Ernesto P. Santiago spends all his free time dividing it between here and there trying to learn something. He is too small for his ego. He is enough for himself. His verse has been widely published and anthologized, in prints and online. Born in the Philippines, he lives in Greece, where he still continues exploring the poetic myth of his senses, and has recently become interested in the study of haiku and its related forms.
I Am What I Am
My head slightly bent over a table of happiness.
My feet, sod with white lilacs, dance merrily
to a moon stroke music of twilight night.
My finger-tips childishly sip
the sweat of quill, like red wine of Mother Earth
that runs down the skin of my heart.
Down in the chores of primal things
I have been to the bowl aquarium, mostly at nights
where I breathed and twitched with the fish, trying
to catch the warm winks of stars. Ahh,
I know all about human arts, although I
dabble in the language of my adopted father; still
I know how to sketch
in my own words a lovely butterfly, fluttering
awhile in the night to say hello
and to kiss me,
ere on a fluffy pillow
of dreams
I close my eyes. My name is nothing special,
but honestly I am what I am… a poetry dancer, dancing
with emotions for my fictitious lover.
© Ernesto P. Santiago
Publication Credit: Poetrysoup, 2008
Author’s note: I wrote it in response to “The Invitation to Write”, by Gather Essentials: Writing Challenge, based on Carl Sandburg’s poem “Who Am I?”
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