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

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





















 

ferris wheel

you've never been in a ferris wheel.  and so one night we stopped at a quaint carnival in a pocket in the city and i said let's take a ride.  you were scared, and i pretended not to.  not because i was afraid of heights, but because the carnival was old, all the rides, rusty.  risky.  not unlikely that any moment something would break, people would fall.  always a third world phenomenon.  but that night, we must have been feeling brave.  you held my hand as we stepped into a cage.  the cage was closed and it felt what pigeons must feel as the wheel began to be turned and the cage was raised.  there were sounds of old machinery, sore, arthritic, beyond retirement.  still, the wheel turned and turned, faster and faster, and we saw only glimpses of stars and parts of the city made strange.  and as you held my hand conquering your fear, i try not to think of metals rods breaking, the bones of the wheel collapsing under the weight of young lovers' dreams.

today in the middle of nowhere

Today in the middle of nowhere, I held your imaginary hand
the van was dark, crowded with strangers familiar with each other  
the ride, long.  We did not talk.  You looked outside the window
I tried not to listen to the news, public television blaring too loud.
South of this country, men are shooting each other over religion.
Up north, there is talk about plunder.  Somewhere, three men
raped a twelve-year girl, who had fallen asleep with her homework
before she was carried off to a rooftop.  Neighbors thought
she was duffel bag.  Her mother cried, the media feasted.
I wanted to bury my face on your hair.
Heave my burden.
But then you turned and smiled a weary smile,
the van was crossing the bridge and the city lights
looked near from a distance.




shane

atlas shrugged

"The man who said he would stop the motor of the world and did."  The line I remember of Ayn Rand's book.  Made me pick it up and wade through the yellowed and water-stained volume.

Somehow:  it made sense why an assembly-line worker for cars cannot have a car; why the Man with the Idea can have it all.  

Because the Idea ripples, and blooms.  The Idea is the seed, from which grows the tree, from where many can reap.  So that is why capitalism appears to be utopia.

But we are on capitalism now.  And on the fringes, there, the impoverished; in the hidden fringes, there, the sweat shops.

Where is John Galt now?

a complex relation

so many things have been said about the boston marathon bombing.  but possibly what stayed most in mind, long after the news were over, was how the suspects were identified through cameras.  hundreds of them, thousands even.  from CCTVs to handhelds.  lenses that look and watch nearly our every move.  like multiple eyes of the behemoth that is the System.  the State.  how these eyes are the eyes of the panopticon that is Michel Foucault's metaphor for the disciplinary power.

and when the armed forces moved to make their presence tangible, demonstrating the State's authoritative power directly over people's lives, stopping literally the movement of a town, of a city, we are reminded again of how complex is the relation between the individual and the State.  like separate beings.  even though at times the two may be indistinguishable from each other.

like separate beings wresting for power.
how the State flexes its muscles, showing its strength, saying:  I will hunt you down.  I will bring you down.  you must not be allowed--as no one else is allowed--to question the Order.
how the resistance boldly makes its mark.  taunting:  Oh Power!  see just how much it takes you to take down a 19-year-old boy!