Hanggang dito na lang

Hanggang dito na lang
ako, sa harap ng salamin:
dito, kung saan nakatingin
ako sa aking tingin.

Mawawari ang dagundong
ng kabayo sa malayo.
Nagbabadya sa likuran

Arkero

Nakapihit ang pisi ng búsog.
Pasan ng palaso ang pag-aabang.

Maláon nang nakabinbin ang amba.

Nakukutuban ang pangamba
sa pagpintig ng pulso.
                                      Napabitiw.
Kagyat ang pagpikit.
Waring may tinamaan.

The Show

The woman in the mirror finds herself
reflected by a face.

The light from the vanity glows warmly.
She begins to conceal the blemishes,

her hands applying the foundation
of what is to come – a blush

across her cheeks, a red streak
covers her lips. A line

defines the eye,
its shadow, masked by the light

which begins to flicker.
Her hands falter and her heart beats

faster. The show is about to begin.
The lights lose light

and the woman gazes
at the mirror.

“Of the Parrat and other birds that can speake”

It is for certain knowne that they have died
for very anger and griefe that they could not
learn to pronounce some hard words.

—Pliny the Elder

When you buy the bird for your mother
you hope it will talk to her. But weeks pass
before it does anything except pluck the bars
with its beak. Then one day it says, “infect.”

Your mother tells you this on the phone,
and you drive over, find the frozen meals
you bought for her last week sweating
on the countertop. “In fact,” she says

in answer to your question, “I have been
eating,” and it’s as you point to the empty
trash can, the spotless dishes, that you
realize the bird is only saying, “in fact,”

that this is now the preamble to all
of your mother’s lies. “In fact,” she says,
“I have been paying the bills,” and you
believe her until you find a cache

of unopened envelopes in the freezer.
More things are showing up where
they shouldn’t. Looking out the back
window one evening you see craters

in her yard. While she’s watching TV,
you go out with a trowel and excavate
picture frames, flatware that looks like
the silver bones of some exquisite

animal. You worry when you arrive
one day and see the open, empty cage
that you will find the bird dead, stuffed
in an oven mitt and left in a drawer,

but you find it sitting on her shoulder
in the kitchen. “In fact,” she says,
“he learned to open the cage himself.”
The bird learns new words. You learn

which lies you can ignore. The stroke
that kills her gives no warning, not—
the doctor assures you—that anyone
can predict such things. When you

drive home that night with the cage
belted into the passenger seat, the bird
makes a sound that is not a word
but that you immediately recognize

as the sound of your mother’s phone
ringing, and you know it is the sound
of you calling her again and again,
the sound of her not answering.

– Nick Lantz

tulang nagtatapos sa simula

sa wakas maaari nang magsimula
sa wakas maaari
nang magsimula sa wakas
maaari nang magsimula

Old Couple

She’s seated by the window,
where the clouds cast shadows
from the dusk light. She taps

at her phone’s keypad, probably
to remind her lover lost
amidst heavy traffic, I am still

here. She stands up and leaves
her valuables on her seat.
I look at them from afar.

She returns from the restroom
and it seems that her make-up
has been washed off. She looks at

her phone, then at the sky. The moon
is an ethereal smile, glowing
amidst the creeping dark.

She stands up and leaves
while I open the door for her.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

            S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
            A persona che mai tornasse al mondo
            Questa fiamma staria sensa piu scosse.
            Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
            Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero
            Sensa tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

      .      .      .      .      .


Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

      .      .      .      .      .


And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.’

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
‘That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all.’

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

—T.S. Eliot

On Masturbation

I wake up, and it is morning. I think, It’s always hard to masturbate. I see my penis, erect, covered by layers of cloth. It is morning, and it is cold. Beside me, a space, covered by layers of cloth.

I think, It’s always hard to masturbate, and yet, it’s easy to ejaculate. I remember, every midnight, women of the moon descend and help me ejaculate. Semen would spurt and then flow from the tip of my penis like how the women would flow skyward, unfailing, back to the moon, and then my eyes would droop.

Then I would wake up, and it would be morning. I would think, It’s always hard to masturbate. Beside me would be a space, the bed sheet’s creases like mountain ranges on the surface of the moon.

pearl hunting

in the distance, I
see the movement of your lips—
sand within a clam.

Epitaphs

Fu I
Fu I loved the high cloud and the hill,
Alas, he died of alcohol.

Li Po
And Li Po also died drunk.
He tried to embrace a moon
In the Yellow River.

—Ezra Pound

tuwing brownout (under construction)

sindi
patay—










sa dilim lamang tayo










nakahihinga—sindi.

nang ‘di ka mabura sa alaala

(nina miles at pepito)

muli kong isinusulat ang pangalan mo
sa kuwaderno ko
matingkad ang marka ng mapurol na lapis
sa papel na pinaluma ng iyong alaala
paulit-ulit ang paghagod ng itim
sa espasyo na pilit kong pinupuno
habang unti-unting sumasayad ang kahoy
sa naglalahong mga linya’t kurbang
nagsasabing

     ---

Wala lang

writing exercise hango sa beautiful in-law ni adam david. dahil masayang mag-isip ng anagrams haha. more to come kapag walang magawa.

ginto
itong gin ni Toto—
    totoong init ng ginoo.


tigang
igiit ang ngiti at tingnan
ang naggigitgitang
    tinga-tinga.

sa renggang binubuo ng ating mga dila

sa renggang binubuo ng ating mga dila,
nagtatalo ang mga linyang nagpapatong-patong;
nagsasalitan ang mga mapapait na halik
na dahan-dahang dumudulas pababa.

ngayong gabi, itinatayo natin ang tulang sisira
sa kuwentong pilit nating isinalaysay.
muli nating aariin ang mga titik na bumabaybay
sa munting himig ng ating nakaraan.

sa patalsik na pagbato ng mga huli nating salita,
hinahagkan ng iyong katawan ang sinag ng araw
habang nakahimlay ako, nag-iisa, nakakulong
sa renggang winasak ng ating mga dila.

sa sawsawan

itinatakwil ng iyong kaputian
ang putik sa paligid ng iyong haligi,
at itinatago ng kinis ng iyong mukha
ang pagputok ng mantika patungo sa iyong braso
habang ipiniprito mo ang binili kong siomai.
at marahil, sa tamis-anghang ng iyong labi,
hindi ko mapapansin ang lasa ng bawang

sa sawsawan.

ang tulang hindi nagsisimula

dadayain ka ng tulang ito.
dahil naghahanap ka ng simula,

paiikutin ka ng tulang ito.
dahil may kagandahan sa pag-ikot,

hindi nagwawakas ang tulang ito.
dahil hiling mo ang habambuhay,

sa banyo ko inilalabas

sa banyo ko inilalabas
ang kinain ko

kung saan tahimik at
mapayapa

kung saan nakabukas ang ilaw
at may nakalaang trono sa akin

sa banyo
inilalabas ko ang katotohanan

plokplok
plok