Category: Poetry

Take Me

Poetry by | August 14, 2016

Take me to a place where birds are not caged
Chirping softly as they hover from bough to bough
As soon as a sheet of darkness roll up
Let there be a place to dwell in
Take me to a place where fishes are not doomed
Metamorphosing baits into treats
Swaying from reef to reef
Amid the greed of humanity
Take me to a place where the ocean meets the sky
The breeze and the shade it shares
Emboldens the wandering souls
In quest to fill the dearth
Take me to a place where solitude upholds peace
As the pebbles gets drenched by distress
Pull them back to the sands of hope
Take me to the place I can call my own.

Jeane Lucitte C. Marcera is a psychology major at Mindanao State University. She is from Pala-o, Iligan City.

Passion

Poetry by | August 7, 2016

You often ask me what I believe in.
Both the Bible and Pablo Neruda talk
About biting into an apple:
And I choose to believe in Neruda.
So forgive me if sometimes I bite your apple-like lips.
Because, to quote the poet, I want to fill my mouth with your name.

So here we are in the throes of Passion.
As our fingers intertwine, I hear the clank of nails.
My love, you twist together a crown of thorns and set
It on my head while, cloth by cloth, I undress myself.
Using the veil of Veronica, you trace the stars
And the scars on my face, and your hug covers
My body with the Shroud of Turin.

Like hammer against nail, your lips touch
My lips. Your tongue is a rattlesnake
Whose tail shakes and dances inside my mouth,
And all the time I dance with it, following
Its steps, movement, and rhythm, setting
Aside that it carries with it some poison.

Is it just me, or you can turn your saliva into wine?
Or better yet, your kiss tastes like a whole vineyard.
Even your breasts smell of freshly-baked bread,
And it is where my tongue always end up to.
I remember carrying the cross to Calvary
As I crawl and find my way around
And across your neck, towards those hills,
On top of which you nail and crucify me.

Forgive me if sometimes you think
I do not know what I do. But perhaps I do.
Truly, I say to you, today you will
Be with me in Paradise.
But even then, there, I shall thirst,
And it shall never be finished.
My love, it is into your lips that I commend my spirit.

All this is a giant leap of faith.
I believe in the scriptures that I taste from your holy lips.
I believe in the gospels written by your divine tongue.
I believe in the pulpit which I find,
And always find, at the church inside your mouth.
I believe that your whole body is the Eucharist turned into flesh.
I believe that every breath you take is a glimpse
Of my salvation and redemption.
And even if I die every time you inhale,
And you bury me in the crypt between your lips,
I know, and I’m sure of this, after you exhale
I shall rise again.

Now, even if you see no holes in my palms,
No wound in my side,
Reach out your hand and have faith in me.

Jade Mark B. Capiñanes, an AB English student at Mindanao State University – General Santos City. This is the piece he performed in “#HugotGensan: Ang Unang Tikim,” a spoken word event organized by Pangandungan, a newly-formed writers group in GenSan.

Fatima, the War Nurse

Poetry by | July 31, 2016

In her clinic in the camp, she whispers
Her prayers, hoping no one had been hurt.

But when the forest hushes from gunfire and grenades,
She hears howls of pain, Tabang! Tabang kamo!

Her instruments were all set, laid on the bamboo table – scissors,
Syringe, and bandages – waiting for the wounded.

A bloodied brother in front of her came with a headwound.
Scalp grinning, slit by a bullet. And she stitches it

The way her mother had sewn her pink abaya.
Curious eyes peeking, vision passing through amakan walls.

Veiled women outside covering their mouths.
Pink, sequined veil covers her head. “The color relaxes

The patient,” she remembers. As she buries the needle
In the warrior’s skin once more, she recalls how an old patient

Repelled her, refused her care, for she was wearing a veil.
She had not removed her tondong.

She had turned to another patient, since then.
She gave a slight smile behind her surgical mask

When “Alhamdulillah” came out of the wounded man’s mouth.
Fatima hears gunfire go off again as she washes her hands.

She closes her eyes and waits
For the forest to be completely silent.

—
Mohammad Nassefh R. Macla graduated from the University of the Philippines Mindanao with a degree in BA English, major in Creative Writing. He is a Kaagan-Moro writer from Panabo City, Davao del Norte.

