The Dandruff Monologue

by Ewong
for the Starbucks Smacker

I cling to you like the embrace of a woman

yet I annoy you like an unwanted suitor

Sometimes I interpret your frequent

caresses as a sign of your affection

but now I know that they are only

meaningless affectations like things

or food or people that grow on you,

or perhaps like the hair on your head

which grows long like a lazy Sunday

morning song. Yes, on top of you,

there’s my home sweet home. Yet you

despise me so much, despite knowing,

deep in your bone, that scratching

me off gives an inexplicable sensation

like being kissed on the lips by the man

of your dreams, under poetic moonlight

and dancing fireflies in a princess’s garden,

or perhaps like that infinite moment a boy

is no more a boy when he’s discovered

at last the wonders of a woman’s nipples

You hate me now and feel so much

shame for having me, but you can’t,

and won’t, let go of me so easily. You

go ahead and try whatever chemical

but I tell you, I’m as strong and natural

as the sight of wind-blown cherry

blossoms, painted by the gods perfectly

for the purposes of our romance

You’ll see, my dear friend, you

will not be well rid of me, because

for me to leave you completely,

your hair, your whole hair, has to go

as well into oblivion. But perhaps there,

in that desolate realm of the abandoned,

your hair and I, just the two of us,

can be friends, then make love, and have

lots of baby hairs and little more of my kind.

Perhaps your hair and I can be truly happy,

without your scalp, without your head.

Without you. Maybe it’s better that way.

When I’m far gone, when you’re old

and wrinkled, with no hair, not even gray

or white, perhaps then you’d finally realise

that I was more than the miserable scum

you shook off with inconsolable fury,

that I was, in fact, those little snowflakes

ever so slowly, enchantingly

falling from your sweet head.


______________________________________

Anatomy of a story, or: The Little I Know About Women

by Ewong.
for the girl across the big room.



Strangeness springs from hospital hours, among first-time residents gone mad from illness, of affairs both of the heart and gut. It was the final week of summer.

Now rains have come, and rains have gone, and summer seems to have claimed upon the earth and its drenched-souled men again. A certain change has filled up the uncertain emptiness, or returned to the old feelings apparently long gone: a change for the better, the elders would say -- but who really knows what's even good?

Someone looks up the book of words and discovers this relationship disparity between a pair -- a lover can be a friend, but the latter can't necessarily stand for the former. Some book, indeed. It is definitely not the dick-tionary. Let me read (it/you) further.

Cut to:

Her sister a few weeks ago she tutored about the reproductive system -- apparently the first topic in grade 5 science class. In her best attempt at sounding clinical, and quelling all malice and awkwardness pressed by such unnerving anatomical concepts, and with the textbook and internet both open, she taught her the mechanisms behind human organs called penis, vagina, scrotum, testes, and fallopian tubes. It was torture, for both of them. There were daunting terms like 'fertilization' and 'menarche.' At the end of her teaching, the fifth-grader was still confused as to who possesses the 'vas deferens,' man or woman? There is a vast difference. But she, the younger one, doesn't need to understand it all now.

Even the older one has not fathom much of it yet.

Fact: The human circulatory system is a better subject. And much more romantic.

Dissolve to:

Something Theatre proudly presents "The Indefinite Pronouns"

Someone wrote somebody a poem. Or poems. Someone likes somebody. Someone, perhaps, is already in love with somebody. Someone fears. Somebody feels. Someone feels something else, though -- like that of being stalked. Somebody hopes for something else. She says, or does. He says, or does:

a) Too much?
b) Too little?
c) Too soon?
d) Too late?

Sometimes someone thinks that somebody is onto something.

Music: Summertime, and the livin' is easy.*

Summer, it feels like summer all over again. Summer, o how it rhymes with forever, but these are words not fit for a beautiful poem, in a beautiful book of beautiful poems that is published in some other beautiful world.

One of these days, someone is going to have his or her heart broken. Or more likely, both of them, only over some other someones. Characters from different books, they are. Or different volumes of the same set of books. Like encyclopedia, a kind of literature which sounds like a dream from the ancient times. But now, encyclopedia that comes back to life -- but in digital format.

Cut back to:

Hospital hours. She will never forget how her own heart beat ever so slowly in her last days in the room. She feared. She felt. As if for the first time. She did not die, of course, but something else died, and something else was reborn. And he, the object of her subtle affection, was somewhere else. In another hospital. In another sense of words, in the vocabulary of the cyclically ill and broken.

There are three characters in this story set in summer that's not really summer. Or shall we better call it the rainy season without the rains?

