Slip of the Pen

I still have a hangover from last Tuesday’s ‘celebration’. It was a celebration, all right — a fête to a dozen or so young poets who survived six months of one badass poetry clinic. (I mean that in a good way.) The night bore witness to free-flowing poetry, applause, Kodak moments, and of course, booze.

To say that I heaved a sigh of relief after the event would be an understatement; sigh is too small a word. Its Tagalog counterpart, buntong-hininga is more apt — a microcosm of rising expectations, of a build-up toward the climax, of keeping your breath in, then suddenly, a release.

Enough words. Enjoy these pictures of the LIRA Fellows’ Night 2007, courtesy of Fellows JC Sola and Karla Cachola, and the person most-referenced to in my blogs (hehe), Ia. It goes without saying: click to enlarge.

From left to right: Ia, batch president Pau Hernando, Christine Magpile practicing on the piano, and yours truly testing the mic. (And posing for a photo op as well.)

Conspiracy Bar’s hallowed stage, ready for another night of verses.

JC, Pau, and I preparing for the program. The small, in-your-face stage helped ease some of the jitters.
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The journey that began half a year ago is ending on a night of metaphors and imagery.

Awww.

To translate the original invitation in Tagalog:

The members and this year’s fellows of the Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika at Anyo (LIRA) invite everyone to the celebration of its 22nd anniversary on December 11, 2007 in Conspiracy Bar, Visayas Avenue, Quezon City. LIRA is an organization of poets fervent in writing in the Filipino language.

The celebration will feature the launch of the SIDHAY literary folio of the LIRA Fellows Batch 2007. This collection includes several of the poems written by each Fellow after the lectures and workshops which started last June 2006. Let yourself be swept away by the verses of: Christa De La Cruz, Guia De Leon, Rogerick Fontanilla Fernandez, Pau Hernando, Kel Juan, Phillip Kimpo Jr., Christine Magpile, Alev Maniago, John Montoya, Por Requinto, and JC Sola.

A preview of the folio:

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(For S.)

Countless are the women likened to the stars. Stars who are adored, stars who tingle and tickle the being, stars who are courted, stars who become lovers and better halves. Ah, such bitter pairings! A beautiful star is aloof, without a care in the world, isolated by a dark vastness oft-minisculed as a greatest ocean to cross or a highest mountain to climb, and if and when I conquer the cold void between me and the star after a journey that took forever, I will just be swiftly and mercilessly consumed by the blinding and unsurpassed heat of her fire without her even blinking. In the company of a star, two indeed become one and only one.

You, you are not a woman comparable nor should be compared to a star. You are dust, as I am who came from dust and will return to dust. You and I are mere specks in the cosmos, but in our world that is only ours, we are valuable and are valued the same. There is no darkness nor oceans nor mountains in between us. Together, we are free to tumble in the grass, to slide down the waterfall, to dance to the tune of the wind. Together, we are two yet we are one.

But you are dust unlike I, dust of the earth. You — and you might not realize this — you are dust of the stars. I know this because when we are together, you make our surroundings scintillate like a firefly does in a moonless night, and a ring of gentle fire — fire that does not consume life but nurtures it — caresses and embraces our joined bodies.


Happy 22nd birthday, Ia! More October 24 goodness at last year’s She, I. This prose poem was translated from the original in Tagalog.

Hemmed in on all sides, unrepentant
to the choking layers of Smugness
in the Notebook suffused with thick black
ink, defiant
to the endless trails of obsidian
snaking through, paving
the Builder’s progress

sat a park.

Humble at sixty letters across, fourteen lines
from north to south, immaculate
with nary a smudge nor mote
of ambition.

Unclaimed by the Builder’s pen, a virgin land.
Who had been there? No one,
not even the VIPs of the Builder’s towers
nor the littlest fly
of imagination.

But at 16th Page, it was prime
property.

A day after Valentine’s, the Builder
came, set up a discreet motel, a late
investment called
The Little Park in the Notebook
and the erstwhile haven
vanished.


12:03 AM
February 15, 2007


*As featured in Moleskinerie.com.

Two Fridays ago, I had the privilege of picking up my contributor’s copy of the Literary Apprentice Lite 2006 during UP’s Writers Night. In the folio’s pages was my first English poem published in print.

Though I don’t show it here, I prefer to write unabashed street-talk poems in Tagalog. In the same way that I can let loose some grandiloquent pieces in English, I’m fond of having my Tagalog pieces emanate some shock value with regard to the word choice and plot premise. In fact, I fancy myself as a writer who can challenge my readers’ sensibilities more effectively when using the strong words of my native tongue.

