Balay ni Kurdapya

Collage: Verb

2012-02-02T03:17:00.003+08:00

(Collage pieces collected from the secret archives of Strange People. Mental writing done in the comfort room cubicle, as some poems sure do come that way.)

The dreams came fresh
To the septuagenarian
On the beach
Each day
And he talked with verbs
That end in –d’s and –ed’s:
How lovely she was --
Broke out of a chrysalis
Straight into his arms --
you know,

all those cheesy metaphors.
And all that genuine love.
And all that illusion.
And all these stories retold in the fashion of pirated CDs.
And all unfathomable grief.
And all that pile of useless years
Come weighing on him through wounding dreams
Fresh
On the beach
Each fucking day
This way:

He loved her.
He's convinced.
He did a good job.
Although

if he only told her
and then backed it all up
then perhaps --

.

Email: Portraits

2012-01-04T16:01:00.004+08:00

To: "Photographer" --------------@----.com

Subject: My friend's portrait

Her scars? Let me tell you about her scars: when Lily was born, she was alone.

I'm guessing she had to pack her own stuff when the labor pains came; had to tell the jehu where to go, the pauses between her words in cadence with the spasms. I'm guessing she had to hold on to her bag, the car seat, wrung the hem of her dress, silently enduring the ordeal. No screaming, or the cab driver would've probably panicked and imperiled the three of them. In the ward, she was constantly watched over by a nurse in the same white uniform whose face changed every five minutes. She hung on to the hands that changed too, the hands that, perhaps, she wished had belonged to someone familiar. Someone whose absence now was piercing.

The pain had taken much of her strength, so she asked for the pain killers but she asked a little too late. She could barely push because the drug slid in to her brain at the wrong time.

One day she told me she wanted to take yoga classes – she had never really gotten back the body she had before Lily, and she wanted to be healthier now, she said. She still has the stretch marks, she said.

Another time, she went out swimming in a mountain resort with some co-workers, and pictures were taken. They were talking about how good she had looked in a bathing suit. She told me, I know how to hide my stretch marks in pictures.

She wants to show you.

Let me tell you about her scars: When Lily was born she was alone.

But when Lily cried --

This Sea

2011-12-31T20:22:00.000+08:00

One two one two

One toe in this water

but I fear I cannot remember

-- what beings brush against my skin:

jellyfish that come to sting

Or harmless nameless creatures wondering

What a foot is

-- What things I may bother and stir from slumber

that may surface from underneath

Will I rouse them and make them

drag with them waves

That break into teeth,

unfold a hundred mouths in welcoming grin

As I begin to

Walk into --

One two one
two feet in this water

I wonder

-- What moon pulls these tides

that may just pull me under

and devour me dreaming and unthinking.

How was it again

to breathe awake beneath the depths?

Yes, remind me.

I once was of this sea.

Bring me to retrieve

the memory I left with whales,

the wings now born by stingrays.

Back to English Poems

Back to Cebuano Poems

Usahay, ang kalipay

2011-12-17T08:54:00.002+08:00

Usahay

Ang kalipay

Daw tambaloslos

nga mangurat

sa kalit

mutungha

Mungisi

Mudagan

Lihokan

Makahadlok

Kon di ka andam

Usahay

ang kalipay

Daw mangtas

nga gisangka

sa Power Rangers

Di matumba

Di masu’d sa hawla

Di matabang

Og alsa

Kon armas mo kuwang

Ang kalipay

Mura’g tagulilong pud usahay

Kon di ka magbantay --

Hala, tu-a ra ay.

Back to English Poems

Back to Cebuano Poems

White

2011-11-26T21:09:00.001+08:00

Thelocal tobacco company was baffled over their sales. One small town didn't hitthe business so much, true; but what was puzzling was the simultaneous withdrawal.The company head deployed a number of researchers to investigate the matter,but the endeavor did not yield very significant results.

* * *

Kelly forgot to buy cigarettes, and was slightlysurprised over two things: 1) that she had forgotten to buy cigarettesand 2) that she had only remembered a week after she slipped past the sari-saristore without stopping by to replenish her stash.

Her mother was secretly delighted over this.Kelly overheard her talking to her father at breakfast one morning, sayingtheir daughter had perhaps finally thought of her health, and the people aroundher, perhaps it’s growing pains; she’sstaying home more often now; that’s good, she now has more time for studies, I think now’s a good time to takeher back to Bible studies.

Along with the cigarettes went the singing.Disappointment had begun to sweep over her band mates as she started to ditch rehearsalsmore and more often. Her voice became raspier by the day and today, it wasgone. Bleep. Kaput.

She watched her thoughtslike movie scenes. Or clouds. That one looks like a hat; that one’s a dildo.She watched her feet lead her to the hardware store instead of her 7:30 Psych101 class. The first thing she asked for were 4 buckets of white paint and aroller. She walked around the block back to her room. She painted her wallswhite, and never left.

* * *

Sincehis wife died two years ago, he had not gone out much, had not drunk as much,nor did he smoke as much anymore. He checked his phone to see how many morepeople had been looking for him. He read the messages, saw the missed calls butnever really answered them back except if they had anything to do with work.He, after all, still had to keep his job to eat and pay the rent. But he foundthat it had become harder and harder to roll off the bed to take a shower anddress for work. Not that he wanted to stay home; his body was really gettingheavier. He checked his weight on the scale and each day he saw that he hadbeen gaining pounds fast. It bewildered him, because he had not seemed biggersince the weight started coming on. He attributed it to aging, but he was only34.

Oneday, he found his body impossibly heavy to drag off the bed when he awoke. Heopened his eyes, checked the clock and found he still had three hours before hehad to leave for work. He wanted to return to sleep; he had been having suchinteresting dreams of the same place these past few nights. He was on the samecliff in his dream lit dimly by two moons. There was a white house. He gotthere on a flying arm chair, the kind that elementary schools used. He wantedto stay there; it was so surreal, mysterious, absolutely so much more interestingthan the art havens he frequents almost every night, regardless of whether ornot he was the sole customer of the evening. There was a woman in the housethat he wanted to talk to just before he woke up, and he desperately wanted togo back, but sleep would not return sooner than he wanted; he had to be alittle more patient. And as he impatiently waited for slumber while staring atthe walls, it was then when he noticed that the outer layer of the walls hadall chipped off, revealing the old white surface underneath. The outer bluelayer was falling off by itself. He stared at it until sun up, until the wallshad all turned white. And as easily as the paint was chipped off the walls, hefell asleep, and never left the room.

* * *

Andso Kurt wrote to ask for help.

Lately,Kurt had been perturbed by questions to which he could not find answers. Hetook a piece of paper and jotted down all the riddles in as organized a manneras possible to make it easier for Vera to understand; but even with this taskhe was not successful, because two hours later he found himself writing on theseventh page with seemingly no end to it. So he resigned himself to the optionof discussion, and decided to invite his best friend for a beer or two; anyway,he hadn't seen her for quite a long time now, what with the latter being sobusy with arrangements for her own wedding. There was something he needed totalk to her about, he had told her. Very important.

Veraarrived in an ecstatic and frenzied mood; she was on the phone when she walkedin, rattling off instructions about the flowers. She sat down as she was on thelast five minutes of her call and looked as if she needed more arms to carryher shoulder bag, her laptop bag and her papers. Kurt helped her settle in onher seat as she clutched her phone between her head and shoulder.

“Busy,”Kurt said. An emphasis. And because he had nothing better to say. Or perhapsmore because he did not know how to broach the subject of his disturbingemotions amidst the excited clutter that her friend was. To talk about it feltlike puncturing the happy bubble she was enclosed in. It seemed inappropriate,and this disheartened him. Clearing his mind seemed to him a very slim chancethat night.

“Thewedding's in two months, Kurt! And my fiancé wants the color of the flowerschanged; he said it's too – what's the word he used? –‘kiddy.’ We had a littleargument and I later realized he was right so, yeah, I caved in, called up thecoordinator, called up the florist – oh, and by the way, your suit is ready. Ineed you to go to the boutique this week for your fitting. The sooner thebetter, so they can make necessary adjustments as early as possible. I wanteverything to be well organized and...”

Verawent on about her wedding preparations within the duration of two beers and inbetween, Kurt muttered a few syllables about work. By the time all that wasdone, it was 11 o'clock and he was drained.

Sothey said their goodbyes, called it a night. Kurt hailed a taxi for Vera,hailed another for himself. Passing through his homeward route, the landmarkswere left unnoticed because Kurt was focusing on the beginnings of rain peltingon the taxi windows, which of course led to him not realizing he was home. Hepaid the taxi driver, trotted up and into his room on the second floor of theapartment building. Kurt then opened the closet and found the buckets of whitepaint he had saved up for when he needed it, and now was that time. He startedby moving out his furniture and so he could paint the walls white.

* * *

I am slipping back intothat old room: all white space. And though familiar, it always seems new. Thereis nothing there that hints of presence. No imprints on the floor or the wallsto show the absence of furniture. Windows without curtains, nor a respectableview. No cigarettes to pass the time. Anyway, there is no time. Here, sunlightenters and exits like a ghost, but I could not care about the time here. Noryou, if you had such a room.

I remember this lady inthe office. She graduated top of the class. She now has a fiancé. Soon, shewill get married. Have kids. Die in gratitude for all the blessing she willhave received. Blah blah blah.

* * *

_________,Philippines – At least 27 bodies were found in separate locations yesterdayaccording to the local police of _____ town. So far, ongoing investigationshave yielded zero results as police are puzzled over the circumstancessurrounding the deaths of the individuals.

Accordingto local authorities, all bodies were found in rooms either freshly paintedwhite, or whose paint has chipped off. Police have ruled out murder, as therewas no evidence of foul play found in the crime scenes. Police are consideringsuicide based on one short note written by one of the victims, but this has notbeen verified. Some have suspected this to be part of a cult activity, butbased on investigations conducted, the victims barely have anyconnection to each other.

As oftoday, local authorities are communicating with family and friends of the victims all aged18 to 35.

On the JY Streetside

2011-10-09T10:00:00.000+08:00

(www.chaifonacier.blogspot.com)

After work one daythis week, I went to buy some cigarettes from the takatak man of whosewares I am a sukiand found him hanging out, while peddling his cigarettes to jeepney vendors andpassersby looking for a nicotine fix, with two drunkards enjoying a bottle of TanduayRum with Sprite under 4 o'clock sun. Manong Roj was in charge ofthe tagay, but more interesting was their other companion who took care of thatafternoon's entertainment: Fidel Inserto.

Mang'Del, according to 'Nong Roj, is in his forties and has lost someof his marbles. That afternoon, 'Nong Del was crouchedagainst the wall and holding two sticks; in front him, a big carton box and tohis right on the ground was an empty Tanduay bottle in lieu of clappers. Thepedal and the bass drum were left for him to imagine.

From what little I was told, I conjectured that his time with the military hadleft him scarred. "Na-Warshock na siya, 'day." But,'Nong Roj said, his drum skills had earned him his previous position in themilitary band; he had always loved music. Now, without a means of livelihoodand having only a portion of his sanity spared, he is left with nothing butwine and song.

And how he rocked the streetside.

