bwas

02/6/09

*

 

 

i know four people who came over here at my little

nook today. you get to meet strangers who ask you how much

you earn, how many men you’ve slept with, how many kids you

want to have if you end up with the best person you ever slept with.

how many times you use the wet wipes, the blusher, the cuticle remover.

luckily, you get to meet four who arrive in an odd chronological manner

they shut their mouths up

and just look at you as you sit and pen words

and they grin in varied angles but with the same meaning.

and you feel, for a moment, you sure are something.

ani.erman.instik.tepoy.

 

 

 

Kill the poet

 

 (we promise to share the recording if it’s ready for airplay.

i did the vocals on this unfortunately. requested them to play it when i finally wear make-up under the glass)

 

Sylvia stuck her head into the oven

 Do that to me please, please, I beg

 You can place some pebbles in my pockets

 So I could drown in the nearby river

 

 

 Ref:

 Kill the poet in me, there’s no point

Kill the verses and haikus that I wrote

 

 

 Chorus:

 I hate days after October

 I was once ugly and you made me beautiful

 You were in the bus and I hate it when you

 Told me:

 

 (Narrative)

 I may not be able to tell you how much you mean to me

 But I want you to know that what you

 Are to me is as beautiful as life

 

 

 

Charles taught me how to leave my job

He taught me to forget about you when I’m drunk

 But then the poems waken me up

 I see the portrait you draw,

 

 you draw it so beautiful

 

 

 

 

 

 I was once ugly and

 

 

Refrain

Chorus

 

  (special thanks to Sylvia Plath and Charles Bukowski and to him)

 

 

 

 

 ♦

 

 

 (we are going to teach this to our students)

 

Ginkuom ko ang hangin

 Ginpiyong ang mata kag mag ginhawa

 Kung ang handum bala ginadapya

Sa palad ko bala magahugpa

 

 

 

 Sining gamay nga tigog

 Sa pagkatumba magapamipi

 Diri mismo ako magatindog

 

 

 

 Isinggit ko ang akon damgo sa panganod

Sa pagaspas sang pispis ako mapakalunod

Sa pag-abot sang hapon magatangla

 Sang akon handum, sang akon handum

 

 

Sa pagbundak sang ulan ako madalagan

 Ipanihol ang kasubo kag luha

 Iyuhum ang bibig bisan madulum ang dalan

 Kag ini nga mabahanon isinggit sa kahawaan

 

 

 

 .

kuging

02/5/09

*

 

suddenly, i wonder if there’s a nearby version of him. i watched all his videos, all effin’ brilliant. i watched videos as i alternately wrote about cat sliding doors online buy and pre-ejaculation treatment. damn, this is cyberinfatuation. what a pre-valentine treat. seriously, watch his videos. they’re all hilarious with a squeeze of romance and spurts of neo-longdistant-fondling effect. 

 

 

 

.

enTABLAdo

02/4/09

*

 

“all i really want to do in life is to sing and to teach and nothing more, and sadly, they cannot accept that”

“haha mine is way unacceptable, write. walk near the sea. kiss the man i love.”

 

 

here’s a basket, walk your way to mercado publiko. you see shirtless men, you see flies freely flying around hanging slices of beef and pork. you hear the way blood for dinuguan flows from the kabo to the plastic bag.  Kasinggit Helman’s father is there. He’s been there and he’s been proud. now walk your way to a quiet home, popular for talented kids, where singers slept in abuy-abuys and dancers toddled to and fro. helman’s mother will definitely welcome you with the warmest smile.

a matador and a housewife. his parents.

a singer, a performer, a happy-shiny soul, a crying clown when the lights are off. singgit president.

 

 

 

 

his story brings back 1991, a tricycle driver wakes up his daughter. the daughter rubs slumber off her eys, takes a bath to the family poso, arrives in school to lead the Saint Paul School choir. and nobody knows she had to walk from sitio to town. and nobody knows she has been dreaming under the shade of bugnay as her lolo looks after the carabao, and her lolo teaches her how to deal with ropes. so she believes that ropes will never be a part of her life and death.

 

 her story is that hanging bridge Helman crosses, where rocks down there look sharp. His voice has been a constant reminder that he is a gift. Winning singing contests and receiving talent fees made it easier for his family. His allowances were from those moments when the sealed envelopes would be opened and his name would echo. then applauses. then more applauses.