Metaphor by morphology: Rains are like tears. I hope no one of these characters has cried, or is crying, over the other yet. That would be (too much/too early) a drama.

I would write them in the same book. One that does not have entries (yet) for fallopians or androgens. If I scanned the pages, I would chance upon this word: kiss. But this is like a drunken part of speech. As a back-story, I would write that it was a very short instant, void of any romance or anything like that, certainly one that doesn't count as a 'kiss.' Simply a casual touch between a man and a woman. And this is neither a good time to mention the word 'lust.' Let me annotate on this for revision:

"a very brief, prurient encounter."

She feels that they are on the same page. It's been awhile since she felt like this. She raises her hands up against the bright, blinding incandescent light to count her fingers. She reckons one hand is enough for her counting. Nevertheless, she thinks that he, the present object of her subtle affection, was, or would be, in a significant non-physics-sort of movement:

a) moving closer?
b) feeling weightless?
c) orbiting toward a center?
d) falling a freefall?

Music: We could have been so good together, we could have lived this dance forever.*

There are also some minor characters that, if I may bravely claim so, could be reminiscent of Francois Ozon's brilliant film 8 Femmes, adapted from a play. All the women there loved the man, but who "killed" him?

I have not written a poem for a long time now. (This statement could serve as a clue.) Is it time for me to learn the play? (This statement is not pun-ny at all.)

I haven't read a book lately either. I haven't read much at all. I fear that I can no longer read well. I've been misreading words lately. I've been misreading people too. I could be misreading myself. I need to bring out the dictionary and chew the pages off, from A to Z.

Montage during the internal monologue (voice-over) of a deaf-mute:

Fiction: He would have killed the 8 women, if he had the chance. But that wouldn't be a musical comedy-slash-mystery-thriller anymore. That would be a massacre of hearts.

Art: And then the image of hands. Hands.

Music: My hands are [not] small, I know, but they're not yours, they are my own.*

Melodrama: But you can hold one of mine now.

(...for the other is doing the writing.)

He is on his way to the bookstore to look for this best-selling title published in some other world: Complete Idiot's Guide to End Quickly the Falling Slowly.

He would read it, and then hand it to her as a gift to commemorate their end of friendship.

Excerpt from the preface of a book that must have been either poetry or biology: "It's amazing how testicles and fallopian tubes are so alike and different at the same time. Both are in pairs. Both secrete the gametes. Both have reference to what are called 'eggs.' But the former is outside, exposed to the harsh world, while the latter is sheltered deep inside, lonely and longing. And that is why nature compels them to always meet halfway."

She (from outside, looking in) cannot remember if there was any other male character in Ozon's film. But in this other story, she (from inside, looking out) realizes that there is another man.

Caption of a photo from a book from another world: If (you/he) were an egg, I would break (you/him) into a bowl of hot Soup no. 5.**

And the plot suddenly becomes culinary.

There is no end to this story.

____________________________________________
*Lyrics quoted are from the songs "Summertime," "Careless Whisper," and "Hands."
**For the non-Filipino readers, Soup no. 5 is a special dish with cow testicles, sometimes penis, too.

Quatre Saisons

by Ewong

There's the drink:



There's the music:




And another music:




And there's those crazy artful stuff I was making then:


Created April 2


March 19


March 5



March 12It's time to finally post them.

For a new season has begun.______________________________________________

The summer sky of April 11, 2011

by E Wong



the noontime summer sky of April 11 is blue
and pure, it is a holiday for the painter
of nature, though bright as it is

she cannot tell whether it is inviting
her out to play or warning
her against the glare

the noontime summer sky is clear
to her, now, so clear it is blinding,
it compels her to sing, but then—



the late afternoon summer sky of April 11 is bleeding
smoke: it paints the screams of people running
rushing crying for help crying for life

somewhere else someone else needs to be running
rushing crying for help crying for love, but how
can she cry with all this charcoal in the sky?

the painter cannot stand this fullness of colour,
she confesses: smoke is that black of that red
that after too much longing had clotted

the late afternoon summer sky of April 11 is burning
still: the smoke may have been extinguished,
but the fire stays within


________________________________
(Photo: 1 PM sky over Susana Heights exit, SLEX)
(Photo: 5 PM sky over Tandang Sora, Quezon City)

On why there's no exact word for male mistress

by E Wong



[Click on image to view poetry]
________________________________
written sometime in April 2010

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?
.

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.
.

