The Butterfly

by Ewong Martines

My father once told a story that had passed on from his father’s father and all the fathers before him: on the mystery of butterflies. According to him, butterflies don’t die natural deaths. Unless we crush them, or spray on them, or, God forbid, eat them, forever they will fly in the garden of melancholy.

The butterfly, he said, whispers its secrets to the flowers that never listen. It cuddles and caresses them, extolling their scents. But the stamens and pistils, he continued, are lovers who don’t believe the stories of a vagrant rainbow.

So the butterfly flutters away to other flowers that are heedless still. And forgetful. It wanders in the woods, in the rice fields, in the riverbanks, into the oblivious sky, until it reaches where the sun and sea kiss. By then, the butterfly is worn-out, but still beautiful.

And now that I’m flying away, the age-old secrets that I bear are too wonderful to declare.

*artwork by Tatiana Zank

Version de chanson de "Lettre de George Sand à Alfred de Musset" par Céline Dion

There is this feeling that lingers...
so good, so pure and so soft.
For which I shall never feel the need to end.
(translated)

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.

How do I dare me? Let me count the days

(This is not poetry)
but a declaration of

No smoking, no
alcohol, and no
sex for the next
eighty nine days.
And I'm up
for the challenge!

I wish i could say
this sacrifice
is for some great unrequited
love (that'd be too late now)
or the sort; but no, it's not.
It's for something much
more profound.
(But not impossible.)

Just little sacrifices, really
for some little favors. Oh God,
hear me out.

And so,
for the next three
months, chocolates
are not the only

temptation.

Trading Yesterday's "The Beauty and the Tragedy"

Another day, another sunrise
Washing over everything
In its time, love will be mine
The beauty and the tragedy

The Masseuse

by Ewong Martines

each night she yearns for someone
to end the coldness and tremble
of her hands, yet she would never
lament; the words no, not,
and don't have long died

in her throat. in the seedy room
she kisses the frozen breeze,
her tongue licking the dust
and salt of the passing minutes.
her slender nose can only smell

the surrounding darkness: the shy
flood of amber light washing over
this nest and all others occupied
by nocturnal strangers. her feet
barely move, but it is her mind

which wanders in the grocery halls;
there she happily fills her cart
with the most basic goods and
a pack of choco-peanut bars for
her little brother. her lean muscles

are tired, but the half-hour passed
strikes to declare that the man
with cigarette breath and musky
sweat needs more than her hands.
the drone of jeepneys from

what seems worlds away tells
it is time to make love again
without love. the flesh aching,
the spirit strained, and with that
lovely mouth of hers she longs

to cry, if only she could,
that even she needs a hand.

Joshua Radin's "The One You Knew"

The one you knew from your love
I grew into complete and whole
and the way I justify,
it's my way to control love everlasting

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.

Nouvelle année and Owl City's "Fireflies"

This is my last day of being gravely sinful. Tomorrow is another day... no, tomorrow is another year! It's high time to unwrap the bandage around our hearts. Feel the sweet light piercing through you now. To all the people I've loved and hated, may 2010 bring us together again in brighter and more exciting--not necessarily happy--encounters. Happy new year!



To ten million fireflies
I'm weird 'cause I hate goodbyes
I got misty eyes as they said farewell

Hunting season

by Ewong Martines

gently, my fingers brushed through the bridge
of your nose, and nimbly we crossed the waters

of unspeakable longing. my hand felt the summer
in your hand, and the jungle of desire tossed about

its canopy and understory and grass, decreeing once
and for all nature’s law in troubled terrain.

when my throat felt the autumn, like strawberries
your lips bloomed, sumptuous and sweet, waiting

to be picked by a sundrenched man with soiled feet, wanting,
like roses, to be adored and smelled and kept in a vase filled

with only the sweetest rainwater. my mouth craved
for the dew of the evergreens, and my tongue probed

into the hibernating depths of the earth. The winter
in my bones melted away, your soft moans assuring me:

tonight, the roots and barks and leaves
shall not taste the bitterness of snow.