into the whirls of Ambiguity.

BLOG REMINDERS

2005-01-07T22:15:00.000+08:00

To Non-R07 class members. Welcome.

Thank you for visiting our class site. We are pleased to have you here with us. Hope you would all enjoy reading the poems we have carefully selected.

You can comment on any of the posts and as many as you may. Please be sure to leave your
a) Name
b) Course (if applicable), and your
c) Relationship with the member of the class (who told you about this site).

Have a good day.

Niki

---------------------------------

Due to continuous blog errors, PLEASE BE CAREFUL IN POSTING. There are some HTML tags that mess up the template, so Jenny and I have to keep editing your posts.

Again, DO NOT CHANGE YOUR FONT SIZES AND COLORS.

ONLY THREE (3) COMMENTS PER ENTRY/POST. Sir Ron Darvin will only acknowledge the first three comments. So please choose wisely.

PER PERSON, we are tasked to COMMENT ON THREE ENTRIES/POSTS FOR EACH CATEGORY.

Please follow these guidelines.

Thank you.

Niki
----------------------------------

And to add to that, please remember to post your LOVE/FRIENDSHIP/LIFE POEMS under NOVEMBER '04 and your POLITICAL/SOCIAL POEMS under DECEMBER '04. This means that you are to post your poems separately. Please input the title of your poems in the title field.

This is for archiving purposes.

Also, if you have doubts in posting your entries, you can email it to us with the exact format that you want your entries to appear on the blog.

Send your entries to: block_r07@yahoo.com

One last thing...DO NOT COPY-PASTE DIRECTLY FROM YOUR SOURCE.
What you can do is to copy-paste first your poems to Notepad then to the blog. I know, I know...this may be one big hassle for some of you, but it will save us (Niki and I) from all the re-editing of the templates over and over again. Yes, it is the main cause of all the mayhem that's happening to this blog.

I'm leaving this blog in a good condition. Please help us maintain its state.

Thanks.
God Speed.

:: jEn

MY FAVES: On Love, Life and Friendship

2005-01-06T11:37:00.000+08:00

just post the list of your faves as comments.

thank you.

MY FAVES: On Politics and Society

2005-01-05T11:38:00.000+08:00

just post the list of your faves as comments.

thank you.

By the Roadside

2004-12-24T10:45:00.000+08:00

Marie Ysabelle Hope G. Reyes is currently a first year AB Management Economics student at the Ateneo de Manila University. She finished her grade school education from the Piagetian Guided Educational Center and went on to finish her secondary education at the Miriam College High School. Bobbie, as her friends call her, has been writing poems since age seven.

Her poem, “By the Roadside” tackles the lives women take when they decide to enter Prostitution. As “roses” by the roadside that come from beautiful country sides, they venture into the dark and perplexing city where they face a whole slew of challenges anew. Being the world’s second largest underground business, the solution to this problem stays very elusive to the concerned.

-james velasquez

By The Roadside
By: Ysabelle Reyes

By the roadside,
All the roses in their rows
Extend, stem by withering
Stem, their petals-
From glistening crown
To smudged fingertip.

Silence, it came
From within spaces enclosed
In the hollows of the rose

By the roadside,
All the roses in their rows
Wither, stem by extended
Stem, as from petals
I fled

Staining green stems
Into soft shining
Passing from ridge to vein
And finally, from stem to pail,
Coming to a stop
To a drop

Then silence. It came
From within spaces enclosed
In names untold.

Godgames Mad Directors Play

2004-12-16T01:08:00.001+08:00

Ophelia Alacantara-Dimalanta

She is one of the acknowledged major poets of the country. Under her name are several volumes of her acclaimed poetry, namely: Montage (1974), The Time Factor (1984), and Flowing On (1988). In her poem Godgames Mad Directors Play, which was published in the afforementioned Flowing On, a metaphor was created to establish an image of a dictator as a mad, maglomanic director. The poem speaks of how this mad director's crimes jeopardize the fate of those he controls. A poem written in 1984, a time when the Marcos Regime still ruled over the country, it not so blatantly spoke of the shackles the government imposed upon its people, which caused much unrest among Filipinos then. I chose this poem because I thought Ophelia Alacantara-Dimalanta's comparison of a dictatorial figure to a mad director was brilliant and incredibly fitting. I found it brilliant how she was able to capture the uncanny similarities between these two characters. And since metaphors are considered to be "the central act of poetic intelligence", she most certainly was able to show literary prowess in her incendiary poem.

GODGAMES MAD DIRECTORS PLAY (1984)

he shifts scenarios with a flick

of his scheming finger

in tracking and agile jumpshots

as from the cinematic memory

of an omniscience, punting scripts,

fabulating scenes in something

like a crazy godgame mad directors

play, playing god, he is above codes -

exclaiming aeschylean fashion:

this is the hand not of a murderer

but of an executioner, executing

scenes in filmscripts the size

of his megalomanic will, playing

god as all mad directors do.

he contraves origins and histories

mixing, cutting,

imposing what is merely augured,

auguring what has been merely imagined,

imagining what has been transposed

in a complcity as criminal

as a fumbling script.

but being not god,

he plays and plucks upon

the heartstrings of his own

mortality, and soon, predictability,

even this one perishable clod,

housing one deathless dream,

executing the perfect crime

in a less than perfect string

of coldly cut scenarios,

this wayward spirit this land soon

too will claim the chasm of a space

no bigger than his frame,

undistinguishable from any other's

lowly ground, for his scraggy

roots had here been dumped

ancient millenia back and are here,

while scrambling for breath,

irrevocably entrenched.

and not being god

he cannot godgame with fate

manipulating scenes and people

in denouement turned loose:

altars have toppled

rice gourds have emptied

and penitents have taken to

the streets unleashing prayers

in the form of incoherant cants,

and flaming bibles are flung aloft

like soaring streamers.

candles belch forth curses

tongues are brandished

with a passion no godlike hand

nor pen nor scepter could write

away, rule out, out of the pages

of a dawning, bloodlined history.

SOURCE:
Dimalanta, Ophelia A. (1988). Flowing On. Manila: Santo Tomas University Press.

Exile: A Dream

2004-12-15T09:27:00.000+08:00

Marne L. Kilates has just completed and is readying for publication his third collection of poems, Mostly in Monsoon Weather, as well as his second poetry translation, Heartland (Muli sa Kandungan ng Lupa in the original Filipino by National Artist for Literature Rio Alma). His two other books are Children of the Snarl (Aklat Peskador, 1987) and Poems en Route (UST Publishing House, 1998). He has won Palanca Awards, National Book Awards and the SEA (Southeast Asia) WRITE Award. He works in advertising.

This poem is about how it felt (for the author) to leave the country and go to a place wherein he always wanted to go. However, he felt a little confused when he arrived at his destination because, even if he always wanted to go there, he didnt want to leave everything behind - his friends, family...Everything.

Exile: A Dream
Marne Kilates

The first rule is you don’t come back.

At first he couldn’t make it out.
Where the light from the streetlamps faded,
It looked like the mouth of a labyrinth.

And after a few steps, it sucked him in.
But there at the other side he found
Everything—the streets, the houses—

A mirror-image of what he left,
Except all was bathed in sinister light:
The familiar pretending to be strange.

—So are you happy here?

—In the sense that we’ve always
Wanted to be here, yes. But in the sense
That we had to leave everything behind…

We can never shed what we were,
Or what we left behind. It lives beneath
The skin, like love. We can never shake it off.

—But you have fixed this place
To look and feel like what you left…

—Which keeps us from becoming
What we want (the reason why we left).

Well, some of us are here only because
We can’t go back, or were compelled to leave,
By things that now keep hounding us.

—You know, I think I don’t belong here.

—That’s why you were invited:

To take the tour, to see what we’ve become
And tell the folks back home
How much we’ve remained the same:

Because only our children have become
What we’ve always wanted to be
When we left: They are no longer us.

—Well, so long… How strange
Having to go and feel as if
I never really left.

—Thanks for the visit. You can find
Your way where the light fades,
Or the night ends (as if you never left).

The first rule is also the last.

http://www.geocites.com/icasocot/home.html

AT THE EMBASSY

2004-12-14T22:30:00.000+08:00

Professor Jose Yap Dalisay, Jr. is the Professor and Chair of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the College of Arts and Letters, UP Diliman. He is also an Associate of the UP Institute of Creative Writing. Dr. Dalisay has written 10 books, 24 published stories, 26 essays, about 400 columns and editorials for TODAY, 10 plays produced among others. He is a multi-awarded faculty member receiving numerous fellowships/ grants and was a TOYM awardee for Literature in 1993.

This poem is different from those that I usually encounter. Instead of playing around with words and metaphors, the poet is straightforward in expressing his ideas. The poem replicates the format of an application form for those who wish to work abroad. With the high unemployment rate in the Philippines, our countrymen usually have no choice but to apply for work in another country where they could earn more to provide their family with the basic necessities. This poem applies to our current situation in the Philippines where a lot of unemployed Filipinos choose to work in Iraq. Despite the war going on in that country, these Filipinos insist to work there just so they could improve the meager lifestyle of their family, not knowing the dangers that will face them.
Joseph Barcelon

AT THE EMBASSY
Jose Y. Dalisay Jr.

Name: dickhead
Date of Birth: you keep filling out
Place of Birth: this same stupid form
Country of Citizenship: only to be thrown out of
Permanent Address: this goddamned embassy
Purpose of Travel: because you’re dying
Duration of Travel: to live and die in
Sources of Funds: their milk and honey

Source:
http://www.geocities.com/icasocot2/dalisay_poems.html
http://www.up.edu.ph/forum/2003/May03/newofficials.html

"Imeldific" Redefined

2004-12-14T21:58:00.000+08:00

Melanie dela Cruz (1985 - ), 19, is from Olongapo City. She is a third-year architecture student at Columban College and is active in school affairs as well as in other community immersion programs. Melanie is currently into government service being the SK Chairman of Brgy. New Cabalan. Being a youth leader, she devotes herself into honest and selfless endeavours not just for her fellow Kabataan but for the entire community as well.

In "'Imeldific' Redefined," the persona declares his/her condemnation to the deeds of Imelda Marcos. She attributes the formation of a rotten definition of the word "Imeldific" to these acts. The persona then creates a new and apt definition of the word by means of describing the saintly character of his/her mother and by expressing his/her affection and devotion to her.

The poem illustrates how people in authority use their wealth and power to satisfy their personal desires. In Philippine society then and now, this scenario is nothing new. In the government specifically, administrators and other officials have been charged of using the public funds for benefits of their own. The controversy raised by Imelda Marcos' lifestyle is not the only confirmation of this, but the graft and corruption cases of former president Joseph Estrada and Gen. Carlos Garcia as well. This harsh truth teaches us to honestly treat our tasks for what they really are: responsibilities.

-Ayee Macaraig

"Imeldific" Redefined
Melanie dela Cruz

I protest
Against your dogmatic lexicon
Against your perverse definition
Out of a name so holy
Out of my saintly "Imelda"
You created a word
That blaring sound of "Imeldific"
A portrayal
Of a woman of profligacy
Of discontentment
You created a junk
A bigoted glossary
So let me not heed it
Keep it off my reach
For I feel it be worthy
Scorched in fiery.

I protest
For the insult so horrendous
Better be it ambiguous
For my dear Imelda
Has only but a pair of shoes
And it's wooden and old
Yet she'll buy no more
A contented soul
On a shallow brook of bliss
Heart craves not for diamonds
But for the light oh her child’s face
And she could walk barefoot
On a hot vast desert
With her child cuddled in her arms
And her throat barren
Yet eyes delightful and proud.

I protest
For the gist so thick
Of that word, "Imeldific"
For my Imelda deserves not
Your blinkered delineation
For she is a deity of splendor
Of simplicity and unassuming nature
A saint of unconditional devotion
The sun of the vain world
The moon of my dismal cavern
The infinity of music
Her womb, my sanctuary
Bore me into innocence
And hands that heal
Sowed me in glory
Gratis… everything, gratis...

"Imeldific", a dulcet mantra
So let me praise thy hallowed name
With her immortal empathy
Tantamount to compassion unbounded
My hero and my refuge
Unrivaled, unsurpassed
Need no pope
Need no lawful rituals
Devotee, I am
Whilst she is my saint
And she'll pray for me
Cry for me
Die for me
And I shall, too
For my dearest Imelda…
My dearest mother...

Source: http://www.emanila.com/poetry/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1099170771&archive=&cnshow=news&start_from=&ucat=3&

A Eulogy Of the Roaches

2004-12-14T21:08:00.000+08:00

Bienvenido Lumbera (--present) plays are inspired by his love of country. The product of which, Sa Sariling Bayan:Apat na Dulang May Musika, a book he returns as proof of his love. The poem speaks about the politicians who had became pests for the country. I find it relevant for obvious reasons. It clearly shows what we are experiencing as of the moment. The Philippines is a very beautiful country. Who wouldn't love it? I guess, the answer to that is this. It is the corrupt politicians that we blindly forgive for the destructions they are doing not only to us, but to our children as well.
The last election was one, if not the most, heated election the Filipinos have ever seen. But even though people are more aware of the situation the Philippines are in right now, you would think that they have already learned something. Still, we continue to elect to position the very same people we know are robbing us of what this country deserves. The "trapos" are indeed blessed, because the Filipinos can easily forget.

* I'm still looking for his birth date.
Jewel Dy

A EULOGY OF ROACHES
Bienvenido Lumbera

Blessed are the cockroaches.
In this country
they are the citizens who last.
They need no police
to promulgate their peace
because they tolerate
each other’s smell or greed.
Friends to dark and filth,
they do not choose their meat.
Although they neither sow
nor reap, a daily feast
is laid for them in rooms
and kitchens for their pick.
The roaches do not spin
and neither do they weave.
But note the russet coat
the sluggards wear: clothed
at birth, roaches require
no roachy charity.
They settle where they wish
and have no rent to pay.
Eviction is a word
quite menacing to them
who do not have to own
their dingy crack of wall
Not knowing dearth or taxes,
they increase and multiply.
Survival is assured
even the jobless roach;
his opportunities
pile up where garbage grows.
Dying is brief and cheap
and thus cannot affright.
A whiff of toxic mist,
an agile heel, a stick
—the swift descent of pain
is also final death.

Source:http://www.geocities.com/icasocot/lumbera_poems.html
http://www.bulatlat.com/news/4-16/4-16-lumbera.html

Disquisition

2004-12-14T19:45:00.000+08:00

Karen Pioquinto graduated AB Journalism and Bachelor of Laws from the Universty of the Philippines. Besides her passion of petry writing, she works at a Makati Law Firm.

The Philippines is currently gowing through one of the darkest days in it's history. A looming fiscal crisis, the onslaught of two consecutive storms and public trust of the goverment at an all time low. We search for reason, looking for it everywhere, yearning for resolution. But alas, resoltuion seems far from being achieved.

