Disenchantment

Is perhaps what happens
time and again until 

believing and loving
becomes hard work.

It must begin sooner 
than later in others

more frequently and less
to some, possibly why

it cannot be helped: being
lonely whether one knows it

or not; there are always
alternative companions:

a book, a dog, a date
and sometimes, shadows.

Room

Consider a room with two doors
One facing east the other west
Both meeting at the same 

Room where one meets another
Where there is no Other
Where the floor between is

A border that is not---
A space undefined
A place familiar

jazz in the evening and quiet

Quiet of mind becomes not an easy find. Jazz helps
clear the air of thoughts always insistent of importance:
sublunary matters announce themselves loud banging
the door for importance.

new dog

Centollella is dead.  The poor poet reduced into shreds
the mutilated book under the couch.  I should have but did not
have heart to punish the guilty, the dog
who also tore limb of bag, face of slippers 
belly of the couch.  Such threat this canine

having survived a world unimaginable at the downtown parking lot
given to me by two German women, foster parents themselves
of local street dogs, breed I've never had before.

A different how in loving I am yet to know
this little dog who bites in play and affection
who eats her meals with the lived memory of starvation
who curls herself in sleep, little feral in fetal position.

existential anger

When you peel away the layers, you will find
at certain times, the anger
throbbing like an unhealed, hidden wound.
Alone, in an otherwise beautiful night, you
wonder why the only genuine affection
comes from dogs.  Why
no one sits outdoors to look at the full moon.
And the mind has never any breathing space
while the body is in outgrown places.
Somewhere in your marrows, you ask for sea
or cans after cans of beer with conversation
expected to end into something else.
Maybe a consuming night of uncontrollable
passion, the way you still remember.
Or falling, at last, into a deep well 
of sleep.  Dreamless.  As when you were
so much younger.  When did you realise
the world is not going to get any better?
At fifteen, a nun brushed away the answer
to your question.  At ten, you kept yourself
awake on guard.  And learned restraint.  
Also how to keep surfaces from imploding.
When you peel away the layers, you will find
at certain times, the familiar anger
throbbing, an unhealed hidden wound.
And alone, in an otherwise beautiful night, 
you wonder of genuine affection.  Why
no one is outdoors to look at the full moon.

obligation

the obligation is always compassion.
years and many things else have taught
scales and angles change
relative to the perceiving eye.
what matters little to one, matters
a world to another.  who is really to know

the lesser or more than of things:
we need to believe someone must
if only to keep the collective world
aright.  or is it
only our too often unarticulated need 
for the sense of anchoring ground?

on mystic writing

I.

another detail i recall:  her side of the bed is
side-by-side with a patch of leaves of grass.

this is another house.  not the same one
that had appeared in too many dreams, 

like a puzzle.


II. 

roger, the mystic says, do i not keep
a journal of dreams.  no, i say, no.

we are surrounded by dark green walls
in the middle of a steak house. it is noon.

how did the conversation move to dreams?
i tell him of the house that appears

recurring in my dreams, now for years.


III.

this house, stands at the edge of a land, looks
at a body of water. on its feet a lake, bay, or beach.

right of the house, a cliff.  where on one dream, 
i was standing on when i saw the house.

left, pebbly driveway where i manoeuvred 
my motorbike on another dream.

the driveway, next to a boundary wall.  
the driveway aligned to a small bamboo cottage

by the lip of the water.  in one dream, 
i was in a group beach picnic when i looked up

and saw the house is whitewashed wood.
with a large glass window on its forehead.

european design, but the location 
philippine. "two-storey?" roger asks.  

"yes," i say,
"and with a balcony up front."

he laughs.


IV.

it exists, he says.  
after the description in detail.
european house, by a lake in bukidnon.
cliffs, yes, driveway too.
and the short rocky, pebbly slope
to the lip of the water.
right, even the cottage.
an artists' retreat.
housed at one time, a poet.
in another, a painter.
heavy furniture imported 
all the way from germany.
constructed in 2011.
been there.
with g* and p*, he says. 
we took photos.  beautiful place.
even though
the house is hostile.


