Saddest booksale ever

.


Nothing personal, nothing national.

photo taken at the payday bazaar at the office. :D

On practising the noblest form of shopping

by E Wong

When you hear someone say all my meager annual bonus just went down the drain, you know this is some sort of an all-too-familiar tragedy, but in my case, "drain" is the UP Press's 46th anniversary month-long sale; and thus, needless to say, it is good, guilt-less spending.

So yesterday, the money which I originally intended for an 'unplanned' weekend adventure somewhere up north was spent instead on these eight awesome poetry books:

An Edith Tiempo Reader Edited by Gemino Abad, et. al.
Six Poetry Formats and the Transforming Image: A Monograph on Free Verse by Edith Tiempo
Commend Contend/Beyond, Extensions by Edith Tiempo
Mostly in Monsoon Weather: Poems New & Revisited by Marne L Kilates
The Garden of Wordlessness: Selected Poems by J Neil C Garcia
Passage: Poems 1983-2006 by Edgar B Maranan
Marginal Bliss by Carlomar Arcangel Daoana
Onyx by Romulo Baquiran, Jr

All the books above are UP Press titles (with 20% discount), except for Maranan's book which is published by Bookmark (5% off). The student editions of Daona and Baquiran were on sale for only P50 each! I spent more than a thousand bucks for all these--still quite a lot, I know, but I think it's all worth it, considering these are 'real literature' by acclaimed Filipino authors. And also, I feel good being able to somewhat 'help' our struggling local publishing industry. And yes, there's a vast presence of literature in the internet, but nothing will ever beat the intellectual and emotional experience of the book.



Having spent a good hour at the store, I realise that buying books is a therapeutic, even orgasmic, activity. It is probably the noblest act of shopping. Unlike purchasing food or clothes, you don't literally taste the product or try it on... but you do it on a literary level. Book shopping is definitely way way harder than the tough task of choosing the right brand of peanut butter or whitening soap. It knows no hurry; you skim and scan, you browse the pages, read a line or stanza or paragraph. Sometimes you end up finishing the whole poem or story or essay or chapter of a novel. Most likely you'd be going back and forth to the shelves, a Shakespearean question repeatedly arresting you: to buy or not to buy? And when something strange strikes your soul--a phenomenon not defined by even the long years of commercialism--you finally buy it.

Of course it helps if you know the author or if he/she has achieved some fame or notoriety or has an intimidating list of awards and previously published books. Nonetheless, you make your decision not on nutrition facts or expiry dates or newness of the whole package, but on the "promise" of words printed on paper. And who buys "promises" these days?

So shopping for books is a great activity, and this I recommend to everyone (especially on paydays). It is almost as surreal as the act of reading--which, by the way, I am not very good at. My friends have this wrong notion that I am such a bookish person, but I'm really such a slooowww reader that I'd always say it took me a hundred days to finish Garcia-Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. And so with these new titles I bought, I'm giving myself a conservative eight hundred days to finish reading them all.

Being back in the campus halls was another story. I sneaked into AS (sneaking, I realised, was unnecessary as the guards at the entrance weren't too strict after all) and stayed in CASAA for awhile. It amuses me that nothing much has really changed, except perhaps that everyone seems to be using laptops now. But all else is the same. [Well, maybe not the students, for the too-strong smell of the (upper) bourgeois was unmistakeable. How many of these kids came from public schools? From the provinces? Am I in La Salle? Is this Ateneo de Diliman?] But I mean my feelings for, about, and in UP were the same. I could have entered any classroom and just get lost again in the strange 'at home-ness.' Or get found is what I mean?

I remember a friend saying that we should not be working in the BP__ industry, for this is not where we belong. Then the UP thing got into the conversation, and suddenly, we were back in our former selves, well-bathed and basking in the old ideals of the university, perhaps last seen and felt genuinely during the beginning of the past decade, when an academic unit was still just worth P300...

But like I've said, this is another story that warrants another article. Something I better not dwell on for now. :-)

__________________________________________
The UP Press anniversary sale is until March 31. The bookshop's new location is at the ground floor of the printing office itself, along E delos Santos St., near the UP Police Station. (Those who try to steal books will go straight to jail!)

Supermoon

.