We sang in time with his drums and he banged his way through music from thepast few decades. He remembers where the drum rolls fit, while flashing agenuinely happy smile at people who sing to fill the gaps where the lyrics orthe hooky guitar riffs should be. I stayed with them for a good ten to fifteenminutes drinking my coffee, smoking cigarettes and singing as loud as they did.Beatles. Deep Purple. Pink Floyd. Journey. Frank Sinatra. Name it, he knows it.That afternoon, we sang Ventura Highway. He screamed: bahala’g wa’y kwarta! Bahala’g wa’y kwarta!

Never mind that weare penniless, he said.

Passersby could only look on with passive interest at the motley crew.

Not everyone would wonder about this decrepit old man. Or wonder about the incongruity of a call center employee and a bunch of hobos.

I can only surmise about the first thought, but I do have an answer to thesecond: if it's any consolation to 'Nong Del, I hope he feelsthat there is at least one person who understands his choice for this escaperoute at the expense of his marbles. I feel I owe him that, being part of anindustrial world that generally holds higher esteem for scientists ormathematicians, the world that has cast him away among the forgotten. Anddespite this, I console myself with the the delusion that he feels how I understand that wide grateful grin,and that I sing along because I remember the soul that was given him, now leftfor dead in some distant hopeful decade.

In their behalf, 'Nong,we who understand this pain apologize.

For Amber (2010)

2011-10-07T12:31:00.000+08:00

Onthat same day, the management of JY Square Mall cut down the tree where I usedto sit down to smoke and talk with the habal-habal drivers and thefemale cigarette vendor about what they understood about politics and the newson the papers that they sold. But during that fifteen minute break, I smokedone stick counting the rings on the poor stump: 27 rings. It was as old asAmber was.

Thebrown on the bark was a dying color, unlike the other trees lining theSalinas-Gorordo street side that, albeit lethargic-looking, were stillbreathing. Perhaps watching the people go about their businesses. Perhapsexasperated by the indifference of cars with darkly tinted windows, enduringthe poison from their carbon monoxide fart. Perhaps wishing they were some placeelse up in Busay feeding on the nutrition that murdered bodies provide. Perhapsstill trying to accept the lot that fate has handed to them – to settle forthat piece of earth underneath the concrete in Salinas Drive. Perhaps like themindless and crazy taong grasa who visits the Salinas side walk, swayinghappily in smog.

Butas I sat on the stump breathing heavy from the smoke of my smolderingcigarette, brown and dead, the trees, though still very much alive, could notoffer comfort. The sun hurt spots where there used to be none; the daily banterhad been scattered to different places – near the talipapa, or thesari-sari store across the street. Simply put, it wasn't the same as yesterday.

Afterplaying spot-the-difference between mental pictures from previous days and themore tangible scene in front, I left, knowing I will no longer return. PerhapsI may find some other nearby spot with a different lot of people, a differentcigarette vendor, a different kind of chatter.

Thetree was dead. And so was Amber. On that same day, we, the living, breathingones were forced to find comfort elsewhere, and left the places and the hourswhere we found Amber, knowing we would not return.

Oh Well

2011-10-07T08:29:00.003+08:00

"Water under bridge," she thought. She always thought. And this was all she thought.

This was the last thing he said to her. Water under the bridge.

She felt she was no different. She thought, "Water under the bridge."

So later in the day, a little more bloated than usual, she floated under the bridge.

Hulga sa taga diri alang sa Balikbayan

2011-09-01T14:26:00.000+08:00

Dong, kami’ng taga diri, taas og pasensya
Maayo’g pagtagad sa mga langyaw ug mga kaila.
Apan Dong, pagmatngon; layo ra ba ka sa inyo.
Bisa’g brown pud ka’g nawng, di gihapon ka ingon namo.

Ingon si Lolo, sa una, muputol og ulo among tribo
Ingon si ‘Nang Isyang, sa una, makigstorya mi’g dili ingon nato.
Ingon si Lola, ang among mga ninuno, ani-a gihapon sa among kina-iya.
Nagkupot og hinagiban, kanunay’ng nag-atang.

Ang baba-on nga tindera nga si ‘Nang Isyang
nga mao’y makabantay ug makasaksi sa tanan
ang nagsilbeng umalahokan sa Barangay Bulahan
ug gwardiya namong tanan ang mga tambay sa iyang tindahan.

Nahinumdum ko’g usa ka garbosong ‘mirkano.
Buko-buko ra man unta to iyang gireklamo
Kay human kuno’g ligo, daw gibu-buan kuno’g asido
Pag-abot sa kanto, gikulata siya’g maayo.

Mao na, ‘Dong, pagmatngon, pagkinto.
Ay’g taka’g yawyaw, ay’g pabukala among dugo
Hipusa’g maayo kana imong garbo.
Kay Sus, nah, wa ra ba gyud ka sa inyo.

Back to English Poems

Back to Cebuano Poems

The Village Idiot

2011-08-23T11:05:00.004+08:00

The village idiot roams around with a skewed view of days. He does not even see days – he only sees darkness, and light. He knows no time.

He sees fragments, details, shiny things. He sees good or bad. Like, dislike. Pleasant, painful. He sees right, or wrong. He does not see history. He does not see story. The village idiot has no agenda.

The village idiot is an architect of fragments. He is, too, a deconstructionist. He resides in his metropolis. Kitsch architecture. Flying cups. That’s where he lives.

He does not like the slums in his metropolis. He gets chased around, and gets hurt there. But there are many places to escape to. The metropolis is sprawling, like an expanding universe.

He does not want to leave.

The village idiot forgets his body, the same way he has forgotten his pants, his shoes, his own history, his name. But he doesn’t forget his white shirt.

Daemon

2011-08-21T16:39:00.004+08:00

Today, it is summer. They know her well, a fixture in the evenings, but no one knows where she goes in the mornings. It is always summer where she is in the mornings, it is the summer of the heart, the summer of the soul, it is sacredness undefiled, the holier place that was promised to her. See, there are always holier places than this. Besides, they already have her limbs; it is all that they are willing to understand. Only very few have seen her on her summer days. To ask for it, one must also run with her in the thunderstorms. One must get past me. Do you understand this, lad?

She was born under bizarre circumstances. The stars were askew. I was given to her by the witch. She was destined to carry many burdens. Like some of my kind, I was to be, will always be, the one who carries.

We were both snatched; I from the netherworlds, she from her home. She has served in many taverns. And this is how she found you. Understand, boy, you did not find her. She found you.

For one thing, the days may be easier for her to bear.

But whenever she is not in the here and now, she comes to me. Even as she holds your hand, even as she cooks you dinner, I am with her. I carry. You are too brittle-boned for this task; it is beyond you to comprehend. Do you understand this?

But earn your place. Now, draw your sword.

War Drums

2011-08-16T18:07:00.020+08:00

Itwas during the war when Mon Aman Rhir was most quiet.

At the start of the fifth war, they were the first to go. The statehad deemed them least important, and thus placed our best musicianson the frontlines to bear the flags and swords instead of violins or flutes inthe battlefields of the towns of Nuar, Balruk, and the rest of the first fewtowns in the outskirts of Mon Aman Rhir that were under siege. The Queen waswilling to give those towns up – they were the most unproductive, and thereforedispensable. Besides, they needed the better men from those towns to join thearmy.

It wasa mandate, and anyone who refused in the name of hispassions was led to the guillotine. This was the fate of the first five ofthe state’s best musicians who left their widows and children silenced by thestate under threat of death, should they start a rebellion. This was not thetime for internal political unrest; the higher good of the state wasat stake, they were told. Two weeks into the war, Mon Aman Rhir stillhad the painters, the artisans, and the thespians to spare; thestate had kept its military intact.

As the weeks progressed, there were more widows and fatherless children, as isalways the case during wars. Children, most especially the boys, were told toburn their instruments if they did not want to risk their own lives and be sentto the barracks as errand boys, or worse, to the front lines when they came ofage.

She was told a similar thing by his father, a military man, when heleft to fight long after the artisans had passed on.

He was afraid for her -- he knew she was a brave, spirited girl. This wasalways to her detriment. She did what she wanted, and had no care forpropriety. She did what she thought was not wrong; and among his children, shewas always the one reprimanded the most.

And like always, she could not be stopped and did far more than the small townruckus her father was afraid she might do.

On that fateful day, the troops from the two warring states were positioned inthe fields, waiting for a signal to attack. She knew what was to happen; herfather had told her many stories of this. The heads will parley, and ifnothing good still comes of it, the battle will begin.

As the heads reached the middle, she began to play.

Because there are always no instruments in the battlefield, one of the menbegan to sing. He sang a drinking song and was horribly out of tune. Thesewere the only songs he knew because he had not grown up to lullabies, whatwith his mother having died from childbirth. He normally didn't sing when heand his friends used to drink because, as now, he was always out of tune. Buthe was bursting at the seams, and was compelled to echo the songsthat he used to sing only in his mind.

Yet another one could not help his limbs, for all he cared. He didnot care that he could die dancing; he knew he was a good dancer; and throughall those years he had nursed a deep wound of anger for thisrepression. Should he die that day, he would die with one of thebravest people he had ever seen, a girl of but fifteen years, hethought. And so it was his resolve, the firmest he has ever made in allhis years alive, to die dancing to this girl's playing. As he looked aroundhowever, he saw the ones nearest him begin to clap their hands intime. Yet another soldier joined him. Another one, who came to fight in such adrunken state for all the fear that gripped him when he was sober, searched fora pebble and began to tap his bottle of rum. One by one, the soldiers sang,clapped, danced, wept. Each one dropped their swords; they needed their twohands, after all.

On the other side of the field, the men of Mira Rhir were struck dumb andcould not move; their general eventually gave up screaming countless times atthe top of his lungs to attack.

By the end of the day, thousands lay sprawled on the ground, exhausted from singingand dancing to my great grandmother's war drums.

decoded for, and from the archives of, the Cellist of Sarajevo. 

Leave taking

2011-08-14T01:40:00.006+08:00

He was seven. It was at the orphanage.

He remembers this, years later, as his uncle leaves for work, like most afternoons. He is crouched low on the ground, holding the vial’s mouth towards where his uncle is walking away and proceeds to collect the rustle of dry, brittle leaves crunching underfoot. His aunt is out playing mahjong most days, and the cousins are at school.

He’s lost count. He doesn’t know how many vials he’s collected since that day at the orphanage. The very first one hangs from a chain around his neck, and he has kept it that way since. Too many now, too many of that, he thinks that afternoon. It’s time.

He corks his last one, goes upstairs, locks the door to his room and opens the doors to his closet. People leave all the time, he thinks rather ruefully.  

This family won’t mind; his presence is as good as his absence, and that won’t make too big a difference from all of the other vials he’s amassed. Besides, he’s finished keeping the house squeaky clean for the day, as instructed.

He will look for her, the girl whom he knew by no other name other than that which he gave her, the only one who wasn’t a bully, the only one who heard him speak. She promised to be back when the orphanage director called her in that afternoon; but it was taking her too long.

That was before he found the vial half buried in the sandbox              in the orphanage playground, and he found it such an interesting little piece despite its obvious lack of color that most kids would not pay any attention to. He could put so many different kinds of things in it.   He went looking for her to show her the item.

 He ran away towards the sandbox as soon as he heard the news that was so bluntly delivered to him, right to the spot where, a day earlier, they had been sitting, deep in conversation about heroes and superpowers. He gathered some sand into the vial and thought about her, almost thinking she could will her to come back.  

He shook the vial and that’s when he first heard it.

Yes, he will look for her, he decides. And he will leave. Not go, it won't be like this. Leave. He wants to know the difference, how that would sound like. He is tired. 

