Sa Pet Shop

Poetry by | March 9, 2009

Anak,
Hindi tayo laging may pagkakataong ganito
Kaya kailangang pagbutihin natin
Ang pagpiling ito.

Di tayo dapat kukuha ng matakaw
Sapagkat baka sa kanyang kahayukan
Pagkain natin mismo’y kanyang lantakan.

Sa kawag ng buntot, di dapat padala
Pagkat baka sa husay nyang makisama
Magnanakaw, sa ‘ting bahay makitira.

Hindi rin tamang pilii’y puro porma
Pagkat baka pati mismong suot nati’y
Kuning pampakintab ng balahibo nya.

Di rin uubra ang napakatalino
Pagkat dahil sa di magkaintindihan
Pamumuhay nati’y lalong magkagulo.

Anak,
Mahirap talaga ang gawaing ito
Kaya kailangang pagsanibin natin
Karanasan ko’t silakbo mo.

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Blue Birds of Happiness

Poetry by | March 9, 2009

(after TALA)

Coming back
out from abyss, I am closer
than I have ever been

to be suspended in the air for so long
falling

at the same time not
Shattering is a dream
to break into many pieces
and disperse like steam
off something very, very cold
on a sticky sunny day.

The cold agony
is past comfort
a mother’s embrace that is far away

How could I have known that happiness came in a cage?

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Encounters

Events, Fiction by | March 4, 2009

Beyond the frames of the glass windows of Davao Medical Center was the cold hard rain. I glanced at the wall clock: 3:05. Time for endorsement call; but I could not free myself from lingering thoughts and the sound of a familiar name. The ceiling fan was not working again. Sweat trickled down my forehead down to my nose and lips; some droplets on my neck glided towards my nape. I felt sweat from my chin trickle down to my throat onto the sides of my breasts and, after finding the main freeway, explore my navel: I had already bathed.

The sharp blend of odors in the Nurses’ station was shaking my consciousness: the scent of oranges, a nearby diabetic’s necrotic foot, an open bottle of rubbing alcohol, the smell of fresh blood expelled from a womb contracting from the neighboring Delivery Room, and spilled urine on the floor from a patient’s urobag. It was exhausting.

Or, perhaps, it was creating a different kind of delusion.

The name?

What’s the name again? The diagnosis?

“Divinagracia, Maria Ana.”

Continue reading Encounters

By the Sea, Sun-Kissed Children

Nonfiction by | February 22, 2009

There is a place in Zamboanga that is almost obscured by the onslaught of the fast paced life in the city. It is there, behind the revered structure of the La Nuestra Senora de la Virgen del Pilar, past the lighted candles held by the pious as their prayers rise, past the stalls that sell cotton candies and cheap rosaries, past the old acacia tree where placentas placed in shopping bags hang from its branches.

It is a place where a mere game of basketball is almost a religion, where women with baskets of fish on their head walk on rickety slabs of wood strung together by ropes. They walk cautiously, lest they plummet to the water below, which is almost solid after years and years of human waste of every kind have amassed. But they walk with fluidity and grace, like dancers listening to the ancient music produced by the tides of the sea. The men, whose flesh are wrinkled and dark, walk with a gait that belied their years.

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Under Our Tree

Fiction by | February 22, 2009

Like all best friends, we told each other everything. From our fears, to our dreams, hell, we even told each other who we liked and all that jazz. No, it wasn’t gay, as some of you might think.

It was perfect. Absolutely, truly, perfect. I was happy and I’d like to think he was too. There were times – a lot of them – when I thought that I could live until I was 150 just as long as he was by my side.

And it was already too late when I realized that I had fallen in love with him.

And fall hard I did.

Pretty soon, I had to stop telling him everything. He couldn’t know. We were friends. Very close ones. And I had broken the golden rule:

Never fall in love with your best friend.

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Gabi ng Pag-Ibig

Poetry by | February 22, 2009

Ang dampi ng malambot na balat;
Madulas dala ng pawis.
Nanaig ang katawang pumipiglas;
Sa ilalim na maninipis na kumot.

Habang nanaghoy ang hangin sa bintana,
Mga mata nangungusap;
Humihingi ng pagkakataon
Na isantabi ang mga alinlangan.

Nagsimula sa mga labi,
Animo’y taong naghahanap ng landas sa gabi
Na may malalim na pagnanasa
Mapusok na pangangailangan.

Nagsumpungan ang mga dila sa kalagitnaan;
Mainit na buntong hininga;
Uhaw na uminom ng alak
Sa umalimpuyong kapusukan.

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ischemic heart

Poetry by | February 15, 2009

as soon as the doctor proclaimed
a state of emergency of my heart’s ischemia
owing to the adventurism of a small artery
surreptitiously collecting deposits of cholesterol
from uncontrolled greed for pork and other
corrupt and decadent pleasures of the mouth
as soon protest movements start to sprout
among the citizenry in my oral cavity–the gums
began to turn red as they congest at the edges;
the tongue used to habits of a true gourmet,
kept twisting restlessly like a jailed cadre
of a banned revolutionary labor party;
the teeth gritted noisily simulating diligence
of mimeo machines spewing leaflets, handouts
and manifestos on eve of a mammoth rally;
and oh, the cheeks have widened, perchance
to accommodate slogans in doggerel verse
as wails on jerusalem’s walls (?)–let alone, o my god!
the hushed underground writhing by armpit hairs!
and pubic hairs’ wriggling like medusa’s serpentine anger!
how can my body’s army of muscle and flesh now
execute with dispatch this heart’s scheming desires?

Continue reading ischemic heart