salida

09/8/08

*

  

                  …if life is just a long vacation by: Yowee Gonzales

 

 

Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe- Okkervil River

 

 

1. (death.)
2.  i don’t think much of death.
   it’ll be.
   i know, one day.

   and everything
   will disappear.
   and no more
   memories,
   neither.

   4. (life)

   sitting there, on the edge of the world.
   dangling our legs
   over the mouth
   of forever.

 

 

5. (a movie-like scene in life; something to look back at before dying)

 
‘i don’t want to be alone.’  he says.  ’i'm afraid of being alone.  i’m afraid to be alone.’

‘maybe you should join a cult.’ i say and my voice is dead and everything is dead. the lights seem dimmer, the waitress paler as she floats. a ghost now.

‘do you care about me?’ he says, waiting. he keeps kneading my hand and it is pitiful.

‘i don’t think so.’  i say.  

he lowers his head and cries into his coffee.

‘i think i’m going to drown myself,’ he says after a while, ‘probably.  i’m probably going to drown myself.’

‘men are supposed to blow their brains out.’ i say, and i am not trying to be cruel but it just happens and i still don’t know what i’m doing.  i’m thinking about ladders and laundry and this hobo outside drinking Listerine who told me ‘you’re only as old as you feel.’ who is now passed-out in the doorway and people are actually stepping over him to get into the diner, eyes trained straight ahead.

i’m thinking about train station platforms and beached whales bloated and rotting on dry open shores.

 

 

 

about the windows of the diner, now fogged from our breath and the cold outside, how it blurs everything, every streetlight crowned with a tiny halo.

 

 

  .

saut

09/6/08

*

A little place in the Wilderness- Memphis

 

 

they were asking me if which is first:

the sea, or the longing for it.

the hills, or the grasses on their surface.

 

there,with two of those who woke up earlier than they used to just to hear me giggle

 

 

J

He hides an attic in his heart,

at night, he takes out the railroad, frees a starfish from a bottle of gin,

rolls weed and memories with its smoke. he cherishes everything

as long as it is outside the window: a lonely tree carved with arrows, a tire swing,

a long road where you can see a little store with a blue roof, a broken tv antennae.

he had pot sessions with Cobain and

Karen. I taught him once how to let the raindrops dance on his palm,

like a boy he tongued the rain, told me his palms

are too calloused, reigned by tar.

 

G

He called me yelling “sis, i did it, i did it!!!”

I could see his mother’s curlers and pedicure  from his voice and could hear

his father’s whistle from the way he plays with his slippers

as he bid adieu. It rained that day in the city and he missed a rock gig

because of his undone laundry. he got lost letting the raindrops dance on his

palms. When the call was over, I ate mugs and drank plates thinking

how a 5′9″ saw long-legged tiny nymphs between his fingers.

 

K

She has never given up on letting raindrops tango on her palms.

She never will.

They taught her how to tuck pain in without having

to pretend that she has flawless skin and a flat stomach.

a strong zipper.

 

 

~

i can still feel the mud, still smell the clouds on my shoulders, still taste the sailboats,

still hear the strums and the vibrations.

 

 

.

kumos

09/4/08

*

  

crumpled ego by: Martin Stranka

 

Naked as we came- Iron and Wine

 

 0

that city where i left you had ugly walls, that city crumpled me edge to edge… there were dynamites everywhere, there were ogres i haven’t seen but i have always believed…existed between those century-old fountains and newly-established urinals.

00

he crumpled a piece of paper,”write a feature about this”

with his mustache and hidden arthritis, he left the room,

they wrote about recycling,

i won the contest by writing about the paper boats i never owned.

0
without a word, without a sigh or half of it, he crumpled her breasts, raked the spaces between her hair and scalp, crumpled her butt, pinned her on the floor, the ink of virginity slid, his fifth victim stained. it was a night of secrets. years later, their husband and wife would meet in a fast food with their kids and to-go spaghetti, fries and burgers.

00
don’t ever crumple my old love letters
i might be a popular poet,
you can have a parcel of my fame, and in interviews
i will tell the world we both liked the smell of gasoline
and some nursery rhymes, unnamed.

0
this is a world of crumpled hearts. most people complain that love hinders you from doing the real work. ah so, love is just a part of the other world we create in our individual midst, then a romantic giant dick pee on us? i wonder where the “real” sphere of life is. give me a gentle slap if i am just dreaming. a choke slam if i am drunk.

00
from a plastic bag of crumples
the family near the provincial capitol
eat with bare hands on the floor as their dining table.

0
do you feel crumpled? do you feel used and left in a corner, two steps away from a bin? do you feel that the more you iron the wrinkles of your life, the more emptiness you gain? in a piece of clean paper, you have to write a story, read it aloud. hold a crumpled piece of paper, tell me about it.

00
when toilet rolls where not yet in the market
crumpled newspapers were part of a hygienic habit.

0
once, i crumpled my face in front of the mirror. from that very day, i forgot about a past of dark-skin-bleh bleh bleeh, “you look like a pre-school teacher who’s gonna die virgin”, he dumped you for a skinnier girl in skinny jeans, well yeah you’re smart but you lack finesse and would you please cover your mouth when you are laughing?

00
i will pretend that you were a crumpled gift wrapper

you told me to burn you, eyes-closed.

now, let me spread your  ash near the place we first got naked.

 

 

 .