He packs his most important belongings. He then sits in the middle of his room. He strains his ears to listen, as the vials ripple, one after the other, the sound of leave taking.

It has been two days since he left. Six months since I first saw him, after ages. Six months of this story repeatedly narrated. He left the necklace. I promised I would find him.

Grandfather Tree

2011-08-07T23:08:00.002+08:00

“I haven’t read you that new story that I wrote about Lolo, have I?” I ask Carlo as we are walking home through our street from a memorial luncheon outside of town one afternoon. “We’ll have to go to my grandfather’s backyard though.”

“Why do we have to go there for this one? Can’t you just have me read it?”

“No, I have to read it aloud; Lolo has to hear it, and he can’t read, remember?”

So we stop by at my Lolo’s old house where I live now, and proceed towards the backyard where my favorite tree stands. We sit on the huge branch on its left side; I take my old notebook out, and begin to read.

“You’re looking a fine green today, hija,” he said as he dragged himself out of the front door and into the porch.

“You should sun yourself here, lolo.”

“Thank you, hija, but I’ve already had my share of the sun earlier,” he replied as he sits on his big chair.

We’d been telling him to use the cane, but he adamantly refused. “What for?” he’d say. “I can walk fine. Besides, I’d want to move around as much as I can, while I can.”

In the past few months, Lolo could hardly bend his joints without taking too much time. If he was in pain, he tried his best not to reveal it. Everyone knew the time for passing was coming; I just didn’t expect to be his witness that afternoon, when I was fifteen.

Things remained normal in our part of town. A friend, fresh from a trip outside the country, was back to selling his trinkets right outside their house. Another neighbor, a very interesting old pair and among our very good friends, had just gotten themselves a cute little pup that they showed me yesterday afternoon when my grandfather and I went to visit. They waved as they passed. The street was littered with people out for a walk on that lazy Saturday afternoon, with the sun was at 4 o’clock.

Most summer days were spent in my grandparents’ house. I preferred their house, even if they lived in the same street as we did. It felt like trip out of town, what with their large house made of the wood of our ancestors, and a huge lawn behind it, with huge trees; and oh, the stories he told, made up or otherwise. These were among the best things I looked forward to in the afternoons. He was a chatty old man, and I loved that about him. In particular I had taken a huge interest in his stories of ghosts. This, he said, were stories of the peoples from the other side of the world. Sometimes, death to them was a rather tragic event, and their souls would live on to stay in some places. I couldn’t imagine the concept in its entirety. I found it such a sad affair for them.

“Do you remember your great-great-grandfather?” he asked me.

“Yes, Lolo. The dining table, yes?” I remember this story well. He’s told me a hundred times, like aging people do, but I loved hearing it over and over.

“That’s right. He stood right beside his wife out in the backyard. But did you know that when your great grandfather asked for permission, not only did he shed his leaves in reply, but so did his wife?”

“And so that’s why they’re both all over the kitchen!”

Lolo fell silent and closed his eyes; then he tilted his head up, craned his neck a bit to listen to the wind.

Some say that when one gets called back to the earth, one hears the earth singing. And it never calls anyone who is alone. I was my grandfather’s chosen witness, and the earth granted his heart’s request.

“I wish to stand beside your grandmother for a few years at least before anyone does anything. Tell your father that, you hear?” he said, as he stood up to walk.

“Where are you going, Lolo?” I asked. Curious as I was at what I knew was about to happen, I still felt a bit of dread.

“Follow me, hija, I’ll show you my last story.” He kept walking towards the back, where my grandmother had been standing for a year now. “Hello there, langga,” he greeted the gmelina tree.

My grandfather took his clothes off; his skin was a very pale green mottled with brown all over, and his joints had turned to bark. It seemed to me a difficult task for him, so I stood to help, but he said, “No, hija, sit there and wait until I hand you my clothes.” Resigned to the role given me, I obliged.

My mother had prepared me early on to know what to do when witnessing a transformation. When he was done, I took his clothes and folded them carefully as he walked towards the spot beside Lola. At most, I expected the transformation to be complete in yet a few days. I had to sit there, Lolo’s clothes beside me, until it was done. My mother would find me there after the house help ran screaming towards our house at 7:30.

I looked up. He said, “Tell your Tito Alex to join the ritual in a few days when I'm done here. Now it’s your turn to tell the stories. Your friend who sells trinkets, what’s his name? He’s a good fellow; maybe you can start telling your stories to him. Now, don’t cry, I’ll grow a sturdy branch for you to sit on.”

He smiled, closed his eyes, and began to take root.

Hangyo: Let Me Go

2011-08-07T20:05:00.002+08:00

Aguy.
Kay gibuawagan bitaw ko sa kagwang.
Ug ako naghuna-huna:
"Kolera, animal, bilat sa yawa."
Nahimo kong diksyonaryo sa mga panungo
May na lang wa ko kumuta sa Ginoo.
Mikamang gikan sa akong tiilan
bagtak, paa, tiyan
dughan, braso, kamot
nawng
ang kabugnaw sa amihan
nga unta lami kaayo
ug wa na dayon ko
malingaw.
Ang mga gangis mingagik-ik.
Mangingilad.
Abi ko'g romantic nga laag.
Nagplano na diay'g makapabungkag sa kaspa,
nga akong kalag mabuak, tapaktapakan
og simpleng: Let me go.
Human sa tunga ka oras nga sermon
sa mga rason
kuyog sa agik-ik
sa bugal-bugal nga mga gangis
ang tubag ko sa iyang mga hangyong ininglis:

Ha?

Hypogeusia

2011-08-07T19:57:00.003+08:00

Two hours later
you may well wonder
what aftertaste hangs there


or worry that you might
have become hypogeutic
for the bittersweet

But I contemplate on the possibility
that all this amnesia
is suppressed haptic memory

For three little words
linger in my mouth
Hesitant to leave

And even if they did
your dyslexic tongue
will not be able to read.

*hypogeusia -- lessened ability to taste






Back to English Poems
Back to Cebuano Poems

An Other Mother

2011-08-07T01:37:00.002+08:00

It is unnatural not to have a pair. Even God gave Mary a husband. Why must the rest be always afraid of the unnatural? 

I think too much, that’s the trouble.

She had these kinds of thoughts whenever she walked. And she loved to walk.

Humans – what a strange, delusional bunch they are to think that the “unexamined life is not worth living”, yet remain unaware of their own strangeness.

The village idiot crossed her path. He was carrying a sack, singing a lost tune from a decade unfamiliar to most people.

He’s singing Odetta!

She stopped to listen, but did not look. 

I wonder if awareness of their strangeness drives them mad.

She started on her path again.

The supermarket must be full of human beings again today. The normal ones can get annoying sometimes.

She lit a cigarette – something that she learned to do a few months after having given birth to a girl. It’s been five months now. She enjoys the habit.

No, the normal ones can get annoying a lot of times. They think they have everything figured out.

“Hi!”

She looked up to see her neighbor, the lady who spread the rumors.

Or everyone, for that matter.

“Hi,” she quipped back as best as she could.

“Where are you off to?”

What do you care.

“Supermarket,” she said instead.

“Meat prices have gone down, you know, you should hurry before they run out,” said the annoying neighbor, wearing her 

perpetually perfunctory looking smile. That must work for her. Whatever works, then.

“Okay.”

“How’s your daughter?” said the neighbor.

Now she looks more sinister.

“At home.”

“So who’s looking after her? Your mother come to visit?” asked the neighbor, who was pretty much the source of the town’s news. Many in the town agree that she works harder than the local paper. 

She knew that she had strict orders to assimilate as subtly as she could, but even in her home base, she was the odd one; which was perhaps why she was sent in to watch the humans – they thought she could assimilate more easily.

I told them, again and again, it’s all the fucking same even in this bizarre body.

She knew she had strict orders not to give anything away. Then again, it was always interesting to be a visitor. The novelty of the first leg of each visit was always inviting. The briefings, the transfer, the planning, and most of all the curiosity and the finding out. Her problem was that it wore off faster than it did for others. The state of discontent. The something’s-always-wrong, the something’s-always-better-out-there that she always kept searching for.

And so now, she knew she had to pack up as soon as she got home, because today, she couldn’t help it:

“She can take care of herself. She makes her own food; she has come to like vegetables like I do, so I don’t really care about the meat prices today. She’s a very independent little thing; leaving her alone in the house isn’t a problem for me, unlike you humans who need company and care in the early stages of life. Her needs are different and I can provide for them efficiently.

“And it would have been a wonderful thing to stay longer and watch her live carrying my last name, unlike your womenfolk who disappear into a middle initial after marriage. But as is the case, I think will have to leave you with nothing else to talk about.

“But come to think of it, if you realize how creative your kind is, you could write stories about me. Try it. I’ll read them from home base. When you get reborn, maybe I’ll visit you. I hope you don’t come back as a cockroach, though, because you might.”

She went, feeling much lighter. I think I’ll get cabbages for Hari today.

Song Sketch: #2

2011-07-11T18:44:00.001+08:00

# 2

I met a knave who gave me
a heart-shaped tart in exchange
for a gander down the street,
kissed me on the cheek
said, I'm sorry
and went off to find a damsel.

Then the caterpillar on a mushroom smoking pot
asked me what my name was
but the letters all got jumbled up
and I'd forgotten what the hell the mirror was for
and I'd forgotten what the hell the mirror was for

Tweedledee came trotting by
and cartwheeled for me.
I clapped in glee
but sooner, see
a cartwheel was all he could do for me
I couldn't be kept by Tweedledee

and then a grin without a cat
asked me what I was at
but I really didn't care;
and I'd forgotten what the hell the mirror was for
and I'd forgotten what the hell the mirror was for

Tweedledum took me by the hand
and sang me a song.
but all the while he just needed an audience
and deemed my thought trains awry
so he shooed me off and sang to himself
under a self-made lamp post

And then the grin without a cat
asked which way I was at
and it scared me that I didn't know;
and I'd forgotten what the hell the mirror was for
and I'd forgotten what the hell the mirror was for

I came across a tea party
where a man in a hat sat
He invited me for a chat
and showed me how to kill a clock
and we got stuck
but the tea was grand and the sun forever at 4 o'clock

And I'd forgotten what the hell the mirror was for
And I'd forgotten what the hell the mirror was for.

History: written and finished in April, 2008

Hybrid

2011-07-11T17:02:00.005+08:00

“To gain success, one must make sacrifices,” the supervisor preached in front of a class of call center trainees. I sit at the back of the class, wondering what the noobs are going to give up first.

I’m up for promotion, and I have to observe classes so I can conduct one myself in two weeks. I remember the first time I stepped in to a class exactly like this. My wife had just given birth; ergo, I needed a better paying job.

The left kidney was the first to go. A synthetic organ with a similar function has replaced it. The company took it, saying that their synthetic organs allow employees to function better and be more efficient at work. I don’t go to the bathroom as often anymore, and I can sit in my cubicle for hours on end.

There’s another reason why I’m sitting at the back of the class. There’s an inconspicuous outlet that I can plug into. I miss the taste of burgers.

Twenty-three

2011-07-02T10:53:00.005+08:00

We say we are afraid of gargantuan monsters, huge beasts. That’s nothing. We can take ‘em down easy, baby.

What you’re really afraid of are the things you can’t see. The little critters. Cockroaches. Rats. The jeepers-creepers that hide under the bed. The monsters you don’t understand. The little feelings that work their way and mess up the wiring in your head, picking just the right wire to nibble on and break and no, you never see it coming. If you do, you never pick up on the timing.

If you think about it, think about it really hard, that’s what you’re afraid of. The things that creep up on you and make you go haywire.

Sometimes you die and it never happens.

I’ve died many times waiting for it. This is my twenty-third. The last time, I tied a belt around my neck and tied the other end to the knob and kicked the door hard. I watched my body being wheeled out from my rented quarters into an ambulance two hours later. Springy neck, it looked like. But how I breathed. Even did a cartwheel; too bad no one could see it.

But every time – every time – something always knocks me unconscious. It happens. 

And then I wake up in a room with white walls and nothing else but me. I go outside. I go back home. Nothing’s changed. Every time. 

Ugly Children

2011-06-30T09:21:00.006+08:00

My children have grown to become ugly. Larger left eye, bodies too small. Asymmetry can be beautiful, but not this time. They have not a bit of saving grace. 

I had to kill the darlings. The bedroom floor is a graveyard of disappointingly deficient, dismembered dead darlings. I have tried to create more of them to compensate for the lack of charm of all the others, but they’re monsters, all of them. They always turn out to be ugly. They all do.

I wonder, now, if the stitches for this one other creature are seamless enough. I no longer have enough of myself to create new ones, and I must make do with what the bedroom floor offers. I am waiting for lightning on my rooftop; it’s so hard to come by these days, seeing as even the sky is bored out of its wits, beaming the sunshine or the soft light of stars that is expected of it. But isn’t lightning light too?

A Pen Tip...

2011-06-04T07:44:00.003+08:00

A pen tip
Dances on white sheets
In the name of the patella
That perpetually threatens to dis
Locate itself
But it knows that
The Pen knows how to Pirouette,
To leap to the next line
Perfectly in time
Dancing to the music of the rhyme
And the cadence of
the meter -- The percussions to which
a poem gyrates
into a rhumba
the way legs re-imagine
Serpentine cursive writing on the dance floor
the writhing stories of love
Torsos and arms speaking in tongues
Or whispering, as if the ballet of the wind
With toe shoes tracing tear drops Like
ink from pens in the hands
Of people who can no longer dance
Because dreams and bodies both can break and rust
But because a soul must fly when it must,
it cries ink blots in bed
And writes poetry instead.


Back to English Poems
Back to Cebuano Poems

To the foreigner who said that we are tree climbing monkeys:

2011-05-31T06:38:00.002+08:00

Come on,

If you're so much better than me and my kind,

Can't you come up with something fresher and more novel than that? It's so cliché.

I mean, we've been tree climbing monkeys for ages already!

Well, considering your inexplicable need to dial a toll free number to call us half way round the world

To assist you in closing the windows on your screen and not the ones to your house,

No, you are a waste of neurons and flesh, incapable of concocting a more venomous retort than "tree climbing monkeys."

Oh yes, I am proud to belong to a nation of tree climbing monkeys

At least I'm sure I belong somewhere that's not a nation built by runaways!

Yes, I am a tree climbing monkey

Who will not panic should McDonald's disappear from the face of the earth

Because I will always have a banana

And I can cook it a hundred and one ways

And I'd be the last to perish from hunger.

Yes, I am a monkey

Even the chinese kung fu artists call upon my spirit to guide them like Bruce Lee

And therefore, all the tree climbing monkey tambays from Sitio Mahayahay to Barangay Mabuhay can Mabuhay your pale ass bye-bye…

I daresay I will be among the lucky

if there were a tsunami,

because I'd be up swinging in my tree in the boondocks

Hoo-hoo-haa-haa-ing at you

While you get wiped out first.

Sketch: Gossamer

2011-05-20T00:07:00.001+08:00

My gossamer love

You are stuck in spaces

We used to visit.

Visions of Sunday TV

And mendicancy in overpasses

At sunset

And sidewalk 3-in-1

And the architecture of the city,

Yes,

You are right,

This is a pilgrimage

And I say Hallelujah.

Song sketch: Amsterdam

2011-05-07T13:21:00.000+08:00

Interpol is playing in Amsterdam
Weeds grow free in Amsterdam
God why is everything in Amsterdam?
God why is every every thing in Amster --

daaaaamn?

(LoL. I might finish this.)

11:30 pm

2011-04-11T13:12:00.001+08:00

Tonight,
like all other nights,
I will be greeted by a creaking gate
and a cat resembling an abandoned rug
thrown out on the street side --
it isn't even mine.
A creaking door,
A creaking bed.
Everything suddenly creaking
a dim lit house refusing to be disturbed from sleep;
as I arrive straight from work.
The sheets frown from the previous nights
of my useless tossing
while five pillows pretend to be limbs
around my waist
Some nights, they become real limbs --
I risk it,
even if men think like men like

She's just crazy
just drunk
just horny
just scheming
just cunning

but I don't care about undeserved adjectives,
or assembling comprehensible explanations
to dispel these baseless opinions --
I'm just too tired.
At least there still enough sanityto use for work the next day.

So I continue walking anyway
through the shadows of the swaying branches
past cats slinking away into the hedges
through the cranky, creaking gate
past the flickering of a dying light bulb
to wait for sleep
the knight in shining armor,
and its perennial late arrival.
I make dinner.
I take the tall chair from the counter
Tie a flowery apron around it.
Call it Mother.

Back to English Poems

Back to Cebuano Poems

The Orange Clown Fish

2011-03-30T12:00:00.000+08:00

The orange clown fish
living in dirty water
in a plastic cup
stood still, tilted,
thirty degrees away
from floating flat on the surface
and lamenting
why its fins were too short
to slit its own throat.

- Nov 3, 2009

CR

2011-03-30T11:59:00.000+08:00

Nagtago ko sa CR
kay diri, mingaw. Hayahay.
Duna ko'y kaugalingong trono.
Tigdumala ko sa mga tiles
nga di mutubag, di musukol
Kung duno'y uk-uk mulabay
pwede rang magukod ug mapatay.
Ug kung duna'y mga kaligotgot,
mahimo ra'ng i-utot sa kalimot.

- September 13, 2009, Turtles Nest

Reprise: Artist Ka...na pud

2011-03-27T13:07:00.005+08:00

(decoded for THAT ODDITY.)

”Dawata kini ug kan-a”
Matod pa niya --
sa iyang blog
nga nagsabwag
og pagdayeg sa iyang ego
(nga mas dako pa sa iyang talento)
Ug nangluwa og pagpanghinaway
ug si Inday
ningkuyog pud sa mga kalalakin-an
sa ilang pagdiskurso ug pagpamisti
aning tawng feeling-utokan.

Sayop, sayop, sayop.
Nganong ningpatol man ko’g

Buang?

Buang nga
sa iyang gidumala nga pwerteng gamayang kalibutan
siya LANG mao'y ehemplo sa kamaayo --
kanang "kamaayo"
nga kung dili tagdon
mangluod
ug mangita'g sayop sa la-ing taw
daw ginoo
nga nasayod sa tanang katuyuan
sa mga manghalaray og mugna
bisa’g di pa ka magsaba –

Ang tanan, nawng og kwarta, gawas niya.

Nasayod siya sa mga kalisod sa tanang musikero
Daw ginoong Hesu Kristo
nga iwag sa dalan mo,
Amen, Amen, Amen,
tig-ila og unsa'y nindot
tig-ila og unsa'y ma-ot
kay mura man gud ka'g wa'y utok
Maong siya na lang kuno'y

musakripisyo
apan una sa tanan
kinahanglan

Makahibaw ang kalibutan
sa iyang
mga kaantosan

una siya magpalansang
aron matarong tang tanan

(Pastilan
Wa man gud masayod si dodong
nga ang kalahian
tali sa iya
ug sa mga taw nga iyang gibombahan

mao ang kasayuran
nga kung muhalad ta'g minugna
alang sa kalibutan,
muhalad ta
nga nagduko.

Wa pud siya kaamgo
nga,
tinuod,
maglagot ta usahay
sa unsa’y di ma-ato.)

Pero lagi
Makapang "hahay" na lang ta ani
kay bisa'g unsa-on ko'g yawit nganhi
ang Buang
duna'y kaugalingong kalibutan
di marasonan
di matandog
kay siya man
mao'y
Ginoo
Kay matod pa’s Nestle
”Sa mata ng Buang, siya ang tama”
ug para niya
pildi ang tanang mupili
nga maghilom.

Mao'ng karon,
sa kahilom
Dawaton ta ning tanan og kan-on
kay mao kini ang lawas ug dugo
sa atong halangdong manluluwas
gikan sa kabati sa radyo ug komersyalismo
Mangluhod kita
kay mao iyang gusto
Mag-ampo kita
kay mao kuno'y sakto

Kita,
Mupadayon lang ta’g mugna
Ayaw’g tingog, ayaw’g saba
Kay oras nga kita makalupad nga wa siya’y labot
Mahimo tang maka-ingon
Ni-a ra

Dawata na.
Usapa.
Kan-a.

p.s
sayop pud iyang spelling sa "kunting pagtingin."

On: Burning

2011-03-13T20:30:00.000+08:00

(a birthday performance-poem for lunaisla)

Now, burn.

Burn baby, burn.

Burn baby burn like the fire in your wild hair
Burn baby burn the way you never cared
Burn baby burn and let them stop and stare
Burn baby burn the house down everywhere
Burn baby burn like a rocket to the moon
Burn baby burn like a wedding in June
Burn like you do as if you were dying soon
Burn so hot like a trip hop tune
Burn like the stars and the sun on supernova
Burn like as beneath the oceans as far as your tank can take ya
Burn like a surfer in a barrel in Lanuza
Burn baby burn because 30's just a number

Burn baby burn like a revolution down at EDSA
Burn like a person worse than a motherfucker (whatever that means)
Burn like a sizzling bass riff from Esperanza
Burn baby burn like a legendary banda
Burn baby burn just like a one-hit wonder
Burn baby burn because 30's just a number

Burn baby burn baby soul on fire
Burn baby burn baby soul on fire
Burn baby burn baby soul on fire
Burn because when you were born, you were born on fire.

- Feb. 26, 2011

Something that has to do with "panahon" (JM Cortes Acut)

2011-03-13T20:24:00.000+08:00

(a birthday poem for lunaisla)

Magnanakaw ang panahon, langga
kamalayan, karanasan, kabataan:
Paunti-unti, uuntiin ka
ng namamalayan mong katahimikan
ng sampu, labindalawa, tatlumpu. Ngunit,

iba tayo, langga.
kumakati ang paa sa kaluluwa
sa lahat ng pumapagitna
sa malungkot' masaya,
kamangmanga't kaalamat at, oo,
libinga't kapanganakan.

Iba tayo, langga
dahil mananakaw man ang panahon,
tayo lang ang malilikot
na nakapagnanakaw sa kanya.

-- Feb 26, 2011

Bunch of Nonsense (Alex Uypuangco)

2011-03-13T20:20:00.000+08:00

(a nonsensical birthday poem for lunaisla)

Obsessed by possession
Possessed by obsession
Damn the situation
Situate the damnation

(and this is all I can remember from the paper that I lost after I typed in everything and lost the screen. aarg.)

What's that in the bodega in the back of your head?

2011-03-08T00:45:00.003+08:00

decoded for, and from the archives of, Parker and Rabidcat, and the lost boys of Neverland.

