Kon Imong Namatikdan

Poetry by | May 19, 2019

Sa kadugayon sa inyong panag-uban
kon tan-awon iyang hulagway
murag wa may kabag-ohan.

Parehong nawonga ang mamukaw,
mangasaba ug mosugat kanimo
kon di ka matulog sa udto.

Pero kon tutukan nimo’g ayo
sama sa paglutok sa iyang mata
sa platong wala nahugasan, makita mo

ang mga abog nga namilit sa aping
ug liog, sa imong tsinelas, abuhan,
sa kalsada na gisuroyan og binaki

ug ginanggang. Daghan nang linya
sa agtang kada badlis pagpabadlong.
Kahumot na pud siya sa bareta ug klorox.

Sa binugkos niyang buhok nagtabun
sa nalagas nga bahin sa ulo. Napagaw na sab
sa kakapoy sa sige’g yawyaw

kada buntag, nga karon igo na lang
sa pagmaymay
ug tambag.

John Carlo Patriana Beronio kay usa sa mga poetry fellows sa niaging 2018 Davao Writer’s Workshop.

Jeepney Ride

Fiction by | May 19, 2019

The stores in the mall are closing already when a woman in her early twenties pretty and smartly dressed breezes out the door. Click, click, click. Her heels resound as she hurriedly walks down the stairs. She turns a corner and collides with a man—tall in long sleeves and tie. They hastily apologize and quickly move on—she, blushing, for he is rather handsome. She crosses the street and hails a jeepney.

As the jeepney moves away she looks at the familiar sight of office buildings, the market and the small ukay-ukay store which was so popular with her and her classmates during their college days. She sighs because it’s late already. She still has to start with her pile of paperwork. Inwardly she feels pressured yet proud at the same time. She is proud to be trusted so much by the bosses but with a small nagging voice telling her that she is simply being taken advantage of.
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Boy

Fiction by | May 19, 2019

You’re at the basketball court watching the grown-ups play. It’s the barangay fiesta so your mama took you to the liga with your cousins like she always does every year. You keep staring at the kuya holding the ball and running across the court. You like the way his arms look when he shoots the ball. They look like Popeye’s arms after he eats spinach but smaller and not like they would explode if you prick them with a needle. Auntie Ely, the granny next door who gives you chocolates, told you once that if you like someone you will keep staring at them. So does that mean you like that kuya? But he’s a boy. Boys can’t like other boys.
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The Prisoner

Nonfiction by | May 12, 2019

“Bomba… bomba! Halin dira. Bomba! Ahhhhh… Ahhhhh… bomba!” He would mumble words, words that were hard to understand, plain nonsense for those who pass by the store near his isolated room. People in our neighborhood were used to hearing him shout. Sometimes it was very loud that even the ones living in the next block could hear. Whenever he tried to break free, we could hear the sound of clanking steel.

When I was a child, my mother often asked me to buy ingredients and other things in the sari-sari store. Our neighbor, Auntie Alma, had a store in front of her house so I didn’t need to go far every time my mother asked me to buy something for her. But it was a Sunday and Auntie Alma was out to go to church. I had to walk around the street to find another store so I can buy a sachet of Sunsilk and Safeguard. My mother instructed me to return immediately because my father needed it. I walked to the end of the street and found a small sari-sari store. I was very happy that I didn’t need to walk far to buy the shampoo and soap. “Ayo, ayo!” I called. There was no response except the barking of dogs and a voice of a man screaming. I was surprised and scared for a moment. I stepped back a little and hesitated to buy but I remembered my mother’s instruction. I looked at the dog and noticed that it had a leash so I was confident that it would not hurt me. I looked at the small room connected to the house of the store owner where the voice of the man came from. It was locked. I took a step forward and peeped inside the store but there was no one. “Ayo, ayo!” I called louder so that the tindera would hear me. I thought that she was watching TV because I could hear the sound in full volume. When she didn’t come, I called louder, competing with the barking of the dogs and the screaming on the other side of the store. She went out of their house and walked toward the store. I noticed that she was a bit mad because I called her. I asked for the things I needed in exchange for P14.00. When I got the sachet of Sunsilk and Safeguard with me, I turned toward the room, curious about the man inside. “Ante, sin-o nang sa sulod sang kwarto? Sagad tana ka syagit ah. Kag ngaa sa guwas sang balay niyo ang kwarto niya?” I had a lot of questions in my mind but she just dismissed me and told me to go home straight.
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To the Passengers I Sat Beside with on the Bus Home