This is not about violence

by E. Wong
for the Zusuaregi drunkards on Saturday night



And so when I stab my chest
it isn’t to kill myself fast
but to prove if rumors are true
that what lies beneath contains
all my yearnings and madnesses
But though a magical dagger
I use, there’s still no
affirmation,

for my brain has long been dead
And so I have to smash my head
against the wall—not cement
but wood, for I like the scent
of varnish conjuring memories,
mostly romantic, the rest
erotic—but what else
on my mind

but fairy tale envisagements?
Yet I am still standing, so I chop
off my feet that had walked towards
your home, which felt like my home
Next gone are my trembling hands
which once upon a time
held your hands

Now with all this deep red dripping,
splattering—you might as well swim
in my sea of blood which tastes
sweet without the bitterness
of the living

And my cadaver: no longer one
body, but chunks and pieces,
little bodies with no sense
of heart or mind, of pain
or hunger or sadness

But then, even without
orchestral music— violets,
yes, violets, and more violets,
fragrant, beautiful flowers spring
from my corpse all of a sudden—

Oh what a lovely night
to die again

__________________________
Artwork is a painting at the Louvre in France

Feel in the blanks

by E. Wong Martin



Dear _________,

Tonight, on this first night right after Valentine's day, I’d like to tell you that my _______ soars even higher despite not having any memory of being with you yesterday. I hope you had a good one; did someone special give you ________ or chocolates, perhaps?

Well, I have nothing to give you but my _______ which are smooth and eternal. You cannot touch them but you can feel them on and under your ________. You may post them on your _________ or copy them on paper, and you may even memorise them. My words are your words, so please own them like the pillow in your pillowcase.

My beloved ________, forgive me that I could only offer you my stories. You may even call them lies, but I would make them beautiful ones. Who needs truth in this world, anyway, when you are all I think of and talk about? You, my dear ________, are both my sweetest lie and greatest truth.

Please do not believe those movies and soap operas which impose that for love to be “great” it must be measured by time and _______ and tragedies. For though I only met you ________ ago, I know you like I know the taste of water. I know you so well, yet there’s a whole lifetime ahead waiting for us to learn more ________. Won’t you teach me the ways of your people, you pretty ________ from that enchanted island of lovers?

Do you still remember the first time we kissed? It was like—pardon the cliché—fireworks! I hope you can still taste the memory. A kiss is as _______ as our fingerprints. I kissed you, and you kissed me, as if God’s most fascinating creations were not men and women but our lips and tongues. Please do not ______ our kiss, for it is as sacred as the moon, as shining as the midnight stars.

Love is not ______ without the lovers. And love is not blind--we are. So please do not resist this wonderful blindness. Do not betray your heart, my sweet ________. What is the point of all life, if we would not face unexpected deaths such as falling in love?

But if I had to cut this tree down before the seed even germinates, then so be it. Please, my gentle _________, always, always keep safe. And take utmost care of your sunshiny smile and your camellian eyelashes and your ____________ on your left shoulder which I loved to caress.

Reach for those big dreams of yours which endeared you to me even more, but which I cannot be a part of. Someday, when you have climbed the highest of mountains, look far deep onto the valley. Somewhere I’d be there, a tiny speck in the distance looking up to you with immeasurable happiness. For you.

My dear ________, I love you like I love the rain pouring on a summer day. And it hurts so much not that you don’t, or can’t, love me back, but that you don’t, and won’t, know how much I am in love with you.

Though you’re not mine, I’m yours,

______________
.

How to spell 'Melancholy'

by E. Wong Martin
for Mitsiku

Our lesson for today is about happiness
and how one writes it with a capital letter,
perhaps bold, or do you prefer
           italics? The principal says
that it may be found among the piles
of unread books, or the mouldy sandwiches
from the canteen. Now we will give you
ten seconds
            and ten years to spell it correctly,
and when in doubt, you may consult
our school janitor—just please do not insult
him on how he always stinks of beer
because it is not alcohol you smell
            but the long years of sweeping,
and waiting, and weeping, and cleaning off
semen or dried tears on the floor.
            You are not required to turn
to your science books, as they don’t yet
have a theory on fireworks and sex,
or forgiveness
             and loss. But when you say
‘one,’ it means ‘two-halves’—simple
as that, really. Do not tell anybody,
but math is the secret spouse
of grammar. Probability (or is it
statistics?) has it:
               One day, someday,
you can write it again, perhaps faster,
perhaps with bigger letters, perhaps
in Bisaya or French, or even sign
language.
             Remember, left or right
hand, it doesn’t matter, for as long
as you have an eraser ready.
             Remember, wrong or right,
we do not deduct points for as long
as you do not cheat.
             Do not put any period, too—
now this is very important in all writing.
Most of all, when you do,
             close your eyes, but keep
that thing in your chest open…
now what’s that called again?

