Poetry by Janelle Thea Sorroche | March 9, 2008
Climb a coconut tree
With no thought of gravity to pull you down
Let your feet grip tightly to its body
Forget your children
Crawling on the ground
Like beasts waiting to be fed on your sagging breasts
As your skirt calmly sways in the wind
Continue reading Gravity
Poetry by Mae Ann Piñeda | March 9, 2008
with your long thin legs and strong curled tail
you said you
don’t belong just in this goddamn tree
you belong somewhere you can show off
how attractive you are to predators
but can get away from them
with your defense
the ability to change color
your long thin legs may have taken
you somewhere but
under your light-colored skin
resides the earth-colored tone
you have long forgotten
and can never change
Poetry by Odessa Benaning | March 2, 2008
Hindi ko nais isipin na sabihin itong lihim kong pagsinta;
Hindi ko alam ang aking nakikita sa iyong mga mata.
Subalit nararapat lamang na ang pagsintang ito’y aking ikubli,
Sapagkat hindi mo dapat malaman na sa puso koy ika’y namumukodtangi.
Hindi bale ng nasasaktan ng palihim ang puso kong ito,
Wag lang malaman ng ibang mga tao.
Kaya’t sa poong maykapal aking ipinapanalangin,
Na ang pag-sintang itoy liparin sana ng hangin.
Kaya’t nararapat lamang na ang pagsintang iyo’y aking kalimutan,
Para ng sa ganun ang puso kong ito’y hindi na masugatan.
Subalit hindi ganoon kadali ang paglimot sa isang sinisinta,
Sapagkat hindi ito kagaya ng paglimot sa lyriko ng isang kanta.
Hanggat hindi nawawala ang nararamdamang ito,
Wala akong magagawa kundi patuloy na itago, ang lihim nitong puso.
Poetry by Maria Virginia Yap Morales | March 2, 2008
A grandmother’s remembrances of last summer
Peering through a picture window
I saw pastel-hued balloons float in the air
anchored to chairs built so low
uprooted children are ill-fitted sitting there.
I gaze at you and I standing opposite ends of a rainbow.
I am writing history.
You are certain
in this country
there is a treasure of stories to know.
You finally understood why you had to go.
Sipping sambong in a screened porch
embraced by life-filling green,
alone I stare at your raiment of dark pink torch
more lovely than I can ever imagine.
Poetry by Tita Lacambra Ayala | February 24, 2008
Now who will sustain the
heartbeat of the song
So intent you were at the drums
You looked like you were a master cook head down
preparing delicacies for delicate guests.
When they cut off the lid of his skull
there his brain was throbbing out a
farewell song
Continue reading Requiem for a Drummer Boy
Poetry by Jeff Javier | February 17, 2008
(After Cecille Laverne dela Cruz)
Two parallel lines, fated never to meet in a two dimensional plane.
If you place line A
to compliment line B,
you’ll end up with a telephone pole.
Santa Claus flies to all children,
from North to South, good and bad to give
candies and charcoals – all around the magnetic pole.
If you’ll allow me,
let me talk you into a vision
where the world melts like chocolate
and every day will become Christmas day. Things
will fly that every concept is nothing but good and good.
I’ll even let you come to play in Santa’s factory.
Come, then.
I’ll talk my tongue onto your pole.
Poetry by Janice Joy Chiongson | February 10, 2008
e.e. cummings said
since feelings are first
we really shouldn’t bother with the syntax of things
allow my verbs to crash and spin
let my nouns collide with other nouns
allow my modifiers to dangle and get misplaced
let my words multiply and fly
allow my sentences to fall and rise
towards you
into you
but
we really shouldn’t bother with the syntax of things
since feelings are first
e.e. cummings said
Poetry by Jeneen Garcia | February 10, 2008
They both bear the burden of the fruit.
Each day they toil in this marketplace
steaming in the morning heat, here
where there are too many ways to know
good and evil, life and death.
His strong back strains under the heavy basket,
her arms keep steady as she eases the weight.
It does not matter now whose wrong it was,
why each drop of sweetness comes from pain.
Grace still fills the smallest gestures of being.