May you also love me like a fever

Poetry by | July 23, 2016

Translated from the poem by Adonis Durado

May you also love me
like a fever,
Fever whose heat would not subside.
Heat born with chills.
Chills that disdain covers
Source from a deep jealousy.
Jealousy that cannot be appeased
Having been assured too many times.
Assurance expelled in one cough.
Cough of one so delicate, may be
sprained by a tickle to the soul.
Soul that’s a swelling in your loin
but a swelling in my chest.
Chest, ah, this chest of mine
ever breathing your
moods, antics, will…
for I am your refuge,
your one piece of blanket,
your single teaspoon of medicine.

Anthony L. Kintanar is a member of Bathalan-ong Halad sa Dagang-Sugbo (Bathalad-Sugbo), the foremost organization of writers in Cebuano, and has contributed to its publications as author, editor, and translator. He attended the Silliman University National Writers Workshop and was an associate editor of the Sands and Coral, Silliman’s literary journal.

Panggaon unta ko nimo sama sa usa ka hilanat

Poetry by | July 17, 2016

Panggaon pod unta ko nimo
nga sama sa usa ka hilanat.
Hilanat nga way kunhod ang kainit.
Kainit nga gikaluhaag takig.
Takig nga di buot magpabukot,
daw suol sa lawm nga pangabubho.
Pangabubho nga di pahaplas
kay dili na mosalig sa pasalig.
Pasalig nga maukal ras usa ka ubo.
Ubo sa usa ka tandogonon,
dali rang malisa sa kundat sa kalag.
Kalag nga lisay sa imong bugan
apan lisay ning akong dughan.
Dughan, intawn, kining dughan
kong baskog kanunay sa imong
sapot, tiaw, pagbuot… kay lagi
ako man ang imong abtanan,
imong usa ka panapton nga habol,
imong usa ka kutsaritang tambal.

This poem is part of Adonis Durado’s poetry collection, Lisay sa Bugan, that was recently launched in Davao city. Adonis Durado is the author of two previous collections, Dili Tanang Matagak Mahagbong (2008) and Minugbo Alang sa Mugbo og Kalipay (2009). He was the recipient of several literary awards, including the Emmanuel Lacaba Prize for Cebuano poetry, the Outstanding New Writer Award (Cebuano Studies Center and Faigao Foundation), and the Writer of the Year (Bathalad Foundation). You may read the English translation of this poem here.

Harbor

Poetry by | July 10, 2016

It is the moon’s urbane hour—
the period for prism play,
and sidewalk vigil.
The bay tonight is a carpet,
creased by the warm west wind,
black, crayon crimson and yellow.
I sit on the steps, with a paper bag
of syruped sticked fruits, while you,
angle adept, contour the moments.
I watch you fade into the crowd of clicks
and ice cream cones. Fireworks balloon
and pop in the night sky.
You emerge from the flurry of laughs,
with a scarfed smile to show me
your harvest of colors.
In the roll of my mind,
I harbor outtakes of you,
undeveloped, paparazzi raw:
Cotton-gloved fingers by the docks
of the browning hills
in the crips of autumn.
Palms clasped in prayer after washing
the golden god of a birth day
in the bricked spirits of a temple.
Broad shoulders bronzing
in the noontime sun,
the sea shelling you in…
We return to the hostel,
doubling back to our double deck
selves.
I pillow my head, close my eyes
and replay tonight’s scene,
this time, in reel time:
the indigo wash of the bay,
our bodies head to toe,
blurring the crowd,
a stranger’s hand snapping
a portrait of two sailing smiles
in an open harbor.

—
Miguel Antonio Lizada grew up in Davao City and teaches English language and literature at the Ateneo de Manila University. He was a fellow of the 54th Silliman University Writers Workshop. His essay “The Bangkok Masseur” won a Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award.

Agua de Viuda

Poetry by | June 26, 2016

I forgive you
for teasing me I smell good—
fragrant like a viuda.
But I have not buried my husband,
nor do I want to.

The only viuda I knew was my grandmother,
who spent her days playing cards
with the neighbors, and died
two years later of heart failure
on grandfather’s birth anniversary.
A sweet ending, some might say.
But not for me.

Continue reading Agua de Viuda