Poetry by Janelle Thea Sorroche | March 9, 2008
Climb a coconut tree
With no thought of gravity to pull you down
Let your feet grip tightly to its body
Forget your children
Crawling on the ground
Like beasts waiting to be fed on your sagging breasts
As your skirt calmly sways in the wind
Continue reading Gravity
Poetry by Mae Ann Piñeda | March 9, 2008
with your long thin legs and strong curled tail
you said you
don’t belong just in this goddamn tree
you belong somewhere you can show off
how attractive you are to predators
but can get away from them
with your defense
the ability to change color
your long thin legs may have taken
you somewhere but
under your light-colored skin
resides the earth-colored tone
you have long forgotten
and can never change
Poetry by Odessa Benaning | March 2, 2008
Hindi ko nais isipin na sabihin itong lihim kong pagsinta;
Hindi ko alam ang aking nakikita sa iyong mga mata.
Subalit nararapat lamang na ang pagsintang ito’y aking ikubli,
Sapagkat hindi mo dapat malaman na sa puso koy ika’y namumukodtangi.
Hindi bale ng nasasaktan ng palihim ang puso kong ito,
Wag lang malaman ng ibang mga tao.
Kaya’t sa poong maykapal aking ipinapanalangin,
Na ang pag-sintang itoy liparin sana ng hangin.
Kaya’t nararapat lamang na ang pagsintang iyo’y aking kalimutan,
Para ng sa ganun ang puso kong ito’y hindi na masugatan.
Subalit hindi ganoon kadali ang paglimot sa isang sinisinta,
Sapagkat hindi ito kagaya ng paglimot sa lyriko ng isang kanta.
Hanggat hindi nawawala ang nararamdamang ito,
Wala akong magagawa kundi patuloy na itago, ang lihim nitong puso.
Poetry by Maria Virginia Yap Morales | March 2, 2008
A grandmother’s remembrances of last summer
Peering through a picture window
I saw pastel-hued balloons float in the air
anchored to chairs built so low
uprooted children are ill-fitted sitting there.
I gaze at you and I standing opposite ends of a rainbow.
I am writing history.
You are certain
in this country
there is a treasure of stories to know.
You finally understood why you had to go.
Sipping sambong in a screened porch
embraced by life-filling green,
alone I stare at your raiment of dark pink torch
more lovely than I can ever imagine.
Poetry by Tita Lacambra Ayala | February 24, 2008
Now who will sustain the
heartbeat of the song
So intent you were at the drums
You looked like you were a master cook head down
preparing delicacies for delicate guests.
When they cut off the lid of his skull
there his brain was throbbing out a
farewell song
Continue reading Requiem for a Drummer Boy
Poetry by Jeff Javier | February 17, 2008
(After Cecille Laverne dela Cruz)
Two parallel lines, fated never to meet in a two dimensional plane.
If you place line A
to compliment line B,
you’ll end up with a telephone pole.
Santa Claus flies to all children,
from North to South, good and bad to give
candies and charcoals – all around the magnetic pole.
If you’ll allow me,
let me talk you into a vision
where the world melts like chocolate
and every day will become Christmas day. Things
will fly that every concept is nothing but good and good.
I’ll even let you come to play in Santa’s factory.
Come, then.
I’ll talk my tongue onto your pole.
Nonfiction by Agnes Locsin | February 17, 2008
In transforming ethnic dance to neo-ethnic, it is a must to first align the mind to the fact that the creation of a new work, even though ethnic inspired, is simply that—a creation. And, since it is to be neo-ethnic, its intention as an artwork should pay tribute to the source of origin.
Authentic ethnic dance loses its magic when performed away from its natural environment. Its very essence is endangered when it is haphazardly pulled out by its roots and the dance, at its purest form, is brought to stages, streets, basketball courts and gymnasiums in urban settings. The dances are often made to wear colorful sequined costumes and, at times, even pretend to be the real thing.
Fiction by Teresita Guillen | February 17, 2008
When I first met Charlie at a young writers’ summer conference in Baguio, he and Winston had already been the best of friends. This was not surprising, because both of them came from the same town in Pangasinan and had gone to school together – from elementary to college. Charlie’s mom and Winston’s mom were best friends in college. Charlie and Winston were both first-born. So it was sort of natural they would be close to each other.
Charlie was a poet, Winston a fictionist, and both had been hailed as “the newest stars in the literary firmament,” as a campus review would put it. Both of them belonged to the exclusive Inner Circle, a select group of campus writers in the university. Charlie looked like a young Dylan Thomas (who happened to be his favorite poet): somewhat pouting lips and curly locks tumbling down forehead and nape. He was lean, fair and frail-looking. His eyes were his best features: saucer-shaped and brooding, dark with secret passions and what he would quote as “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Winston was completely different. He was dark and husky, his kinky hair close-cropped, a crystal stud sparkling on his left ear. He was almost a head taller than Charlie. From a distance, they would look like a man and a woman together: a striking pair.