Category: Poetry

It's Not Always Sunshine in the East

Poetry by | May 27, 2012

She died crouching in the vertical box;
with grains of rice occupying every available space
there is to occupy.

Somewhere, outside the door,
hermit crabs are running away from the dark,
trailing tattered strands of
torn yellow ribbons.

Torn yellow ribbons tied
through holes, on clotheslines
and on the dented barks of coconut trees
standing in lines outside the house,
guarding the house
as military troops storm the streets with
their bayonets; screaming, thirsting for soft flesh–young flesh.

And little girls flee,
near the sea, through the city, into the woods,
not wanting to be seen.

Like hermit crabs
they flee
and they hide

only to die crouching in the rice dispenser
with grains of rice occupying every available space
there is to occupy.

—
Bam Baraguir majored in Asian Studies at Ateneo de Davao University. The poem was written while the author spent some months in Myanmar for a volunteer work with an NGO. She was born, and lives in Cotabato City.

High School, Years After

Poetry by | May 27, 2012

(for my MSU-IIT IDS batchmates)

You sit where you are: at the heart
of the city, its mechanical throb
booming in your chest, or perhaps
under the shade of acacia trees
by the sea wall. The horizon hides
a life long over. You are there
also, in the old high school building,
yellowing in the pages
of a forgotten yearbook,
rusting in the trophy room
weathered by the glance of children
in polo shirts and pink skirts,
children who were once you,
you understand, even as you outgrew
yourself, those kalachuchi trees
in perpetual autumn. You have all
fallen like flowers. Into your
respective plots of soil. All else you leave
to the wind, to the passing
kick of black shoes
amid the crunch of gravel.
Or else you wait to be picked up and sniffed.
You sit where you are.

—
Raised in Iligan City, Arkay Timonera was a fellow at his hometown’s National Writers Workshop in 2010. He studies in Silliman University.

Unta

Poetry by | May 27, 2012

Misubang na ang adlaw,
nagpahiyom pa gihapon ang bulan sa kawanangan.
Ning tip-as sang paglantaw,
Nagahulat sa pagtabon sa kahayag.

—
Ralph Andy Ranario studies Bachelor of Science in Accountancy at Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan.

To Date a White Guy

Poetry by | May 27, 2012

I know what they’re thinking.
When they look at me,
they automatically assume
that I spent more hours
sitting in front of a computer
rather than get a career
and that probably
I was the kind to always want the
easy ways out of life.
They will start cracking jokes about how
you rescued my family from poverty and how
big my budget was for papaya soaps
and pedicures, which never did a lot
for my “native” look anyway,
this money, which came from you anyway.
When I talk, I’m sure they will listen.
They will listen to every
word, watch out for incorrect prepositions,
interchanged pronouns, or a run-on sentence. Sometimes,
I want to indulge them and say an
unforgivable grammar mistake, but I can’t.
I’m well-read, well-versed and eloquent, fuckyouverymuch.
They’d think that we met in Boracay,
spent a weekend together, then brought you home to introduce you
to my family–they’ll even try to guess which
godforsaken probinsya I must’ve come from
and debate whether electricity or good Internet
connection was running there.
They’d assume you came to see me and
marry me because I will take care of you and be your
official caregiver, and you’d be my ticket out of this third world,
not because we are madly in love.
Maybe they’d even throw in a joke or two
about how we may never fight because whenever
we start to, it would end by you saying, “Green card”.
Honestly, I know all of these.
I know all of these by heart.
I can feel it in my
bones, feel the weight of the words
they so want to speak. I feel
the heat of their stares and the pangs
of their disappointment. And I know,
that every time I seem to prove
them wrong or when we look ridiculously happy, I know
they’re jealous of me.
Yes, they’re jealous of me.
Their own racism is killing them. And that,
when I know, I always want to bask in its glory,
feel the moment; I’ll carry it on my way home,
put it in an airtight bottle,
bathe in it every waking morning.

—
Karla Stefan Singson currently leads her Davao-based events and PR outfit, PREP (PR, Events and Promotions). She also writes for print and online media.