Niccolo Geronimo

DISQUISITION

Karen Pioquinto

we have all trundled down

glabrous

slopes

of futility:

where giant woods

(from which

twines of thought one swings from

serially, mischievously, Tarzan-like)

give way to

endless

miles

of desiccation.

where now,

never-known and never-reached,

desolate

ideas brown themselves ugly,

dead

clumps of soil

the rain forgot.

believe me.

we have all felt parched.

we have all lifted callused hands

up to the sky,

chanting self-consciously:

rain me thoughts,

rain me words,

rain me a river of reason.

NO MERCY

2004-12-14T19:39:00.000+08:00

This poem was written by Monique Francisco, an 18 year old student who now studies in Miriam College. She was also an active member of the school magazine, in which this poem was published. In this poem the author talks about the typical reactions of people whenever they come across beggars on the street. They act indifferently towards these people, and sometimes, as if this wasn't enough, they also show these people verbally or do mean acts toward them.

~Loi Ayson~

No Mercy

He couldn't help but snigger
when he passed her by the street
like everyone who passed by
looked her over, head to feet
she wore a shabby cloak
draped over her back
she didn't have a hat or a bag
but there was something else she lacked
her eyes were down and dark,
her lips were dry and pale,
I couldn't help but notice
that she was thin and frail
and everyone who passed her by
rudely stared down at her
no mercy, no benevolence
as they forget about her
where is the mercy in this street?
where countless people have been?
people come and go
their mercy,
nowhere to be seen.

Source: The Magnificat, Miriam College High School
Dec. 2003-Jan. 2004 issue

MANILA TRAFFIC ON AUTOMATIC

2004-12-14T10:34:00.000+08:00

MANILA TRAFFIC ON AUTOMATIC
by Bing Caballero

Caballero's poetry was first published by the Philippine Literary Arts Council's quarterly, Caracoa. She was awarded a Palanca Literary Prize for poetry in 1983. In the same year, she also received an Urian Award for Best Screenplay for the movie, "Broken Marriage". Kalikasan Press published Gypsy Wife, her first volume of poetry in 1992. She has returned to Manila after living abroad with her husband, the late Ambassador of Finland, Likka V. Russo. Caballero will soon release her second voulume of poetry through Anvil Publishing, Inc.

The poem depicts moments when we feel like we love the our country so much, only to find something hateful or disappointing about it at the same time. I love the Philippines and I wouldn't want to be raised anywhere else. It's just that sometimes, how I wish things weren't a certain way here.
- Michelle Ting

MANILA TRAFFIC ON AUTOMATIC
by Bing Caballero

I regarded the flag today
a rather faded one I must say
by some coincidence it happened to be
in front of a branch of the PNB.
The late monsoon wind allowed a graceful flutter
bringing to my mind the matter
of hope.

A cab cut in front of me though
and I missed the light.

Source: An Anthology of Winning Works: The 1980's Poetry

East (haikus)

2004-12-13T20:09:00.000+08:00

Estrella A. Consolacion was born on April 13, 1951 in Baguio City. In life she was better known for involvements other than writing poetry. A 'child of the First Quarter Storm,' she performed in rallies with the militant theater group, Panday Sining, during the early '70s. During Martial Law, like many, she was arrested, tortured, then detained at the Ipil Rehabilitation Center in Fort Bonifacio. On May 30, 1989 she died of cancer complications.

This poem was written by my aunt in 1984, during her teaching stint in Japan. When I read it, I can envision what the many Filipinos working abroad feel in a different country, in an unfamiliar place. They do not know what they are doing there or why they are there--until they realize that they are there to support their families. It strikes me as tragic, in the way they are willing to risk everything for their loved ones to survive. I am very thankful that I do not have to go through what these brave Filipinos are going through now.
-- Karla Circe Consolacion

East (haikus)
Estrella A. Consolacion

to the east, she said
and to the east she did go
where the sun rises.

but it was winter
and the wind snow froze her
oh, child of summer!

the language was strange
the people were like machines
the sky not the same.

"higashi" is east,
she finally understood:
sun behind the trees.

and one day it came
confidence possessing her,
"wakarimashta!"

still, at dawn waking
she would wonder, "why the east?"
"what, why am i here?"

Source:
Mga Bagwis ng Pangarap: Mga Piling Tula ni Estrella A. Consolacion

Monsoon Ghazal

2004-12-13T13:59:00.000+08:00

Marne L. Kilates has recently completed his third collection of poems. MOSTLY IN MONSOON WEATHER (U.P. Press) includes the poems in this issue. Except for "Old Houses," an earlier version of which appeared Kilates first book, CHILDREN OF THE SNARL & OTHER POEMS (Aklat Peskador, 1987), and "Bought an Atlas" previously published in Sunday Inquirer magazine, these poems are premiering in OUR OWN VOICE.

This poem reflects our society's current situation. The poem talks about the damage we humans have done to it no matter how small it is. Take for example our poor government system. A lot of things are just so wrong about it and yet we do not open our eyes until there's almost nothing left to do. And there is the ongoing and still unstoppable war in the Mindanao area. Though we are not yet so affected by these events, sooner or later when we venture into the real word, we too will feel the flood the poem says.

Joyce Josue
MONSOON Ghazal
Marne L. Kilates

Again the monsoon whips us and we kneel before the flood
Each storm reminds us of our city’s many floods

When was the last time we thought of it as ‘our city’?
Our wars and our peace have hardened our hearts in their floods:

Need, abject and numb, has long become greed
We have lost our will and our words drift like flotsam in the flood

Once, we confronted an evil that sought to run our lives.
Our hearts spoke and we swept it away in a flood.

But we forget, we forget. Our streets and our memory
Are full of holes, gouged out by floods.

Our democracy is a parody. We sell our votes
Bread and circuses rain upon us like a flood.

We choose our betters, in hope, in hunger, in lust.
They are us! We are muck in the dumbness of their flood.

We whine like children, we rave and rant.
Who will shame us in our folly, chase us in a flood?

Our words are empty or full of deceit. We spit
Against the wind. The filth returns to us in a flood.

Lapu-lapu! Maria! Bernardo! Behold your city, your beloved land!
Dagohoy! Del Pilar! Apolinario! Save us from the flood!
Banawe! Makiling! Apo! Sierra Madre! Shake us! Awake us!
Gather your rainclouds again and again. Send us your floods!

By the waters of the Tripa de Gallina we wept a flood.
Agusan! Cagayan! Amburayan! Pasig! Cleanse us in your floods!

source: http://66.51.113.241/poems/poems2003d-kilates6.shtml

Typhoon

2004-12-13T09:34:00.000+08:00

Joseph O. Legaspi immigrated with his family to California in the 1980s. He currently lives in New York and works at Columbia Univesity.

The persona in this poem talks about what he is doing while a typhon rages outside their home. This poem relates to the victims of the recent tragedy our country has experienced. This poem meaningful because it catches the emotions and experiences of the victims of the recent typhoons. This poem reminds us to be more appreciative of what we have in life, because the victims of the recent typhoons have lost a lot in theirs.

Nica Javelosa

TYPHOON
Joseph O. Legaspi

The windows and doors were boarded.
Outside, the typhoon was banging its fury
like my drunken father locked out of the house. I
nside, my brother and sisters joined me around a campfire
of candles. The typhoon toppled an electrical post.
It howled; it hurled matter into matter. We heard the thrashing flight of sheet iron, the crack
of branches splitting from the trees.
The house shook, and we huddled
in the near-darkness, as if
cowering back into the primitive.
We told stories while bending near the candles,
collecting the stalactites of wax
we later fed to the flames.
We talked about the neighborhood children,
earlier covering the ground with chalk-drawings
of suns, birds caught between two skies. And yet the rain
fell anyway, the suns vanished in the downpour.
My sister told us about orphans in nunneries,
so underfed they ate worms, bathed
so infrequently that truffles grew between their toes
and pigs followed them wherever they went.
And there was a lake in the province, we recollected, hidden
by woodland in the east, opposite high rocks
from where we dove into the ethereal silence of the water.
Then a sudden crash reverberated from the house's swollen
blackness, distinct from the storm. It continued for some
time, not without trying to stifle itself like a whisper. I
called for my parents,
though unknown to me, in that dark chamber of the house,
while the world outside was seemingly coming to an end.

Source:http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2078/is_3_43/ai_64339497

As An OCW

2004-12-13T01:00:00.000+08:00

Ruth Mabanglo (--present) has been a well-published poet for over 30 years and has received numerous awards and honors, such as the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature Hall of Fame Award, the 1992 Commission on Filipino Language "Makata ng Taon" (Poet of the Year), and the Manila Critics Circle 1990 National Book Award for Poetry. Mabanglo has also published many academic works and currently is a professor at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, where she teaches Tagalog Language and Literature in the Department of Hawaiian and Indo-Pacific Languages and Literature.

The poem talks about the sufferings encountered by our fellow Filipinos, in their quest for a better life. Extreme poverty and a sense of hopelessness have driven many Filipinos abroad to seek work in order to support their families.They have gone as far as sacrificing their self-worth, dignity and even their life only to find themselves being subservient to inhumane employers.

There have been many accounts of abuse experienced by Filipino OCWs throughout the years; the story of Flor Contemplacion being the most well-known. Flor, a domestic helper working in Singapore, was hanged nine years ago after she was wrongfully accused of committing a crime –killing her ward and another domestic helper. This reminds us of the terrible hardships a lot of people have gone through just to be able to provide their families with modest lifestyles.

Rizzi Baleña

As An OCW
Ruth Mabanglo
Poverty brought me to Hongkong,
Singapore, Saudi Arabia, London and Italy.
I infused into my tongue the different idioms.
I tuned my body to the different beats,
Movements and sounds of submission,
Answering,
Obeying.
I studied how to show
I understood the explanation,
The order,
The instruction.

Careful, might make a mistake--
This is the destiny of one who has a servant,
Now to serve in a foreign land.

The memory clenched in mind
That afternoon at the airport:
Do you have a visa for your destination?
Where is your passport?
Hurry, show me! Show me!
Maybe your documents are fake,
Maybe you are illiterate,
Maybe you are stupid.

Lucid in memory
That afternoon at the airport:
If short, dark, and flat-nosed,
Surely a servant!
You cannot make a mistake
IDs decorate the luggage,
Bringing only boxes.
Departing to/Arriving from Qatar, Iraq, or Bahrain,
Wagering/Wagered their honor
For riyals or dinars.

Lucid in memory
That afternoon draped across the airport:
A widow awaiting a decapitated corpse,
Refusing to answer queries.
Who asks?
Friend or foe?
Can this shame be revealed?
They say he was accused.
One dark night he smuggled
The cruel employer's money and jewelry.

But, but, but
The truth wails.
Wanting to be heard and pampered--
One dark night
The hairy employer sneaked out.
The hairy employer
Approached his bed.
Come on,
Come on,
My wife has her period now.
Come on.
Sir, I am also a man...
Come on,
Lie on your stomach, and raise your butt,
Let me caress your butt.
Smooth, smooth.
Clean, clean.

He was terrified at the scratch of the touch.
Sir...
This won't be long!
Come on,
Come on,
Lie on your stomach, and raise your butt,
The employer violated him.
The servant was horrified
As he felt something sticky.
A hardness thrusted
While curly hair
Grated his skin.

The repulsive odor whirled
In his room.
There?
Pig! Pig! Pig!
He shoved the hairy employer.
Kicked.
Hit.
Pig! Pig! Pig!
(A swine among people who do not eat pork.)

A sharp obscenity lodged
Into his ears
When the employer left the room.

Later,
The military came,
Arresting him.

Lucid in memory
The images at the airport--
Sir, only loose change there.
Ma'm, take care of me!
Don't we have anything for Christmas?
What can we serve for dessert?

They seem like enlarged frames of experience
Tears and laughter from
The search for a destiny.

My tongue remembers your wounded taste.
Under the cover of my face
Your shadow hides;
My shoulder
Your suffering stabs,
Forge me to hasten
My search
For my true colonizer;
Smoothen me to further soften
The conquest of my own fears.
Worry and grief.
The search
For a dignified means of survival
Is a myth.
Like
Searching
For a heron's egg,
Like
Pursuing
A rainbow
To bring home a pot of gold.

I will wager everything I can,
I will erase my accent,
I will change my personality
To assimilate to you
My colonizer.

Open your door
Let me in,
To your country,
To my cell,
To my tomb.

SOURCE: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~mabanglo/EnglishPoems.html

A CATHEDRAL

2004-12-12T22:46:00.000+08:00

A CATHEDRAL
by Camilo Antonio

Camilo Antonio is a committed lyricist—a self-styled Flip-Austro European who writes from a transcultural background of Sino-Hispanic and Malayan origins. He has published four collections of Caminante Songs in the Leporello Poem Series, some of which are recorded in a CD and have been radio-aired. He has participated in Workshops of the Poetry Schools in Vienna and Prague as well as international poetry festivals in Europe.

The persona in this poem is building itself an identity by which it can stand equally with its peers. In this case, it is a cathedral, a powerful stature which is towering, grande and recognized by everyone. It is about power, struggle, and catching up with modernaization. In this poem, I am reminded of a situation be it in the corporate world or not...in the halls of power, like an organization maybe where a person is tyring to survive, taking in criticisms and using it as motivation to succeed and never giving up.

-Geline Velayo

I will build myself a cathedral
for I may stand equal alongside all
who like me have been called and unfurled
to traverse and transcend a human world.

Hurts, hates, doubts, jetloads of humdrum stress,
and love's vulnerable vibrations we bless,
are the mud, pebbles, bamboo marvels—
comprising my framed transitory materials.

Tossing in turmoils of diversion
and electronic combabulation,
I go entranced, tresspassing the night,
indulging ephemeral phases of might.

Primal paradoxical malice—
I will offer this too in that chalice
in which all the scene and unseen blend
Remembering selves in parts we extend

Streams of light through old-rose tainted windows
will draw out dark corners and shadows,
varied voices will echo bell chimes
to recollect people, the wolves and the lambs.

Bones and ashes are transmuting Eden's
visible contours in God's new havens—
invincible powers of spires and domes
lifting visions away from earthbound wombs.

Tables of agapé now encompass
bread and wine of the millenia enmasse;
As the rulers all melt in the ruled,
in the Lord's boundless heart, all will be pooled.

Flowers spell multiple incarnations,
candles lit synchronize the generations;
transcending ages—unnoticeable—
in a universe rises
one more cathedral.

