance like a father
Holding his child learning trust and steadiness.
I’m novice to this art, practicing like a prodigy,
Jazzing my heart with the new, joyfulness my
Kaleidoscope, bowling pins painted with
Life’s red, white, yellow and blue – vivid
Marvels twirled as my flag’s colors. The
Numinous is among my aims as a poet, thus
Over my forehead is the star of my gaze, a
Point of anointment. I still this longing, my
Quest for union with the sacred fixed, as
Repertoires grow, my body’s circulation I
Sense as silence. The more I throw the more
The thrown turn hypnotic, till I’m one with the
Undulations, like a weightless thing into its
Vortex. I envision a storm from above its eye,
Whirligig my star sees like a spinning top
Exiting Earth into the Music of the spheres.
Yearns for my swirling rings fill the air,
Zenith of my completion I try reaching

Author’s Statement on Beauty

I never encountered real beauty until I decided in my many capacities as a poet to also be a poet of the mental world. Everything is possible in the world of the mind. The mind welcomes all interpretations as it is invariably layered. I can travel seamlessly across the past, the present and the future, travel anywhere in the universe, imagine anything, break all rules, create my own multiverses. In the last several months, my poetry has evolved to situate itself more comfortably in the mental world. I have anticipated how to answer in case a reader asks me questions like, “Is this real?” Nothing is more real than the imagined. A child will tell anyone that. The mental worlds I create is inclusive in the sense that the reader is free to participate in the imaginings – I leave enough gaps in the poems for participation, and it is in the reader’s creative participation that beauty (real enough to be true) is born.

Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Rattle, Anglican Theological Review, Poetry Kanto, The McNeese Review, Pedestal Magazine and Bangalore Review. He has two chapbooks, Pictures of the Floating World (Kind of a Hurricane Press) and The Freeflowing All (Black Poppy Review).