~

udyak

09/3/08

*

discreetly, she asked them what happiness is…

(all answers translated to English. of course.)

 

 

jean. all around-helper.

 

“every time i step out of the traysikol and the sight

of my husband and our 1-year old daughter,

that thin blurry view of them across the ricefields.”

 

kujhuan. 4 years old.

 

“chicken joy.”

 

 

nong boboy. fishball vendor.

 

“my guitar after all of these are sold.”

 

 

nang aku. semi-calbo mother of two.

 

“good income, no fights with the husband. kape.”

 

 

gha. parlorista.

 

“friends. friendly customers. non-stop videoke and laugh trips

cooking and siyempre, my men. ahahah.”

 

jan m. overstaying high school/musikero.

 

“songwriting over beer. kids playing in the nearby swing. thoughts of 

childhood and walking alone at night.”

 

jules. tattoo artist.

 

“a new tattoo,  rock gigs and a calm girlfriend.”

 

sid. writer/songwriter/loner.

 

“ah you know me. sunsets, the smell of lunch from eateries, school kids

passing by our house on Mondays. late night songs from the radio.

cigarettes. great great sex.”

 

 nang ar. mercado fashionista. buco juice vendor.

 

“my family and oh yes, when i see your hair!!! hahaha!”

 

 

sunny. Indian/ ESL student

 

“long travels, customers who pay on time, my wife and my kids.

learning English day by day. good health.”

 

 

kinoi. 3 years old.

 

“ikaw nanang!”

 

 

Nav. teacher-to-be/ romantic

 

“simple. good beer. hot women. noisy music. masturbation. hehe.”

 

 

 Boyet. Billiard hall assistant manager.

 

“sending my siblings to school. when i receive balato from players.”

 

 

nong pablo. street sweeper.

 

“when Paskwa comes. why are you asking?”

 

 

Botod. Ex-con. childhood friend.

 

“being free from bars at last, seeing the sun. being given another chance.

arguing with your gay cousin. haha.”

 

 

torn Aaron Carter poster in my sister’s room.

 

“Nick Carter.”

 

 

you have to come with me one day,

there stands my blue thermos and my cupboard of mugs.

clam my stomach as i drive the scooter

along the dusty country roads

do not cover your nose, let the flying soil kiss your

face, your cheeks and your forehead

your whole meandering soul.

 

we’ll pass by public markets and seawalls,

stop by bakeries and buy pan de regla and pan de coco.

we’ll argue about the salt and the panadero’s sweat,

hold the thermos and the mugs well

as the sun sinks on the cleavage of the earth.

 

ponytail my hair if it hurts your lips as the

wind blows the late afternoon cold.

tell me stories no matter how mushy they are,

i love stories being told from my back.

laugh and shake as long as you want to,

i’ll just drive ahead and you can yell fuck yous

and bullshits to speedy sugarcane trucks and vehicles

loaded with hogs and manure.

 

i will never ask about the past or how many times you 

wounded your knees, bent.

i will never stop you from singing the old songs

or from taking off your shirt and waving it like a fool.

 

and so, with me, let’s throw the scooter keys to the 

grasses. together let’s eat the last tangerine drop of the world.

 

pour the hot water from my blue thermos to our mugs.

dip the bread to our black coffee,

sip one time and stare at the vast,

i will wait for you to look at me, weave your wearies in words.

 

and with the silence, let’s dunk our hands on our pockets,

fall on the ground and 

 

forget about chasing happiness.

 

you can hum broken tears.

too.

 

 

 

owner of the sky- cynthia alexander

 

 .

 

sadto

09/2/08

 

*

the part where you let go- hem

 

 

 ex-girlfriend by: Rain Amantiad  

 

 

^

you left me with three messages:

the first told me that i stood out with my stuffed toy

backpack, the second and the third was about you 

stealing glances of me as i kicked fallen yellow bells

and you wanting to spend more time staring at my face.

 

i never deleted the first one,

i even read it on our first month together.

 

#

we were walking near a cathedral and you wanted to buy me 

roses, i asked why,

you told me that our love is blooming beautiful

“roses die”, i said straight

and you blushed.

 

+

 you left hieroglyphics on my skin,

i concealed it because i thought you might have left

alibata and glyphs on collars and necks of girls

and women you’d fallen in-love with.

 

once, i opened your idle notebook

and there i saw how you wrote about the softness

of my lips and the birth of awe as my hair

fell on my face and i blew them off with

tenderness.

 

/

you left me things to hold on to as priceless

possessions.

i wished you were enough to hold on to but maybe you weren’t. 

=

you left me under my hood as i curled

a cup of coffee, talking to glass walls.

 

 you came back for me and pulled me

into the car and cried as your drove.”tell me you love me,” you begged,and i shook my head, shook the rain
from my hair and watched the headlights
glisten through the water beading on
the windshield. like diamonds. like
a kaleidoscope gone all wrong.

 

^

you left me three more messages.
the first told me you still love me
and don’t understand what is going
on. the second said that if i couldn’t
give you any straight answers, you
would leave and let me go. the third asked me
if i still loved you.

 

~

 

we left days for each other, alone.

“hello”, maybe you saw my number flashed

on your mobile phone

“i passed by there today, the yellow bells are gone.”

 

=

 

i left you with my stuffed toy backpack

and i did not look back.

 

 

 

 

 

.