SOURCE:
http://www.oovrag.com/poems/poems2001c-2.shtml

MAN OF EARTH

2004-12-12T22:34:00.000+08:00

Amador T. Daguio (January 8, 1912-1967) obtained his M.A. in English at Stanford U. as a Fulbright scholar. In 1954, he obtained his Law degree from Romualdez Law College in Leyte. Daguio was editor and public relations officer in various offices in government and the military. He also taught for twenty-six years at the University of the East, U.P., and Philippine Women’s University. In 1973, six years after his death, Daguio was conferred the Republic Cultural Heritage Award.
The poem speaks of courage and strength. Philippines have suffered a great deal from countries that had colonized us. They treated the Filipinos as inferiors and were cruel to them especially tha Japanese and Spaniards. Filipinos have no choice but be submissive and accept their situation. But then in their weakness, they were able to find strength. The bamboo plant bends when a strong wind passes by. This is not a manifestation of weakness but rather, it proves how smart and resilient tha bamboo plant is. If it did not bend than it will die because the wind is too strong. It tells us that we must choose our fights. Bending does not mean surrendering. Even if we lost our freedom, we did not gave up. There were lots of revolts and protests. The KKK was one of the most active organizations that fought against the Spaniards. In the end, their efforts paid off. Philippines was able to free itself from 333 years of Spanish colonization.

reena chua

Man of Earth

by: Louis Daguio

Pliant is the bamboo;

I am man of earth;

They say that from the bamboo

We had our first birth.

Am I of the body,

Or of the green leaf?

Do I have to whisper

My every sin and grief?

If the wind passes by,

Must I stoop and try

To measure fully

My flexibility?

I might have been the bamboo,

But I will be a man.

Bend me then, O Lord,

Bend me if you can.

http://www.ncca.gov.ph/culture&arts/infocus/amadordaguio.htm

MY COUNTRY’S IMP

2004-12-12T20:20:00.001+08:00

GEMINO H. ABAD is a poet and leading anthologist of Philippine poetry in English (Man of Earth, A Native Clearing, and A Habit of Shores). He has won numerous awards namely, Palanca Award; Free Press; CCP; Manila Critics' Circle; Catholic Mass Media Award; UP Outstanding Faculty; UP Distinguished Alumnus in Literature; Rockefeller Fellowship (University of Chicago), British Council Grants to Cambridge & Oxford; Exchange Professorships (University of Hawaii; Saint Norbert College, Wisconsin); UP International Publications Award 2001.

The persona talks about the Philippines and how down-graded it has become due to our people’s mentality rightfully referred to as the “imp”. We, Filipinos, live for entertainment and die by our traditions. We have chosen to be oblivious to a reality of corruption and poverty. We easily give clemency to the alleged "underdogs" just because they ask for our pity though they have robbed our people in the past. This country has lost its identity because of its lack of belief in its own capabilities; the people's faith is with the well-off nations who pretend to have concern for our people. Thus, by living with this "imp", this country could never progress and would forever be “a spate of all the world’s amber mornings”.

Mecaela Paula Peralta

MY COUNTRY’S IMP
Gemino Abad

And we are nowhere still, hostile to process
And living mostly on the surface of things,
Captive to our Imp’s “metaphysics” of happiness—
A spate of all the world’s amber mornings.

For we blink the sad, dark faces of things,
The razz and dazzle of our Imp’s humor—
Flux of all the world’s electric mornings—
Blank time’s malice to rouse our spirit’s ichor.

O razz and sparkle of our Imp’s humor,
Such gristle as shatters the tyrant’s laws,
Voids history’s ills, and fires our spirit’s liquor
Where coups vaporize in politics without clews!

What Imp’s grit to scatter the despot’s laws!
And because our fathers loved us, their sins fade
Where ventures choke in scams without clews.
Brief triumph! hubbub and rabble of barricade.

And because our kin are loved, their follies fade
Where shanties barnacle our suffocated creeks.
Fleet glory! and baffle and babble retrograde,
Our Imp still rules, and our laughter leaks.

Where our shacks totter over poisoned creeks,
The thief’s our saint who had faith and was saved.
The Imp enthralls yet where our carnival leaks;
But here is no country still, our honchos depraved.

The thief goes scot-free, by a helicopter saved,
The Imp outwits our writ of habeas loot.
No logic avails, no country where lawyers rave,
Everything is soon forgot, all heroics for naught.

Yet our wit is wound with wounds that wail,
Captive to our Imp’s “metaphysics” of happiness.
We bear our father’s sins ever without bail,
And we are nowhere still, hostile to process.

Source: http://www.geocities.com/icasocot/abad_poems.html
http://www.members.tripod.com/likhaan_online/asso1.htm
http://www.bookmark.com.ph/bookmark/firetrees.htm

THE GUERRILLA IS LIKE A POET

2004-12-12T16:06:00.000+08:00

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
*Jose Ma. Sison’s first book of poems was published in 1962. Brothers introduced readers in the young poet’s time to poem which, in the late years of the 1950s, dared to be (against the fashion of the times) political poetry. The poems were an attempt to break away from the aestheticist concerns of his contemporaries, but the poet had found it difficult at that stage to forge a style demanded by his subject matter and intentions. There simply were no models in the local tradition of Philippine writing in English he could go back to, except such discredited or unfashionable poets like R. Zulueta da Costa ("Like the Molave"), Aurelio Alvero ("1896"), or, at best, the expatriate Carlos Bulosan ("If You Want to Know What We Are"). In the waning years of the Cold War decade, Sison was courting critical doom by defying the reigning formalist dicta against "propaganda" in poetry.
* this poem gives me a picture of thepeople fighting againt the philippine army across the nation may they be N.P.A.'s (national peoples army) or the MILF's in mindanao.
sorce:http://www.inps-sison.freewebspace.com/BeyondAutobiography.htm

THE GUERRILLA IS LIKE A POET

The guerrilla is like a poet
Keen to the rustle of leaves
The break of twigs
The ripples of the river
The smell of fire
And the ashes of departure.

The guerrilla is like a poet.
He has merged with the trees
The bushes and the rocks
Ambiguous but precise
Well-versed on the law of motion
And master of myriad images.

The guerrilla is like a poet.
Enrhymed with nature
The subtle greenery
The inner silence, the outer innocence
The steel tensile in-grace
That ensnares the enemy.

The guerrilla is like a poet.
He moves with the green brown multitude
In bush burning with red flowers
That crown and hearten all
Swarming the terrain as a flood
Marching at last against the stronghold.

An endless movement of strength
Behold the protracted theme:
The people’s epic, the people’s war.

INVITATION OF THE IMPERIALIST

2004-12-11T18:44:00.000+08:00

Ruth Mabanglo is a poet and scholar, who has been publishing poetry for over 30 years. Her illustrious career as a poet is marked by numerous literary awards, most memorable of which is the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature Hall of Fame.

This poem is a critique of the US-Philippine colonial relations and the patriarchal order pervading in the society. The "you" or "host" represents the male US imperialist, while "I" or "guest" symbolizes the female Philippine colony. The host verbalizes his sentiments emanating from a lopsided relationship, dominated by feelings of being taken advantage of by the guest who is very ungrateful. On the other hand, the guest is vocal of her resistance to this relationship and laments the eventual "change" that transpired in her.

As a youth, this poem strikes me as a stark reality of how the remnants of colonialism have continued to invade our way of life, losing our local cultural ingenuity. I am challenged by the prospects of resurrecting our uncontaminated language and of instilling once again a deep sense of cultural heritage among our people. We have lost our genuine national identity to colonialism, where it is presumed that the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is that of mutual benefit.

With another world war lurking to break at the slightest provocation, our country usually finds itself caught in between valuing the "reciprocal relationship" we have with the United States and negotiating for the release of our poor overseas Filipino contract workers from the hands of their captors. At the back of our minds, we know fully well that "the friend of my enemy is my enemy" syndrome exerts its full force. The Philippine government is the forever subservient ally who closes its eyes to the cries of the people not to make our native land the cite of military exercises, another dubious attempt to fool us that this is an act of concern and generosity from our "friend and defender".
Vina Carla V. Gonzaga

INVITATION OF THE IMPERIALIST
Ruth Mabanglo
Your invitation is persistent,
Refusing can provoke resentment.
The card says that I must attend
My future will be discussed.
The postscript says
I am the only guest.
Convinced, I tremble in anticipation,
Finally, notice from a wealthy patron.

I bought new clothes,
I made an appointment with a make-up artist:
In dress and style, the best is necessary
To impress my prospect.

Ay siyanga pala, he is the boss of a company,
My garrulousness has failed to properly introduce him.
Immeasurably wealthy, snub him not,
So many haciendas, innumerable buildings.
I also hear, he is immersed,
In government concessions in fertilizer and lumber.
So the afternoon when the invitation arrived,
My heart and mind languished.
My countless imaginations
Succumbed to my impetuous yearning;
Truly, when the poor are being honored,
Wisdom leaves their body
In the outburst of excitement, reason vanishes
Ignorance prevails.

The calendar shed the dinner's arrival
The telephone and clock persistent reminders--
I subdued my sighs
Until I reached my desired destination.

And there he is now,
Truly the gentleman host.
He stands as he is wont
The guest, he greets immediately.
He extends his palm to my callused hand,
My consciousness almost escapes me.

How beautiful, how extravagant, all the surroundings,
The inside of the room, as if a dream.
There hangs an Amorsolo and Manansala,
All originals, not copies.
There are sculptures by Navarro, Saprid, and Joya,
The ornamental flowers are from Bechaves and Esperanza,
My host, wearing a black tuxedo.
I, the dirt that collects at the corners of a room.

It was then that doubt knocked,
Why are we having this dinner?
Now, I compare myself to my surroundings,
My excitement, unstitched; my anxiety, diffused.
I remember the pen and name I left behind
On a table a room I rent somewhere.
Ever since the invitation first arrived, I realize,
The fragrance of metaphor was lost in the air,
The fantasy suppresses the rhythm of my typewriter
And stifles the flow of my inspiration.

"Sit down," this man tenderly says
With awing signature and word.
Seized by fear, I obey,
Even one word I cannot utter.
"Extremely valiant, when you compose the verses,
The moan of the oppressed is proclaimed.
All of us who are complacent and apprehensive
You kill in silent anger."
I am transfixed in my seat
My lips are sealed and my eyes dilated
This foreigner, surprisingly, knows the poetry
Of my country, nurtured by darkness.

Then reality scorches my heart,
This is a duplicitous invitation.
As if you read my mind,
You say yield not to boredom.
"The truth," you reveal,
"I've been admiring you for a long time.
The way you structure your words is really unique.
The ugly gets even uglier,
You can incite those who should be irate.
In the beginning I adored you,
Okey lang, I say, if there are those who protest."
The voice of my host is calculated,
My blood's vitality ebbs.

The man's voice is treacherous
He tortures me to the bone.
"They say, you Pinoys, okey makisama,
Even borrowing money to entertain visitors.
You know how to accrue debts of gratitude,
All your life paying, though you can never repay.
This the basis of my alluring program,
Give the anti-capitalist a junket.
I have substantiated the myth of snow,
You have seen New York and Chicago."

The grace granted me sparked in my memory,
Believing it was from heaven.
Yet in truth, heaven is this person I now face,
I could see, I could touch
Yet I could not comprehend.
It was then I wished to renounce the experience,
To tell my skin, forget the embraces
Of the friends I have found there.

"But what did you do?"
The imperialist continued in his litany.
"You have declared me toilet culture,
A wolf in sheep's clothing."
"And this dinner is a ploy?"
Hatred knocks in my soul.
"Wasn't it during the junket, that you basked in pleasure?
But when you returned, I was not compensated.
You stayed in my house for five months,
You did not even offer a little gratitude."

"Should I be grateful for my change?
I went home not as myself.
Your literature is now what I write.
My tongue searches for your food.
Once I was even fluent in my own language
Where your words are now inextricably intertwined
You are the shadow I drag
I can only hide you when there is no light.
I must annihilate you from my humanity
I must lose my shadow."
The man's laughter fumes,
My clenched fist tightens.

"Now you have deceived me again.
You are skilled at insulting
Because I am underfed and wanting
And this type of invitation is uncommon.
You also know this is reason enough to be proud
Because you are a leader that takes notice of beggars."

Again laughter responds
The walls are whipped by its uproarious excess
My eyes flare with the inflammation of desire.
This is a test I must pass
I run for the door, but it closes
My only hope is a click of the remote.
"Is this rape?" concealing the fear in my voice.
"I am no longer a virgin!
Many foreigners have preceded you!
Though not physically apparent, I have given birth."

"Ten of you for only a penny. Not worth my attention
Even if you pray!"
And in an instant I am coiled
By a sharp light
A light electrical current crawls into my skin
The current constricts whenever I move
A dinner is what I've attended
I am, in fact, the food to be consumed.

I am first split at the stomach
The liver of need is disgorged
Apparently pleased by my distending entrails
He begins to gnaw on my gall bladder and intestines.

My resolution rooted in the bitterness
My desire shaped by the sourness

Blood is smeared on his gaping mouth,
His fingers wet with my saliva and tears.
The talahib supplant my ringing lips
The cross is staked atop
My unearthed fantasy.
Bite here, bite there
He reaches my womb
He needs to be satisfied
This is where I was named

The womb gives definition
The uterus provides the occasion.

"This is the most delicious part,"
Gorged, the man stopped.
I shut my eyes, I must
Respect the memory.
Engraved in the walls of my uterus is
This burning blaze, this passing experience;
My lover carved into my skull
Buried in the fissure of menstruation.

I am now only head and toes,
Still alive, not in danger.
My mind refuses to yield,
The rays will not pale in my face.
Consciousness is a framed painting
Refusing to die, I am its subject.

Afterwards the plunderer turns to
My right hand.
Thumb and index finger he chews.
I tumble at the gnawing pain.
This now, this is now my cross.
Mister imperialist!
All of my parts, but not my right hand,
Not the hand that writes!
The finger is the mother of all words,
The finger shapes this metaphor.

My words are unfinished
A new thumb and index finger
Sprout from the severed parts.
The two are again bitten
The middle finger also included.
The three he has devoured reappear.
After only a short moment,
Suffering gnaws me.
In my brain, the plowing pain intensifies.
I sense my finger being ripped
Being gnashed by teeth, being masticated.
I also feel their slow resurrection
Seemingly challenging the oppression
The man is again lured by his hunger
Each budding finger
He bites tenaciously.

Mister,
Unceasing difficulty.
Unceasing challenge
Gropes me.
You will weary and tire of the invariable biting,
You will be able to completely kill me
By the suffering
By the loneliness;
But my hatred will flourish
Burgeoning luxuriantly
In the womb of thousands of rising hands
Left and right,
Even the feet sometimes--
They will seethe, becoming thousands of eyes and mouths
Until they produce different sounds,
Rhythm and imagination
On millions of paper,
Until they become rising fists
Hands that cannot be counted:
Subverting you,
Suffocating you,
Smothering you.

Source: Labrador, R.N. The Poems of Ruth Mabanglo. Quezon City: UP Press, 1993.

THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR

2004-12-11T14:09:00.000+08:00

Bienvenido Nuqui de los Santos (1911-1994) is a fictionist and poet known for articulating the loneliness and alienation of the Filipino in exile. He served the Philippine government-in-exile in the United States when World War II broke out.

