Poetry by Arian Rey Tejano | February 1, 2009
Walking in the garden,
I saw you and I asked,
“How does it feel to be a butterfly?”
You said,
“I don’t know”, asking me back,
“You, how does it feel to be a girl?”
Then I answered,
“I don’t know. I’m a boy.”
And as you flew away, you said,
“See. ‘Cause I’m a moth, not a butterfly. Shhhhhh!”
Poetry by Laarni Lorono | February 1, 2009
i powdered my nose
you did the same
i applied cheeks’ tint
you followed suit
i swiped mascara
you wanted it too
i painted my lip with rouge
you looked at me and said,
“May I paint mine too?”
i stared back in a second
too dazed to react
but then again i said
“Sure…why not?”
Events by Dominique Gerald Cimafranca | January 25, 2009
Nonfiction by Sarah Bagis | January 25, 2009
When I see myself in mirrors, I don’t notice my mother’s nose, my father’s eyes, or my aunt’s lips. I do see my reflection but I don’t recognize myself. What I see is my father, what I recognize is a molded reflection of my father’s.
My father may not always have been there for me, but I believe he made sure to be there at the exact moment I had a weak grasp of what was going around me—he made sure to be there to help strengthen my grasp of what was worth gripping, of what was worth holding on to. Here is how I knew.
Poetry by Yul AV Olaya | January 25, 2009
Ano ka sa akin?
Kundi bituin
Na nagniningning
Sa umaga
Na di nakikita
Ngunit di nawawala.
Isa kang tubig na naiipon
Sa gitna ng mga bato
Na sinisipsip ng tag-init
At ibinabalik ng mga hamog.
Isa kang dahong bagong silang
Kapalit ng mga dahong nalanta.
Musika kang banayad at masaya
Na sa loob ng mga bakanteng
bahay ng kabibe nakatira.
Isa kang masayang alaala.
Poetry by James Roy Pascual | January 25, 2009
(Paghinumdum sa 2008)
Maniradug tarung sa balay
Sukna sa iyang mama kanunay
Samtang wa pa sila naabot
Lisod na kuno ang panahon karon
Ang kinaiya sa tawo dili kakumpyansahan
Bisan unsa na lang ang buhaton
Aron lang gayud makalingkawas
Sa nagmantinir nga kahimtang
Nonfiction by Kelly Conlon | January 18, 2009
To write is to be in service to the moment, a moment that seeks to captivate and allure as well as to express the complex nature of emotion. I have written for as long as I can remember because I have found the necessity—no, rather, the conscious desire and comfort to see my thoughts and feelings materialize on paper and hence become my reality through which all can awaken and develop a sense of meaning and value.
I write because I feel the urge to enter into the practice of rediscovering the simplicities and complexities around me through the aid of both imagery and words, each story and each poem pulsating with life, striving to describe, to impart insight, to prove, to share—for life, I believe, is in itself the lifeblood of all things written and to be written.
Nonfiction by Macario Tiu | January 18, 2009
(Excerpt from a letter of James Martin Welborn, an American soldier in the Philippine-American War who turned planter in Davao in the first decade of the 1900s.)
October 14, 1956
Dear Son,
…
I notice in the F. P. (Philippine Free Press) that there is a lot of graft around Manila; does the same condition apply around Davao?
It seems that all the world has gone crooked. We have it in this country almost as bad as there with you. The older Philipino was trained in it by the Spaniards and many have improved on their methods.
When I was there the aim of most of the young men was to get an education so they could live without work, not for the betterment of their country or countrymen.
Continue reading Flashback 1956: Letter of James Martin Welborn