do you sail?

The past few weeks I have been thinking of rowing.
There are two rivers nearby, large 
at this time of the year. 
There is much need to release and attempt to draw 
out into a clear line what has been repeatedly said.

I have stopped taking walks and will have to resume.
I no longer have my dogs.
I sleep and dream and wake up as though 
I haven't slept at all.

St. Patrick's may be a day with a reason.
Maybe one day we will happen to meet, you whiskey 
on hand, me, on the rocks.
And because I do not believe in therapists, 
I wrestle with own shadows,

Fill up the to-do list and bed with heaviness.
Sometimes the day begins with a clear mind
which means nothing and I come down to make tea,
which means coming through a number of doors 
that entering or exiting becomes uncertain.

some parts anger

where do you place your anger? do you pour it in the sink? 

i find my temper short these days.

there are always 

indistinct night sounds.

must be impatience & something else.

where do you place your anger? i pour mine in a drink.

nearly midnight

It seems to you there is a consistent hunger
In you somewhere you can neither point nor name.
Everything else appears alright.
Action movie on the cable, some mutated turtles

The kind you could have loved lifetimes ago
Now you place on mute and sleep through.
Its only redeeming quality, a young woman
Too beautiful only the young can believe

To be real. You would have preferred bio pics, 
Political conspiracies, the end of the world 
As is known, at least; these are familiar.
Closer to what you have come to believe.

And what do you believe? At eight, you had 
Your last faith in Santa Claus; at fourteen,
Fools' love. You wonder how some can go on
Dreaming of romance. Or world peace.

You remember someone saying to look at
Inevitable failure in the eye, exchanging
Blows with it anyway. A hopeless kind of talk,
Pessimism you do not subscribe to but

Remember anyway. The hero suffers in the movie.
You feel yourself pointing out refugees dying
In the next channel. And at the street, 
the stray dog scrawny and sick with open woods.

The three candles you lighted at the church
Of Saint Teresa saying god alone suffices.
You still believe. And you feel it--although
What it is, you no longer know. 

All news by the day growing more and more
Disturbing. Stranger than any tall story
About mutants or aliens. These kinds of movies.
This world. Growing more complicated to resolve.

The TV goes on without sound.
Your dog shifts at your feet. 
It, too, cannot sleep. Ever shameless
In trusting you, waiting for you again.

a very long wait

I think it is not fear of death itself as much as
Fear of dying; death is a given, the psyche
Attuned to it since time beyond memory: all 

Archetypes of travel (companions, fellow solo
sojourners, boats, terminals, stop-overs...) 
Everyday, departures are what have come to be 

known like the pace of one's own breathing--
But who can tell of true arrivals?
Everyone has ideas, some more convincing

Than others; what may be more fearful is 
Living: that very long wait, so long 
We become desperate lovers of life itself.














  

gentle non-fiction

One type of genre I step back from is the personal essay. In spite of ideas such as fossilised written selves vis-à-vis transitory selves, the certainty and nuance of an elusive self migrating in space and time, the lies of protracted drama in the name of art, the unreliable "I", other beautiful and convincing arguments the many number of friends writing in the genre say, I remain a step away.

Non-fiction, no matter how gentle, how sincere, tells too much. A freshman's first draft of narrative essay tells how she was physically abused by a father, how she cried in the middle of a cornfield, thought of running away from home, decided to stay. Another draft of a Haiyan survivor's account.

Sometimes I pretend not to wrestle with the question why. 

No matter sometimes I feel something surfacing from the well of quiet to be written this way, in this genre of gentle sincerity. There, a lump in the throat. A remembering of something that is, perhaps, being slowly forgiven by the self within the self, in spite of the self.

And yet, I step away. Less courageous than a nine-year-old battered by her father at the cornfield.

ride along with the universe

The entire day with rain. I remembered my colleague yesterday saying love the rain;
so I sent a video Singing in the Rain and remembered too late it is about love; and
didn't the colleague tell me in a question the wife was having an affair? The entire

day with rain. News in a long list came in, drenched, through the front door. A list of
too many unnamed: dead children washed ashore, refugees, the world a square.
S sent an email from Singapore, saying his non-fiction on Philippine boxers is done

also, how is my writing. Should I say the manuscript is done and now I hear nothing.
On its stead, I spend an entire day with rain solving math equations imaginary
problems with clear solutions--how about children caught in war and un-leaving?