In the following poem, we see how the rich people (gods) oppress the poor people (persona). The poor people are portrayed as inferior to the rich people, as can be inferred from the lines, “Fear grips us when they frown as they walk past our grim deformities…” It is ironic, however, that the gods are living next door when they are supposedly in heaven. This just shows that the gods are not really gods—they are sickly, brown, and mortal. They are metaphors for people who are well-off.

This poem reminds me of the Spanish colonization in the Philippines. Social classes were formed to separate the wealthy from the poor, and the Spaniards from the Filipinos. The discrimination was evident in the way the Spaniards treated us—with disgust and an air of superiority. They had the power and money to do anything they wanted. On the other hand, we should try not to be like them. We know that we posses more than what others have; but the more we have, the more is expected from us. We should use what we have to help others; not to dominate. They are humans too, like us.

Krizia Syquiatco

THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR
Bienvenido Santos

The gods we worship live next door. They’re brown
and how easily they catch cold sneezing
too late into their sleeves and brandishing
their arms in air. Fear grips us when they frown
as they walk past our grim deformities
dragging with them the secret scent of love
bought by the ounce from gilded shops above
the rotunda of the bright cities.

In the cold months of fog and heavy rains
our gods die one by one and caskets golden
are borne on the hard pavements at even
down roads named after them, across the plains
where all gods go. Oh, we outlive them all,
but there are junior gods fast growing tall.

Source:
Lucero, R.C. and Lacuesta, L.R. “Santos, Bienvenido N.” CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art. Vol. 9. Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1994.
Santos, Bienvenido. “The Gods We Weotship Live Next Door.” Poetry: A Textbook for En 14. Ateneo de Manila University, 1996. p189.

A Christian Poem on Little League Cheating

2004-12-10T23:33:00.000+08:00

Vicente Soria de Veyra (1961-) is a Filipino-indie poet, fictionist, palnter and poet, born in Tacloban City, Leyte Island. Known for his witty and amusing poems this multi-talented man one had to drop put of school due to financial problems. War Photos was de Veyra's third released poetry collection. In this poem, the poet aims to show how Filipinos have grown so dependent toward the Americans and how it is through their (the Americans) influence the we are how we are today. I find this poem very meaningful because of the fact that it is very frank and it risibly shows how we tend to look up to the “wrong” countires.

-patricia escolin

A Christian Poem on Little League Cheating

Filipinos are cheaters such as they have become.
Such as they have been taught. Such as world
democracy has allowed liberal importation to
flow in to an imbalance. Such as biodiversity
programs seek to put patents on our fauna. Such
as an American base treaty seeks to fool us w/ words.

Filipinos are cheaters. Filipinos are suckers. Where
they’ve proven to be suckers, they’ve forgiven.
Such that they forgive themselves when they cheat.
Thank you, America, we have made hoarding,
price hiking, corruption, election frauds, etc. a
way of life. We cheat so much in the domestic
front, we’ve forgotten it’s America’s turf to cheat

in the world front. We have forgotten to worship
America, thinking baseball the greatest accomplishment. We have
forgotten baseball’s a mere
symbol, and American protectorates the greatest
accomplishment, the greatest honor a native hero
can bemedal himself with for a statue in Califor-

nia, or Ilocandia. The value of baseball is in
the competition, I remember now, the secret signs
of competition, the bases of climbing to Home.
The virtue of baseball is in the cap, manufac-
tured by those who commercialize sports. It
is by this forgetfulness that the Philippine Islands
have become strange. For the meantime, then, we

recommend to everybody not to come here. Girl-
napping’s as rampant as in Philadelphia, or is
it Detroit, geez America’s such a big country
you can’t anymore concentrate crime in just
one city. But yet see who comes! Coke still
comes. And Levi’s. And more. As Kipling wanted

Roosevelt to come, old recommendation. And got
laid, his soldiers. Laid to rest, and laid in
bed. We now have the blood of America in
our veins. Such that fathers sell their children
for sex. Oh, why did Aguinaldo recommend
our getting our examples from the depravity
of America’s ghettoes? How desperate we’ve

become. How rich now America has become
out of us. Aguinaldo has sold us to you,
fucking America. I think you eat Asians over
there, your tables get cheap mangoes and
bananas, cigars from Cuba, oh luxuriating States!
We can’t afford our own mangoes, we have
become terrible, from the Latin word terribili,
in turn from terrere, terrifying as Theodore. The
French too are terrible, so are the Russians, and
the Italians, and the Africans, all these people
that make up America are terrible people.

And so America is the Most Terrible. Oh Terrible Terrifying
Americans! We sell our children to you, us suckers. Fuck us,
motherfuckers!

Source: www.geocities.com/warphoto/poetry.html

THEY SAY FILIPINA IS ANOTHER NAME FOR MAID

2004-12-10T15:28:00.000+08:00

Luisa A. Igloria is a poet, fictionist, and essayist who has published five books under the name Maria Luisa Aguilar Carino: Cordillera Tales (New Day,1990), Cartography (Anvil, 1992), Encanto (Anvil, 1994), In the Garden of the Three Islands (Moyer Bell/Asphodel, 1995), and Blood Sacrifice (University of the Philippines Press, 1997); she is also the author of Songs for the Beginning of the Millennium (De La Salle University Press, 1999). She is the editor of the new anthology Not Home, But Here: Writing from the Filipino Diaspora (Anvil, 2003).

This poem is about OFWs, particularly Filipina OFWs, and how they keep themselves from being lonely in a foreign country that calls them by a single name. The persona is obviously a Filipina OFW on a day off with her best friend. She talks about the life of a Filipina working overseas. Enjoying the company of her friends and having fun during a day off.

-Aj Alcantara

THEY SAY FILIPINA IS ANOTHER NAME
FOR MAID
by Luisa A. Igloria

Our Overseas Contract Workers are the new heroes
of the Philippines
--Fidel V. Ramos

In Hong Kong last summer
my office mate and I took
turns, smiling for pictures
in front of "The Court of Final
Appeal," as a joke, or maybe
in a kind of atonement--because
two women boarding the same
ferry we took that morning said,
in the dialect they were sure
we would recognize, Is it
your day off too?

One of them had a quick, nervous way
of smiling, as if ready to take it back
if we had turned on them with
indignation. The other was clearly
ready to challenge, if the well-
intentioned expression of solidarity
were read otherwise. It was a day
filled with rainclouds, a sky
the color of aluminum, the dull
sheen on the inside of an old
rice cooker.

Yes, we smiled, it's our day, off
too. Is your amo kind? ventured the younger
of the two, shyly. Yes, we said, thinking of the air-
conditioned offices and computers we had left behind
for two weeks of r & r, as we leant back on the green
railing. The boat punched forward, toward the red
and yellow buildings, the rickshaws lined up
in the shade.

Mine too, she said; now. But the first one…
and her voice trailed like a scarf over the water,
hesitating. We had to force our way in,
said her friend, picking up the thread. I called
the center, you know, the one near the church?
Migrante. She was this close to being raped.
Did you hear about the last one? The one
who threw herself off the hospital roof?
Instead of an autopsy they scraped
her insides clean, stuffed her
with cotton. Now no one can
prove anything.

If the body can keep secrets, what can it tell
of them? The body as a scroll: what calligraphy,
what message, did that woman's family unwrap
when they received her body aerogrammed
in a bronze casket? For so many dollars,
you can get your name carved
in ideographs on an inked stamp
that is also called a chop.

The shy one asks me to braid her hair.
She calls me ate, older sister. She shows me
the scar on her left leg from shimmying
down a mango tree in their old backyard
at home. She has just turned nineteen,
and her smile can still be
warm as a ripe mango.

I run my fingers through the ink of her hair,
dividing into three sections. What was loose
and rippling in the wind, she has let me gather
in my hand. I braid, picking up the faint scent
of coconut oil; yeasty, warm, like good bread,
rising. She could be my daughter, my niece,
my cousin, my best friend.

Our new friends take us to the Central Station
where they will share a picnic meal
with others: garlic pork and rice, sour
broth, rice cakes, meat stewed in blood
gravy. They will talk, exchange
numbers, letters, news of better
openings, the meanings of insults
in a foreign language; pictures of grade
school children proudly stepping up
to receive medals on closing
day at school. Their hands
the size of their sleeping
quarters.

Even on their day off, the army
ponders the different ways
to share strength in the many
lands of the enemy, abroad
where they are known
by only one
name.

Bound for Saudi

2004-12-10T14:55:00.000+08:00

Jose Dalisay, Jr. (1954 - ) was born in Romblon. He graduated from UP in 1984 (AB English, cum laude), and then received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Michigan (1988) and a PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (1991) on a Fulbright-Hays grant. He teaches English and Creative Writing as a full professor at the University of the Philippines, where he also serves as an Associate of the UP Institute of Creative Writing. After serving as chairman of the English Department, he assumed the post of Vice President for Public Affairs on 1 May 2003. Aa a creative writer writing in both English and Filipino, he has won 16 Palanca Awards in five genres--entering the Palanca Hall of Fame in 2000--five Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) awards for playwriting, and Famas, Urian, Star and Catholic Film awards and citations for his screenplays.

This poem talks about a life of an OFW, particularly one who is "bound for Saudi". I picked this poem because a lot of Filipinos become OFWs for financial purposes, and though I cannot relate to the poem personally, I can see Filipinos in this poem, not just the ones who are working in Saudi, but also those who are in Singapore, U.S., and also in Iraq, where there have been many current issues regarding OFWs.

Bound for Saudi
by Jose Dalisay, Jr.

Airports are where
The families of the poor
Reconstitute themselves

Around the loss
--Albeit temporary--
Of one bound for money.

His passport gleams;
Again he checks the spelling
Of his unusual name.

His contract clads
His abdomen in iron;
No one will go unfed.

While businessmen
Rush past him, wifeless and cool,
To Tokyo, Rome, and LAX,

Deserts blanket
His cold brain. He dwells on their
Irrigable vastness.

Cousins bemoan
The porkless tracts of Jiddah.
(Go for the VCR!)

Uncles applaud
His inbred plumber's genius.
(Tax-free Johnnie Walkers!)

His father counts
The interest to pay on
Their mortgaged happiness.

His mother frames
His swarthy neck with special
Bishop-blessed crucifix.

His bride endures
The taunts, his gritty silence,
Their hard, abraded love.

He wonders if
It will still be morning when
They lick the scraps of his

Pre-departure
Feast, propitiate their saints,
Then bolt the door, and sleep.

source:
http://homepage.mac.com/jdalisay/Personal7.html

Landscapes With Figures

2004-12-09T23:25:00.000+08:00

Carlos Bulosan was born in the Philippines in the rural farming village of Mangusmana, near the town of Binalonan (Pangasinan province, Luzon island). He was the son of a farmer and spent most of his upbringing in the countryside with his family. Like many families in the Philippines, Carlos’s family struggled to survive during times of economic hardship. Many families were impoverished and many more would suffer because of the conditions in the Philippines created by US colonization. Rural farming families like Carlos’ family experienced severe economic disparity due to the growing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the economic and political elite. Determined to help support his family and further his education, Carlos decided to come to America with the dream to fulfill these goals.

The poem is about a journey back to one's homeland. A place which is depicted to be no longer home but more so a wasteland. This poem struck me as it shows the hardship of finding one's home and realizing everything has changed. The Filipino people continously rages war against oppressors -- starting from spaniards to the terrorists today. We all fight our own wars and all realize that "Life is a foreign language."

Landscapes With Figures
by: Carlos Bulosan

Homeward again under foreign stars,
history was a strange gush of wind from memory
that came to echo waterfalls of those years:
home to find the place lost among
galaxies of signs. The hills were gone. The river
trail was forgotten. . . Trying to remember meadowlark
and those who perished in the vanishing land
(bones in the earth where our parents died poor),
the journey fell into heavy tides of flowing
scorn that echoed and reechoed time there.
The sun was most unkind to the place:
history: names of men: patterns of life:
all that distant floodtide heaved and moved,
breaking familiar names that immortal tongues
clipped for the heart to cry, "Home is a foreign address,
every step toward it is a step toward three hundred years
of exile from the truth. . ."
It was not homeward
to the first known land, nor escape
to white sea sprays blossoming on inland shore,
nor love leaping the boundaries naked in the soul,
but a vast heritage of war and destruction breaking
too soon for the living and willing to die.
Life is a foreign language. Every man mispronounced it . . .

- Donna Gonzales

Traffic

2004-12-09T22:23:00.000+08:00

CYNTHIA T. BUIZA is based in Bangkok, Thailand. She is working with an international refugee agency, assisting refugees in different parts of the Asia Pacific region, "living the ultimate irony of exile helping exiles." She graduated from Bikol University with a degree in B.S. Social Work, and completed a post-graduate course in Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines. Some of her poems were published in ANI, the Literary Journal of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, The Sunday Inquirer Magazine; and in 2 anthologies from the Bikol Region.

The poem talks about the Philippines continuous downfall. The persona talks of how she weeps and shivers for the country. I like this poem because I am, in a way, a nationalistic person and I agree with what the poem was trying to point out. “…while my countrymen hang on the clothesline, waiting for the monsoon to end”, I like this line in particular. The poem is very inspiring and must be read by this society of Filipinos.

--> Iya Regalario

Traffic
by Cynthia Buiza

Lately, I find myself easily tearful.

It all began when the peso nose-dived again
and finally broke its nose.

At dusk, the acacia tree in my front yard
shivered, like a portent
and a tear in my left eye fell too fast
like something running for its life.

I find myself too, sighing too much.
as though my lungs are all that is left
tangible.

it is worse when I see the moon
over Mandaluyong at nine o'clock
like a jack-o'-lantern, sinister yet real
or when I read the graffiti
at the tragic LRT
bound for its mission to end all traffic
if only we'd stop moving.

yesterday, I spoke with two Batanguenos
who came to Bangkok to pick apples in Sydney
they never made it past the detention center
and they are homeward bound
chewing on grass.

I don't know.
my sighs are growing longer than my patience,
I am shivering like a tree inhabited by carrion crows,
while my countrymen hang their pockets
on the clothesline
waiting for monsoon to end.

http://www.oovrag.com/poems/poems2004c-buiza1.shtml

the social poem

2004-12-09T18:56:00.000+08:00

vicente de Veyra (----present)christ's failure, de Veyra is a filipino poet, who was born in leyte island. he now writes for balto balani and magica magazines. this poem talks of how the church interprets the 'word of god to fit their own will. they bend the words of god to suit their own will.

tony oposa

Christ's Failure (or, Pro-Capital)

The bishops lobbied for capital punishment
for abortionists.
Then they built orphanages for abandoned
children.
They made good business from adoption pro-
grams.
Two grown-up boys reported being molested.
One grown-up girl reported being molested.

One bishop prayed for enlightenment, Christ-
fashion.
He read history for clues, couldn’t reach
a meta-
Physical decision. He ended up pro-choice
Campaigning for the legalization of abor-
tion.
He was later crucified, and women cried.

