The Midwinter

The fallen snow was as crestfallen
as a mimicry of crestfallen snow.
The falling snow was falling like rain,
like listlessly falling rain.

We dream that things keep falling apart
and things keep falling apart.

Sometimes Manila is sad disco.
Such a pretty face should be worn in grace.
Human grease. Sentiment/sediment.
Earlier, the month of October

felt like nearly two months of October.
Everything was mystical at some point.

Night sweats and fever dreams
and fitful sleep now mean
less than they were meant to mean.
The snow is languishing;

now the snow is languishing.
It means something to us.

Minus/less the subtraction.
A howling waste of wilderness
is still a howling wilderness.
But he knew that already.

And still he kept walking in the snow.
And he still kept walking in the snow.

Erwin Ponce now lives in the Pacific Northwest. Some of his poems appear or are forthcoming in Asian American Literary Review, TAYO Literary Magazine, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. He is at work on a manuscript called Pilipinas, or; Ending up in Modern Day Metro Manila.