Panumdom

Poetry by | May 6, 2012

Niagi ang kuwarenta minutos
Apan ang bus dili mo-isbog.
Ang akong tupad nga mga Hapon
Mikuhas ilang earphone,
Daw naminaw ug tukar o di ba balita,
Napungot kay ang mga sakyanan
Sa Beretania dili gasibog.
Sa akong atbang, dunay duha
Ka Amerkanang sigeg tan-aw
Sa ilang relo, dala yam-id
Kon ang bus mo-irog lag diyotay.
Sa way dugay, adunay mga nanganaug
Nga daw samas sundalong samdan.
Ug wa ko hipugngi ang pahiyom
Nga naumol sa akong mga ngabil
Sa dihang nikidlap sa kong panumdoman
Ang akong gigikanan.

—
Jayson Parba is currently enjoying his Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistantship (FLTA) Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He comes from Cagayan de Oro City and teaches literature and ESL courses at Capitol University.

Settings

Poetry by | April 29, 2012

The chess tables start to crowd in with old men in pillbox hats
on that hour when the sky turns the color of dishwater.
They repeat heroisms of ancient wars here on tiles, the focus
in their eyes pronounce as wattle under their chins. No sooner
than when a thousand lanterns are plugged on, hanging
like diamonds from knobby branches, vertical eyes prepared to drop
before the tears, the drifters come through the green gaps of bush.
They weld into the concrete around the trees; lean on the spray
of a three-tiered fountain, lay their heads against the thighs
of a whore who will later give massages in street corners. Now,
the old are fixed in permanent stoops like black birds
eyeing toppled carcasses of wooden kings. In the bygone sun,
the trees wear patches of dark like second skin, thick wedges
of quiet, unmoving but for the vagrant wind looking for dead
leaves on low branches. They crackle like eggshells under shoes
or the slow fire of cigarettes. Stray starlight sieve irregular
through a tree ceiling, liver spots on the skin of earth,
signs of lost manners, leavings of light, dirty grays below the brows,
signs of sun gone without telling.

—
Zola Macarambon heads the CDO Writers Bloc and has just given birth to a baby boy.

Ang Musika Sa Merkado

Poetry by | April 29, 2012

“Isda, isda” dungog nako sa pagaw nga tingog sa tindera,
“Baligya selopin” ingon pud sa gamay nga tingog sa bata.
Tuyok ligid pud sa kariton kang manong,
Nga ang sulod puros kangkong.

Sa agi-anan, aduna pud tagaktak sa sinsilyo,
Halin sa batang gapamaligyag sigarilyo.
Sa tindahan, sonata sa pirated nga DVD,
Gi-kawatan diay sa tao nga ga-ngisi.

Sa dalan, dyip niserbato atubangan sa motor,
“Hi-way, hi-way” siyaget pud sa konduktor.
Sa kilid-kilid, daghan gapamaligyaay,
Lumba sibat dayun dala siyaget, “naay mangdakopay!”

“Ngayo ko hinabang” ingon sa tigulang sa tungod,
“Prutas mga miga… suki” sa unahan pud ga-tukod.
Aduna pud gapanit-sit sa chiks sa atubangan,
Sa merkado, maski unsa imong madunggan.

Saba paminawon kung bu-ot huna huna-on,
Labi nag ikaw gahilom og sila imong paminawon.
Pero sa kadugay na nako diri nga lugara,
Mao nah ang imong matawag nga ilang musika.

—
Karen Mae O. del Puerto is reviewing for the NLE Board exam and is a part-time violin teacher in prep and elementary school in Cagayan de Oro City. This is her first work featured in Dagmay.

Kape

Poetry by | April 22, 2012

Ang umuusok mong init
Ang siyang umakit sa akin
Na ika’y aking tikman

‘di baleng bibig ko’y mapaso
Mula sa iyong naglalagablab na init,
Malasap ko lang ang taglay mo’ng sarap

Pero dumaan ang ilang minuto
Napagtanto ko na mas malalasap ko
ang iyong sarap kung init mo’y tama lang,
Kaya mas mainam na hihintayin ko na lang
Ang sandaling pwede ka na

Sa sandaling ako’y naghintay
Hindi ko namalayan –
Dahan-dahan ka ng lumalamig

Pero dahil ayokong masayang ka,
pinagtiyagaan na lang kita,
baka sakaling pwede pa?
Ngunit sa aking paglasap,
Sarap mo’y nawala
Mula na’ng init mo’y naglaho

—
Armando Fenequito, Jr. is a third Year Bachelor of Arts in Literature student of University of Southeastern Philippines.