The poet opined capital punishment was right
In a land where prison guards employed in-
mates
For missions. He advised this for murderers.
The poet voted for the legalization of
Abortion in this land where individuals are

Commodities for free enterprise, and that
motherhood
Be not forced on females (or males) within
free
Enterprise. He advised, though, Christianity
Where abortions are done with guilt, even
As bishops fail with teachings, Christ-fash-
ion.

http://www.geocities.com/warphoto/warphotos/christs.html
http://www.geocities.com/warphoto/warphotos/about.html

From the Quirino Grandstand

2004-12-09T18:02:00.000+08:00

From the Quirino Grandstand
by Danton R. Remoto

Danton R. Remoto currently works as an Associate Professor in the Ateneo De Manila University. He is a writer, having published his poets in anthologies. He took his MA Literature in the same university, and his MA Publishing studies at the University of Sterling.

This poem speaks from the view of a member of the crowd in the Quirino Grandstand. speaks about the plight of the Filipinos and how much they have yearned for the freedom that was deprived from them during the Martial Law period. He leaves clues with the words he chose, such as a "dictator" and "the lady in yellow". He describes the feelings that was evoked in them when they were able to achieve the freedom they had wanted in the end as well.

- Kathleen Reyes

-----
From the Quirino Grandstand
by Danton R. Remoto

More than two million faces
awash in the early summer sun
The lady in yellow raises
her hands in the defiant sign
fingers roar in the sudden air
Clouds of doves wheel above, Noah's
messengers finally sighting a land
now dried a dictator's blood-flood.
In the park of a freed people,
bermuda grasses weep in sweet pain.
The fountains leap and sing.
A spring of happiness rises like a hymn.

Source:
Maramba, Asuncion David (ed.). Philippine Contemporary Literature [in English and Filipino]
Manila: Bookmark, Inc: 2000 (6th Edition)

COMFORT STATION

2004-12-09T17:39:00.000+08:00

Joi Barrios teaches at UP and is currently Associate for Fiction at the UP Likhaan: Creative Writing Center. Two of her books are "Ang Pagiging Babae ay Pamumuhay sa Panahon ng Digma" (IWS, SSC, 1990) and "Bailaya: Mga Dula Para sa Kababaihan" (UP Press, 1997). She has received awards from Palanca, CCP and the Institute of Philippine Languages. She is a member of the poetry group ORATURA and Congress of Teachers for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND).

The poem "Comfort Station" narrates a significant time in Philippine history when women were made slaves by Japanese soldiers. Through a persona inviting Asian soldiers to choose a woman from the comfort station, the poem describes the experiences that a typical comfort woman had to endure during World War II.

--Twinkles Pascual

COMFORT STATION
Joi Barrios Translated by Jonathan Chua

Come one, come all,
to comfort station number one
eager to serve
all you soldiers of war.

The women here bathe everyday.
The sick ones we send away.
We scrub the floors, we change the sheets,
all regulations we keep.

It's a bargain for Korean and Taiwanese privates!
A peso and fifty cents and an exotic Filipina,
big eyes and wavy hair is yours, all yours.
Forty minutes of heaven.

For Japanese officers who can pay slightly more,
a Japanese woman, rare but ready.
You can wake up in her arms
if you have ten pesos to spare.

Come one, come all.
Lay your head upon her breast,
remember mother's scent.
Tomorrow, you shall be a hero in the skies.
You shall ascend to the clouds
never again to walk the earth.

SOURCE: Barrios, Joi. Minatamis at Iba Pang Tula ng Pag-Ibig (Sweetened Fruit and Other Love Poems). 1998. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Inc, 2000

Ferris Wheel

2004-12-09T16:51:00.000+08:00

Ferris Wheel
by Luz Dayrit Navarro

Luz Dayrit Navarro is a native of Bamban, Tarlac, Philippines. She studied at the Holy Angel College (when it was still a college, now a University) and was th Editor-in-Chief of the Angelite in 1948-1949 school year. She also studied at the College of Pharmacy, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines.

This poem talks about a typical fiesta scenario wherein a lot of things could happen. But for me, it is not only the fiesta that it talks about but a person’s experiences in life. Well, my experiences in life, that’s why I was able to relate to it. It reminds me of the yearly festival in Sorsogon, our province. This poem brings to mind a lot of memories and looking back, I can say that I definitely had a happy childhood. Our life is a cycle, a ferris wheel, and I’m looking forward to another good bunch of them.

*There’s very little information about the author.

Joyce Josue

Ferris Wheel
by Luz Dayrit Navarro

Around, around, ferris wheel of delight,
Around, around, waltz away the gay night,
Band music, loud fireworks fill the air,
Fiesta time! Side shows, revelers at the fair!

Around, around, ferris wheel of love,
For you, young sweethearts, a moon above,
Whisper fond nonsense to lady fair,
Her Ma is away, time's short, take care!

Around, ferris wheel, again and again,
Foolish spinsters, why flirt with strange men?
Pickpockets, who knows, at ease from the job;
Relaxing deft fingers from pockets to rob.

Around, sweet schoolgirls giggle with joy,
Your lessons undone, time out to enjoy;
Oh look! Grimly sitting behind you, too,
Are your strict sour-puss, old teachers two!

Around, around, brave children, laugh,
Conceal your fright with a laugh to bluff,
Up! Hold breath, near steeple high,
Down! Relax, with a loud, loud sigh!

Around, around, to band music gay,
Around! Tomorrow's another day,
Enjoy; have fun, around and around,
Forget that cares in the world abound!

Source: http://members.cox.net/diwataarts/ferriswheel.html

TUMBREL

2004-12-09T15:49:00.000+08:00

Marne L. Kilates, the winner of Palancas, National Book Awards, and the 1998 SEA (Southeast Asia) Write Award, was educated in Divine Word College, Legazpi City. He once attended the Silliman and UP writers workshops and has published three poem collections: Children of the Snarl & Other Poems, Poems En Route, and Mostly in Monsoon Weather.
----------------------------

This poem is about how elections are in the Philippines. It points out that whatever the state of out politics is today is due to how the Filipinos used their right to vote. The lack of education is most evident in times of elections. Filipinos often go for the popular, for the movie star, for the ones who have been given the "gift of tongue." We easily give in to words and promises of hope and of a brighter future. We vote those politicians who can alleviate us from our present condition as soon as possible, without really considering the many other factors that may make them the servant-leaders that we need for our country. We are self- and family-centered -- walled by our personal needs, neglecting the welfare of the society in general. We lack the nationalism that we once had, and that once defined us as Filipinos: heroes.

Through this kind of elections, we throw away what we have long worked for.

:: Jen Vidanes

TUMBREL
Marne Kilates

The revolution eats its own children.
The elections are a feast of fools.

Mornings lurch on the highway like most,
Except this one feels most condemned.
It ages before it is born, it burns out before
It starts burning. Growing cold among
The fumes, it is tired, head-hung, hung-over.
The papers tell us what we most expect.
We behave like we usually behave:
The lights change (the only changes we can
Expect), and we swerve and cut into each
Other’s paths, without so much
As a by-your-leave, except in our favorite fishwife’s
Expletives. Because we are all so alike,
We condemn each other with our choices:
We fling our curses about like spit,
And we are stained, stunned, tainted.
We cannot tell the taste of the blackened air
In our mouths from our own irredeemable
Bad taste. Blind, berserk, bigoted,
We ride this phlegmatic slick
In our bestial cage, in an agony of wheels.

April 5, 2004

source: http://www.geocities.com/icasocot2/kilates_tumbrel.html

Psalm to Poverty

2004-12-08T23:40:00.000+08:00

Ruth Mabanglo

Both a poet and a scholar, Ruth Mabanglo has been publishing poems for years and has been gaining honors and awards such as the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature Hall of Fame Award, the 1992 Commission on Filipino Language "Makata ng Taon" (Poet of the Year) for his work entitled "Gahasa" (Rape), and the Manila Critics Circle 1990 National Book Award for Poetry for the poem, "Mga Liham ni Pinay" (The Letters of Pinay). She teaches Tagalog Language and Literature at the University of Hawaii.

This poem is presently appropriate for the people that were burdened by the sudden strike of the two typhoons that recently vexed our country. It talks about the simplest desires that the poor people (or for our case, the typhoon victims) have and how they pass it off as they sleep in high hopes of a better day the next morning.

Anne Maureen Nilo
Psalm to Poverty <>

Sleep now, child who craves
Canned milk and chocolate,
The coffee and cocoa trees in Cavite
Are now collateral to the puti. <>

Fuse into the currents of your dreams
All that you lament
Even the muted rebellions
Which they prevent

<>Sleep now, young woman who envies
The powder and silk of the singkit
Scattered pesticides wither
The kapok and ramie in the western fields. <>

Fuse into the currents of your dreams
All that you lament
Even the muted rebellions
Which they prevent <>

Sleep now, young man who dreams
Of appliances and fast cars,
The workers stir up trouble,
Supporting thousands of placards. <>

Fuse into the currents of your dreams
All that you lament
Even the muted rebellions
Which they prevent <>

Sleep now, father and mother,
Sleep on the bed of suffering,
We will arise with the chirping of sparrows
And illuminate the morning with blood.

Source:
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~mabanglo/EnglishPoems.html

I'M TIRED OF THE SEDUCTION OF BOYS

2004-12-08T14:22:00.000+08:00

J. Neil C. Garcia is a noted poet and newspaper columnist and one of the first published gay writers alongside Remoto. He is an Associate Professor from the Department of English and Comparative Literature from the University of the Philippines and is a Ph.D. student of the department’s Creative Writing Program.

This poem talks about the seduction of boys towards the opposite sex, or perhaps another boy (particularly because the poet is a renowned gay writer). This is pretty much relevant to our times because the last five lines speak so strongly on how sex is being used as a means of livelihood. Most often than not, the males are the ones who become the consumers of this sex business. Even though prostitution is illegal, it is still rampant in our poverty-stricken streets. It's a sickening thought to know that people would succumb to this just to survive. They know that it's wrong, but they don't see that they have any other choice.

*Sorry, I couldn't find Garcia's birthdate. I'll post it as soon as I know when. He's still alive, though.

Dominique Torres

I'm Tired of the Seduction of Boys
by J. Neil C. Garcia

I'm tired of the seduction of boys
touching crotches with brown careless hands,
the smiles thrown too easily,
the moist and lip-licking tongues.
On jeepneys they sidle up close,
tap your side with an errant finger, or footsy
under rheumaticky expressions of women
dogged by too much dust to care.
By the basketball courts
on streets forced into blindness by joy,
they sling creamywhite tank-tops
over shoulders, croon and preen like
fabled magnificent birds.
The gamy smell of armpits,
the shrill uncurling hairs.
Boys laid out to sweat
and be odorous in the sun:
of their tight and sour skins I'm cloyed beyond
redemption. I've tired of the concupiscent moments
of hearing the rush of blood
into my body's cavernous pockets:
of squeezing shut the dull, exclusive pain
of a throbbing, pig-headed erection.
I'm unmoved by boys
and their penises that fill my mouth
with a promise of red sunsets
bursting like bubblegum dreams, tasteful
as sweetmeats gone stale.
Perhaps it's time
to stop being much to swift to spot
in a crowd shuffling downcast and lonely.
Perhaps, it's my turn to do them a good turn,
to throw a smile and meekly touch the crotch,
flick out the dark assuming tongue,
and do the seducing
for a little, spare change.

Source: http://www.geocities.com/icasocot/neillgarcia_poems.html

..::|| Questions From A Child ||::..

2004-12-08T01:00:00.000+08:00

Fr. Amado L. Picardal, C.Ss.R., graduated from University of San Carlos with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy. He also went to Berkeley in California for higher studies. He was later sent to Rome where he received his Doctorate in Sacred Theology, magna cum laude, from the Gregorian University. He was a student activist during the Martial Law period. He even got arrested and endured a week of torture and seven months imprisonment. His political, theological, and religious poems, in English, Filipino, or Cebuano, are published in his book An Echo From The Wilderness.

In this poem, an innocent child asks his/her mother about how different their household is compared to that of the “big, big house.” One can instantly sense the envy of the child because the life they are living is so much the opposite of those people in the big house who are in a high state of living. The mother explained that they are living a poor life because the others are living extravagantly. The situation may apply to several issues that our world faces today. One may be the capitalist-laborers issue, or possibly the colonizer-colony relations.

..: Teejay Reyes :..

Questions From A Child
Fr. Amado Picardal, CSsR

Mother, why is our house so small?
look at that big, big house!

Mother, why is it so dark in this house?
look, it's so bright in that big, big house!

Mother, why can't we eat regularly?
they always have parties in that big, big house!

Mother, why do I always wear these rags?
the children wear new clothes in that big,big house!

Mother, why are we short and thin?
the people are tall and fat in that big, big house!

Mother, why do we always have to walk?
there are so many cars in that big, big house!

Mother, why do you always cry?
I hear so much laughter in that big, big house!

My child,
why do you always ask these questions?

Our house is small
because that house is very big.

Our house is dark
because that big house is very bright.

We cannot eat regularly
because of the parties in that big house.

We always wear rags
because they always wear new clothes on that big house.

We are short and thin
because they are tall and fat in that big house.

We always have to walk
because there are many cars in that big house.

The laughter in that big, big house
is maintained by the tears and blood that flow
in so many squalid huts and slums.

Sources:

http://picx.0catch.com/poems_index.html

http://picardal.bravepages.com/biodata.htm

POEM WRITTEN BENEATH A BLUE LAMPSHADE

2004-11-30T23:00:00.000+08:00

Jose Garcia Villa (1908- 1997) is considered as one of the finest contemporary poets. Villa, who lived in Singalong, Manila, introduced the reversed consonance rime scheme, including the comma poems that made full use of the punctuation mark in an innovative, poetic way. The first of his poems "Have Come, Am Here" received critical recognition when it appeared in New York in 1942 that, soon enough, honors and fellowships were heaped on him: Guggenheim, Bollingen, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards. Here, the persona is “high” on love conveying his/her feelings to his/her significant other. From what I can draw from my experience, love is like a designer drug; it puts you in an altered state of consciousness.

-Geline Velayo

POEM WRITTEN BENEATH A BLUE LAMPSHADE
Jose Garcia Villa

I speak this poem tenderly
It being for you
And
For you only – We were not
Afraid and we did take love
Gorgeously.
We had no fears.
We knew love we knew it and
We were dancers for it
And also
We were rivers, we were moonlight
And also we were winds
As also
We were gods. And all this
Is remembrance, and all this
Is desire.
But also it is love.

Source:
http://www.geocities.com/alindahaw_poetry/poetry_fav_lampshade.html #title http://www.geocities.com/alindahaw_poetry/poetry_poets_villa.html http://pinoylit.hypermart.net/filipinowriters/garvilla.htm http://redfrog.norconnect.no/~poems/poems/05221.html

The Last Song

2004-11-30T10:32:00.000+08:00

Marie Ysabelle Hope G. Reyes is currently a first year AB Management Economics student at the Ateneo de Manila University. She finished her grade school education from the Piagetian Guided Educational Center and went on to finish her secondary education at the Miriam College High School. Bobbie, as her friends call her, has been writing poems since age seven.

