With the warmth
of a remembered touch
lines of light
and shadows seduce us.
Streets and retreats
and vaulted passageways
whisper, “Come closer,
I have secrets to share.”
Photographs
Poetry by Melody Ross Tinoy | July 12, 2009
Bye bye, Baby
Nonfiction by Mark Darryl Caniban | July 12, 2009
I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t grunt ‘But…,” nor ask why. I just said yes, and nodded even when I meant no. Recently, my parents said no about me working in Metro Manila. I was devastated. I wouldn’t survive it, they predicted.
In Kindergarten, my teacher told this story after nap time when other kids were still sleepy. She told us that birds make good parents – they build nests for their young, feed them everyday, and protect them from unkind predators. But there’s one thing bird grown-ups don’t do for their young – fly. They don’t teach their chicks how to flap wings or glide in the air. In fact, some bird parents even risk pushing their chicks from the nest so that they will learn how to fly. It’s nature’s way of saying that learning does not always have to be vicarious. All birds learn to fly the hard way.
A Bus Ride to Remember
Nonfiction by Maxuel Sacala | July 12, 2009
I am a traveler of the road that connects Surigao del Sur and Davao City. I have lived most of my life in the city, but occasionally visit Surigao, particularly on Christmas breaks, summer vacations, and when the family decides to have a reunion. Sometimes the death anniversary of my great grandmother was reason eough to visit Surigao.
The first trip that I remember making was upon the request of my grandmother, who was longing to see me. I was accompanied by my aunt, whom I called “Mommy.” I had to sleep the whole day to prepare for the trip, which was scheduled at night.
Haircut
Poetry by Ma. Cristina Ramos | July 12, 2009
Everyone asks me where
my long hair went.
With a shy smile
I’d reply, “Split ends.”
What I really mean is
we split up.
Everyone asks me why
and with a sad look
I’d reply, “Fly away”
or “Tangles.”
But they know
what I really mean.
It must have felt like
Poetry by Maureen Ronquillo | July 12, 2009
a crystal dolphin
attached to a string
of chimes hanging
over the little pond
when the water ceases
to flow to the rhythm
of springs,
when the bells toll
and let go of their hold,
when the notes slip
on smooth pebbles,
when the music
hangs limp
on the string
and nothing, no
nothing stays
but the whistling
of the wind.
The Obligations of the Writer
Nonfiction by Marjorie Evasco | July 5, 2009
(In memory of my father, Florentino Evasco)
Invoking the Presences
I would like to begin with a poem which I wrote many years ago for my father, Florentino Evasco. On March 14, he would have been 85 years old. This poem is published in my first book Dreamweavers and part of a cycle entitled “Blood Remembering.” It is called “The Mound of Bones”:
Behind the house,
A mound of earth
Kept my father
Busy digging.
From here the house
Was to extend
A listening ear
To the bamboo grove
And the frogpond.
But father struck
A pile of bones
And was soon lost
In contemplation.
Mother died
When he was fifty.
He told me then the secret
Of the mound of bones:
How the enchanted trees
Dug deep roots and curled
Around the skulls;
How one day, another man
Will uproot other trees and
Unearth our own,
And be lost in
His own reflection.
Jonathan
Fiction by Jeff Javier | June 28, 2009
Everybody has a boyfriend named Jonathan. Johnny, Jonas, Junjun, Nathan, Anthony, Tony, Wanwan, Tantan.
Skin glistening with sweat, Jonathans always talk rough, walk big, and hang out with their guys after a basketball game. They have clean haircuts, pressed shirts, big backpacks, and white rubber shoes. When they are with a girl, they hold doors, shake their shoulders and puff their chests like young roosters.
These Jonathans will have roses and chocolates, candlelit dinners for two, and quick kisses in dark movie houses. You practice your lips every Friday night for a date on Saturdays with Anthony.
Gender In Literature
Nonfiction by Janelle Thea Sorroche | June 28, 2009
The story of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” expresses how women are defined as “the other” and men as the powerful sex.
Attics do not house humans. They are wasted space. Women are considered half monsters — and they are wasted. A woman inhabits the attic; literally and metaphorically, she becomes a madwoman, both as a writer and a character.
The fact is, Nathaniel Hawthorne is male; and men don’t glorify women.
Nathaniel Hawthorne did not directly say that Georgina is a monster. Only by the way she is presented in the story will it then become clear that literature had always been confined to male writers and male characters. Georgina’s birthmark embodies the unforgivable flaws of the female body and her position as a woman. She is not any different from Dr. Frankenstein’s monster; and the only way to kill the female monster is to destroy male literature.