To be Born again ::
                          one must Die first
And this is not about Death
or Religion :: this is not Poetry
What good are Hands whose Palms
Do not have Lines :: Do not Lie
:: Lay your sleepy head in the sky
O sweet Illumination :: You
are not a Supermoon
                             but a bold figment
of the Sun :: Pigments of Leaves
are not solely Green like envious
teen who's never seen the nudity of ::
                        Sun sounds somewhat
like Sin :: and the Moon not again ::
why do you always figure in this
scene :: Soon too soon :: Give me
some room
                   To die Now is to live
Later :: But I would like to munch
on Biscuits now :: Drink
Coffee later ::  Play
Cards forever :: Kill kill
And this is not about Murder ::
but Moon hiding behind ghost
vapours ::
                   Tonight let me kiss
the sun O yes
                        yes
                              yes
                                    How Hot
you are :: my Lips
do not sting My lips are flaming
Burn Baby Burn Burn :: The Moon
suddenly :: between :: the Earth
and my Hands
                       How come
Have we come
                           come
                                     so far ::
Where where
we are
                         Oh yes I said
to be born Again ::
                      one must die First

But I am ::
              neither
                         being Born
                                    nor Dying
I am ::
        but tiny figment
                                of your sun

Please Please

Look at me ::

Look at me ::

               You so Bright
                               and Beautiful

Look at me ::

                                Look ::


_____________________________________________

__________________________________________________
Creative takes on the recent "Supermoon"
Poetry by Myself
Photography by Jeffrey Ocampo
Short film by Joni Gutierrez

Soliloquy

by Myself



Dear Myself,

You have got to end this certain sadness which had been keeping you “happy” for a long while now. Stop talking about constructs of romance, you must, for it is worthless when put alongside images of loneliness.

Remember, though, that the greatest love is that which is unrequited. Next would be one that’s unprofessed. You are privileged that yours is both. Yours is the greatest. And thus, even if you quit, you can never lose in this particular battle. Quit now, my dear, for this antebellum is most opportune for surrendering.

The sun shines today, as it had yesterday. Tomorrow, if God allows, it will shine again, perhaps hotter, more scorching than before, but always—always and forever—just as brightly as when it first rose from behind the mountains of time. You may live in this melancholy all your life, but the sun would never care for your troubles, as it is blinded by its own brilliance. And we cannot blame the sun for burning like that.

If you keep yourself in this utter darkness you’ve painted with your eyes shut, you may not remember the beauty of light. So I tell you, my friend, it’s high time to open them, your eyes. Love will remain to be called love, as it was in the Renaissance, or during the world wars, or perhaps even in the prehistoric age when man had no use for words: Love has always been called as such.

But tomorrow, if you just open your eyes and see the world again, even if you keep that memory of unhappiness, love may have a new meaning.

With love,

Your Other Self.




P.S.
And stop pondering concepts of d-----, will you?
.

A bill so electric you'd feel 'the spark'

.
This is the kind of monthly bill you'd like to be getting for the rest of your life:





Unfortunately this is not our apartment's Meralco bill, but my neighbor's (my former housemate's). Nevertheless, "small miracles" such as this is cause for huge celebration, eh?
.

The Mannequin

by E. Wong

                                  Swept   he is
    by unbearable                          malice
                              in undressing
                                                          a mannequin
It was easy finding you
                               among the throng of strange souls
First       off the blouse
                                                                            and the skirt
then his hand        on her feet                 up her legs
    ‘tween her thighs           to her waist
                                                               but she has no
                                                                                             navel
       A big red umbrella
                                            between you and the sun
Nonetheless
              she’s always been               the woman
    in daydreamings
                                of a night watch
        You want it red
                 so in the day’s brightness
                                                   you’d be blushing
                though your heart’s          breaking
    Now seek
           such plump breasts           touch her
                                          the center
        of life impenetrable
Such sumptuous lips           kiss her
                                                          but she has no
                                                                                      tongue
                      But, my love,
                                                 how about on rainy day?
Stunned by
            her subtle smile
                                                            he brings her back
                to her spot          by the window
with a new dress
                             Envy
                                     yes, envy
                                               such steady
                                                                 happiness
         Do you want the world
                                             to see your bleeding?

______________________________________________
*written sometime in April 2010
**For ______ whom I undress with my eyes, always...
***Written on those malling days during summer, inspired by the mannequins in shops' glass windows; the umbrella element I got from my highschool friend ("ka-loveteam") Cherie Keitch, who, I remember Kred saying, loved red umbrellas because she would blush naturally under it.

On the utter randomness of things

by E. Wong

                                                gravity   
                                                                        how it falls
                                            heavier
                                                   heavier
                          the further           our attempt   at measurement
           somewhere               a faucet cries                                                alone  
                         its drama felt                 the house over
time   
             explodes                            then be consumed
                          by mercy                   of earth                always always 
                                     without fail                         almost finally defining
           forever                              this is nature  of space             you say
                                what is invisible                                 or abstract  
                                                        occupies                                    endures

suppress not  
                      voice inside              tell me
    baby sparrow                 breaks out
                         from mother’s shell                    yawns like sunshine
                  if too loud
                                          let out              like lahar              create
                                                    ruins beautiful 
                                                                                           beaches pristine 
       I believe        you say
                                              probability
                                                             humankind’s best friend
                     God’s greatest invention   
                                                             so  trust again I may 
                  out of everyone in the din
                                                             we will be found
together
 
      when at last      a thing          becomes an object
                  we do          only two        acts of love   

                                                                                       we sin 
                                                                                                   then 
                                                                                                          we sing

__________________________________________
*artwork: "Number 8" (Jackson Pollock, 1949)
**poetry written sometime in April 2010
***as this is the poem after which this blog is named, this pretty much expresses my consciousness of the world, my concept of love, my faith in entropy, and....