Her poems seem to come from the events that are currently happening, or those that have happened in her life that further fuels her to write. Her poem “The Last Song” is written from the point of view of a person who is in love, but doesn’t want to be. The persona doesn’t want to think about the other person but it happens anyway. The author compared love to a last song syndrome: it’s hard to get rid off.

-james velasquez

The Last Song
By: Ysabelle Reyes

Obsession is a feverish grip.
But this is not how it was-this is not how maybe,
We, were: it was a pleasant anesthetic,
A momentary difficulty.
Thoughts of you lay tranquil
In me-the piercing calm
Before the storm.
Thoughts of you were as driftwood,
Free and unwanted, in particular,
Borne upon waves
Gathered, by the waning moon,
To a solemn rest.

Thoughts of you were as driftwood,
Washing up onto the shore of my shoulder,
Unbidden, with the sighing sea
At the spin of sunset's shadow,
As breast curved away
From vast sky and vast sea:
Seeking to sink in forgetful reverie.

Love is Not Just Rain

2004-11-21T09:15:00.000+08:00

Ramon C. Sunico shows people that a poem can be created in two languages. He is currently managing Cacho Managing House, which publishes books for children.

The persona in this poem shows the reality a couple encounters in a relationship; it is not always full of happiness. This poem means a lot to meas it shows that love is a relationship of beauty and pain, that one cannot exist without the other. I also like this poem because it catches the very essence of love.

nica javelosa

LOVE IS NOT JUST RAIN
Ramon C. Sunico

Love is not just rain
Or mist-kissed hibiscus
Not just golden plumes of grass
Or rising at first-light

The heart has other faces
Sun blazes,
Blood boils
Hot tears are also needed
To offset doting, tender words

To the wind's caress, nails claw.
To cool speech, kisses scald.

Water, Fire, moon, sun
One becomes other, all become one.

Coming together, coming apart-
Adam and Eve, his rib

SIX PM

2004-11-15T08:31:00.000+08:00

Nick Joaquin, is regarded by many as the most distinguished Filipino writer in English writing so variedly and so well about so many aspects of the Filipino. Nick Joaquin has also enriched the English language with critics coining "Joaquinesque" to describe his baroque Spanish-flavored English or his reinventions of English based on Filipinisms. Aside from his handling of language, Bienvenido Lumbera writes that Nick Joaquin's significance in Philippine literature involves his exploration of the Philippine colonial past under Spain and his probing into the psychology of social changes as seen by the young, as exemplified in stories such as Doña Jeronima, Candido's Apocalypse and The Order of Melchizedek. Nick Joaquin has written plays, novels, poems, short stories and essays including reportage and journalism. As a journalist, Nick Joaquin uses the nome de guerre Quijano de Manila but whether he is writing literature or journalism, fellow National Artist Francisco Arcellana opines that "it is always of the highest skill and quality". Among his voluminous works are, The Woman Who Had Two Navels, A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, Manila, My Manila: A History for the Young, The Ballad of the Five Battles, Rizal in Saga, Almanac for Manileños, Cave and Shadows.

This poem tells us about how the author feels about love. For him, (according to the poem), when it comes to love, all of us are equal. People use his works to get ideas about love, but sometimes, the author himself also gets ideas about love from other people.

- Arjay Sarte

Six P.M.
Nick Joaquin

Trouvere at night, grammarian in the morning,
ruefully architecting syllables—
but in the afternoon my ivory tower falls.
I take a place in the bus among people returning
to love (domesticated) and the smell of onions burning
and women reaping the washlines as the Angelus tolls.

But I—where am I bound?
My garden, my four walls
and you project strange shores upon my yearning:
Atlantis? the Caribbeans? Or Cathay?
Conductor, do I get off at Sinai?
Apocalypse awaits me: urgent my sorrow
towards the undiscovered world that I
roam warm responding flesh for a while shall borrow:
conquistador tonight, clockpuncher tomorrow.

http://www.geocites.com/icasocot/home.html
http://www.ncca.gov.ph/culture&arts/profile/natartists/literature/joaquin.htm

ToiletRelationshipBallet - Of Grace and Waste

2004-11-14T20:45:00.000+08:00

Nineteen-year-old poet laureate Angelo V. Suarez (1985 - ) is currently a fourth-year Literature student at the University of Santo Tomas. The young writer has transformed from a rookie into what Alfred Yuson terms as "the Kobe Bryant of Philippine Literature." This progression is manifested by his several accomplishments, the UST's Rector's Award for Literature, the international "Bridges of Struga" award and a Palanca award to mention a few. "The Nymph of MTV" is his outstanding debut collection of poetry.

In Suarez's "ToiletRelationshipBallet," the persona discusses the cycle of relationships: a prompt beginning, a brief development, an utter mayhem and an abrupt end. Along with this cycle, the notion of desecrating a certain relationship is also revealed. I am both amused and amazed at the poem's clever use of ballet and bowel movement as metaphors for love. The use of these metaphors capture the beautiful and disturbing aspects of a romantic relationship. Though the poem may at first seem anti-romantic, it strikes me as an expression of a strong attachment to love and of an unconscious desire to sustain this attachment.

Ayee Macaraig

ToiletRelationshipBallet
Angelo V. Suarez

It all begins with a faint clank
slight swivel then circular motion
everything in a flux
object swirl furiously
like mad ballerina on pot
doing a pirouette
whirl ballerina whirl
ballerina whirl ballerina
whirl whirl whirl
ballerina paper whirl
water paper whirl whirl
paper water feces whirl
whirl ballerina whirl
paper water feces paper water feces
whirl whirl
paper water feces paper water feces
whirl whirl
cyclic circumvolution in circular syntax
chaotic commotion
hypnotic confusion
whirl whirl whirl
feces feces whirl
paper water whirl.

then everything halts
punctuated by a soft roar
bowl is emptied then refilled with H20
bowl is made ready for next monarch to sit on throne
and when great monarch is done dropping jewels into bowl
a faint clank will begin it all

how i wish it were as east to flush you out
old pirouetting fecal ballerina
so i can refill the bowl with her

Source: http://likhaan_online.tripod.com/08242001archivesite/lit15-2.html

LRTC 1037

2004-11-13T23:13:00.000+08:00

Ricardo M. de Ungria.He was appointed second Chancellor of the University of the Philippines in Mindanao in March 2000, for which his colorful investiture rites were held in September 2001 in Davao City. He is the first artist, as well as the youngest administrator, named to the position. He now makes his residence in Davao City, the "city of [his] last breath," where he helped found the Davao Writers Guild and the Samahan ng mga Guro ng Panitikan sa Dabaw (SAGUP-DABAW) in 1999. This poem is about the accounts of a survivor from a train accident. This poem makes me aware of how life can be over just like that and it can happen to anyone. Never knowing how and when it happened.
-Aj Alcantara

LRTC 1037
by Ricardo M. de Ungria

I hear it over and over
BOOM! and then darkness.
And everyone around me gone.
At night when I close my eyes,
my ears stay up
BOOM! and then darkness.
And everyone gone.
In the morning when I break with a fork
the fried egg on my plate
BOOM! it goes.
I hear it over and over.
And then darkness.
And suddenly
space-
smoky space,
bodies on the floor
among burst bags of groceries,
warped
cellphones, and wrapped gifts
torn apart,
-an eye
spilled out of its socket, a child's,
legs, arms missing,
blown off
among crushed papayas and
oranges, broken
glass, and twisted metal of the train.
Blood
on the walls, blood all over, blood
among the soot dripping into
pools.
I wanted to wipe it all
with a handkerchief, but
the handkerchief
turned out to be the white
of my knee cut
open.
BOOM! and then darkness.
And the voices turned to moans
and crying left and right.
Pain
coming to life in the emergency
I thought I was
dead, still
sitting up.
BOOM!
I hear it over and over.
At night it is quiet
no more and darkness is full of wet
colors.
Useless to close my eyes. The shards
crammed in my eye
keep the inside of the train shined up.
BOOM! it goes
over and over.
And the vanished won't let me be
any
more.

AmNeSiA

2004-11-13T19:44:00.000+08:00

This poem was written by a girl who prefers to hide under the pseudonym Sigma. She is studying in Miriam College High School and is currently an active member in the school magazine.

In this poem, the persona kind of "offers" herself ( because in this case the author is female) to that person that she loves. Also, she states that through love, one can cross any boundaries of setbacks that are present. In addition, the author tells the person that she loves that she does not guarantee a perfect relationship and that whatever she may do that would hurt him, he must always keep in mind that she did these unintentionally. Lastly, in the latter part of the poem, the persona shows her "martyr side", that she will continue to love him unconditionally even if her love doen not get reciprocated. I like this poem because it touched me that anyone could be so selfless when it comes to loving somebody, but I also sympathize with the persona because she should not let herself be treated like this and instead, she should be with someone who would treat her better and reflect the love that she is giving to him.

~Loi Ayson~

Amnesia
~Sigma

Remember That I am not yours
Nor anyone else’s
I am me, by myself and I am free
But remember that it is by my own will
That I submit myself to you.
(However absurd it may be)
Because I love you
And I was kind of hoping that
You’d love me
Remember That while
I am not held bound by anything, or anyone
Am held bound by myself – I have limitations
But remembered that at certain Times
Can cross the boundaries of these limitations,
All because I love you,
And I was kind of hoping that
You’d love me
Remember that I will make mistakes
Sometimes,
And even hurt you sometimes,
But remember that they are Done Inadvertently,
Never deliberately
Because I love you,
And I was just hoping that you’d love me.
Forget everything,
But the fact that I love you,
And it doesn’t really matter if
You love me.

Source: The Magnificat, Miriam College High School
Dec. 2003-Jan. 2004 Issue

Superhuman Stateless Senior (SSS)

2004-11-10T23:55:00.000+08:00

Vicente Soria de Veyra (1961-) is a very talented artist. He got his literary recognition when his brother egged him to submit works he had done. He is well known to be really witty when it comes to tackling social issues. This poem talks about our elders and how it seems as if we have no gratitude toward what they have done for us. It goes on by saying that once they become old, we tend to leave them be and lose respect for them. This particular poem is meaningful to me because respect and utang na loob toward our elders is greatly valued. !

Golden Acres is an institution where people of age are brought by their children or (younger) relatives when they (the relatives) feel as if they can no longer take care of their elders. This place is one of the many places we would go to during our out-reach programs back in high school. It is such a lonely place to be because you see these old people left or even abandoned by their own flesh and blood because caring for them has turned out to be an inconvenience. This poem reminds us to respect our elders and show gratitude for what they did for us. !

-patricia escolin

Superhuman Stateless Senior (SSS)

I kind of envy your virtual disgust for fame even while we think you
despicable for your virtual disdain for opinion. How to paint this
picture:

you're old now, I'm still pretty much young, I got a bottle of cologne
and you've got the smell of inedible, rotting yam. Mr. Nameless,
that's not

even apt. Are you a plant ready to be made into fertilizer? And d'you
take a bath? Do you listen to detergent ads on a neighbor's
TV's broad-casts?

Where do you live, in a house? I inherited one, complete with a
mouse. You are a rat. Pity you should be joining a beggars'
syndicate. From bus

windows we see you homeless as a garbage cat. But I kind of envy
your virtual nine lives in the cold even as we virtually hope
you'll die now in a

mirage of food. How is this? You're nothing, I'm still pretty much
young. Ihave a new pair of working-class denims while you're
looking like

someone from some dead boomtown. Oh now, how do we finish this
verse! With a thud, with a rhyme? I know. I can look away and
start

another poem. But, by the way, I just might pass this way again.
Your name, please? Oh, I forgot, we don't give a fart. And you
gotta piss.

How many more rhymes will be written about you before you friggin die!

Source: http://www.geocities.com/warphoto/warphotos/superhuman.html

Fill for me a Brimming Bowl

2004-11-10T20:25:00.000+08:00

John Keats (1789-1817) John Keats was born in Finsbury Pavement near London on October 31st, 1795. The first son of a stable-keeper, he had a sister and three brothers, one of whom died in infancy. On 1816 under the guise of william hunt he was able to publish his first works of about 30 poems and sonnets appropriately titled "Poems"

The poem descrines the emotions which love brings to the male species. It aptly illustrates the happpiness and despair that love brings. But in the end, we realize that it shall never be forgotten.

Niccolo Geronimo

Fill for me a Brimming Bowl

John Keats

Fill for me a brimming bowl
And let me in it drown my soul
But put the rein some drug, designed
To banish women from my mind:
For I want not the stream inspiring
That heats the sense with lewd desiring,
But I want as deep a draught
As e’er from Lethe’s waves was quaffed;
From my despairing breast to charm
The image of the fairest form
That e’er my reveling eyes beheld,
That e’er my wandering fancy spelled.

`Tis vain! Away I cannot chase
The melting softness of that face,
The beaminess of those bright eyes,
That breast – earth’s only paradise

My sight will never be blessed;
For all I see has lost it’s zest:
Nor with delight can I explore
The classic page, the muse’s lore.

Had she but known how beat my heart,
And with one smile relieved it’s smart,
I should have felt a sweet relief,
I should have felt ‘”the joy of grief,”
Yet as a Tuscan `mid the snow
Of Lapland thinks of sweet Arno,
Even so for ever shall she be
The Halo of my Memory.

LESSONS FROM A REVOLUTION FOR MILA

2004-11-10T18:24:00.000+08:00

LESSONS FROM A REVOLUTION
FOR MILA
by Ramon C. Sunico

Ramon C. Sunico obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Humanities and Master of Arts in Philosophy at the Ateneo de Manila University, and his Master of Arts in History of Ideas at the University of Sussex, Great Britain. He taught at the Ateneo from 1980-1985. For his poetry he has received the Philippine Free Press grand prize and was runner-up in the Philippine Literary Arts Council Annual Poetry Awards. He also received the Adarna Children's Writer Prize for original folk tale.

The poem is about pain and how it somehow creates equality in this world. We all feel pain but sometimes we seem to think that we're the only ones and that life is so unfair. This poem makes us realize the fact that everyone hurts and suffers through his own share of pain.

- Michelle Ting

LESSONS FROM A REVOLUTION
FOR MILA
by Ramon C. Sunico

My father taught me
this one thing;

that pain knows no
size no breath.
It understands
no bigger no
smaller no
more no less.

All pain
blinds.
All pain
is intimate.

Have you
felt it?

It is the same
for both women
and men. The rich
feel it as much
as the poor.

With pain, everyone becomes
the saddest person in the world.

Source: An Anthology of Winning Works: The 1980's Poetry

IS IT REALLY LIKE THIS?

2004-11-10T15:55:00.000+08:00

W.J. Sonita is a graduate of the Philippine School of Business Administration with a degree in BSBA Accounting. Being a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), W.J. has worked in the Accounting, Auditing & Taxation areas for a chemical company. This poet has been writing poems since grade school, publishing most of them in their school’s newsletter.