 

and he goes home with the deafening silence. being poor is not all about the money. it is about having to live up to expectations:

that because you are born talented, you have the power to make the biggest difference. iahon mo kami sa hirap. conversations with him is as happy as two clowns and a fat goose laying easter eggs. but one moment we stop laughing, we turn into the saddest people.

 

still, he is my favorite storyteller. he speaks in tongues of little fairy tales that dreamers like us long to hear. still, i and the world will not get tired of listening to his voice, the voice ripened by entablados and suppressed cries. still, the sound of his father’s tapalan and his mother’s ili ilis will be the music of his heart, no matter how hard it is to say “i dream” when the entire city is awake and everything falls apart like a sliced cinema.

 

 

 

 

.

 

libayon

02/1/09

*

we were walking down Barotac Viejo, like autumn in glasses, like smell of ash, two of them were madly strumming, three of us singing out loud, not minding the heat of the sun. i have told them that i wish my two little brothers grow up with passion like theirs. 

i get to meet people who would never sell their music. that rocks. one minute you think of it, it really rocks.

 

 

this is tepoy. i met him outside my cousin’s jologs kapehan. the first things i have noticed:  piercing left side, upper chin & his sad eyes. his cousin told me he’s a musician and a visual artist. “but he’s messed up”. the sad eyes shook a bit, like summer dusts falling from the coming of June. I told him about Singgit and the impression that his brand of music is heavy. He nodded and gave me this very hesitant look. I gave up, a quarter. One evening, a number sent me this message “where are we going to teach kids tomorrow tin?”. The next day, my fellow kasinggits were glad to see Bacolod’s Underground madman jam with the kids. 

 

He is more than the growls and the lines of stories his face and hands express. tepoy has this struggle with departures.  I thank him for not carrying his family’s affluence everytime we all sit down under the trees and everytime other budding musikeros ask him how to fall in-love with the strings without having to buy some expensive guitars and gadgets. 

 coming across him is like seeing that bit of me i am holding on to. broken, detached, scratched…

but the music keeps playing like how strings break and own memories that only the fingertips can relish.

 

 

 

this is cosmic bro aninipot. everyone knows that he is one of my favorite human beings. hehe. i used to see him sing in hulog-hulog karaoke sa peryahan and their sitio programs. i have been a believer that one day, this boy would sing his own songs. i never imagined that he would, one day, sing my lyrics. we were having our rehearsals for December 22nd when i saw him sitting alone under the mahogany tree, cap almost hiding his entire face. for no reason, i waved and asked him to join us. Eureka. we needed a bassist, i handed him the guitar and he did not tell us it was his first time to play it. it was not obvious. we were all impressed and i was thrilled by the way he moved, he has this tatak of kicking his leg backward when he is trying to reach musical orgasm. “hey you have to be with us, stand near me please because your energy is damn contagious!”, i told him but he just smiled like a sheep and tangled his hair. 

 

i see a huge part of my self in him. he has so much love for those who are ignored and misjudged. he is one of the biggest dreamers i have ever met. (not that his dreams are enormous, but his faith is so deep, it breaks teritorries).

he closes his eyes when he sings, he opens his heart to every stranger as if cheating and taking advantage is not a part of this world. he does not fail to remind me that humility are for those who are grand and not those who chase grandeur.

 

he will sing my wedding and  grave song.

 

 

being surrounded by these young people keeps me moving forward. these toes are going to endlessly tap. and these fingertips will never die caressing celebrations being unfolded, blessings in the form of breaths at this point of my life when i have found out that all the love you give will come back to you in the form of the greatest friendships. and other ties that you can never fathom.

but, yes, they sound to you like tall grasses

in a field where birds fly and spread their wings…the widest.

 

 

.

 

amihan

*

The rain stopped,

we listened to them crochet stories, wind vanes and galaxies

Singgit Sabado Manunudlo. Kurit-Kanta-Kalipay.

Salamat JayR Pascua

 

 

the language that transcends age

 

polpol sharing his thoughts on becoming an artist someday ♥

i hope

 

the ever adorable purok amihan girls

who’d raise their hands and admit

“ako…ang indi kabalo magdrawing hihihi”

 

words of encouragement and appreciation…

 

the tale of the traveling bongo…

 

 

new kasinggits, stronger drive!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.