There is a Simic upstairs: a child running with scissors. 
A new piece I need to write for a public reading for teenagers on the 13th. 
A party faring a dear friend well into retirement. 
The book review of a first compendium of local literature long overdue. 
A module to leave for when I leave. 
And places here I have yet to be in.
A yearlong farewell; till home again...

...sometimes I dream of empty. That sound of water, that wind, that sky... 

but until then, not yet, not yet

the things we do to roll the stone of the world

1
To roll the stone up the mountaintop, only
having it roll back, to start again. Do you
sometimes feel this old? Bones, body
weathered as stone, faith broken like a horse

learned of certain gain, loss. No longer having
child's eyes even if you cling on to wonder.

2
Yesterday, sitting at the back during a vision-
presentation; and later, in a conference 
by activists: the things done to roll the stone
of the world. To where we hope a better place. 
(Sometimes it takes twice as much to keep on

believing). We do anyway; like the stranger
who introduced himself and shook my hand.

3
And courageous, asked "Will you take a look
at my poems, tell me your thoughts. 
I've shown them to no one else." Such trust.
Such honor to be given it. No matter the poems

were bad; there is always enough gentleness.
Aren't attempts half the success itself?

4
I wrote T a very long letter last night while
I was high, with an explicit apology: "Let me
say these before my short sentences surface."
I meant sober where sober meant quiet.
This morning, I dare not open the sent emails.

Because T is afraid of permanence (and I
never asked why) and I give thoughts bodies

5
of perceivable, tangible form. No plant in pot;
all of them on ground. Rhodora, fierce

woman, I met her again a week ago, gone
the sharpness into gentleness of the weary.
Retired after warring ideologies for sixty years.

6
All these slow march of protests towards that.
Even though we might carry no banner.
The things we do to roll the stone of the world.

I kissed her last night after making love.
The soft lights showing gentleness--

that which makes us keep on 
rolling stone of the world.

temper like water

I thank and not thank the universe for 
my temper like water, cool and slow
to anger, boiling and vengeful.

I walk away from trouble when I can

detour; sometimes a U-turn, which
is not good:  someone always ends
losing a job, difficult in this country.

A day the universe conspires being

bad is few and quite far between,
but not so rare as not to happen.
What do you do when it comes

settle a moment on you?

watching in the dark

It is Friday and it is raining and I do not want to begin 
a line about the weather, but the drops are heavy
the TV repeats news from last night about the forty-four 
dead young men, soldiers 
no older than any son in M'danao.  Mothers weep 
fathers trying to close as many doors as possible
from the inside, no country.  No one
understands deaths of young ones

of children, of dogs.  The neighbour who
padlocked his house and never returned for his 
Lab in a kennel all of us could hear baying silently
patient even in dying, thirst and hunger none of us could help. 

watching light on a pool of water

Morning finds me reminded of Rwanda
and senseless deaths
the news never runs out of
like fuel for the grand machinery 
of the world (what machinery?)
In a made-up place, quiet and serene
birds call and try find
ways on impersonal pavements
where bamboo is cultured to grow
and kindness a paid service.
Blue bowls of sky and water
meet in a dome.  
This make-believe peace.
Somewhere else a plane 
crashes and closed rooms are alive.
I wait for August, not admitting
anxiety for something brewing.

Last night was a waning moon
and two bottles of strong beer.
I sleep with restless listlessness.
To refuse to do.

the short history of tractors

a funny book.  this book
of humour and history.
also secret-keeping
and family.
how the humble agricultural 
tractor meant to feed thousands

became prototype of a tank
meant to kill countless
in a world war.
and the child who 
wanted to know the family

secret, found what needs to be kept.
and the funny father at last freed
of the burden of memory
raised both hands to heaven,

freed of gripping sanity.

On working for making a better world

at the end of the day, dark after work, i lay my self exhausted and burned from working on love.  wondering if knowing that passion burns is any help at all.  in the morning, the questions flee from the bright light.  and i burn for love again.

sisyphus

the old universe must be tired.  from watching us.  we all are a repeat.  a too long television series with the same themes.  we seem never to learn.  if anything, the old universe must be only entertained by our indefatigable attempts to rise beyond ourselves.