The poem tackles the popular belief that love is “a wonderful feeling you shouldn’t doubt.” The persona in the poem, however, questions this belief because of the loneliness and sadness he/she experienced while in love. This poem was meaningful to me because it conveys an important and realistic message that love is not all about the feeling “like floating in the sky.” One should be prepared to endure the “sacrifices and sufferings” that it brings as well. Nonetheless, we should not keep our hopes down because someday, we will all find a love that will last forever and bring us happiness.
Joseph Barcelon

IS IT REALLY LIKE THIS?
W.J. Sonita

People always say that falling in love
is a wonderful feeling that you shouldn’t doubt.
That, it is the most wonderful feeling in your life.
They also kept on saying that when you’re in love
everything seems to brighten up!
You feel like floating in the sky,
the stars in the universe glittering in your eyes.

Tell me . . . Is it really like this to be in love?
Every minute seems to be an infinite enjoyment;
The world seems to be with you
celebrating the beauty of life -
smiling and laughing, singing and dancing
sharing the fun and enjoying it, too.

I have been in love before, experienced the feeling of loving;
Had a share of happiness coupled with its sadness.
And where is that blooming happiness that they have said?
They have gone . . . gone . . . Gone with the wind
and will never come this way again.

And where am I now? Here I am, alone, crying in the dark;
Looking at the past, yes, the memories of the past
that was left for me to treasure here in my heart.
To be in love? You need an understanding heart,
Brave and patient you shouldn’t do without;
Endure the sacrifices and suffering
as well as the pain-wrenching feeling.

If this is how to be in love,
I don’t want to love anymore;
I don’t want to love and be hurt like this again!
But I know, in every suffering,
there is always a happiness waiting.
And I really believe, that someday,
somewhere, I will find a love
that will lasts forever.

Source:
http://emanila.com/poetry/index_en.php?subaction=showfull&
id=1099268264&archive=&cnshow=news&start_from=&ucat=3&
http://www.emanila.com/poetry/about_writers_poetry.php?subaction
=showfull&id=1098178791&archive=&cnshow=news&start_from=&ucat=3&

Insomia Ballad

2004-11-10T01:25:00.000+08:00

Francisco Arcellana, writer, poet, essayist, critic, journalist and teacher, is one of the most important progenitors of the modern Filipino short story in English. He pioneered the development of the short story as a lyrical prose-poetic form. For Arcellana, the pride of fiction is "that it is able to render truth, that is able to present reality". Arcellana has kept alive the experimental tradition in fiction, and has been most daring in exploring new literary forms to express the sensibility of the Filipino people. A brilliant craftsman, his works are now an indispensable part of a tertiary-level-syllabi all over the country.

The poem is about an insomiac giving an advise to a friend. Stating to "raise a glass.. drink up, drink up" take life easy. I like this poem because I too have experienced those sleepless nights where you just want to stop stressing over things you cannot control, not because you're taking it easy but because you are just tired.

Insomnia Ballad

Cheers be to you, my friend

without a hand to hold nor a storyto tell,

sometimes it is better to

let matters take care of themselves

and focus instead on the long-winded

sad music of our ancestors.

Raise a glass, dear friend,

to the spirit and its elements,

to the angels and demons who never

wore a halo nor gave a damn, respectively,

in all the wildness of our days

and the nights ground to uneven dust.

Drink up, drink up, my friend

for tomorrow laughter will be rare

as cufflinks on a sleeveless shirt

and sleep will be even harder to come by

when insomniacs rule the earth

begging for a drink or two to still

the sot-filled hours.

- Donna Gonzales

A KIND OF BURNING

2004-11-09T23:23:00.000+08:00

Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta (still alive) had several works anthologized in local and foreign journals; has published three books : Anthology of Philippine Contemporary Literature, Readings from Contemporary English and American Literature, and a collection of poems, Montage , which won the Iowa State University best poetry award(1969), and first prize in the Palanca Memorial awards for literature(1974). She handles literature and creative writing classes at the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School, Faculty of Arts and Letters, De La Salle College.

I like the poem because it is very educational. It teaches us how to love our partner more intimately and how to keep the relationship solid. Relationship needs love, respect and distance. If the two of you are always together, more often than not, the fire will burn out. The getting-to-know stage is also important since the personalities of the couple will greatly affect the relationship.

reena chua

a kind of burning
by: ophelia dimalanta

it is perhaps because
one way or the other
we keep this distance
closeness will tug as apart
in many directions
in absolute din
how we love the same
trivial pursuits and
insignificant gewgaws
spoken or inert
claw at the same straws
pore over the same jigsaws
trying to make heads or tails
you take the edges
i take the center
keeping fancy guard
loving beyond what is there
you sling at the stars
i bedeck the weeds
straining in song or
profanities towards some
fabled meeting apart
from what dreams read
and suns dismantle
we have been all the hapless
lovers in this wayward world
in almost all kinds of ways
except we never really meet
but for this kind of burning.

philippine contemporary literature book (from ust)

Late Mourning

2004-11-09T22:28:00.000+08:00

Bernard Julian Patiño (-present) Patiño is currently a faculty member of the English Department at the Ateneo de Manila University. He graduated from the said university with a masteral degree in Literature. In the poem, the persona reminisces about his dead mother’s cooking, and with these thoughts, he realizes how much he longs to have her around again. The poem has truly touched me because it triggered memories I have with my own mother. It made me realize how being away from her has changed my perspective towards family.

Rizzi Baleña

Late Mourning
Bernard Julian Patiño

In this bus bound for Albay
the passengers’ empty faces fill you
with longing for your mother’s
cooking—you imagine yourself,
upon arrival, feasting
on her laing (your favorite).

As a boy, how you marveled
at the gabi leaf as it let rain
bead on its surface and roll off;
and at how your mother moistened
the gabi leaves in her kitchen,
as she poured on them milk
squeezed from coconut shreds,
enlivening the pulp with siling labuyo.
With every hot mouthful
How your eyes watered

as they do now
from the dust that wafts in
through the open bus window,
as from the recollection
that she doesn’t sit
on her coconut shredder anymore,
that she doesn’t handpick
the liveliest of labuyo anymore,
but that she may well be the dust
that still moistens your eyes.

Source: www.admu.edu.ph/soh/en_faculty.shtml

Ms.Prixie Tan-Cruz, Lit 14- R33 Teacher

(theft)

2004-11-09T22:14:00.000+08:00

Some people may find it hard to believe that Angelo Suarez, at the young age of 19, has won a Palanca Award. Currently taking Literature at the University of Santo Tomas, he started writing in his third year in highschool and eventually became the editor-in-chief of the Aquinian, the official publication of UST High School. Suarez was elected president of the Thomasian Writers' Guild during his sophomore year. He has recently had a book entitled Nymph of MTV published, which has recieved numerous praise from acclaimed figures in the literary scene.

This poem is about emotions and respecting choices. It tells of how one's choice cannot be changed or controlled by others and that the changing of emotions and feelings is simply human.
-- Karla Circe Consolacion

(theft)
Angelo V. Suarez

no one doubts her humanity.
two eyes that blink, an undulating tongue,
palpitating heart the size of a fist
like yours that whispered to my face
the blue-black secret of a bruise.

no one doubts her humanity
and neither should you. she isn’t yours,
vincent. never was. no one stole her from you
because she was never something to be stolen,
was never anyone’s to steal to begin with.

her body is her soul’s. her soul, her body’s.
daughter of the universe, she stuns
with her mystery, shadow in the darkness
that you couldn’t see. if she left you for me,
she left you for me—the way one consciously

turns off the tv after rising from the couch,
ambles to her room where she hugs
a pillow, sinks into her bed, dreaming
of a house she chooses to live in, of people
she chooses to live with and love.

Sources:
http://www.geocities.com/icasocot2/suarez_theft.html
http://www.inq7.net/mag/2003/jun/01/mag_3-1.htm

enigma

2004-11-09T22:06:00.000+08:00

Resurreccion Banzon, was born in Balanga, Bataan in the Philippines on July 18, 1935, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of the Philippines. She writes poems and other articles on philosophy published in the UN FAO CASA Gazette. She is a member of the International Poetry Hall of Fame based in Maryland, U.S.A., and later became a distinguished member of the International Society of Poets. She entered a competition for her poems, "Winter" and "Enigma", which were both chosen for the Editor’s Choice Award by the National Library of Poetry (MD, USA).

The persona in the peom vividly describes his/her love for a certain someone. He/She sees love as "Some pain, some joy, a dream of whispers..." Like the author, I see love as a unique mixture of happiness, contentment and sacrifices.

Mecaela Paula Peralta

Enigma
Resurreccion Banzon

How do I love you...a dream of whispers?
Like placid water in a silent lake
Showing reflections of trees in a morning mist,
The flying birds lost in an oasis of sand,
Swans that moved around a dying sun.
The swirls of a pool that let the water glow
With passion stirred against the shambled rocks,
Sad feelings that caused heart rending tears to flow
Some hurt and memories of the mournful past that show
That need to be buried like white-washed sand at shore,
A relief to a child's dream of comforting joy.
How do I love you; it's you; it's you.
Is it a dream of whispers my lonely heart can sing?
Or a reality, a change of theme, a change of heart,
God's arms extended in consolation,
Through constant prayers for lasting love and peace,
Dear love, sustained with devotion.
Soft clouds will bring along the memory of you,
Some pain, some joy, a dream of whispers...
How do I love you?

Source: http://recba.tripod.com/poetry.htm#enigma
http://recba.tripod.com/bio.htm

Making Love

2004-11-09T21:27:00.000+08:00

by Mookie Katigbak

Ana Maria "Mookie" Katigbak is one of the youngest Filipino librettists and poets. In 2000, her original musical, Bakhita, premiered at the Henry Lee Irwin Theater in Quezon City. In 2002, she was awarded a fellowship to the 41st National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete. Mookie obtained her MFA from the New School University in New York City.

The poem is about a couple in a very intimate moment, making love. Love and passion can be seen from the very title of the poem up to its last line. I cannot deny that the poem was a bit intriguing for it is undeniable that the words used and the meticulous description of the scene, gives out a perfect picture of what was taking place. It's nice.

--> Iya Regalario

Making Love
by Mookie Katigbak

And feline the tongue hungry
for his beginnings and ends; the dent
between his collarbone and the low
drop to the navel where his ribs distend

When he holds you to his chest
to learn the tempo his touch drums
against your breast, he hears
the rhythm of a beast.

He enters you slow, then lunges
to break the prone wound open.
The seam gives; an involuntary
quiver, but this is not a heart—

Even as he says: this is how we love.
And you see the shared bed, the sheets
wrenched with finishedness,
the way a made thing is.

http://www.oovrag.com/poems/poems2004c-katigbak1.shtml

SONG

2004-11-09T20:41:00.000+08:00

Salvador Bernal is one of the Philippines’ premier artists, credited not only for his acclaimed literary works but also for his fantastic set designs in productions such as Lapu Lapu, Romeo and Juliet, and Realizing Rama. His literary prowess shines through in The Firetrees Burn All Summer and Other Poems, a compilation of poems written both recently and in the past. In the poem Song, the focus is on a young girl and boy who are very much enamored with each other. It is written with such a keen concentration on detail that it is as if we are seeing through the eyes of the young lovers. This makes us, the readers, grasp how immensely captivated they are with each other. I found this poem particularly interesting since it portrayed the very bright-eyed, pristine exquisiteness of love and just abandons all pessimistic notions of it.

- Essa Balao

Song
Salvador Bernal

A young girl tries
To sing comely of

The fall of hair
On her shoulders
A boy whose eyes
Dazzle in the shine
Of her red silk blouse,
Or linger on
The pout of her lips;
And when the song
Ends

The boy, whose arms
Hug her waist,
Whose dangle of hair
Stills her mouth,
Will cease to be
A lover
Breathless in
Her song.

Source:
Bernal, Salvador. (2000). The Firetrees Burn All Summer and Other Poems. Makati City: Bookmark.

STILL THE BEHOLDER

2004-11-09T20:22:00.000+08:00

Jose Antonio Cangco graduated management and accounting and used to write in his free time . He is currently working in dubai. This poem talks about how when in love everything seems magical and new, how the plain seem special and gives you the wierd tingluy feeling of being in love. when she says " i hate you" you say "you're pretty when you're angry"

tony oposa

STILL THE BEHOLDER

Jose Antonio Cangco

Today, I'll go home to see,
What has changed and did not change,
If simple things of beauty
Have been lost or just turned strange;

Each time I saw a songbird,
You'd raise your hands in greeting,
Saying if 'twas a lovebird,
It would dance and it would sing;

When I pointed out a horse,
And other forms in the sky,
You said that clouds are no force
Against the winds and mountains high;

Nevertheless, I love you,
The reason I'll go back there,
For love is just like the view,
And I am the beholder.

http://www.geocities.com/soho/atrium/9775/stilldbeholder.html
http://www.geocities.com/soho/atrium/9775/pageauthor.html

REVOLT FROM HYMEN

2004-11-09T19:58:00.000+08:00

Angela Manalang is one of the few Filipino poets who boldly attempted at writing poetry in English in the early 1920's. In 1925, barely a college freshman at age 18, she published her first poem “Angelita”. At that time, the general public was still grappling with a new language, that’s why her work then has not been given the attention it deserves and was, in fact, heavily criticized by her fierce rivals.

Today, modern day poets laud Gloria’s work for its daring stance at locating poetry in English within the contexts of other Philippine literatures, embodying a continuation of poetic traditions. Her poetry shows a good understanding of English poetics, with traces of the fixed poetic form of the Shakespearean sonnet. Her poems are also reminiscent of the syllabic nature of native forms and the romance introduced by Spain via Mexico in the seventeenth century.

This poem was considered “immoral” in 1940. Censors had forced Gloria to change the last word of the poem from “whore’s” to “bore’s” if she wished it to be included in Philippine textbooks. It speaks of a longing to “be alone at last”, “to be free” from the bondage of an uneven relationship. This can be interpreted in its political context where America as the male partner remains “a stark omnipotence”, and also in its social dimension that abhors the double standard of morality that favors male chauvinism.

For me, the poem echoes the realization of the Filipinos during the post-war era that America is not, after all, the kind benefactor it promised to be. To this very day, we still have to see that time when we are totally free from foreign domination in its truest sense. It also has a personal significance to me as a woman because it reflects the longing for society to liberate itself from the dominant male ideology.

Vina Carla V.Gonzaga
REVOLT FROM HYMEN
Angela Manalang Gloria

O to be free at last, to sleep at last
As infants sleep within the womb of rest!

To stir and stirring find no blackness vast
With passion weighted down upon the breast,

To turn the face this way and that and feel
No kisses festering on it like sores,

To be alone at last, broken the seal
That marks the flesh no better than a whore’s!