V.

i began dreaming of the house, 
2009.
in all the dreams, the sky
always in shades of gray.
the last time
i dreaded
seeing it.


VII.

didn't you mention about going on a writing retreat this summer?

waiting for our turn

How the young lives forever, not seeing
beyond an hour or two, seeing a year at most.

The years, at the onset, can stretch so long
every thing was possible.

Until father asked to keep away his white hair.
And mother made gentler by wear.

I look at the mirror and at the crow's lines
that appear even as I smile.

A weariness.  A heaviness.  This body
having lived and seen too many lives.

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
















 
 

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.

  

truskawkowy

there may be a sense of comfort from uncertainty.  if the weather permits.  i ran this morning and collected thoughts along the way, had they been pebbles i wouldn't have made it, even a block.  maybe it is better to say 

i plucked thoughts along the way.  the weather was gray with a bite in the breeze.  the sky was slate.  a few days ago there had a been a strong quake that broke down hundreds-year-old churches.  not counting the real houses of the living.  

i went to see a part of the city and the traces of earth-moving.  she recalled the sound of glass straining on the 19th floor, and the narrow escape staircases swaying.  the quick escalator 

couldn't move.  a crippled woman had to be carried through the flights.  still there were cars on the streets.  in another place, there were no more bridges.  in yet another, tons of rain.  and flood.  isn't it too easy to say 

all of these are a reckoning?  the cab driver said calmly.  there was a cross on his dashboard.  his radio airs an advertisement for floorwax.  in between the spaces of every so few hours 

were aftershocks.  the national media feasted for sympathy.  but in the meantime, in some places, there was talk on the importance of mayonnaise despite a protein living.  a well-taught 

young conservationist pointed how egg yolks were used to build the heritage churches.  this, of course, was all well-known.  still, every body went on living.  and in a pad, a cheese and wine party with cold cuts.  

a german who was stranded in hongkong arrived exhausted in the country.  and wondered why the people play mournful love songs.  some prefer to take photos of themselves.

i looked from a high point at the capital and thought of bubbles.  random and uncertainty.  like a child who died at four.  or a dog born from a stray to be a stray to die unloved and starved.  a body without burial on a public high way.

sometimes this country makes me very sad.  and while a good number debate about the future, i return with my luggage and kept fever.  she gives me medicine for colds, which i refuse, preferring water and rest.

how a friend is so happy to give a sachet.  From home, she says, reading aloud the ingredients.  skrobia, regulator kwasowości: kwas cytrynowy, 1,1% sok z limonki (syrop glukozowy, koncentrat soku z limonki), ekstrakt z czarnej marchwi i hibiskusa, aromat, substancja wzbogacająca: witamina C, sól, barwnik: annato.  but there is no truskawkowy, she says, pointing at the strawberries as advertised on the cover.

about the why we live

in another time, the technique was all that mattered:  how to construct the lines, how to cut them, how to end; also, what medium to use: wax or wood or metal; what frames, what movements of light or line; or how big the canvas; is it better in graphite, in oil, or latex; what mixed media to use; what texture the background, the color, the chiaroscuro; should it be two or three dimensional, or should it be in relief or in double images; should it also include an installation, a center piece, a performance?  where will the exhibit be held?

in that another time what was often not thought was the why.

why do you ____?
what do you ____ about?
why do you ____  the way you do?

no certain answers to these of course.  only the hows are measurable.  the birth of concepts, of be-ing, no real origins as there are no real arrivals yet.  every thing in transit.  what we can only recall:  terminals where we think we came from: one point to another.  

but the nuances.  
 

the things we do not tell

the office these days has a kind of absence.  the indefatigable secretary, Gloria, has not been around for days.  almost unheard of, but yesterday.  someone said she is undergoing some heart tests, but is not confined in a hospital.  she has been uncomplaining all these time, which made me ask just how much have i been missing.

some things chosen not to be told.

one afternoon Lilia asked me to read a poem about a lake, a grandfather and a boy.  also, in another scene, the boy's sister who was left alone sitting on the lap of the grandfather.  Lilia remarked something about the horror in the poem.  i gave her a copy of a piece by Laux;and she was unable to keep.  we said nothing more.


