The Belfry of St. Vincent Ferrer

My heart bursts into a flock of ricebirds

Each time I hear its tolling; for years

I live on the shade of its imposing

Memory – all the running & screaming

& sliding races down the hillsides, firemaking

& pissing contests, toy parades, death by voodoo

Gossip-broker Miss B. & and her rare orchids

Tonio’s mysterious death at the mangrove –

All point me to that church on top of the hill

Overlooking our town wharf that eats

And spits natives & transients alike

Where all the coming and going each

Has its own distinct ring – tintinnabulations

Of open-ended declarations, promises, affairs –

Gangrenous goodbyes on the breast of tears smothered

Or the corrosive taste of briny eyes with every furtive hello.

But time has done nothing to exempt the heart from

The onslaught of raging waves crushing into

Empty shores –like the old bell ringing

Through my ears at Angelus –

Dusk, our favorite time of day

Before you left without that anticipated

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” backward glance.

And bells do not have a memory of tunes 

For awkward silence, silence, silence.

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Nominated for “Best of the Net 2025” for his poetry, Emeniano Acain Somoza, Jr. considers himself the official spiritual advisor of his roommates, Gordot and Dwight – the first a goldfish, the other a Turkish Van cat. His works have been published in The Poetry Magazine, Moria Poetry Journal, Fogged Clarity, Everyday Poem, Loch Raven Review, The Buddhist Poetry Review, The Philippine Graphic, The Philippines Free Press, Troubadour 21, Full of Crow, Indigo Rising, Asia Writes, Triggerfish Critical Review, Troubadors 21, Gloom Cupboard, TAYO, Haggard & Halloo, and elsewhere. His first book, A Fistful of Moonbeams, was published by Kilmog Press in April 2010. His second, Kleenex Theory, published by Createspace-Amazon, came out in 2015. He is busy anthologizing emptiness and boredom at the moment.