"Piso-piso"

by Ewong



I take back what I said in my last blog post. Or rather, I am keeping what I said before: summer had been cruel to me. I got hospitalised early this month (for the first time ever), puked my guts out and subsisted on dextrose for four days. A week later, my very sick cousin died. She'd been sick a very long time: complications from the thyroid storm which killed her unborn baby months before, and then malnutrition. A few days before she passed, she told my mum, pointing to somewhere in her hospital room, that she was seeing Jesus in bright light... Jesus, she was certain, and someone she called "S." Of course, my mum told my cousin to stay with the light, go with Jesus. And she did eventually.

And no one must go with "S." Whoever he or she was.

For the next few days, relatives arrived for her wake. Relatives who don't live in the same town (she and her daughter, my aunt, uncle, and my other cousins just lived in a house a few blocks--a tricycle ride--away from ours). Yes, those whom we only see when a kin has died. I'm not close to most of my relatives, so I wasn't really excited to see them. Sometimes I think, and funny it is, really, that the families of my clan are in some sort of a contest of who gets to have the saddest, most MMK-worthy story. This cousin of mine tried to hide her pregnancy from her strict father for the longest time, and they lived under just one roof. She had goiter, hence her pregnancy was downright delicate, but she never went to see an endocrinologist or an ob/gyn. Before this baby, she already had a teenage daughter, with a man who just disappeared before the girl was born. Her new husband, the father of her dead baby, abandoned her after giving birth--

or is it "giving death"?

My own family was in strong competition a few years back. When my dad died tragically, treated like an animal, while my mum couldn't even go to her own husband's funeral, and we, their kids, had to fend for ourselves...

So you could say I planned my visit well to the funeral home: it was during noontime, and like I predicted, my relatives were still out, soundly sleeping in my uncle's house, and I only had to meet my cousin's (now totally orphaned) daughter. Still, I hated scenes like this. Not that I do not care for my cousin, or that I do not mourn her, but it's just that I hate the sight of death, this very solid scene designed with a white coffin, wreaths, monoblock chairs, a guest book, candles lit and blinding bulbs burning all day and all night long. And seeing my cousin like she was already a skeleton, I could see her wrinkled skin sagging from the bone of her arm. She was just about my age. One could not recognise that she was the same fine, pretty lady in the framed portrait on top of the coffin glass. She was my most beautiful cousin. And perhaps that's why I never visited her in the hospital, never in the four months that she was sick, dying ever so slowly. Because I wanted to only remember the beautiful flower that she was when we were younger.

Her name was Hyacinth.

And so, you could further say that I hate being confronted by death. I'd rather all my siblings and cousins have unplanned pregnancies, and then births, every month, every week if they must, but not this call of mourning. I would not want to see my relatives again, if it'd only be on funerals.

But I love the coffee served, and the biscuits from the big tin box. Classic. Later that day, during the wake, another cousin would teach me how to play tong-it, and I'd win three out of the six rounds.

Piso-piso game it was.
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(The beginnings of my) Cruel Summer

by E Wong



And so this doesn’t appear to be the bright sunshiny summer I wished it would be—for me. My brother had just lost his job, hence our expenses at home will definitely be tighter. We had already cut our internet connection months ago; I think we have to give up the cable subscription, too. Our cat had given birth to three kittens, and our dog will be giving birth soon. It'll be so heartbreaking to give up—give away—some of our pets eventually. Then even more ill-timed is the need to transfer to another house in the province next month, just one block away, anyway, but the moving and the costs it will entail is huge headache already.

There’s also some “domestic uncertainty” back here in our apartment in Manila, and I really wish things will turn out fine for my dear housemates. My own “certainty” depends on it. Then, my mother had her recent checkup for diabetes, and she is advised of stricter monitoring, thus there’ll be more medications than what she is already on. Worse news is one I just learned this morning: my cousin, who barely made it after her tragic pregnancy “poisoned” by her severe goiter, is back in the ICU, and now the doctors and the family are on the verge of giving up…

This is how my summer appears to be: gloomy despite all this sun. I am keeping the optimism, of course, but I’m really sad, and scared, about how things will turn out. Well, for one, I’m glad that my personal life—the affairs of the heart—has just wrapped up its last consuming chapter. Yes, I am moving on. It was a great experience, but one which has to conclude now. I'm glad I will not be writing so much about heartbreak and unrequited love soon. And I’m glad I ended it with a creative, thesis-like thing, like a student’s final paper deserving a 1.0. Which brings to mind… oh no, I guess I have to postpone (again) my going back to school, given these predicaments…

And my summer plans most likely will remain plans. The Vigan or Baguio trip, the annual beach getaway, the concert I wanted to attend. And the writing “retreat” I’ve been looking forward to. I guess I’ll be spending the rest of the summer just at home, in the hospital, and in the office. I don’t think I’ll have time left to write poetry, or to do some art, which I just recently got back into. That is really sad. I don’t even have the energy to edit and polish this blog post. Here comes the stream of consciousness… Here comes the inevitable ellipses… and the grunts... hmpf... aargh... and the shouts… aaahhh… aaahhh…

So I guess I may not be blogging as often as I want to, and my Facebook addiction will have to be greatly tempered as well. Because summer seems to be extra tough this time. Because I have just lost my licence for procrastination. Now I have to move, move, move! Because I will have to face life once again… in the face! We’ve been through much more difficult times before, that kind of drama which you’d only see in the movies or in MMK, (God I don’t even want to recall them!), but now, why am I so scared of the days ahead? Because I fear poverty striking us again? Because I don't want any more deaths in my family, amongst my relatives? Anyone dying, for that matter!