*


there will be nine one-man shows this friday.  exhibits of selves.  on their papers, the young artists talked so much about their techniques, the how the works were made, too much of it; but too less about the real how of the craft:  the how of be-ing: the space within the armatures.






















 

the orange of stones

my mother was a practical woman.  or maybe there was not much room for dreaming at the time when she was young when she had me and my sister.  a lot of time was needed to keep alive.  i've heard we've moved into war-torn place/s although she and father never told stories about it.  i've heard about long walks and trucks, but always as a word or two like the brief back of a person before she or he closes a door.  i've never knocked.  it is not in the family to ask questions.  although one time, on a clear day when i visited mother and we were outside the house, sitting on white hand-welded metal chairs, she told a story without asking. why she left the union. it was very brief. it ended before anyone could join the table.  

a piece of thought in motion

in the middle of writing a post on the concept of line as ****, IT dawned: the ground concept on which to build the reading on ***.  for some months now, the enthusiasm to write about this series has been hibernating; but, until now, there was no particular seed with which to germinate the entire articulation.  also, there were, and still are, too many things on the calendar.  too many projects and legwork necessary.  the near-unbelievable paperwork and the meetings and post-conferences, including the working-dinners over which the more important and sensitive matters are discussed while couched in the trivial act of eating.  i want to mention this concept of the line right now (such is my excitement), but one must not get ahead of things.  i am looking at the clock---as i have the habit of removing my wristwatch, like keeping the phone away, when i intend to have a "breather"---and it says two hours before the need to leave for work.  today, as wednesdays should've been, would have been a writing day; except, for weeks now there has been no writing days.  for instance, two meetings are scheduled this afternoon...i wish to write again through hours that seem to stretch the day and the sunlight; but it is difficult to sit down and keep still to call the thoughts into form, into a piece of infinity entry, in the middle of a deluge.  
 

loose change

have begun working on the floor.  barefeet.  laptop on a portable table knee-high, legs that can be folded.  

the lampshade appears like an afterglow from this angle.

w* sits beside me, is currently engrossed at the house lizard.

j--'s one-man exhibit is open for a month.  last saturday, thought of writing an essay on his recent works:  abstract, several washes, cloudy effect, beautiful texture, balance, zen, transcendence.

bought a painting yesterday.

the other day, lost my temper.

a couple of meetings tomorrow afternoon.


how these july days burn the skin like summer.

must remember not to forget the affidavits.

dawn these days chanting from the mosque can be heard.  ramadan.
 
still wonder at women and their dysmenorrhea.

come, next-weekend.  a roundtrip flight, a ballet show, a birthday gift for a date.

also planning a trip south at the coves.  still to calendar. 

some days, too often these days, feel old.  hard thai massage, replete with all the stretching, didn't help.  

note for this week: haircut.












   

Things of Light

Lately I’ve been remembering things
Of light: Sundry shining things:
Coins, pebbles, marbles in a glass,
Fleeting glimpses of mottled mornings
Of floorboards newly waxed,
April shower dripping on a poinsettia path,
Shafts piercing a maculate afternoon of acacias.

Clouds roil and rain stains the parchment
Sky of a dry season (thunder rolls
Across the horizon), but the glinting discs
Of lightning long remain in my recall—
The moment glancing on the well-worn
Edges of my window sill—still chasing me
In my smog-blurred somnambulant noons.



Marne Kilates