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.  

half a morning

away from the calendar, it is easier to pretend an endlessness.  an easy-ness of being.  this morning, i cut the flowers growing from the basil.  the flowers were beautiful, but the basil will die if they are let be.  i talk to the dogs who have the gift of contentment.  they are lucky.  yesterday, there were strays at the streets and i thought, someday i shall be a fosterer.  not now, not yet, when still preoccupied with the many things that speed time.  who ever said life is a race, and we are all racehorses?

at the conference, someone cried semi-feudalism and nearly raised a fist.  it started with the talk of horse-rig system.  an old way that lingered, half-dead, into the present.  and the word she cried so confrontational.  the large room was quiet.  no one said a word.  not everybody agreed.  i thought, why worry about men?  worry about the horse.  who cannot say a word.  who cannot have a god.

this country has a history of gods.  It is standing on a huge island of a God.  everyone prays.  too many claims.

Jayvee asked me to write something to close his exhibit on transcendence.  a one-man show of 3x4 paintings of acrylic and mixed media.  layerings of washes and drips, transparency in monochromatic whites, blues, grays.  non-figurative sense of the form.  i finished this morning, while the sky is in September downcast.  the news earlier was urgent about war and a mass burial.  i also wrote Jayvee a poem.  not one of us mentioned a god.













  

the versions of our selves (after south part 2)

1
I remember R--.  It was many years ago.  I was young, although at the time, stopping to look at posts on the board, I didn't know.  I was about to leave, waiting for papers that shuffled themselves behind office doors, and he passed to stopped by.  R--, visual artist, sculptor, art historian, saxophone player, postmodern-renaissance man.  Stood behind me; and we looked at posts and he said without cue "don't let them take you".  Of course, this wasn't how he said it, except this was how I remember it.  Many years ago.  I was young, although at the time, stopping to look at posts on the board, I didn't know.  And I didn't understand what he meant.

2
I came back a good time after.  A version of a previous self, although this time, stopping occasionally to look at posts on boards and everything in everywhere else, sometimes I forgot to know.  Wondering why every thing felt the same and felt different, yes.  Some people were gone.  The air breathed a different feel.  There had been a great tumult, political, factional.  Palpable in the air.  Papers had shuffled, committees, courts, arenas.  A country I did not know.  R--, too, was gone, in self-imposed exile.

3
In company that night J--  began his retelling of 76.  Geographically away from everything else, every one in company of stiff drinks and beer.  In the background, large grey waves hit the pebbled shore.  Somewhere else, news said there was storm.  But the waiter served us three pizzas complements from the house.  And how the stories of near hits and near misses rolled.  One time we were stuck in a cabin, in the middle of a fish farm, in the middle of a thunderstorm.  One time we were invited to a wedding and we didn't know.  One time... A roll was passed around.  And the stories turned to a driveway of angel trumpets, happy brownies, Mary Janes.  And R--, he said how he tried a certain mushroom once.  It made the world aglow and angels sing, and plunged you into depths into certainty of death.  "Completes the process before it lets you go. Like a spiritual experience," he said.  "Although if you ask me would I take it again, I wouldn't."  


4
We all went to see a certain architecture. Presumably 16th century, coral stones fortified by egg whites and goat dung, 8 feet to 9 feet tall in some areas.  An hourglass on top of a skull on top of an arched entryway.  Presumably, a church for innocents (children who died before baptism).  For centuries, it was buried and when finally unearthed, the walls were found to be have become filled with bees, the coral stones were bleeding honey. 

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!

days of disquiet

while running on this foggy early morning, ravens.



how does one write political literature?  it is to be at heart an idealist and a radical, an optimist.  it is to be by blood, brave.  and uncompromising.  and brave.  

no matter some, many, never few, of your friends will be gone without a trace.  no body.  no trail.  save your own memory.  some photos.  stories you retell and retell.  that has no ending, no. it couldn't have any.

to this day, families and friends still look for their missing.  and to this day, there still are families and friends missing.























    

elephant memory

the old man on the bench was the sexiest old man in the world.  observable still, the clear traces of his hard chiseled-like brawn.  i told him so and he laughed.  must have had heard it many times before.  in spite of tropical heat, where we were was cool, and eternally springing, and green.  and this, i also told him so.  he agreed and we both got into talking.  about the weather.  hinterland farmer, the sexiest old man in the world, and the writer.   i told him:  i was up in the boondocks some days ago.  you still pan gold here?  yes.  and so, more talking.  this time, about his cows.  and the multipurpose Co-op.  and their fresh milk deal.  of course.  we both knew this: us both trying to skirt away.  if possible.  such a beautiful breezy May.

i took out no pen, no paper, no recorder.  and asked him instead about the dust road beside the cliff, from where we just passed.  how long has it been there?

oh a long time, he said.  that's where the wartime soldiers took my wife to be never seen again.