Needless to say, it was a great feeling to know that my English poetry is publication-worthy. The fact that the Lit Apprentice Lite is a good folio is a real morale-booster in times when I can’t write that much anymore due to work.

The folio, titled A Long Time Coming and a Long Time Gone, is quite the untraditional publication. Aside from the usual printed zine, it also comes with an audio CD and some mini-zines. Heck, it even has a paper boat, not to mention almost-pornographic images adorning some of the lit works. The UP Writer’s Club was really creative with this one, which leaves me pondering as to the form of the main Literary Apprentice, coming out next year.

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i give up
i spent the past four hours writing a piece
that soon turned to a piece
of crap
words of crap, phrases of crap, heck,
i knew it was doom
when it all devolved into rap

– put in the rhymes, put in the rhythm
it’s all about the chimes and the m*th*f*ck*n’ Schism –

when the commas looked like fleas
jumping from line to line,
when the question mark was Death’s scythe
(deathly white, with that carnuba shine)
when the periods were puddles of roach poop,
when the a, b, c, to z
were a putrid hieroglyph soup.

slapping my face in vexation, the pimple goes pop
it hurts, but not really,
only if you slash the wound
with a pen, and use the same pen
to write a disaster waiting to
happen

(DING! shameless rhyme!)

trying to make treasure from trash?
impossible, but only if the pus remains on the face
because you didn’t wash
(if impossible has a “but”,
then is it entirely possible
that impossible is
possible?)

put in the rhythm, put in the rhyme
it doesn’t matter if this chatter is just for
the (mean)time!


5:52 AM
September 22, 2006


*This piece was written by Ronald the Duck. Absolutely. That’s my laptop, and I seriously doubt it that you mistook the duck as the Corsarius. And yeah, that cussword is without asterisks in the final version.

we dance
swirling like ballerinas
to a groovy disco tune
banging our heads
to the reggae, to the blues.
absurd, this dance
where you wear black lipstick and red gown
and I a glittering tightsuit,
pink tightsuit.
i’ve two left feet, you none (you float).
it’s absurd, this absurdity
of making a playground of the floor,
sliding, swinging,
seeing stars,
sawing off limbs.
it’s absurd, this dance.
but the music still plays,
your lipstick stays black,
my tightsuit glitters pink.
we dance.


4:00AM
May 17, 2006

Phantasmagoria
is a big word, and so is
trepidation. Too big for me.
I know hallucination, even discombobulation,
but they’re long, unwieldy.
I’d prefer a single syllable,
the one which goes between
selfish I’s and demeaning You’s,
crafting a phrase entirely unselfish,
entirely exalting.

But I worry that one syllable’s too short —
too short! —
too short that it’s become
cliché.


04:09 AM
December 20, 2005

Sometimes, frenzy can erupt even when only the most feeble of inspirations guide you.


Comfort Reek

the stench
of the cinema restroom
is overpowering,
so I pull my shirt
over my nose
and inhale
the faint scent
of my perfumed
body.

8:56 PM
October 24, 2005

Bilateral Talks

he puts a premium
on communication,
a way to transcend
his and her limitations.

so one day,
his hand vised around hers,
stressed by uneven sidewalks,
scorched by the midday sun,
choked by the jeepneys’ exhaust —

she tries to protest, but
he swipes her cellphone and
throws it down to the concrete.

he turns to her, saying:
“of course, the phone is smashed to pieces.”

09:57 PM
November 28, 2005

Typo

i have been pressing on i for some time now
(thirty minutes, i think)
but i is still not responding.
i is proving to be an irritant, and i
am getting irritated.
i can’t type, i can’t see i onscreen,
i is nullified.
finally, i grab the keyboard with both hands,
hold it above my head, then
hurl it across the room.
one plastic piece shatters to a thousand,
i flies to the open chamberpot
and sinks to the pee-pool’s bottom.
i versus i, i for an i —
like the whole keyboard,
i isn’t indomitable
but i am.

09:59 PM
November 28, 2005

is different,
a stark contrast to poetry
written for one’s self
(poetry at its rawest harshest kindest
truest form).

the farther the person is from the heart,
the fainter the beat will be. faint
fainter faintest, until there is
nothing more
to hear
.

but when
the person is
close closer closest,
the beat gets strong stronger
strongest, and convictions ululations
salutations damnations gush out from pen
to paper, finally reaching a crescendo where
the moment is invincible and the spirit is unstoppable.

poetry written for another person
is different,
a stark contrast to poetry
written for one’s self, as different as
gems in a pirate’s chest for the foreigner,
stars on a clear night for those we hold dear.

3:53 AM
The Day When the Person-Whom-the-Corsarius-Holds-Dear Celebrates Her Birth
Quezon City