Sorry we're close, but I really wanna make out with you now

.
This is exactly how I feel:

I am--



but I really wanna--


.
with you now.

Oh how so close we are, but still so far!
____________________________________

Fairy Tale

by E. Wong
for Lea, as promised



Unlocked are my doors
as are my windows, nothing
is ever unwelcoming
in this glasshouse—

Light

comes into my home
like an old friend who shares
stories I’ve heard before.
The same light escapes
my translucent walls without

saying goodbye—Oh how
I would like it to shake
hands with me, whisper
to my ear, or kiss my cheek,
but no—light, for all its wild
brilliance, always succumbs
to the announcement
of dusk. And now I wait
for you, my dearest

knight.

Are you lost in the woods?
Shall I send you the fireflies
from my red lantern
to show you the dirtroad
which leads to my doorstep?

I want to say ‘I love you
tonight,’ but I do not.
I might have loved you
yesterday, or perhaps,
I would tomorrow.
Sometimes, I love you,
Sometimes, it seems you
love me, too.

O beloved prince,
the tower you erected
in my dreams await
your limbs, won’t you climb
to feel me now, and fill
this emptiness?

Let me hug this tree
while you’re gone
This old folk keeps
me safe and warm,
I step softly on its roots
and then we dance
to nocturnal melody
of its rustling
leaves, its swaying
canopy—

Who dares divulge
the moon’s dark secret
that her mad brightness
is but affections
lent by the god
of incandescence?

O what could be more
enlightening than to witness
sunrise after a very long night
But light still has not arrived—
my own shadows are lost
in this pitch black

I want to sleep with you
under the stars tonight
But there’s somebody else
in your arms, a woman
who is not me—You caress
breasts that are not mine,
Always, always,
we make different loves
under the same sky.

I shall keep
waiting for you then
in the rain, under the sun,
or in vain. Would someone,
anyone, please wake me
when it’s time to raise
my lantern?

____________________________________________
*Artwork: A sketch of Ornusa Cadness by Carl Zeno Manalo.
**Poem is originally titled "Mistress Monologue"
***Poem has reference to the film "Raise the Red Lantern" (1991), directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Gong Li.

Handle with Care

by E. Wong
for Plam-Plam, freshly-dumped. (Peace!)

Handle with care this box I wrapped in fancy paper
for inside is my heart—Take it, please, it’s for you,
I had plucked it off my chest, like precious
oyster shucked—

                                   Or do you want oyster instead?
Let’s call the waiter then so he could read to us the French
on the menu. (Perhaps he could read you too?) My head
is splitting, I can’t find the meaning of this film-like scene,
oh, that’s right—(is tonight’s the night?)—there’s nothing
in my head—for I had lost my mind, five seconds ago—
Or five years has it been? And yet we have not—Still,
we are not. Now I smell coffee—

                                                               Let me save you
from this dire indecisiveness in choosing what to order
by having caffeine—yes—and with milk, not cream.
And mister waiter, please, no sugar for this lovely lady,
for I have provided her all the sweetness in the world.
So, my beloved, did you like the movie?—(Did you even
like me?)—Here comes waiter with our coffee. Mine’s
Espresso, sugar-free—(for I have given you all)—Look
at my drink—so black and so pure. And yours,
Cappuccino it is—classic and tasty, yet so frothy
that everyone here could drink from your cup
and still has froth left to line your lips—(oh, baby,
I so want to kiss you now)—but first, I have to go
down on one knee and give you this box—

(And the candlelight burns
                                                      burns
                                                                       burns out.)

The lobster on the next table is no longer lobster,
and the champagne bottles—they’re just bottles now...

Oh, baby, are you refusing this box? Or what’s inside it?
Won’t you at least take a peek?—
                  
                See how perfectly red it is!—

                             How tirelessly it bleeds for you!—

I have loved you longer than all my patience would endure,
yet you, my sweet goddess, won’t accept the greatest
thing a man could ever give?—

                                                 And so, won't you please
handle with care this box I wrapped in fancy paper,
for inside is my heart—(Perhaps it’s best for us,
perhaps we’re done)—But take it, I beg you, take it,
for you don't have one.

_________________________________________________
Read also:
Prayer, Time, The Village II, or Irony.
.