Source: http://www.meritagepress.com/bspeaks-april.htm

And If the Heart Can Not Love

2004-11-09T19:45:00.000+08:00

Jose Garcia Villa (1908-1997) has been regarded as the first and greatest English-language poet of the Philippines. His first collection, Have Come, Am Here, won him the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. The poem speaks of those people who have already given up on love. It tells us that their lives can never be happy and colorful without the people that will nurture and guide them. I find it meaningful because I believe in what the poem speaks. It reminds me that living a life without love, even for one's family and friends, is really not living at all.

Jewel Dy

AND IF THE HEART CAN NOT LOVE
Jose Garcia Villa

And if the heart can not love
death can not cure it nor sleep
no splendor of wound the heart
had no sound

Bloom has escaped it and
birth the miraculous flower
and music and speech leave
it unbewitched

God it can not spell nor sun
nor lover the beautiful word
and it has no sound no sound
nor wound

Source:
http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Tagalog/Literature/Poems/Others/if_the_heart
_can_not_love.htm
http://www.meritagepress.com/yu.htm
http://www.kaya.com/aa-auth.html

'OF A DEATH--'

2004-11-09T18:30:00.000+08:00

Gemino H. Abad, poet, critic and fictionist, is university professor of english and comparative literature in the University of the Philippines. He is noted for his three-volume anthology of Filipino poetry in English (the first volume co-edited with Edna Zapanta Manlapaz): "Man of Earth" (1989), "A Native Clearing" (1993), and "A Habit of Shores" (1999). He has served as secretary of the university, vice-president for academic affairs, and director of Likhaan: The U.P. Creative Writing Center.

The persona of the poem feels the loss of a person with whom he shared a friendship. He is in a place where the other spent many hours in, but the place feels different now that the person was not around. I was drawn to the feeling of sorrow the persona was experiencing because it seemed the persona valued his relationship with the one the poem was for.

--Twinkles Pascual

'OF A DEATH--'
Gemino H. Abad
For an old professor

It isn't the same anymore
going up these stairs knowing
you are in your room no longer
--It isn't what it used to be.

Your books there--
merely words that cannot die,
but only wait and wait--
their silence merely inhabit;
You alone may pass
and cast a backward glance
where their meanings seethe
but cannot die,
and only wait and wait.

Talk with you once
amid the murmur of those texts
seemed a secret path
to their far and nearby silence--
where our words
climbed no stairs
nor ever mourned for hours lost
among other trails.

No, it isn't the same anymore,
but what it used to be
falls too soon from speech--
The stairs guard their silence
where your absence is,
unscrolled
like our void unwound.

In that room of text without
doom,
where no one now heeds
the murmur of their script,
your absence every hour must grow
and soothe
the words that read and read
without release.
So too,
as our days pass and pass,
the uses of being lose their words--
And no one,
no one without breakage can
from silence draw their words again.

SOURCE: Abad, Gemino H. Poems and Parables. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2002

A Cloud Named Looking-for-You

2004-11-09T17:38:00.000+08:00

A Cloud Named Looking-for-You
by Marne L. Kilates

Marne L. Kilates had his education at the Divine World College in Legazpi City, Albay. He had attended the Silliman and the University of the Philippines Writers workshops as well. He had been given numerous awards such as the prestigious Palanca awards, National Book Awards from the Manila Critics Circle and the Southeast Asia Write Award as well. The author has recently finished his third collection of poems, "MOSTLY IN MONSOON WEATHER".

This poem deals with a loss of the persona's love. She expresses her angst by means of her wordplay using the elements of nature to mirror the sadness engulfing herself as she tries to cope up with the loss. Simple as the poem might be for some, the emotions it evokes when people read it is strong and it can let the person reading it feel the same emotions the persona is currently feeling.

- Kathleen Reyes

---------------------
A Cloud Named Looking-for-You
by Marne L. Kilates

My heart aches like the heaving sea;
My tears riddle the face of the water;
My pain comes in gusts, emptying me.

Cursed with wandering, thin as air,
How can I touch the bottom of this grief?
How can I lift this shroud that covers
My love's grave?

My heart heaves like the aching sea;
My tears riddle the face of the water;
My pain comes in gusts, emptying me

Source: http://www.oovrag.com/poems/poems2003c-kilates.shtml

HOW TO SAY GOODBYE

2004-11-09T16:20:00.000+08:00

Ramon Cruz Sunico aka RayVi Sunico (1955—) is known for his prose works, poetry, and children’s stories. He is also known for writing a poem in two versions—Filipino and English. He has received the Philippines Free Press grand prize, 1992 for his poetry, and second prize in the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature for his Secret of Graphite, 1988.

In the following poem, the persona describes to us the painstaking process of saying goodbye. He compares it to a bottle of wine for it requires extensive and careful preparation. Saying goodbye is one of the hardest things to do and this poem is meaningful to me because it helps me deal with this difficult task.

Krizia Syquiatco

HOW TO SAY GOODBYE
RayVi Sunico

For this, one prepares
Most secretly—
Counting days,
Rehearsing lines.
As with a bottle of wine,
So long kept,
The day arrives
For the tearing of the foil.
The cork is popped,
A wineglass taken;
The wine first sipped,
Is slowly finished.

For this, one prepares
Most secretly.
As the sun rises,
One sighs,
Takes long to dress;
Trying not to think,
One tries to smile
As if nothing was happening.
If you are prone to romance,
And the sun’s about to set
You decide you will dine
By candle-glow.
Inedible smiles
Occasional laughter—
One tries to listen
To what the other has to say.
All along one’s heart
Is paper slowly being torn
Most secretly,
As if nothing was happening.

Source:
Galang, R. “Sunico, Ramon C.” CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art. Vol. 9. Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1994.

Relative Distance

2004-11-08T23:00:00.000+08:00

Jaime An Lim

Jaime An Lim is a creative contemporary fictionist and "one of the country's leading critics". He teaches Literature at the MSU-IIT. His work entitled "November the Second" earned the first place in the Philippine Panorama Literary Contest. Whether it be poetry, fiction, or stories for children, his works are constantly gaining recognition at present and are published here in the Philippines and abroad. Lim is also the co-Dorector of the Iligan National Writers Workshop.

The poem "Relative Distance" particularly caught my interest since it artfully tackles about two lovers (most probably a couple living together) who are drifting apart. I, as a normal person would most likely frown on goodbyes. However, this particular one projects a certain kind of image that leads me to assume that these two people didn't want to fall apart but couldn't keep it going. Needless to say, the poem is full of emotions and it compels the reader to feel for the persona.

Anne Maureen Nilo
Relative Distance

That night you finally said,
Somehow, we do not speak
To each other anymore,
We watched the bedroom ceiling
Catch the bald circle of light
From the stiff dangling wire,
The narrow strips of shadow
Between board and board
Sharp as demarcation lines.

My arm held you quite close.
A toss of hair and I was assailed
By vague memories of desire.
What did you expect? I said
While the repetitive sea filled the room
With its sad and tired replies.

Later, turning our backs
We found a sense of loss
Between our touching skins
Wide as a gulf of emptiness
Where we launched our separate
Journeys to separate seas.

Sources:
http://www.geocities.com/icasocot/anlim_poems.html
http://www.msuiit.edu.ph/ipag/dulaan/news.html

..::|| The Awakening ||::..

2004-11-08T01:14:00.000+08:00

Dr. Luz Navarro is a Filipino public health expert-turned poet. Some of her works were published in the United States in the poetry anthology book "Whispers in the Wind.” This poem, one of the four poems dedicated to her husband, tells of the persona’s yearning for her seemingly distant lover. But despite the distance, the feeling she feels for him does not waver. Instead, it intensifies with every word, with every smile. This is meaningful to me because it reaffirms that love knows no boundaries, and it is not affected by time or space.

..: Teejay Reyes :..

The Awakening
Dr. Luz Navarro

Far in girlhood's horizon,
I see you, white flame,
Distant as the morning star,
Yet, its light to me, near.

You come, serenade in the night
Warm and vibrant fire of a thousand stars!
Softly, you call my name,
Each syllable-vibrations of violin strings!

And I, mute as silent flight
Of birds across a summer sky,
Adore you with my eyes in angel hymns
Lifted to the majesty of the skies.

Your voice, your smile is music,
Tender caress to my falling tears.
You are a stately, shining altar
Fragrant with incense of love.

So that I, at this vast distance
Admire you and praise your name
With holy canticles of love
Rising as prayer to a benign heaven.

Source: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/5444/lnavarro2.html

FRAGMENTS

2004-11-07T22:54:00.000+08:00

Sonny Villafania fused the wonder of web designing and the art of poetry. In his website called Dalityapi, which means lyric song or poetry, this AB English graduate from the University of Pangasinan utilized the Internet as a "vehicle for his literary pursuits." His works, which have appeared in various publications such as: Philippine Graphic Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine, and other local magazines, are recognized for their "fluidity of thought and simplicity of language."
--------------------------

The poem speaks of indulging into the feeling that is love, of taking the great risk of loving someone, and of the bliss that comes from being loved in return. It talks of someone entrusting his/her heart, if not his/her whole self to his/her lover. I believe that in any relationship, trust is one of the greatest factors that could determine if it would work or not. There really is no point of committing yourself to someone if you can't even trust that person -- and if you can't be trusted in return. Because once this factor is broken, it would take a rather long time for it to be restored. Sometimes, the damage is even irreparable.

So, once in a relationship, one should at least try his/her best to make it last and to make it work. One should remember that the fact that you're in that relationship, means that someone is willing to take the risk of entrusting you the substance of his soul.

:: Jen Vidanes

FRAGMENTS
Sonny Villafania

i.

kiss me
(like a
bee) so
sofly (in
a rose)
love

ii.

let us
(if lovers
wear the
sunlight)
wear (then
) the span
of darkness
untouched (we
must be) by
the rays of
the sun

iii.

yes (no)
unpoem
me (just
) as you
have (un
dress me)

iv.

love is
(the substance
of the soul)

like a piece
of glass menagerie

(o yes
very fragile
) handle it
with it
-most
care

source: http://dalityapi.tripod.com/poetry.html

Lovers Learn

2004-11-04T14:07:00.001+08:00

Cirilo F. Bautista teaches poetry and creative writing in De La Salle University where he is a full professor and writer-in-residence. He has won many literary awards including the Palanca Hall of Fame and First Prize in the 1988 Centennial Literary Contest sponsored by the Philippine government. Bautista has also taught in different universities in the United States and holds an honorary fellowship in creative writing from the State University Iowa, United States. He also holds a doctorate in language and literature from De La Salle University.

This poem about love caught my attention because though it is not as dramatic as other poems, it contains a wisdom of what love really is, or at least, a realistic perception of love. It speaks of how love is actually a journey that may have trials and obstacles which true lovers must face and overcome. It also defines love as a strong bond that continues on despite the challenges and difficulties it faces. It's not the sweet verse some are expecting, but it's a insightful chunk of wisdom.

Karen Liao

LOVERS LEARN
by Cirilo F. Bautista
(for Arlene Babst)

Lovers learn soon enough
the risky geography of love,
since the craft of loving survives to interpret
the intrigues of heartaches, the joy that will not forget.
Oceans, dark mountains and green,
rivers with fishes, rivers empty as dreams –
they fill the spaces of lovers’ maps,
setting seduction and terrible traps.

The journey taxes the heart and sex, as it should,
for sun may burn grasses as it colors the woods,
but true love travels and is blind
to signals and hazards that stay the mind,
O no, it pushes on, it moves on, it never weeps,
and pushing on, moving on, increases, and keeps.

www.angelfire.com/il/friendsinternational/cfb/AAAindex.html

www.kabayancentral.com/book/dlsu/mb5552269.html

WATER

2004-11-01T21:55:00.000+08:00

Danton Remoto (1963 - present) is a writer and poet with published books like Skin Voices Faces, Ladlad: An Anthology of Philippine Gay Writing, Seduction and Solitude: Essays and Gaydar. He is also currently a professor at the Ateneo de Manila University.

In this poem, he talks about being like water for his love. I especially liked this poem of his because water, in itself, has been close to my heart being a Piscean (water sign) and one who has always loved the sea or the ocean. It also gives this simple yet meaningful look at how love can make us want to be something so we can please the ones we love. It pushes us to be better and to be something that we thought were impossible. Although being like water is difficult, and definitely impossible due to its capability to change phases (solid-ice, liquid-water, gas-vapor) but the mere thought that someone would want to be something that is so far-fetched as this is quite – shall I say? – romantic.

Dominique Torres

WATER
(for B.)
by Danton Remoto
For you, my lover, I will be like water.
I will be Lock Lomond flowing
in loneliness from Ardlui to Arden.
I will be the Falls of Dochart hurling itself
down the hills of Breadalbane,
the rocks rumbling with my cascading force
I will be the rain, slanting
over Stirling in needles tiny as pores.
I will be snowflakes drifting
From the Orkney to the Isle of Skye,
falling in silent fury, as if focusing themselves
in the cold eye of memory.
For you, my lover, I will be like water.

Source: http://likhaan_online.tripod.com/08242001archivesite/lit3-5.html"

ALL SOULS

2004-11-01T08:20:00.000+08:00

Joel M. Toledo is currently teaching English at at UP Diliman,
where he is finishing his Master's Degree in Creative Writing.
He is also a music reviewer for Volume Magazine and a regular contributor to The Philippine Post Newspaper. He has a published book for young adults entitled "Pedro and the Lifeforce"(Giraffe Books, 1996). Some of his poems and short stories have come out in The Phils. Free Press and The Phil. Graphic.

ALL SOULS

Sometimes one wonders where mercy goes
after electricity. Or after the dead return
to the antechambers of memory.
Like tonight--I'm busy watching candles.
Mother says they must burn true,
guarded from wind. Respect for the departed
is a beautiful, grateful light.
Or a lot of it.
We've placed twelve candles around the house
for the day of souls.

There's been no power for the last few hours;
No one's sure when it will be restored.
For the meantime, I stare and marvel
at the contours of flickering candlelight.
There's nothing much else to do;
wonder is a good distraction while

one considers the gathered sweat
and pushes back a prayer.
The dead have gone and the night
is getting darker, deepening
to its natural blackness.
One eventually gives in to supplication.
Lord Almighty,
we want our MTV.

Anything but this. One by one
the candles burn down to frail light
balanced on wicks,
going out when one's not looking,
a sudden breeze betraying a lifetime
of vigilance. The night is harsh,
old and we stumble,
invisible, powerless.

BY
*Not yet deceased
*The poet is known for his collection of poems that won Second Prize for Poetry in the 2004 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. (this poem is part of it)
*The poem is about life, and about a normal persons's day during November two better known to pinoys as all souls day.
*i chose this poem beacause it is down to earth and really tells a story. plus i picked this on since i can relate to it a lot. (my birth day is november 1... just some trivia).
*Carmelo F. Medalla 043647
*All SOULS
*source: http://www.geocities.com/icasocot2/toledo_allsouls.html
likhaan_online.tripod.com/ 08242001archivesite/lit6-19.html