What's that in the bodega in the back of your head?
Rummage the shoebox for photos of a past long dead --
Dead cat, rat, the ex, the best friend
Memory, debris
Anything left
the last thing that made you
excited and giddy
like a five-year-old en route to the carnival
to see
elephants.

What's that in the bodega in the back of your head?
A junkyard of mnemonics for your timeline of events:
Pencils and a pad, a car metal wreck,
a pair of ballet shoes long abused by neglect
Post-it poems from the greybeards
and the souls you'd love to keep
from the quaint little café down the street
Cigarette butts from conversation with friends
that have dwindled to monosyllables and so much left unsaid

What's that in the bodega in the back of your head?
Useless piles of keepsakes and letters unsent
Receipts for sins paid for with days, hours, long seconds
Lengthy lists of debts and regrets
your heart isn't willing to forget
yet

What's that in the bodega in the back of your head?
A catnip love and one night stands
Assmeblage of lips, limbs, torsos, hands, fingers
counting down the hours left
Till the Next
and in between liminality and dream
these twilit scenes
whitewash melancholy and grief
with a clink! and a cheers! and a glug-glug-glug
a hey-yo! and Hi-Ho, it's off to fucking work we go

What's that in the bodega in the back of your head?
Broken clocks and wangled time
Saturday-Sunday yours mine
make it out drunken-alive
after cerebral spelunking for shiny poem-fragments
now rotting beneath the alphanumeric static
Look, the Monday motherfuckers are at it
Again
Marching to the tune of the photocopier machine
Slip into the swivel chair and forget the fucking dream scene

Yeah, yeah, I just been to the bodega in the back of my head and I rummaged, remembered, and cried laughed and bled because I took the broken beer bottles with interesting shapes and I in-laid them on skin and I made fucking mosaic, I rearranged flotsam and jetsam and objét trouvés cause someone said I'm a bricolage so I tried an artwork called the self because

I really
need
to get
from
Nowhere
to
Now Here

I'd like to believe I'm getting near

Go be melancholic melodramatic tearjerky addict,
I'll forgive you, I don't care
What I'm trying to say is, it's all right to leave the keys
hanging there on the doorknob to the bodega in your head
Don't lock it, go inside

Remind yourself:
You never were the walking dead.

Dance

2011-02-19T20:52:00.001+08:00

One should dance

If one must.

Bones can grow old

Or rot

Or break.

And so can dreams.

Poem sketch: (untitled)

2011-02-09T14:29:00.003+08:00

Surf on ocean soul again

I could

As orcas do

like I was told

Waves like boats that ferry men across

boundaries

I wonder

What things surface

To surprise me

Endlessly

The vastness and depth

Unsettle

And astound

How the unknown always

Invites

Surf on ocean soul again,

I could

Would oceans permit but

then again

how many times

have these waves born

the burden

of impetuous cyclones

and remaining

relentlessly

ever larger

ever more vast

than the violence

of this southern wind --

that ever effortless

constant readiness

for diving rain

even as clouds begin

to lose

patience

repeatedly

Song sketch

2010-11-19T19:05:00.001+08:00

And knowing your accepting silence
I am recklessly honest and brave

Tinidor

2010-09-07T13:24:00.004+08:00

Pagkatagak sa tinidor ni Judelyn,
nakahinumdum siya sa sa gi-ingon
sa iyang mga tiya nga ulay:
Duna'y laking mubisita.

Sakto, kay nagpaabot man pud siya
sa iyang ka-eyeball
ma-ong mipadayon na lang siya'g ka-on.

Mamalihog na lang unya siya'ng Kanor
nga mukuha'g tinidor
sa counter.
Padayon lang usa siya
sa pagmantinir sa nabilin nga kutsara
samtang nagka-on og bangus
kay mura'g mu-abot na man pud tong taw
ta-ud ta-od.

Womb Lyrics: Good

2010-08-28T01:58:00.005+08:00

(decoded for, and from the archives of palesuperstar)

So where in there do I no longer fit in?
Absence of a void's by far the hardest wound to heal
Tell me how much sorrier must I get
I am the regret, I regret

Goodbye, some other lifetime
You and I, alone and tired

Oh God, I tried
I've been good this year
Lord, I tried, I've been good this year

So where in here do you no longer fit in?
Pardon greed, but if for you how I would gladly sin
Transient conveniences benefit this thankless wretch
As you fade into my regret, I regret

Goodbye, some other lifetime
You and I, alone and tired

Oh God, I tried
I've been good this year
Lord, I tried, I've been good this year

So where in there do I no longer fit in?
Periphery is but a town's outskirts where I once lived
And here I try to hitch a ride back home
But sepia-colored U-Turns haunt the street sides as I go

Goodbye, mechanical and yet
Goodbye, rehearsed these lines and yet
Goodbye, mechanical and yet
Goodbye, mechanical and yet

Oh God, I tried, I've been good this year
Oh Lord, I tried, I've been good this year
I've been good this year
I've been good this year
I've been good this year
I've been good this year

Womb Lyrics: 30th and 1st

2010-08-28T01:55:00.005+08:00

(decoded for, and from the archives of Isla Luna)

We don't require talk
I lost and found myself on 30th and first
You know this well
We don't require talk
I understand the mechanisms of a triangle

But when you catch fireflies
hold them close and let them fly
When you catch fireflies
let them go, else let them die

Moonlight falling
Bursting into amber light
This is how you hold a moon beam: fireflies
It touches you and shies away
Magic and it doesn't stay

We don't require talk
We steal time, we come and go
Moments rain like ember
What this love is made of

Artist Ka

2010-08-22T14:08:00.005+08:00

Artist ka.

Kita-na man gud tikang nangape nga nag-inusara,
tulo na ka tasa imong nahurot,
nagbasa og
Paulo Coelho
nagsuwat og poems sa tisyu sa Coffee Dream.

Kit-an pud tikang nagdrowing-drowing
sa kinangitngitang dapit
nga gisigahan lamang og lampara
niadtong birtdey ni Mak-Mak.
Mitungha ka,
apan wa gyud ka'y gitagad
samtang ang mga taw nagbarag-barag na
sa kahubog sa Tanduay ug sa sige'ng kinatawa
ug sige'g storya'g binotbot ug gira.

Artist gyud ka.

Artist ka
Kay nagsul-ob gud ka'g T-shirt nga
"Starving Artist"
kay di ka magpabuhi sa imong mama
"I want to drive a point, bai" asoy mo pa
human mo'ng nanukar sa Outpost
Thursday'ng dako
hayag ang buwan, wa'y taw
gawas sa mga baristang nagduka
ug matod mo pa,
"di pa kasabot ang mga taw sa Cebu"

Apan kasabot gyud ko nimo.

Artist ka
Kay kibaw ka mutan-aw og unsa'y bati.
Tanan bati,
gawas sa imong hinimo.

Magkat-on na ko nimo.

Kay daghan ka'g gitudlo
sa imong blog
nga gihinganla'g "Mor pa, Artist Gyud Ko"
kung diin imong gipamilit
imong mga pinintal ug mga balak nga wa gyud tagda
sa mga tawng wa ka-amgo
nga maayo gyud ka tinuod

Maong mutagad gyud ko nimo

bahala'g maghubog ka sa Handuraw nga nag-inusara
nagyamyam sa mga pulong ni Shakespeare
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds
or bends with the remover to remove, Oh no..."

Mutagad gyud ko nimow

bahala'g lago imong hitsura
ug wa'y sama sa kama-ot imong panagway,
ug napuno'g pintal imong karsones,
ug nagbawn ka's imong sinuwatan nga mga tisyu
ug nagtukar ka ginamit imong liking gitara daplin's dalan Colon
ug nagtanga'g ka'g hugaw nga brush
ug naglingo-lingo ka'ng nag-atang sa pultahan kung diin duna'y gig
kay bati, bati, bati, lagi bati
ug naghuwat ka'g higayon nga ma-siga-an og spotlight
imong Underground nga Art

Managad gyud ko nimo

Ug Isinggit ko taman sa makaya sa akong mubong ginhawa
gikan sa kina-ilawman sa akong kasingkasing
Musiyagit ko hangtod makadungog
ang tibuok Pardo padung JY
hangtod mabuhi ang mga patay sa Busay
Musiya-ok ko hangtod akong tila-ok mupitok na lang
Hangtod nga gi-atay na la'y kuwang
Hangtod nga madunggan ko sa Fuente
ug hangtod ang mga kwaknit maka-iti og stapler

"Lagi! Lagi! Artist na lagi ka, lagi!"

2010-05-17T00:34:00.003+08:00

From the tiresome thousand miles
smiles arrive at midnight.
Teeth upon teeth
gnashing shoreline
in a mad rush to greet.
It is time,
and I await
the narrowing of sand
between me and sea
and the welcome
of waves
come to
collect
me.

Working Title: Haunting

2010-05-09T15:20:00.002+08:00

Lovely wench,
you remember?
The one you took to bed
intermittently
you took and ravished
into beautiful
premature birth.
And piled my fragments on a canvass:
assemblage of lips and limbs.

I had to sew
myself back
together,
boys,
each night,
to spin another
cocoon
bound to be unfinished --

Plasticware

2010-04-13T15:30:00.001+08:00

She remembers how her mother
always used that particualar yellow tupperware
when making salad
for her birthday parties that were mostly attended
by her mother's friends
now while she stands in the kitchen
cooking dinner
looking down at the onions
she cries over
and wonders why onions
make her cry
more than they did
her drunkard grand aunt
who made such savory chicken tinola
in her clay pots.
She drops her onions
and chunks of her chicken breast
into her non-stick pot
for that tinola she laboriously makes for her
husband waiting in the living room
tired from work
who complains, almost every time
she cooks the tinola
that there's something so odd about the food
that she places in cheap-ass microwavable plastic ware,
something not quite right --
and then a fear grips her,
even with the knowledge that it may be ridiculous
it grips her
then and there
that maybe, just maybe
some of the tears
and the plastic from her SunNex laddle
and the microwavable plastic bowl
has seeped into
the soup.

Song lyrics: Aftertaste

2010-03-19T18:11:00.003+08:00

There are 3 little words in my mouth that you can't taste
3 little words in my mouth that you can't take
I can feel the beer and everything it's erased
each word fading away

Your whim is not a need
and I shut down my greed

And in the morning
I render numb the tongue that asks for an encore

There are 3 little words in my mouth that wouldn't leave
3 little words your dyslexic tongue can't read
At sunrise as you ask to be excused:
Aprés nous, le deluge.

And in the morning
I render numb the tongue that asks for an encore

Song Sketch: Paumanhin

2010-03-19T12:11:00.001+08:00

Tumitiklop
ang di marunong humingi ng paumanhin
Iniiyakan
ang di maintindihan
Takot magtanong
at baka masaktan
sa pagsampal ng katotohanang
matagal nang nalalaman

Limos ninyong pasensya'y
patak ng ulan sa tagtuyot
Salamat at
dito
di ko
kailangang sumagot
ng tanong
Paumanhin
sa abala, sa aberya
Namumulubi po sa pag-unawa

Paikot-ikot nang kinukuwento
Ipaalam lang kung kayo'y nahihilo't
Ibababa kayo
Pasensya na, mahina ang kalaban
Pasensya na, kahinaan

kailangan ko pa bang magpaliwanag
Parang awa, ako'y nauutal
Kailangan ko pa bang magpaliwanag
Parang awa, parang awa

Song Lyrics: Skin

2009-09-07T11:02:00.005+08:00

Your flesh: the graveyard of desire
I buried inside your mouth
a pearl from the sweat
I caught from down your neck

Weren't we satisfied
Weren't we alive

Underneath the shirts I stole:
the closest to your core
Shadows playing on skin:
the closest to a touch
A fleeting glance: a fading epitaph
Your flesh: the graveyard of desire

Weren't we satisfied
Weren't we alive

I can only play it in my head

Song Sketch: a capella (late posting)

2009-08-31T10:01:00.003+08:00

Dazzle me dizzy in a cloud of golden dust
Even left overs of you are amazing.
Zip through the city looking for what
After all these years, I barely know
After all these years, I barely know

Dazzle me dizzy in a cloud of golden dust
A bursting of fireflies in the air that you touch
Zip through the city looking for what
After all these years, I still don't know
After all these years, I still don't know

And as you shoot up in the sky:
A fireworks display.
And shards of you come raining down:
A bloody snowfall on my hands.

