Malapit na Hinaharap

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Ang Mandaragat

Dating mandaragat ang aking lolo.

Noon, taas-noo
niyang ilalarawan
ang mga dagat ng mundo.
"Ang dagat ay hindi lamang
tubig-alat," ipaliliwanag niya.
Dahil kung ang dagat ay tubig-alat
lamang, marami noon sa daungan
ng Lingayen, sa Pangasinan -
kung saan siya natutong magsaka
kasama ang ama.
Labing-apat na taon
din siyang nagpabalik-balik
sa mga pier ng Hapon, Rusya,
Inglatera, Aprika,
Saudi, at UAE.
Nagpabalik-balik din siya
sa kaniyang bahay sa Sta. Mesa - uuwian
ng pasalubong ang paslit ko pang ina.

Isang taong gulang ako
noong tumigil siya sa paglalayag.
Nanatili siyang malayo
kahit na lupa lamang ang tatawirin.
Labing-walong taon ako noong
nanawa siya sa pag-iisa, sa amin
na siya nakatira.

Marami siyang kuwento
tungkol sa dagat ngunit
walang naiiwan
sa bahay upang siya'y pakinggan.

Marami siyang kuwento
tungkol sa dagat ngunit
dila niya'y umuurong:
nabubulol sa alon ng mga salita.

Ngayon, gamit ang tungkod,
sinasagwan niya ang mga pasilyo
ng bahay na ito.




Ang Modista

Ang sabi ni mama,
magaling ka
raw sa pananahi.
Pinanood ka niya
habang binubuo
ang kaniyang bestida.
Sakto ang hugis ng mga padron
sa payat niyang katawan.
Makukulay na aspile ang
iyong gabay sa pagtabas ng tela.
Dinilaan mo ang dulo ng sinulid
upang mailusot ito sa butas
ng karayom. Ikaw lamang
ang nakaaalam
sa disenyo ng baro,
sa mga nagkasala-salabid
na mapa ng mga sinulid sa tela.

Sayang,
lumisan ka
nang hindi binubuhol
ang huli mong sulsi.
Hindi modista ang aking ina.



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Six Word Memoir 7

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Kiss me senseless. Permission still required.






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Women's Week

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“Women are capable of multitasking,” a male student in a Poetry class once said in his attempt to explain why a female classmate’s poem was just so full of images and details, that it almost felt like the poem wanted to say a thousand different things at the same moment with the same words. The experience was like being thrown in a small room cramped with fragments of images and objects: a heap of sand, beheaded dolls, hardbound books dumped on a dusty bed, a faceless stranger, a rocking chair, a small window, another door with a sign saying to escape, it is necessary to enter again. “That’s why when they make love,” he added, “their minds aren’t really focused on the act. They might be thinking about other things – like the kitchen stove, the grocery list, or poetry.” The rest of the males in the class wore the unmistakable faces of disbelief and self-pity. The ladies were amused, but who knows? They might have been thinking about other things – like the various ways of making love, the delight that comes with a pair of lips saying - moaning - their name, the salty taste of sweat finding its way to their taste buds, hot skin touching hot skin, the moist feel of a pant, or simply, poetry.

(February 17, 2010)

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Valentine's Exorcise

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Hindi Para sa Iyo ang Tulang Ito

sapagkat hindi
mo alam kung sino ka
sa akin - hindi ka akin.

Para ito sa isang sulok
ng aking isipan, pagod
kapapangarap na sana
alam mo.

Para ito sa mga panaginip
kung saan mainit ang iyong palad
sa aking palad. Walang bumibitiw.
Hindi natin alintana ang panganib
na dala ng pagiging matalik. Paggising,
ako ang nangungulila.

Para ito sa mga pagkakataong
dinadalaw ako ng tapang:
lalapit ako sa iyo, handa ang mga bisig
na ika'y hablutin, angkinin.
Ngunit titiklop uli.
Paano maangkin ang hindi
napasaakin?

Para ito sa mga pangungusap
na nababara sa aking lalamunan
tuwing nagkakatagpo
nang hindi sinasadya
ang dulo ng ating mga daliri:
ako ito, narito ako,
tulong hindi ako makahinga.

Hindi ito para sa iyo
o para sa akin. Para ito sa kawalan
ng tayo at natin.

Hindi ako mag-aalay
ng tula sa iyo, kailanman.
Ako ay sapat na.
Iyong-iyo,
kailanman.


(Pebrero 12, 2010)

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Six Word Memoir 6

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Busy fucking up her life. Magnificent.


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Kung Sasakay ng Jeep

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1
Pumili ng isang tula. Isulat
sa piraso ng papel. Itiklop,
ipambayad.


2
Bilangin ang madaraanan ninyong pulubi
at taong-grasa sa lansangan. Isulat
kung ilan ang nabilang sa piraso ng papel.
Ipambayad.


3
Magdala ng rosaryo.
Ipambayad.


4
Matulog sa biyahe.


5
Magkunwaring tulog.
Sumandal sa katabi.


6
Magdala ng isa o dalawang kahon
ng beer. Mamahagi sa mga kapuwa pasahero,
sa kundoktor, pati na rin
sa tsuper.


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Six Word Memoir 5

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In my dreams, we hold hands.


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Six Word Memoir 4

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He already knows the way home.


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kumusta?

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Tagsibol

Habang pinanonood ang Princess Sarah, nakatihan niyang tanungin ang ama: Ano po ang tagsibol?

Saglit na tumigil sa pagbabasa ng dyaryo ang lalaki, inayos ang salamin sa mata, at sumagot: Itanong na lang natin kay Kuya Kim.

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Something to End the Year

What you will be reading next is an excerpt from a not-so-long entry I wrote on my long-forgotten-journal this afternoon. (In a way, that handwritten entry is my year-ender special. However, I would only allow myself to publish this particular part.):

If one is to ask me the highlights of the year, I'd simply state things that were happy, events that formed me positively in dealing with the craft of writing, instances when I break certain rules and that I am glad to do so, never regretting any moment of it. But I just realized that all of those happenings occurred during the latter half of the year: I am reviewing myself as a third year college student/striving amateur writer, even if in reality during the first part of the year, there was that sophomore college student who once confessed that she was afraid of liking a certain person - the person who sent her a message last New Year - a text message which she would, after almost a year, realize started the whole thing; who cried during a confession in the college chapel after admitting to the foreign priest that it had been seven years since her last confession (and actually, it was also her first); who had her future told by a kind man with anime inspired tarot cards, the reading took effect that very same evening which caused her to go to school the next morning wearing faux eyeglasses, trying to hide the swelling of her eyes, the constant threat of more tears spilling; who, still wearing the deceptive eyeglasses, cried her heart out to a friend while convincing herself that she had been a fool to hope, an idiot to believe in hope - not caring about the variety of stones that she could pick in the Zen Garden, not noticing the piercing gold rays through the branches of the huge trees, not realizing that a lot of passersby could see her; who, now keeping away the fake eyeglasses, cried again to a different friend- but this time she laughed while sobbing, taking in the shock of the whole dilemma; who, in the evening, shocked another friend by unconsciously letting out a tear when she realized that her friend wrote, in neon pink ink, a name on her arm, on this particular sophomore's untoned arm.

It was the saddest day of 2009: a cold, cold, cold February Thursday.

Happy New Year! :D