.

Prayer

by E. Wong



On the day that the cottony clouds in the sky
were actually made of cotton, I saw a grasshopper
looking up, not at me, but to his god above,
perhaps my God, too, there, in the city’s final
green field, staring at the heavens in a regal
posture, and at that moment I thought he was
not the usual crickety creature—my prey—
but a mantis, that bizarre insect bestowed
with the licence for supplication, and so
I told him without hesitation, Hey, Mister,
would you be so kind and pray for me?

‘And what would you like me to pray about,
dear lady?’ the little insect enquired in his ancient
voice. I would certainly hope that it rains today,
so that this heaviness upon me may be washed
away. He shook his tiny head, ‘it cannot be prayed
for as today the clouds are made of cotton.’
He said god, or God, has not yet invented
cotton rain. But it is not a lovely day, I retorted,
despite all those cottony clouds above. I pleaded:

I need rain! ‘It cannot be done,’ the old grasshopper
insisted. ‘It’s a beautiful day, just as when you first
hopped past these grasslands a hundred years ago.’
I started to cry, but without tears, as the sun
was too bright and intimidating in the sky.
Then in my frail frog voice: Can you pray then
on my behalf for the sun to bleed today so the world
can bathe in red with me? But the insect made

no further rebuttal; instead, he chewed on the green
and turned his back towards me, jointed. I jumped off
in defeat towards the core of the city, broken.
But in my deep frog hunger, I leaped back to eat
the insect’s head. But the old praying imposter
had hopped away before I could catch him.


.

Time

by E. Wong Martin



(1) There was once a story that starts with something like once upon a time.
(2) But I’ve forgotten what comes next…
(3) There are too many once upon a time’s, that’s why.
(4) Or too many princes and princesses. And knights-in-shining-armour and damsels-in-distress.
(5) One of these days, they should all meet up and drink all night until they couldn’t recall anymore who their destined partners were.
(6) There are too many storytellers, too. I am not one of them.
(7) Storytellers are liars. I am not one of them.
(8) They always have ulterior motives beyond the glorification of fiction.
(9) Or fictionalisation of glory.
(10) Storytellers don’t always tell stories about others; sometimes it's about themselves. This is not one of them.
(11) There was once an old woman who lived in a brick tower who had never heard of any of those storytellers’ stories.
(12) Well, okay, let’s say that she had been told just one single tale.

(13) This particular story tells of a young soldier who has won countless battles for his mighty king.
(14) Well, let’s say that the woman was one hundred years old. But she didn’t know it because there was no calendar in the tower, only a clock that had been ticking for a hundred years as well.
(15) Because she was very old, she couldn’t remember the exact tale. Her memory so muddled, she owned the story as about herself.
(16) One of these days, the young soldier would rescue her. But from what?
(17) The old woman thought again, she had lived a whole century just fine, so what on earth would the young soldier save her from?
(18) In the recesses of her mind, she discovered an ancient word: loneliness.
(19) One of these days, she said to herself.
(20) But the days had already turned into months. Years. Decades.
(21) She fumbled that part between her wrinkled breasts, the place that, as far as she could remember, held her heart inside. Where are you, my sweet soldier?
(22) I have been waiting too long, she cried.
(23) With what remains of her strength, she grabbed the clock off the wall and threw it out the window.
(00) The tower was too high for her to hear it break.
.
_______________________________________
Artwork: "Dein Aschenes Haar Sulamit," (1981, Anselm Kiefer)

i fell in love with a whore on new year's eve,

by Ewong Martines

for she told me more lies than truth—
exactly what my heart wanted a week
after all greeted me on Christmas day
but the one whose voice could cure
my sleeplessness, whose hands pacify

my shivers. in the damp light
of orange and gray she blanketed
my lips with her calculated warmth
then mapped my neck and chest and navel
with urban traffic that respects no holidays.

with nimble fingers i brushed her hair,
pulled hard in moments of beastly longing
for the shelter of my beloved’s breasts
whose milk could feed a thousand babies
in need of affection. i remember her

like i remember the sun, and in this paid
twilight of joy i remembered her still,
as mouths raided across napes and thighs,
tongues lost and found at every orb and slit.

the musk in the air had mixed with this
woman's cheap perfume when my thrusts,
mourning yet impassioned, hit harder
like ocean waves slapping nonchalant rocks.

her crimson nails clawed my back; she
squealed a pitch-perfect note of pleasure,
sang to a photograph of an erupting volcano
born again after centuries of being futile

and mysterious. it was barely dawn when i awoke,
the january fog blurring the mirror at the ceiling,
and there i was still haunted by the stench
of loneliness and misery of firecrackers.

the night felt too long like a whole old year.

