Poetry by Nej Gerasta | March 4, 2009
My dream is the sky.
sober and Defy
My hope is an island.
still, glistening sand
My fear is the ocean.
succumb. Overcome
My light is the sun.
resolute. Stanch
My love is the wind.
seize. Sustain
Or else, fall.
Nonfiction by Jonathan Jimena Siason | 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.
Fiction by Vanessa Claire Lucero | 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.
Poetry by Bong Eliab | 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.
Poetry by Don Pagusara | 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?
Nonfiction by Donna Cabrera | February 15, 2009
Tonight, I look at my child, with her hair bunched up like a fountain at the top of her head, with eyes wide and seemingly wondering whether I’m going to pick her up or not, and feel something painfully heavy on my chest.
A year ago, I had made a very selfish decision not to have her. Before she turne 2 months, I resolved that the creature inside me was not going to make my life any better. In fact, I had decided that her
presence will only bring an onslaught of bad luck and a multitude of clinical depressions. I had wanted to let her go — even forced her to leave.
Poetry by Errol Merquita | February 15, 2009
gibaligya ang among saging
sa Tokyo ug gitagaan
ug daghang bulig ang Manila
gipanitan, gihiwa-hiwa
gibahin-bahin nila
bisan sa panit
wa mi naangkon
apan tua mi nabilin
sa aping sa kutsilyo
isip usa ka lagom
nga salin
katong gihiwa
ninyo ang among yuta
ug ang among mga
sugilanon tua mi nabilin
sa aping sa lagaraw,
nagkadugo
nagkadugo pag-apil ang among
yuta.
Nonfiction by Leanne Alvarez | February 15, 2009
All romantic relationships are bound to hit nasty ground in the end — those that were mine, at least. I console myself with the idea that it’s how you loved in the moment that matters. Knowing that you have given yourself wholeheartedly and had possibly been made into a better person is reason to move forward. I tell myself that although I have lost, I have tried hard. At least I discovered who I am and what I am capable of doing. This I learned through someone who, at one point, I thought defined my being.
“You should meet my cousin.”