I will watch you supernova today.

(For my Cheshire Cats)

Little Ms. Santa

2009-08-03T14:24:00.003+08:00

What once
held your clothes
and my pieces
of meaningful junk
now harbors
purchases
of fancy lotions
and trinkets
neatly wrapped
by the lady
at the giftwrapping counter
for me to open
as presents
come December.

Gobbledeegook

2009-07-31T09:39:00.002+08:00

Gobbledeegook does the trick
if you can't fine print
the Tuesday after Monday
after Monday
on the supposedly
important 3pm
in the airconditioned room
of your life
where you waste time
on numbering remaining days
and forget
how far the hands have ticked
around the clock
over and over
tirelessly
over the 12 and 1 and 2
and even if you count the miles
you can only conclude
that the clock
has been stuck
where your mother
hung it.

Pordoy

2009-07-02T18:13:00.002+08:00

(Read once during a performance show of XO? in Tapas. Final draft lost. This work going through re-writing.)

It wasn't just the one-peso coins jangling in his pocket, as he crisscrossed through smog and selfish tinted car windows on the highway frozen traffic.

It wasn't just the holes in the woman's shoes with her red swollen puss-filled feet.
It wasn't just the melodramatic visions of squalor and vagrancy in the skywalks of Robinson's Mall or Escario St.
It wasn't just the sooty darkness of old man Colon
It wasn't just all these as I shambled through the streets.

It wasn't just lips flapping for a sale of DVD's and smuggled puppies
and barbecue or China-phones
It wasn't just a whisper in your ear
selling you a steal.
It wasn't just the card reader on the sidewalk
who says you'll die on Thursday so be careful
It wasn't just all these as I shambled through the streets.

God-forsaken
XYZ 123 Generations
you did not choose your histories.
It all just is.

We were told by the baby boomers
we can be all we want to be
but nobody could foresee we would also be

he who sat on the porch of a house-cum-cafe
who watched people shuffle through and about the doorway
laughing, drinking, talking, eating, laughing
he, compromise-tired,
dream rotting in the bodega at the back of his head
thinking: phony.

she who spoke of space
while running in a rat race
and talked to strangers along the way
as she searched for a man who would not run away
just because she was headstrong, wisdom-poor, 24

he who stood alone under a lamppost
and furtively climbed a different car every night
to pay a debt incurred to live and live a dream

she who drank a beer
night after night
said hi to cat
and fell asleep
waking up to 6 photocopies of Monday

she whose varicose veins must've been
the map of her dreams
brewed over 6729 packed lunches
who screamed three decades of Hail Marys instead of Mayday
and watched the TV then cried until 3.

But it isn't just all these
and what it really is
and what it really is
and what it fucking really is
is that it just is

like that scene in Magnolia
dead frogs raining
it just is

like this stupid girl rambling
you've no choice here but to listen
because she's ripping
the phrase: it just is.

God-forsaken
XYZ 123 Generations
you did not choose your histories.
It all just is.

And we pay for
the age old error
of the Brown ones
bowing down,
Leading to these mosaic selves
of the Mangyan and MTV
Jo's Inato and KFC
Cebuano literature and call center industry
poverty of positivity
poverty of identity
poverty of wisdom
poverty of choice for some
or many
Poverty of mind
Poverty of heart
Poverty of soul

It all just is.
The 6.7 Billion population statistic.
Children of these God-given circumstance
we're not so magically blessed

So tonight
we lose our magic
and we will admit to ourselves what everyone already knows:
There's really nothing going on here
that it's just your beer
that it's just a talking girl
that at the stroke of 3am
this bar's a brightly lit empty carousel.

Isn't the world so.

Sketch no. 17

2009-07-01T18:04:00.001+08:00

Highway Styx at six am is like this:
coffins with tinted glass
glistening under sunrise
all lined up in lanes --
the daily traffic procession.

All men die in haste.

Latagaw (II)

2009-06-27T16:49:00.005+08:00

Naanad ra ko sa akong
barotong wa'y angkla:
Magpa-anud
bisa'g gisungog na sa su'g
kay dako ra man ko'g pagsalig
sa katig
sa akong baroto.

Ug sa panahon
nga ang dagat
dili saputon,
nga mubawos kini og pahiyom
ngadto sa adlaw o sa buwan
kay gidayan-dayan
sa langit
iyang nawng
og mga alindahaw,
akong baroto
malipayon
nga makig-cha cha
sa mga gagmay'ng bawod
nga muhatod
kanamo padung
sa bisan'g asa.

Naanad ra ko sa akong
barotong wa'y angkla
nga karon gidagit padung
sa imong lungsod,
nga karon naglutawlutaw
dapit sa imong pantalan
samtang gihangop mo ang paglatagaw ko
sa mga makatintal mong eskina.

Apan naanad gyud ko
sa akong barotong wa'y angkla.
Wa ko'y salig ana'ng inyong
kanunay'ng gamug-ot nga yuta.

This is God on a Sunday Morning

2009-06-11T13:39:00.009+08:00

In Sunday's good graces,
we are home in the profound
once-a-week hope
in the inexistence of Mondays
for here is God
in the falling of soft Sunday light on drying white linen
dripping
with clear water from the poso of your childhood.
God is here
in your holy patch of gutter
that others must kiss before entering barefoot
from whence you feel
deep breaths in the spaces between cars en route to the sea side
and where
you lose the count for perpetual last sticks
and lose the need for yet another.
God is here
in jeepneys on a trot
in the use of slippers and sidewalks
in staying without waiting.
God is in your light backpack
with everything in it
and in pavements,
mottled with tree-leaf shadows,
telling time.
And finally,
in front of late night weekend tv,
in the crook of someone's arm,
there, as you are sleeping
deeply inhaling
reveling in
the scent
of freshly laundered shirts.

Sketch no. 16

2009-06-02T19:32:00.005+08:00

It happens --
another reminder of life
that I neither
discredit nor disregard.
And because it does not matter to you to do so,
I am keen
on the details
of pain.
My skin
thin
transparent as that
of jellyfish.
I mind
sea urchin pricks
when they do.
I watch the engraving
of a point
impressed by the tip
of a black spine,
the surrounding skin
being sucked in
like cosmic things
converging around an impending
black hole;
that small point
rupturing inward,
and the spine sliding
its way
into the flesh
quick and quiet
first before
the spine slides out,
with everything,
with a scream
that pierces back,
articulate
clear.
raw
rebellious
red.
a scream in the name
of all other
screams
like yours,
ironed
and dressed in slacks
and business casual

Friends on a Tuesday, 6:30 pm

2009-04-08T17:13:00.002+08:00

with no beer
nor cigarettes,
Too early for
My street bodhisattvas to have lost faith this Tuesday
because the stars have rewritten their dharma
without prior notice,
a punch to the gut
the way an eviction note does
stapled on your door;
and the samsara of hopeful dreaming,
moving,
and despairing
is becoming
boring,
a colorful
brightly lit
empty
carousel.

Back to English Poems

Back to Cebuano Poems

2009-03-18T11:15:00.002+08:00

Reclusion perpetua
in The senseless Noise
of Mondays
is the penalty
for the silence
and complacence
of the ghosts
in the battlefield
of your head.

Back to English Poems

Back to Cebuano Poems

(Attempting tagalog in something addressed to self)

2009-03-06T18:39:00.006+08:00

Heto na.

Kakaladkarin ko na
ang mga demonyong
nag-iinuman
sa gilid ng aking kama
kada
alas dos ng umaga.

May lalabas na anino
sa aking ulo
mamaya
na tatarak
ng matatalim na salita
sa kanilang mga leeg;
na paparatangan silang
ungas, tanga, bobo, mga putang ina
na bubulyaw ng alipusta,
sisigaw at hahagulgol
hanggang kumalabog ang mga yabag sa papel
at umug-og ang sahig at mga pader
hanggang pumutok ang salamin
at may matibo sa bubog
at mga tenga'y duguin,
at ang tanan ay balinguynguyin

Dadanak ang tinta
na pipigain mula
sa kanilang mga
lamang loob
at walang makapagrereklamo
nitong kakalagang inis
na parang nagngingitngit at umuungol
na asong ulol
May makakatikim ng
rabies ng galit
na sa iilang saglit
ay kakapit
ng pagkahigpithigpit
sa puting watawat
na nakaturok
sa parang ng utak.

Lady Fire

2009-03-05T12:00:00.003+08:00

Some of us were fire, before we were humans, I think.
There is something pure about burning
that draws us to it.
There is a truth in that scream
in the moment of scorching.
All these things that are "in-between" --
these gardens unseen
these corners in a clock while the rest of the world is sleeping
we burn our skins
in these baptisms
in extremes of want and hurt
and we say, I've been there
through it and back.
Something about stupid adventuring
yet adventuring it is still.
Something about the havoc
and anachronism in our histories --
the secret lover,
the significant another-other,
or after false claims of straightness,
the B to B, or G to G.
The feeding
of that fire
to spread with all selfish intents,
like a Hun, razing towns
in his path to the ground
Sparing no one.
Claiming his share
in this holocaust of desire.
That act of dreamy claiming,
whereas in waking we compromise.
And like you against a fire,
ages of stories and poems after,
you still can't put your finger
on it.
Your what-is-it-about-my-fresh-eyes
question that lingers, isn't it?

Song Sketch: Sample X

2009-03-02T17:47:00.002+08:00

There's my heart up the flagpole
Pale and drained

Pull it down and fold it now
or not --
it's raining formalin
it's raining formalin
we'll be safe

No is fine
My father taught me how
to swallow
bitter gourd

Pull me down and fold me now
or not --
it's raining formalin
it's raining formalin
we'll be safe
we'll be safely dead

Penniless Alien

2009-01-31T15:19:00.002+08:00

E.T.
phoning home
collect

Sketch no. 15

2009-01-28T17:08:00.001+08:00

She sings in sepia tones
Her photos are in black and white
She thinks in tissue poetry
inked with coffee
The late blue hour sags from
under her eyes:
you know she's going to die.
Flowers have grown
where your tears have fallen.
And as your conversations
dwindle to monosyllables
You learn how to wave
like a one-year old.