Poetry by | May 5, 2019

Forgive me for not looking
or for looking at you too
intensely in the eyes before
I settled myself in, or before I
answered, “no, lingkod lang” when
you asked if I was with someone.
I apologize for letting my arms
graze yours, accidentally,
sometimes, only to see what
it is like, again.

Once, I let myself think you
were someone else, or I
a different person. I hope
you didn’t find my presence
too big, as it often, always, takes
up more space than it deserves.

David Jayson Oquendo is an Electrical Engineer based in Davao City, Philippines. His works have appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, Dagmay, and Cotabato Literary Journal.

How Are You?

Poetry by | May 5, 2019

A writer is sometimes vague
with the world and its gentlest demands,
it finds itself from being vague and all,
the pen is an irony;
it truly ensnares the subtlety,
the ardor, and the incongruity;
and yet it incarcerates the hand
that harnesses it
from the ordinary and the naïve,
what disaster it truly brings
only the heart can truly fathom,
and when no word can bear the slight,
only the soul can truly writhe,
the solitude of a writer’s shadow,
enchanting to the dream,
agonizing as reality in the dawn,
what are we but fainting letters
amidst the wave of life,
what are we but troubled outlines
wrestled into oblivion,
and yet the pen is incognito
lashing hearts within
truly tempting, truly cunning
for the human heart is but naïve
but a writer disdains the humor
refutes the slumber
encumbers the pain
for there is luxury in writing
a thousand words
into the deep
for there is no one surer
left alone and forsaken
but the writer who cannot sleep
heeds the cry of the river
and hears the echo of forever,
a writers walks ingloriously
in this world or the next
entrenched into the bosom of life
estranged from this withered road
all but tread the footsteps
of the cold, damp feet
what price does a writer pay?
to make known
the last gasp of light
from feeling and deceiving
from shedding the greatness
of life in a glimpse;
tis’ the life that knew
the pen never forgets
how vague summers can be
and in the burrow of crowdedness
I lay still and vague
and where these trenches may lead
only the pen knows.

Paulo Morales is a senior high school teacher at Badas National High School in Mati City.

BGR

Poetry by | May 5, 2019

There’s a vein – blue
running across your face
a striking contrast
to your pale skin
like grains to a marble
add character to
an otherwise expressionless
mask you wear playing
a geisha China doll

There’s a light – green
flashing in front of me
a persistent signal
to my eager hands
like trained lab rats
my fingers trace
the contours of your face
which is smooth and gentle
and cold and dead

There’s a thought – red
ready for a full stop]
an intention killed
before it can free
trapped desires and
demons from pretty boxes
your dwelling place
in most cases outlined
by faraway glances

Rory Ian is a physics teacher.

Watching Movies in the 70s

Fiction by | May 5, 2019

I’m a Gen Xer and I love movies.

It saddens a movie freak like me that the movie house of my youth, Timber City Cinema in Tandag City, has gone kaput and become display center for all things China.

In mid-90s, during the dying years of Timber City Cinema, watching movies meant sweating bullets from heat; inhaling cigarette smoke; resting one’s feet on the seat to avoid contact with rats the size of cats; and evading raindrops falling from the holey roof.

During heavy rains, a puddle would form on the orchestra floor, between the screen and the first row. And from the balcony I would watch the movie on that pool of water because images were less blurry.

In the 70s, movie houses were enclosed by foldable gate grills. Behind the grills and encased in glass cabinets were movie posters under the “Next” and “Coming Soon” labels. And outside of the grills, tacked on both sides of a plywood panel were still pictures under the “Now Showing” label.

As we waited for the movie house to open at 1 o’clock, we would entertain ourselves by gawking at these posters and photos.
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