how do you divide time

do you read every day? a beginning writer asks by way of conversation.

i try, i say.  not telling him of the three books on the bedside table, the five on the next tabletop, the new one in my bag i am just beginning to read the introduction.

*

how do you write? i once asked a friend, who was a mother, a wife, a lawyer, a writer, a graduate student.
i've forgotten her reply.















 
 

the day begins early

the day begins early, as it always does.  the body clock in time with the dogs' and dawn.  some times, it even wakes itself before anything, that while the eyes adjust in the just faintly light sky that peeks through the curtains, the wrist with its indiglo watch, like a blind automaton, brings itself close to the eyes.  check the hour.  still dark.  still not halfway through the beginnings of morning.  but the body stands itself from the bed, feet feeling for the room slippers, movement.  the house still asleep.  the dogs each open half an eye, half an ear.

                                                                                        

Once I Claimed Sorrow

Once, I claimed sorrow greater than anyone else’s. The world
was as it is now. Corpses of children loaded into trucks

each day. Change only ever coming in narratives. Gas leaks.
Landslides. Of course a tornado matters more than the antiseptic

room of patients in the nursing ward. Of course it matters
what you’re dying of. Lupus, for example, is a word

no one wants on his gravestone. Better “bravery.”
Or a quote by some bearded European thinker, saying

all we are is people. See, the first thing I’ll do when someone I love
walks that beaten path is quarantine their closet.

Then smell a piece of clothing each day. While watching a sitcom.
Or while walking Belle, my dog, who uses scents to determine

who she loves. Let death never blind us. Disappearance
is always beautiful and flowers are always blooming.

If you cannot find it in you to tell that laughing child
swinging in the monkey bars to stop, perhaps you can save

an equal kindness for grown-ups. True, we are not children.
We are far more worn. Look how we lie: Once, my old man said

that the great earthquake in this country
probably swayed a daffodil continents away

in the perfect direction, creating a beauty that can fill
whatever fracture it made in our souls. Probably,

they are wrong. The deepest sorrows are not fractures.
They are holes within the body. But even still

earthquakes do happen in the context of flowers;
and flowers sometimes bloom in minefields.

Too much happiness can be treated by thinking
of the man in the coldest place on Earth.

And what can I say about sadness
apart from how I cannot have it all to myself.

The world has not changed, but now chances are
my sorrow is average. I am most important

only when starlight passes through my irises
after thousands of years of travel; and where I dispense it

may be the greatest ripple I can manage
in whatever sea we’ve been thrown in.

This is not a call to be humble. I do not mean
to empower anyone.  This is just a prayer in its rawest form.

This is an instruction to befriend your executioner. Or no.
This is nothing but a howl. A cry. A gasp. 

A yelp.






by Gian Lao

remains of the beginning of day

3 slices of toast
3 slices of ripe papaya
2 kinds of cheese
half a bottle of lemon concentrate
coffee, dregs
some thin slices of carrots
half a glass of water
two dogs, pretending to go back to sleep
the quiet of the morning
faint imaginary sounds of birds
sound of a leaving plane
occasional sound of rain drop on some roof
a faraway dog bark
















 
 

A Wednesday Morning

From the window I could see the hairlines of soft rain.  Slanted by breeze.  This morning, when it was still dark and the dogs were let out, the chill was December.  That end of the year with a kind of brightness people mostly call cheer.  

It is sunup now and I still attempt to write that which I lost last night.  I do not look at the clock but it does not leave my mind.  Only the dogs are patient.  They have long, short days for dreaming.  Perhaps, of running around with their humans.  Their tails wagging with glee.















 

after city

The children are dead.
The news does not say
even though their bodies
are all around.  In parts,
in missing wholes.
The entire city has begun
to smell of loss.  There are 
arms, dismembered, waving
at Red Cross trucks carrying relief.
Too many bare feet, caught 
cold in the act of running.
Everybody is howling.
But there are not enough names.

At the centers, the lines are long
for food, for water, for medicine.
Also for calling God.
But the telecommunications 
are all down.  
And the entire city is dark.








(Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, Philippines)
 







by shane

birth-day

Here it is a travesty.
That life goes on for a number.
That celebrations are called 
for some other reasons
if one does not care to remember.
In another place, entire towns
and cities are awashed.
Only the memory have names.
Too many bodies are found,
cold and strange. The loved ones
remain missing.  Underneath
all the mud and debris where 
those who survive must stand 
go on living.





(Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, Philippines)




by shane





















 

rocks, water, light

photo by A.L. Abanes (may you and your family be safe)

at what point the anger? 

the resignation, the calm? 

how aptly it was said: 

when you know the storm is coming, 

the quiet has a shimmer. 

and shimmer it did; and Haiyan 

took many lives: children, 

men, women.  

no mention of countless pets,

no word about lovers

only strangers with unknown names

in a city nearly wiped unrecognizable.

was it only half a year ago i came 

backpacked to visit and stand

to admire the sunset at their pier?

no news, only reports of dead 
bodies in evacuation centers,

trying to explain the unknowing-ness

of storm surges. of divine plans.

but the footage of a man

the body of his six-year-old 

daughter in his arms, cold.

a shimmering light with it all.

  

to close eyes and sleep

to close eyes and sleep, she says.  telling me a direction to go.  my head has been heavy, and i finally took the pill.  and for once, i stretch myself on the couch.

de luz

Imagine dos orillas en dos islas diferentes, separadas en el tiempo por exactamente medio día: así, cuando una soñaba despierta, el otro estaba a la deriva en al sueño.

                                                                    *

Las nubes se incendian
como enamorados
desnudos en el rio.
Cuando caiga la tarde
se convertiran en un rio de estrellas.










                                                                                                           

(Marjorie Evasco & Alex Heites)