White Roses

Fiction by | February 19, 2012

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

“It’s alright.”

Noah is busy adjusting the lens of his camera. His back is facing Karen, who has arrived fifteen minutes late. Karen is upset. It’s not usual for her to be late, especially for business appointments. And who can blame her? Her boss just asked her to drive all the way from the city to his rest house practically located in the middle of a forest.

Now, she’s standing here in her boss’ safe haven surrounded by trees approximately fifty feet tall. She watches him take pictures of leaves and flowers and insects and so much more. The trees scare her a little. But the forest is peaceful, very peaceful, and she likes it.

Continue reading White Roses

Ang akong Pebrero

Poetry by | February 19, 2012

Ang akong Pebrero
Mingaw,
mura’g nagbag-ong tuig sa syudad
nga nakabsa’g pabuto.
Minos,
Mura’g drayber sa jeep
nga walay pasahero.
Problemado,
Mura’g manlastohay
Nga perme abunado.
Pusoy,
Mura’g tindahan sa among silingan
Nga wala pa gani bulan
Hala to-a, nanirado.

Ang akong Pebrero,
Pastilan!
Ang dala kon dili
Sakit sa dughan
Sakit bulsa’g ulo.
Maayo pa’g magtoon
kos taman
kay dili madugay,
mahuman ra ko
dinhi sa Ateneo
mupaso, bitbit ang diploma
karong Marso baynti-kwatro.

—
Si Reymond usa ka Mass Comm student sa Ateneo de Davao, editor-in-chief sa Atenews, ug Fellow sa Davao Writers Workshop 2010.

DWG launches book of genre short stories

Events | February 13, 2012

The Davao Writers Guild, together with the National Commission or Culture and the Arts and the Humanities Division of Ateneo de Davao University, will hold the book launch of Dom Cimafranca’s “An Unusual Treatment and other short stories” on February 17, 2012, from 4:00PM to 5:00PM, at the Alumni Hall of Ateneo de Davao University.

“An Unusual Treatment” is a collection of Cimafranca’s short stories previously published in Philippines Graphic, Philippine Genre Stories, Philippine Speculative Fiction, and other magazines and anthologies. Edited by Dr. Ricardo M. de Ungria, the collection consists of genre stories of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and crime. This is Cimafranca’s first book of fiction.

“An Unusual Treatment” was published under the Davao Writers Guild’s Tubao Book Series, under a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. The Tubao Book Series aims to promote Mindanao’s unique literature by featuring writers from the region.

Those interested to attend the book launch can sign up at the form below.

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Hope

Poetry by | February 12, 2012

sat down
alone, here
Beneath the threads of
Silver linings, pins of stars

Hope
sought to string
these stars together
But the beads would not budge.

Hope,
frustrated,
found Fate,
bound as a knot.

—
Karen Kae Dicdican is a 2nd year BSED-English student from Ateneo de Davao University.

Swan Song

Poetry by | February 12, 2012

Deftly,
I untwisted frayed tendrils
of memories and coaxed
from their strands
remnants of longings
that no longer have names
nor shapes.

As I traced fading trails
to your world, the wind
blew, sending up
in spirals dusty crumbs
of hope.

The heavens choked –
and wept.

—
Jearvy R. Lañohan teaches Literature at the Philippine Science High School Southern Mindanao Campus. She was a fellow at the 2011 Davao Writers’ Workshop.

Night Visitor

Fiction by | February 12, 2012

Editor’s warning: What follows is a horror story; it contains some disturbing imagery.

The sun was setting. It was surrounded by an unusual reddish orange, the kind usually seen in landscape art pieces. It was visible through the clear glass windows that surrounded the office. Countering the view were photographs of the top salespeople in the company.

The clock ticked exactly five and everybody in the office prepared to log out from the company database. All except for Althea.

Every afternoon, when it was almost time to go home, her face would cloud with gloom. She did not really want to go home. Behind her back, her officemates said she was going through an emotional roller coaster, but she was careful enough to hide it.

Althea waited until the line of coworkers at the biometric scanners dwindled before she got up from her desk. Althea slowly half-stumbled half-walked. She continued in this manner until she reached home. At times she would cover her right ear, but hesitantly, as if she wanted to conceal her actions.

Continue reading Night Visitor

Marawi

Poetry by | February 5, 2012

Its beauty
deep like
Madalum lake
but equally
cold like 
its water;
blind
to red;
deaf
to a sudden
succession
of sounds.
So see its silence.

—
Orlando Sayman, Jr. is a Job-Enabling English Proficiency Monitoring Specialist at USAID-GEM, and is a regular contributor in Dagmay.

The Bulldozer and the Backhoe

Poetry by | February 5, 2012

Today, the media excavated the bodies of the noisy words put to silence and buried in a mute lot in Maguindanao. The ghosts of those words are back… — an excerpt, from a nonextant news article

The bulldozer, the backhoe and the men are burying the secrets of
their Masters in an open field, bigger than, um, a soccer.

The men, indifferent like the rest of the neck-held neighborhood. The
bulldozer’s and the backhoe’s hands, however, are trembling as if
they had committed a sin.

—
Denver Ejem Torres believes that he is both a fabulist and a chronicler, (after reading Pantoja-Hidalgo) through his poetry.  His works have appeared in the 18th INWW Proceedings, The Asia Writes Project, Red River Review (USA), Bisaya (Manila Bulletin) and in Under the Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry.