A Thought About Dumaguete
3 days ago
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Some Nights
"Well, some nights I wish that this all would end
'Cause I could use some friends for a change.
And some nights I'm scared you'll forget me again
Some nights I always win, I always win..."
_____________________________________________
'Some Nights' is the second single from the album with the same title of American indie rock band Fun. The song was written by Jeff Bhasker, Nate Ruess, Andrew Dost, and Jack Antonoff.
Labels:
God,
love,
music,
philosophy
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Joshua Radin's "Today"
No other day matters as much.
Shoelaces untied
You can dry your eyes
Perfect shadows align
behind us
This is the day I make you mine
Sunday, February 5, 2012
A Dog Has Died
by Pablo Neruda
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.
So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.
________________________________
For Zagu, my "Dog No.5" whom I rescued from the streets in January last year. He died 03 January 2012; birth date unknown.
Someday I'm gonna have another Basset hound. :-)
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.
So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.
________________________________
For Zagu, my "Dog No.5" whom I rescued from the streets in January last year. He died 03 January 2012; birth date unknown.
Someday I'm gonna have another Basset hound. :-)
Monday, July 18, 2011
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.
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.
Labels:
fiction,
heartbreak,
love,
new beginning,
philosophy,
sensual,
summer
Sunday, July 10, 2011
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.______________________________________________
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.______________________________________________
Labels:
art,
heartbreak,
love,
music,
summer
Friday, June 3, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
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)
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)
Labels:
heartbreak,
love,
photos,
poetry,
summer
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
On why there's no exact word for male mistress
by E Wong
[Click on image to view poetry]
________________________________
written sometime in April 2010
[Click on image to view poetry]
________________________________
written sometime in April 2010
Labels:
heartbreak,
love,
poetry
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Supermoon
.
__________________________________________________
Creative takes on the recent "Supermoon"
Poetry by Myself
Photography by Jeffrey Ocampo
Short film by Joni Gutierrez
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
Monday, March 14, 2011
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?
.
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?
.
Labels:
heartbreak,
letter,
love,
new beginning
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The Mannequin
by E. Wong
*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.
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.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
On the utter randomness of things
by E. Wong
__________________________________________
*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....
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....
Labels:
love,
new beginning,
philosophy,
poetry
Sunday, February 27, 2011
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!
____________________________________
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!
____________________________________
Saturday, February 26, 2011
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.
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.
Labels:
heartbreak,
love,
poetry,
sensual
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Handle with Care
by E. Wong
for Plam-Plam, freshly-dumped.
_________________________________________________
Read also:
Prayer, Time, The Village II, or Irony.
.
for Plam-Plam, freshly-dumped.
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.
.
Labels:
goodbye,
heartbreak,
love,
poetry
Sunday, February 20, 2011
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
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
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
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,
______________
.
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,
______________
.
Monday, February 14, 2011
How to spell 'Melancholy'
by E. Wong Martin
for Mitsiku
.
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?
.
Labels:
dog,
happiness,
heartbreak,
love,
new beginning,
philosophy,
poetry
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You"
You're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
And I would still be on my feet
.
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Village (II)
by E. Wong Martin
And just like that, without any need
for laborious introductions, the hands
of time shake the hands—or what
could be considered hands—of the village’s
two escaped livestock, both beauteous
and precious—goats, or are they sheep?
They are too gorgeous to be called goats,
and their sheepish smiles are so lovely
you will not need to drink milk
in the morning. But now, only one
of them relishes this nocturnal
freedom, as if the other is just waiting
for a scapegoat in the farm. One eats
grass, while the other just sniffs it.
The happy sheep quips: I could eat
this grass forever! But the other sheep—
not happy, but not sad either—
does not recognise the words,
despite being the smartest sheep
in the village. The happy sheep,
despite not being the smartest,
is not stupid either. So he stops
chewing and lays himself beside
the other. The sky is too starry
for them to worry about snoring,
but the happy one knows this much:
when dawn breaks, the lamb
of some god will take away
the sins of the village, and only one
of them furry fugitives will be
pardoned. So while the night
is young and their flesh warm,
the happy sheep gets up slowly,
stares at his partner in crime,
and before running off, he licks
the other’s cheek and says:
this is the taste of sweet grass.
_______________________________________
Artwork: "Two Sheep Under a Mountain" (1988, Thorfinnur Sigurgeirsson)
Read also: "The Village"
And just like that, without any need
for laborious introductions, the hands
of time shake the hands—or what
could be considered hands—of the village’s
two escaped livestock, both beauteous
and precious—goats, or are they sheep?
They are too gorgeous to be called goats,
and their sheepish smiles are so lovely
you will not need to drink milk
in the morning. But now, only one
of them relishes this nocturnal
freedom, as if the other is just waiting
for a scapegoat in the farm. One eats
grass, while the other just sniffs it.
The happy sheep quips: I could eat
this grass forever! But the other sheep—
not happy, but not sad either—
does not recognise the words,
despite being the smartest sheep
in the village. The happy sheep,
despite not being the smartest,
is not stupid either. So he stops
chewing and lays himself beside
the other. The sky is too starry
for them to worry about snoring,
but the happy one knows this much:
when dawn breaks, the lamb
of some god will take away
the sins of the village, and only one
of them furry fugitives will be
pardoned. So while the night
is young and their flesh warm,
the happy sheep gets up slowly,
stares at his partner in crime,
and before running off, he licks
the other’s cheek and says:
this is the taste of sweet grass.
_______________________________________
Artwork: "Two Sheep Under a Mountain" (1988, Thorfinnur Sigurgeirsson)
Read also: "The Village"
Labels:
friendship,
love,
poetry,
sadness
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)