But so strange it is that when things go awfully rough, it seems easier to accept tragedy or tribulation in the rainy days. Is it because, as the cliched metaphor goes, the rain washes away our tears? Whilst summer, this time of the year, means being happy and youthful and festive, and we should be singing now, dancing now, and having some summer lovin’? Because in this season of sun, we’re supposed to celebrate the dryness of our eyes, we should bask in the utter brightness of our ephemeral lives?

I wish I knew the answer. I wish life would be easier. I hope things will still be sunshiny for me, for everyone… O summer, please don’t be so cruel to me now. You’re my favorite season, you know that. Shine on me, O sweet sun. Shine on me now—

just don’t get me burnt.

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Saddest booksale ever

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Nothing personal, nothing national.

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

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"

No such thing as bad bye

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This particular stream of words and thoughts will not use the word love (well, just this once) for I am definitely not in love with you (okay, make that twice). I want you to know, however, that you are special to me even though it could never have been obvious—well, for obvious reasons. It wasn’t meant to be, not that I would have wanted anything to mean something. Now, let me tell you that when I use indefinite pronouns at least twice in a single sentence, such as what I just did, that means something special. Oh, I already said you are special to me. Well, you are special, just as you are, without any reference to me. And you know you are. And I told you that. Not per se, but you know what I mean. I’m glad I did, at least at the very last time which is, in fact, an irony for a first moment. Some things begin last. Well, isn’t that a swell oxymoron! Or was I a moron for not having taken chances?

My thoughts are as mixed up and muddied and confusing like that 13th zodiac sign brouhaha, but I want you to know that if things worked out differently, if I had behaved better (not that I had misbehaved or anything), I would have really wanted you. I am listening to P_____ N______’s albums right now without looking at the titles of songs. I love the rustic tunes, but I never get to know their titles, really. Maybe his music could work as a metaphor for you: I don’t look, I just listen. Sometimes I would shut my eyes and just listen. To you. And I would feel your soul, one that’s so gentle I would think it was mine to bathe in forever. Well, that f word’s an exaggeration. Just like, er, love. So I would just swim in your reverie, without you knowing it. Sometimes hear, but always listen. To you. Even if you were not there. As you are now.

If P___ N____ doesn't work for you, let me just sing in the similar laidback fashion of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová: I don't know you, but I want you all the more for that...

Hey, do you ever think of me? Even ill thoughts would be fine, haha. Now I think of what could have been. Poets of the world, why does “hi” rhyme with “bye”? I’ve said good bye, haven’t I? And yes, it’s a good one.

Farewell to the Lounge

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Goodbye, ABS-CBN Drama Lounge (2005-2010), our sweet second home and faithful keeper of our corporate angsts, personal dark (oftentimes lustful) secrets, and of course, the storylines of our writerly lives.
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Mama Gina's last night in Cubao

by Ewong Martines

            life begins     at 40,      they say
     but           Mama Gina says
fuck,        I am           too fucking old.
         each year passed,               on her skin
 like weeds  bloom                   these lines
      too intricate              to reveal some
          fucking fortune.                  like her
 her patrons aged     but not
 their appetites,        and so      Mama Gina
       barely spend  the nights        with cash
in her hand      or cock in her mouth.      her joints
  have started aching           and shame
began crawling         down her face
                                     long immune to tears,
and so, tonight, and not in any other fucking night,
  Mama Gina                   decides to retire.

      with a dark homely man    she enters
a room like all other rooms          in the building
            like all other buildings
                               on this  filthy boulevard.
 she lets the man consume         every inch   of her
except      her mouth:              for women like her
      the mouth is for true love:           some fucking
love which  had not come              for her
    after all these               fornicating years.
        she moans          and she screams:
Mama Gina mastered all these     feigned feelings
of love      with a stranger,     of hope and happiness.
 o how she perspires,         but bleed she doesn’t,
    for blood       and herself    had long
been estranged.   the man hands    her few bills:
      no tip, no card,             no hope, no happiness.
           moments like this    she feels
most lonely,        but she’s too tired, too old now
          to lament       or understand.
      then,                as in those many years,
she goes to pee             profusely:
                         it is,     for all those years,
   the weeping           of her body.

a front cover of a Madame Bovary Penguin edition

Ang maikling kasaysayan ni Juan Chokolate: I

by Ewong Martines

"I (o, ang simula ay ang katapusan)"

Sa bawat pakikipagtalik na pinaigting
ng pinaghalong pawis at likidong katamisan,
panagimpan ni Juan Chokolate ang pagtakas
          nila ni Maya.

Ang tansong tandang kanyang titiraduhin
bago pa man humudyat-awit upang sila’y pigilan.
Maligaya nilang tatahakin ang daan papalayo
          sa Kasa Oskura.

Sa binabangungot nilang bayan. Maya-maya’y
tanaw na nila ang mga gusaling sumasayaw,
matatayog, at humahalik
          sa kalangitan.

Manghang-mangha sa kakaibang mundo
ng libu-libong nagliliparang landas, sasakyan
at katauhan. Magkahawak-kamay,
          sila’y magtatakbuhan.

Kahit sa panaginip lang, magkasama nilang
bubuuin ang kaluluwang nilusaw ng mga
          hayok sa laman.

Nakatirik ang araw nang matamo nila
          kanilang kalayaan.