Boarding House

2009-01-21T17:24:00.005+08:00

Another room has been
vacated
down the run down
shack of rented
quarters where beds have replaced
other beds that have had mattresses
replaced by other mattresses
on which limbs
and torsos and butts
have replaced other twisting
torsos, limbs and butts.
Light bulbs (replaced by other bulbs
screwed and unscrewed in sockets)
sleep at sun up
flicker at
sun down
rapid, trying hard
to blink, to light
and the only words they know are

Good night good night good night goodnight
sleep tight, tomorrow work right, good night night night night
night good make night good

in whispers wider than the silence of ghosts
hiding behind the trees in the lawn
wider than the wind rustling through the house
wider than the cold upon these sprawled, naked, outstretched, catatonic arms at midnight
wider than the cold touching the skin of your glazed eyes
wider than the cold,
wider than the cold,
wider than how this cold feels like.

Dreamscape Haiku

2008-12-30T08:37:00.000+08:00

My vomit
squirmed on white paper:
upturned slugs

Narrative no. 2

2008-12-08T18:50:00.004+08:00

(draft found in the garbage bin, created Oct '07)

Two mornings in a row, I woke up, heart heavy; the thought of another day is a noose on the neck of my spirit, and the whole day I am a walking carcass with a perfunctory smile doing perfunctory service to the day's hopeful unemployed lot who walk in at the recruitment hub of the call center I work in, so come on down and file your applications, join the bandwagon of the new Beat-up Generation of workhorses whose calendars rattle empty. There is not much to do in the office, except bounce off the walls, the ceiling, the floor, from 8am to 5pm, or from 12 noon to 9pm depending on the day's assigned schedule, a cloud of to-do's and paper in every space I've been, while the spirit shambles after the body. For two mornings, I've woken up with a heart giving in to gravity.

* * *

My brother's profile is that of graphics, pen, and ink. If I could draw him, vectors would crawl on his skin and limbs, and he would wear them for clothes, and whenever this happens, he sheds off sleep and is up all hours transferring the cosmos on 8 inches by 11 inches of space, images that only his bloodshot eyes would see and admire. Sun up, and I find he has worn the night on him, his eyes open, REMing in graphic dreaming, a drawing addict magnificently exploding surreality on papers of all kinds with a cheap-ass 5-peso black Uni ballpen as black as the night that he wears, as black as the hope that he carries, hope that the never ending road trip he takes on paper will feed the desperate pangs of hunger for something he knows he deserves in a wrecked future, and he drowns this painful hunger with a stick of Hope under the 6am sun for a moment of luxurious dreaming that he is sitting on an office chair, printing on shirts all his dreams for people to wear.

* * *

In one of my brother's paper road trips, I found his spirit wandering through the circus of ink lines and shadows – a nameless, gray, morose, emaciated character in a striped jail suit, hands tied down by ball and chain. Although my brother is 3 years my junior, this aimless character looked to be 20 years older, imprisoned for a crime I have yet to find out, so I approached him because I wanted to meet him and see what he was thinking. And the first thing he tells me is, 'I'm tired.' 'So am I', I answer back, and when I looked into his eyes, they were entirely black, and although he looked as if he were in a perpetual lachrymose state, his tears seemed as tired to come out as he was. So we both walked to the most comfortable and nearest vector to sit on (which was a sun-like, ferris wheel-like thing propped up by a curling vine-like vector) and we sat for about 5 minutes, staring at the dreamy shapes beneath our feet in a silence so profound and intense and unbearable that unconsciously every ten seconds, I held my breath as we both dived in this despair, and finding that I could not take another second without air, frantic swimming would push me up bursting at the surface of the moment for another breath of what air my lungs can take.

'What are you in for?' I finally inquired while I was staring at his feet swinging from the edge of the vector.

'I put your brother to sleep too much,' he said. 'And your father got so angry every time I did it.' And I said yeah, I remember whenever my father got mad at us, our spirits scampered like rats leaving us death-like. 'But not me. One time, when your brother was small, I showed him caped crusaders and villains, but while we were still building our own Gotham (which we thought we'd name something else), a brick flew off my hands and scratched your father's car, just a little, really, but that worked him up, and before I knew it, there was a glass wall between your brother and I, and I saw your father slap him.'

'What was my father's car doing in your Gotham?'

'I don't know. It's your brother's fault your father's there where we are most of the time, he calls him up albeit unconsciously even though he doesn't like him being there.'

* * *

To be continued

Soap

2008-12-05T12:37:00.005+08:00

*this image googled

Dove doesn't do a good job
washing off a stain on my chest
(left hand side) in the shower
but my skin feels softer
like a pillow

Last night
I dreamt
I was handed a present
of green soap and a human heart-shaped seed
of a ginkgo tree
(it was imperative that I plant it
Why ginkgo, didn't know)

If that were real
I'd still be staring
at it
until the soil
cracked dry

Takdol

2008-12-04T15:10:00.005+08:00

*this image googled (by ARTDEN). Photos in this link

Nagtakdol ka
ug nibawd akong ginhawa
apan nahigop ang mga panganod
ug natago ka.
Padung na ang unos,
kabantay ka?

Hagit sa Dagat alang sa Hambugerong Surfer Dude

2008-11-25T16:15:00.004+08:00

Puyo.
Wa ka ka-ila nako.
Ti-aw mo na,
Gatusan na ka bu-ok
ang akong gilumsan.
Maka-apas ka sa akong bawd?
Sayawan tika
kung maka-abot kang buhi
sa pikas isla.

Turista

2008-11-24T19:04:00.007+08:00

Wa makaila'g angkla
ang akong bangka
nga gidagit sa mga bawd
padung sa imong pantalan.
Pasagdi kining maglutawlutaw
kay maglatagaw ra ko'g kadiyot
sa mga eskina sa imong lungsod.

Ayaw'g hugta paghigot ang pisi
Ayaw'g sige'g pangsusi
Gani, ayaw gyud og sakay
Kay ako ug akong baroto,
lumalabay.

Freak Show sa Ayala

2008-11-12T19:37:00.003+08:00

Kahibaw ko mubasa
og pagbati
gikan sa akong gibarugan
samtang nanghatag
og mga flyer
sa among kumpanya.

Kana siya,
nakurat.

Kato siya,
nahibung.

Katong mga high school,
nakugang.

Apan parehas ra tanan
ang gibati sa ilang mga mata:
sama bitaw anang nawng
sa taw nga makakita
og isda
nga kahibaw mustorya,
nga kahibaw mukanta
nga kahibaw musayaw
nga kahibaw motambling
nga kahibaw mugitara.
hala, kahibaw pud mogamit og kutsara,
hala, kahibaw pud mag-ininglis
hala, kahibaw pud moginhawa
hala, mukanta gyud lagi siya
hala, mukanta gyud lagi siya
hala, kanta kuno beh, kanta kuno beh, kanta kuno beh
kanta kuno beh, kanta kuno beh, kanta kuno beh
kanta kuno beh, kanta kuno beh, kanta kuno beh

hala, bitaw, o
Siya man 'tong pikon nga hilakon
nga malditang tambasakan
nga akong nakit-an
sa TV, ay --

kanta kuno beh!

Sketch no. 14

2008-10-31T13:56:00.004+08:00

Every hour reserves an excuse
in the absentee's defense.
No clocks -- you rely upon moonlight
to pass the time,
you mold the shadows into persons
the way one sees dogs and balloons in the clouds.
A while longer and they've turned psychedelic surreal --
you are riding a bike but suddenly you jolt upright in a snap.
Moondown at 8am before you give up.

Myopia

2008-10-31T13:17:00.009+08:00

From the Goldilocks Zone hotel window
My eyesight fails me:

In milky way smog
I see Libra tips its scales
and the moon smiles a knowing grin
Tsk tsk tsk
The sky is made of fireflies
that shy away from alien light
of the city now the sky
the city now the sky
Why,
my Fata Morgana love!
Haven't seen you in weeks!
Now I find you soft edged,
a Polaris lying East

Break Time

2008-10-23T20:59:00.003+08:00

A security guard
wipes his forehead
sips Sparkle
in a corner sari sari store.

Under scorching midday sun
a man walks barefoot
and sings his lungs out --
an old forgotten tune
in local tongue.

One foot by 3
amidst cluttered space,
my cat and I curl up
through rancid hours.

Alpha State Epiphany

2008-10-16T18:54:00.004+08:00

See here, man on the blue moon --
welcome to my abode.
I live in a shoe box
and sleep on receipts
of purchased time
I pay with respect.
Here, love's untouched
gone stale
then putrid,
salivating rabid loneliness
unkempt.
But I'm not alone;
this is the shanty town madness
of rented spaces
built on three legs.
When the storms blow in
I will be wailing
to the tune of roofs and floors crashing
retelling in A minor
that I'm a typical has-been
an anachronism in your history
let it be
let it be
like that bar singer
belting out a John Lennon cover,
a veneer of wisdom.

(Untitled)

2008-10-13T11:27:00.010+08:00

He suddenly remembered a wound in the room that morning – orange slathered on white wall. “Six o'clock skyline scorching orange,” so went the first line in a de Veyra poem. Exactly that, when with droopy eyed excitement he scrambled to kneel up on the mattress to peek out through the jalousies, see from where the spectacle was coming. As if the morning had nudged him awake with a sprinkling of that orange excitement from a large bucket.

The sky was bleeding orange behind a silhouette of a building under construction, and he thought,

“Tuesday.”

He went back to sleep with the memory of the wound on the wall, and then drifted into a dream; he was standing in the middle of an empty street and Mars was looming over earth like fantasy art, as if he was looking up at a large red moon. In the dream it was windy and it disheveled his hair; the clouds were dark, the sky dismal, an angry red orange against gray. Nearby, the moon was a crescent, a little smaller than Mars. He could see the craters on Mars and the moon, how deep they were. While all this was happening, it was very quiet, and he couldn't move.

He remembered all this inside the jeepney in a standstill at 8:32, and only then did he remember it was Tuesday. Most days in this kind of traffic, he would forget what day he's in. After remembering which day was which, this would be followed by a litany of responsibilities for the day, like that unfinished last minute errand from Monday. Can you photocopy me a hundred of this please? but his clown soul had already shut off when the errand came at 5:59 and he was just about to punch out. The litany went on, until it dissolved into the sound of the photocopier in his head, again and again and again, an incessant growling of a rabid dog inside his head inside a crowded jeepney in a standstill at 8:34, waiting for the light to hit green, waiting for the madness to run amok.

Tantrum

2008-10-03T12:38:00.003+08:00

Saba diha uy! Laparohon tika ron.
Ingon ka ako'y kinakusgan
Sa mga tawong imong nailhan.

Pultahan ra gani imong gisirad-an--
akoa man lagi'ng gihilakan.

*this and more poems from other writers on the Kabisdak page

Back to English Poems

Back to Cebuano Poems

Sakyanan

2008-09-30T18:46:00.003+08:00

Daw nalabay ko sa probinsya
kay ngaring mga dapita
talagsaon na lang mulabay
ang mga sakyanan.
Matag karon ug unya
dunay usa. Duha.
Mao ra.
Mga bati pud ra ba.
Daw nalabay ko sa suok
kon diin hilom.
Wala'y samok.
Apan usahay
magdamgo gihapon ko
nga ako nagdrayb
niadtong akong puwa nga bao
nga gi-carnap.

Ang Mayor-doma

2008-09-30T17:51:00.008+08:00

Nagbilar ang buwan
kaganinang alas otso
sa kabuntagon,
kay mao pa'y pagmata
sa iyang mga amo.
Gikapoy intawn
ang mayor-doma
sa mga tigpadilaab
og kandila
ug orkestra sa mga gangis.

