Pag-amin

Bumabalong sa mga ating yapak ang buwan
nang kinuha mo sa aking kamay

ang isang bato, at ipinukol ito
sa karagatan. Tumagos ito sa banayad

na balat, naglikha ng panandaliang
sugat, na kagyat pinunan ng tubig gamit

ang sarili. Hindi natin namamalayan
itong paghilom, pagpuna,

habang dinadala sa atin
ang kung anu-anong nakaraang

hinahaplos ang tahimik na katawan
ng dalampasigan. Dinadala sa atin

ang mga buwang alaala lamang
ng mga ulap ang nilalaman, mga ulap

na mabagal na nilalakbay ang bawat araw,
ang buong umaalong pagitan ng ako

at ng kasalukuyan. Lumuloob ako sa tanglaw,
nailalantad ang akong nasa bingit

ng isang kapalaran. At kailangan kong
lumundag, kailangan kong lumundag. . .

at tinatalunan mo ang mga alon
nang walang alinlangan, tinatalunan

habang tumatawa habang tangay ako
sa kamay, upang sabayan ka,

pero tila ako ang iyong sinabayang
maglakbay lagpas sa karagatang

ako, sinabayan upang marating
ang isang banyagang dalampasigan

at mag-abang ng panibagong buwan.
Sa sandaling iyon, umiral ang isang tagpo.

The Crippled Girl, The Rose

by David Ferry

It was as if a flower bloomed as if
Its muttering root and stem had suddenly spoken,

Uttering on the air a poem of summer,
The rose the utterance of its root and stem.

Thus her beautiful face, the crippled girl’s,
Was like the poem spoken by her body—

The richness of that face!—most generous
In what it keeps, giving in its having.

The rose reserves the sweetness that it yields,
Petal on petal, telling its own silence,

Her beauty saying from its thorny stalk
That what it is is kept as it is given.

Poem

Today, I woke up thinking J. Alfred Prufrock was never really anyone. However, his "generosity," because I cannot find any other word for selfishness, or shame, is carried through Eliot's work consistently that one cannot but think of his persona as corporal. The work centers so much on Prufrock that the journey of his date with his Other (and Prufrock is his Other, Prufrock is probably everything in the work) that the peripheral is lost. I guess love, if it were called that, does that to anyone. But today, I woke up thinking of a work whose spirit is not love but history, a work whose point is catalogue, whose force is not implied through "Let us go then, you and I..." but rather "Today, I woke to the sound of the world viciously dreaming, their dreaming the sound of wheels thrusting smoke into the air for us breathe everywhere..." Unlike Prufrock, there would be no question, no expected moment. The point would be that there is no question, or that the question is lost under the sound of cars honking in the congested roads or beneath the sound of a city's footsteps. We find the expected moment, someone's dream, if we follow even one of those footsteps. But my focus is not following, only noting things down.

Hindi ang nalaman mong bumagsak ka sa pinag-aaralan mong major ang pinakaayaw kong pakiramdam sa mundo. Hindi rin ang nalaman mong namatay ang isa sa mga minamahal mo sa buhay. Ang putanginang pinakaayaw kong pakiramdam sa buong putanginang mundo ay iyong nalaman mong may ibang gusto iyong babaeng nasisimulan mong magustuhan, iyong tipong malapit mo nang aaminin sa sarili na alaala pala niya ang isa sa mga pinakainiingatan mong bagay. Parang bumagsak ka na bago ka pa lang magsimula; parang pinatay ka na bago ka nabuhay.

Between Sleeps

by Mark Anthony Cayanan

Turning to bed late one night, I find you
sleeping. As lightly as my tired
body allows it, I tug at the pillow you hold
close to your chest and crawl into
the space I have created for myself.

