Tuldok ng Isang Guro

Nonfiction by | October 17, 2010

Tandang – tanda ko pa ang paboritong itanong ng aking mga guro noong ako’y nasa elementarya pa lamang. Tanong na paulit – ulit pinagagawan ng isang sanaysay sa aming mga mag-aaral lalo na pag umpisa ng pasukan, o di kaya’y wala nang maisip pang ituro ang guro o di kaya’y pagod ang kanyang lalamunan sa pagpapaliwanag ng kung anu-ano.

Ang tanong na: Ano ang gusto mong maging paglaki mo? At bakit?

O, di ba napaka simpleng tanong pero gugugulin na ng mga mag-aaral ang kanilang buong oras sa pagbuo ng komposisyon tungkol dito. Kung minsan pa nga ay magiging takdang -aralin pa dahil sa hindi matapus-tapos ang komposisyong ginagawa sa klase.

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Mosaic

Poetry by | October 17, 2010

Splintered into a myriad pieces
A noiseless breaking
Into bloody shards and salty droplets
The world stands still.

Resting on the ground
Feebly glistening in the sun
Turning every which way
Searching for the whole
Nothing resounds.

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Hermana and Her Man

Fiction by | October 10, 2010

She turned from the open window to the man sprawled across the bamboo bed, observing his nakedness and stillness, which reminded her of a corpse. She stared at his slightly parted lips, from which, a long time ago, affection was uttered, and from which, recently, came words of contempt and abuse. She looked at his brown skin, which she used to bathe with kisses in their sweaty and sultry lovemaking; at the coal-black mass of hair on his armpits, against which she snuggled when they lay spent, exhilarated; and at his chest rising and falling in cadence with his round abdomen. It was at his chest where her eyes stopped because from inside, she knew his heart beat, no longer for her but for the mere mechanism of it, just a muscle pumping blood to his veins, and pumping faster whenever his temper flared. She also knew that the same heart had already weakened upon seeing the pubic hair across his navel; it was caked with blood. On his groin, right above the sagging scrotum, was a bright red stump, from which there were rivulets of blood coursing down the side of his buttocks and the inside of his thighs.

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And the books…

Poetry by | October 3, 2010

And the books will still be there on the shelves, detached souls,
That emerged once, drenched
As shining mangos under a tree after the rain,
And consumed, tasted , delicious fame
Despite defying seasons, crawling ants,
children stoning, the earth in motion.
“Even if” they said, “our pages are worn to shreds,
Shabby and brown, or a fly has been preserved
Between sheets, so much durable
than we are. Whose delicate heat
chills the heart and memory, scatters, expires.”
I imagine when I will be faced out
Replaced by audio, video books – nothing ensues,
no bereavements, no harm, it’ll still be television shows,
Make-ups, money, women, a moment with music.
still, the books will be there on the shelves, able-bodied,
ripe because of people, and also sunlight, crowning.

—-
Hannah Louise Enanoria is a 4th year AB Sociology student of Ateneo de Davao University.

A Möbius Trip

Poetry by | October 3, 2010

The shortest distance between us
is the line that begins on my palm,

travels past a row of cubicles,
exits the revolving doors
and goes around the corner
of the Open University buildings;

meanders along the highways
onto the southern tollway
then with the crisscrossing wires
of the Manila Metro Transit rails;

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Why We Write

Poetry by | October 3, 2010

We write to reclaim a part of ourselves about to be lost in time. To put in cryostasis, a part, a moment of our lives so heavy, so important, so significant we cannot trust our memory to keep it. So we write. To capture a fleeting nest of emotions that wrapped an experience, to nurture an imagination of what could have been. It is to craft into things that can be understood what your being has expressed not in human terms understandable. It may be a flight of the spirit into worlds known only to your universe. Or a profoundest experience so mundane as a clock or a sunbeam. We write to allow the public a glimpse of the private with the risk of being understood or maligned or both. It is to bare oneself, but still with clothes on, words, words as clothes.

—-
Fritz Gerald M. Melodi finished BA Psychology with minors in Philosophy from Ateneo de Davao University.