Inig ka-day off niya
Manampiling unya na siya
Mupahiyom sa paghandum
og giunsa siya'g kontsaba
nga musigurado'ng wa'y musamok;
nga mag-andam og kumbira
sa duha ka laki'ng gikasal
ngadto sa baybayon.

Bungog

2008-09-30T17:04:00.008+08:00

Gikapoy ka na tingali'g basa
sa akong blogspot:
Katloan ka balak.
Napulo'g usa ka awit.
Liboang adhetibo
mahitungod kanimo.

Gipul-an ka na siguro.
Sobra ko ka-emo?
Lagi, di ko maimo.
Sum-ol na, no?
Puros reklamo,
Tuyok-tuyok,
libot-libot.
Mora ra ba'g duna'y maabtan.
Ambot kaha kon asa.

Gikapoy ka na tingali'g basa.
Naabot ka man lagi ngari
sa kataposang linya?

(Ha ha, katloan ug usa.)

Midnight poems

2008-09-29T11:45:00.004+08:00

The birthday cake was two days stale.
A puddle of pink candle wax
in the middle.

Outside, the girl
(now pulling on her curls)
clicked the heels
of her red shoes,
attempt no. 2 462.

* * *

Today
I grated my soul like cheese
and strung the pieces together like shrimp.
I hung them on the window
and waited for anything
interesting
to peck on them
but even the flies
never came.

9/27/08

On the quality of cat hair to be everywhere and silent

2008-09-26T15:38:00.007+08:00

And again:
When that the cat is away,
my rhinitis creeps up.
Haa-choo, sniffle, sob.

Haa-choo, sniffle, sniff
Sob, Haa-choo, Haa-choo
sniff, sniff, sniff
and one final Haa-choo

Cat hair everywhere
with his name on each one
I run down the count
632 or thereabouts.

But when the cat gets back
he'll be stunned to find
a poem on each strand,
a song on some,

and quite the annoyed one
he'll run
out back.

Back to English Poems

Back to Cebuano Poems

Degrees of Separation

2008-09-26T15:18:00.008+08:00

another response to a Cheshire Cat's blog:

Last visit:
22 minutes ago.

Take the six degree detour.
This way.

you say
to one I know:

tell your friend
I'm driving by.

and by the time
I get your cryptogram,

Last visit:
22 minutes ago.

2008-09-12T19:13:00.004+08:00

In response to a blog by a Cheshire Cat and a Radiohead song, here's mine.

* * *

Somebody tell The Beekeeper to get me out of here alive, this insincere air-conditioned bee hive, because I want to, I want to, I want to burn. I badly need to burn, quite and quite not Up Dharma Down style, like: I want to act. And I want to sing sing, without being forced, like a gullible kid of four. I want to shed off these distractions from boredom – drum lessons, poi with socks and fire, Internet surfing about ale and lager, about squids or the Bible, or if Jesus was actually Michael. I want a real Tuesday, not a photocopy of Monday. I want a real Saturday, not a clock passing hours from one hand to the other. I want to be rich, because I want to save my ass. And I want to be kick-ass. I want to be excited about the next day. I want a Mr. Jones, to stroll with through the barrio and I want to be someone to believe. I want to be useful in the world. I want two more cats. And I want somebody to be excited about. I want to confess. And I want to run straight to someone and then be embraced. I want flowers, because no one's given me a bouquet before. I don't want a bouquet just because of the previous sentence or some special program. I want to be waited for after work. I want someone to watch me fly, and arms open ready for when I land. I want to hear this: “I'm here”. And I badly want to see my friends laughing and happy, the way they were dancing barefoot at 2 am in a haunted building, or stark-naked under a full moon at sea, or riding the wind, free.

Pahinga

2008-09-08T14:30:00.003+08:00

May tahimik sa kalagitnaan
ng Kagubatang Ako:
Sinag ng araw sa ambon
Alas-kwatro buong maghapon.

Sa kalagitnaan ng Kagubatang Ako
Dali't maupo
Masdan ang hiwaga nito
At salubungin ang sarili mo.

Pinocchio

2008-09-08T13:25:00.006+08:00

*this photo googled

A dream recurs daily:
She's a sleepwalking Pinocchio
racing against time.
Another year older
and the fairy hasn't come.

An eight-hour long
horror flick.

You know, like a ghost's
nightly shrill screams
in the crime site.

A movie called Monday.

The 10:53 Flotsam

2008-09-03T13:43:00.005+08:00

Oh no
not the drishti
not the catatonic drishti
she thinks
at 10:53
as she walks through a dead overpass
where not even vagrancy nor squalor
nor puppies for sale
paint an occurrence.

As if the mayday as she is homebound --
the last drop of gas finished on the final stretch.

Or that pause before a scream
that begins to inflate indefinitely.

And on the slowing of her steps,
crickets follow her with a gaze
and chirp:
there it comes, the drishti
the catatonic drishti,
upon the halting of the feet
in a dead overpass,
even tears call in sick.

-- April 2, 2008

*drishti -- in yoga, a soft gaze at a certain focal point in a distance

Rope Walk Girls

2008-09-01T13:15:00.008+08:00

*this photo googled

You see, honey,
My friend and I
she and I
we're the rope walk girls
we're the rope walk girls
and we
tap tap tap
on the rope of
love, bay-beh!

We're the rope walk girls
and we tap tap tap
to a jazz beat war drum

see,
bugs bunny once said
to not take life too seriously

so, she and I
we're the rope walk girls
our feet
tap tap tap the music
on this tight rope
we do the dat-dat-dah
and we Boop-bam!

but you can't hear it
bet you can't hear it
but you can't hear it

what a shame you can't hear it

it sounds like:

(Vera, to us.)

Stink

2008-08-26T13:05:00.001+08:00

Shit, you've got admit, the whole world's a stinker. My friend and I once ate at Flame It!, a burger diner, where, for a wall paper they used a Google Earth map of where all the Flame Its were in town. And then he said, Imagine: almost all these houses each has a septic tank. The world IS full of shit.

Aftermath

2008-08-20T14:54:00.004+08:00

as you walked me to the corner yesterday,
it rained a light drizzle:
a spattering of 16th notes on the pavement.
an overture to the penultimate timpanic storm
that will toss buildings and sky scrapers
like salad.
if only the aftermath were as delicious.

Approaching midnight in a bar

2008-08-19T19:45:00.005+08:00

You hold in your hands
the first light beer in the country
and the only light beer you should have

into which screams
drop and float down feather-like
or as angel fish trapped in a deep glass box
It's all “glub glub glub”
to onlookers who gape at the pretty.

So you hold in your hands
the first light beer in the country
and the only light beer you should have

into which you drop
and float down feather-like
while exit doors present themselves
inside rising bubbles.
amber, golden haloes.
grab one and hang on to them that lead you to God --
It is God for god's sake! --
and here the secrets of the cosmos unveil!
O enlightened one, You are Buddha
escaping into Nirvana
in snarls of rambling
and ethyl and b-vitamins and biotins
Ramble philosophic through Nokia mouthpiece
swirl down a vortex
and melt like the Wicked Witch of the West
only that it's beer and not water.
earn an escapist's lightness of being.

You hold in your hands
the first light beer in the country
and the only light beer you should have.
And you still go have some more.

- July, 2007

Euthanasia

2008-08-15T20:11:00.002+08:00

Click-bang the head
of the diseased
day
Kill kill kill
misbehave
for example
run naked and blessed by the rain
and scream, for fuck's sake
scream madman
Click-bang
and kill kill kill
cuss pointblank
rave and rage cathartic
ride the retroperistalsis
retch the effluvial tidal wave
and rewind
back, back, back brother
back, back, back don't bother
back, back, back
like that Enigma music video
where they all became children
again
what a gift!

Ant

2008-08-14T19:00:00.005+08:00

Oh brother.
What a drab, this:
gray-scale Monday mess
photocopied

Oh brother,
what a bother, us
sad creatures
to fix and re-fix

Oh brother,
what a drag, this:
gray-scale Tuesday tedium
photocopied.

Oh brother,
what a bother, sleep
silent, wake silent
to another caffeine-nicotine fix.

Oh brother,
what boredom
Wednesday
Wordless

Oh brother.
why bother.

Click. Bang.

Accept

2008-08-12T17:12:00.013+08:00

just learn the trick,
it's easy.

every day
your friend's two-year-old
does it so well:

7:39
teary-eyed, nodding
mouthing okay,
waving from the door
at her momma
behind the tinted car windows

Glamour Clown Boy

2008-08-09T16:44:00.011+08:00

It was the mesmerizing screen saver personality.
Careful; You had to be adorable.
Camouflage the ego.
A rockstar's got to have some wound.

Hug me, I'm motherless
you say.
The garbage man took me away
you say.

Oh, but you look like --
how did Jim Morrison say it? --
Street Pizza.

The Witch of the West owns a television network
and you got saved, Hallelujah!
You idiot, made rich now conned and mugged,
No ID, No Wallet, black and blue bruised
bludgeoned dizzy shitless in the spotlights.
And you still try to be adorable
No Mother!
you say.
Suck it up, I say.
No Mother!
you say.

You don't get it:
I said, you're Street Pizza
to the delight of flies.

Demolition Man

2008-08-09T13:24:00.006+08:00

*photo by Sean Duggan

This daily habit
You
do it
simply
so:
A painstakingly sculpted
resolve to exit
a brightly lit
empty carousel
cracks
breaks
crumbles
in your turning up
and up and leaving.
You wrecking ball.

Snake

2008-08-07T14:54:00.005+08:00

Slither hither
a smile
through the crowd:

serpentine
through chatter
and waiters

and plates
and wine glass stems
and heads

and arms
and torsos
and feet

Slither hither
a grin
and a last move to a win:

your back
through the door
and out.

-- 2007, last quarter of the year

Bomb

2008-08-05T19:41:00.002+08:00

From next door,
The daily alarm clock:

Hammers on nails into wooden panels
bang a reverberating boom
earthquaking under the weak walls
of rented space
and then punching out dreams
of driving
of hang gliding
of turtles
of his slightest passing
in the periphery of her sleep.

Mind swimming in ground zero
She suddenly remembers Little Boy
paying Hiroshima a visit,
and then everything was gone.

The clock ticks 8:15
as her aftershocks begin
with a Marlboro stick.

Instruction from a Cat

2008-08-04T19:25:00.008+08:00

*This photo googled

Searching north
as I climbed a tree
in a forest
you said to me:
Never two hands free.

In the Meantime

2008-07-31T19:13:00.009+08:00

*cellphone photo by Liyo Denorte.

Grim and gelid January
Lonely summer twins
And November of ill repute
have taken a bed
in each of your rooms.

They do not flinch, or cringe
in your presence
and neither should you.

So in the meantime, in easy breath
and with wide-angle lens eyes,
invite them down
for dinner
that you can cap with lots of rum
and when they've gone
to sleep,
watch.

Aging

2008-07-30T19:01:00.004+08:00

Monday is to January,
Pay day is to birthday,
8 to 5's a day,
and you wangle a blink to play.

Puppet

2008-07-28T17:29:00.005+08:00

You are,
as most things already are

Always
in the incoming headlights
around the curb,
through the windows
making Chinese shadow puppets
on the dark walls
inside my house

Always
in the sound
of a car engine
roaring past

And always, always
in the sound of
crunching leaves underfoot.

All this,
and always

Always
the wafting curtains

Always
the creaking of a steel gate

Always
the high-pitched car brakes

Always
the...

-- July 2, 2008