With a few stray strands of light uncoiled
from a bulb I've kept on, I can see
the contours of your face shadowed
by repose, stilled into position:
your mouth seems to have forgotten
what is about to be said. I incline
my head towards yours to chance upon
this secret speech. The low humming
from your throat, the occasional
moans divorced from silence by small
degrees, even the almost-sour breath:
they tell me how deep into dream you are.

By now, you might be in some place where color
has the full-bodied figure it wishes
to assume, where even the most peripheral
images slide into a center surrounding you,
crowding you even. I allow myself entry,
your inner spoon, and I know where I am:
I form the umbra of this mirror
image of a question mark; I am the shape
that, with you, mars the wave,
the gray of the bedspread. Where your mind
moves, however, I can only guess.

I can opt for hope, and give my dream
of your dream a countenance: mine.
Or I can admit that somewhere between
and inside you, there are phantoms:
present and future desires and dread,
whose vivid presences are unmasked only to you,
and are then gone.

Love, I shall fall into my own
sleep knowing of you only: your inert
body leaning, relaxing onto mine.
Your hand on my belly.
Chest against back.
Shoulder towards shoulder.
Your breath and my nape.

(mula sa Heights Tomo LI, Bilang 4, p. 4-5, 2004)

--

Natatakot ako kapag binabasa ito. Parang hindi ko kayang pasanin ang kalungkutang mararamdaman ko kung sakaling aaminin kong nais kitang mahalin. | Also, Sir Mark's first collection, "Narcissus," is out now from the Ateneo Press! Get one! http://www.ateneopress.org/detail_allbooks.asp?ID=356

In Praise of Shame

by Lord Alfred Douglas

Last night unto my bed bethought there came
Our lady of strange dreams, and from an urn
She poured live fire, so that mine eyes did burn
At the sight of it.  Anon the floating fame
Took many shapes, and one cried: "I am shame
That walks with Love, I am most wise to turn
Cold lips and limbs to fire; therefore discern
And see my loveliness, and praise my name."

And afterwords, in radiant garments dressed
With sound of flutes and laughing of glad lips,
A pomp of all the passions passed along
All the night through; till the white phantom ships
Of dawn sailed in. Whereat I said this song,
"Of all sweet passions Shame is the loveliest."

Project

Studies on laughter. Keywords: break, affair, after, ever, then, from where. Essays on laughter, about that laugh laughing at a laugh.

That night she whispered into his ear, and in the dream he heard something over the ocean, barely audible over the waves, tainting his body, the body of the shore.

Nais kong ipaalam sa iyo ang nakatagong kasaysayan
ng isang halik, mga buwang pumapaimbulog

patungo nitong sandali, mula sa nakaraan
habang naglalaho ang mga patlang na nilalamanan

ng hininga, at sa huli, magluluwal ng salita.
Oo, nais kong ipaalam sa aking katawan

na muli akong masasaktan, pero hindi ngayon,
alam kong hindi iyon ngayon. Kay ligaya ng paglaho

ng mga espasyo upang umiral ang pagtagpo,
ang pagbalatkayo ang lahat ng tula, lahat ng gabi't lahat

ng pagkakataong natagpuan ko ang sariling nakatanga
sa mabagal na paglalakbay ng isang ulap,

o sa pag-imbay ng mga halaman sa hangin,
lahat nitong bumabalatkayo bilang balat, hininga, balat.

Reasons for Living

by David Young

There aren’t that many, surely.
A tiny, crumpled list
you keep in purse or wallet.

Meanwhile, though,
think of your life as a bulky
present you were given
sometime around your first birthday.

You spend your years unwrapping it, perhaps.

Or you finish unwrapping, discover it’s a kit,
and spend your years assembling it.

The directions, if that is what they are,
are too confusing, with lots of gaps,
and there are way too many parts.

What you finally manage to put together
may or may not be what the kit intended,
but it’s yours, like a pet you never planned to own;
even if you run out of reasons to live,
it expects your care and maintenance.

*
From http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2011/06/david-young-taught-for-many-years-at.html