Plight of the Indefinite (Pronoun)

by Ewong Martines

i’d do it all and expect nothing in return.
all I ask of you is to not do anything
that’d turn everything into nothing.
but this is the start of something sullen,

and this is the song of the heartbroken:
*&100%=dvdc*… 0^+@> holy>gx!
6*0… $%#r@lo…ve%2$…@E”!
j^s/kd³…f(x)mac…^w#Q! xyz=f*k!


(indefinite integral of x; love is like calculus--it doesn't make sense. hehe)

Ondoy ng buhay ko

ni Ewong Martines

At ngayon ngang humupa na ang unos
Kay sarap sanang may mayakap at mahaplos.
O Ondoy, mahal kong Ondoy,
lintik kang bagyo ka—
‘Wag ka nang magbabalik!
‘Pagkat ‘twing lilisan ang tulad mo’y
Lalo lamang akong nananabik
Sa mahigpit niyang yapos
at matatamis niyang halik.
Ano pa’ng silbi ng mabuhay at makaligtas
Kung kami’y magkawalay (pa rin) ng landas?
Kaya naman, Ondoy, dinggin ‘tong pakiusap:
Dito’y ‘wag na ‘wag ka nang magagawi
At muling salantain ang puso kong sawi.

Esta noche kaya kong magbitiw ng saddest lines

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche
por Pablo Neruda

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo : 'La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos'.

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oir la noche immensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos arboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto al amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque ésta sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.


Tonight I can write the saddest lines
translated into English by W.S. Merwin

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.


Kaya kong magbitiw ng bitter words
nakakaaliw na version ni Mark Angeles

Kaya kong magbitiw ng bitter words ngayong gabi.
Mag-scribble-skribulan halimbawa: "Ang gabi ay pilantod
at nangangalantutay, bugbog-sarado, ang mga bituin sa malayo.
Paruo't parito ang hangin at ngumangawang parang baka.

Kaya kong magbitiw ng bitter words ngayong gabi.
Labs ko sya, at minsan daw labs niya rin ako.

Sa mga gabing tulad nito, nilalamas ko siya sa aking kandungan.
Nilalaplap ko siya sa silong ng marvelous na kalangitan.
Labs niya ko, at minsan labs ko rin siya.
Panong di ko mamahalin ang malalaki't bilugan niyang mga mata—
parang pugita?

Kaya kong magbitiw ng bitter words ngayong gabi.
Imagine kong wala siya sakin. Ma-feel kong na-lost ko na siya.

Mapakinggan ko ang gabing OA, mas lalong OA dahil wala siya.
At ang talinghaga ay dumidila sa malay tulad ng hamog sa talahib.
Ano pa ba’ng meron diyan, Ineng, kung hindi siya mapapasaakin?
Period. Sa malayo, may ngumangawa. Sa malayo.
Aburido ang multo ko sa pagkawala niya.

At para bagang nandyan lang siya sa tabi-tabi, hinahanap ko pa siya.
Hinahanap siya ng puso ko, kapag wala siya sa tabi ko.
Ang gabi ring ito'y nagkukulapol ng dirty white sa mga troso.
Hindi na kami ang dating kaming kami.

Hindi ko na siya labs, pramis, pero labs na labs ko siya dati.
Hinahagilap ng hininga ko ang hangin para bugahan siya.

Nilalaplap na siya ng iba, tulad ng paglaplap ko sa kanya.
Ang boses niya, ang seksi nyang wankata, ang for layp niyang mga mata.

Hindi ko na siya labs, pramis, pero medyo labidabs ko pa rin siya.
Maigsi lang ang lablayp ko pero ang makalimot
sangkatutak na 50 golden years ang inaabot.

Dahil sa mga gabing ganito nilalamas ko siya sa aking kandungan,
aburido ang multo ko sa pagkawala nya.

Kahit ito na ang last chance ko para magmaasim
at ito na rin ang huling chuminess ko sa kanya.

Home is where the heart(break) is

Fuck,
what with my big heart,
I still feel so small
for not being loved
in return...

Irony

by Ewong

I, write
for, you,
but, you
do, not
read, me.