Sunday, March 29, 2009
Three words
Sem. Finally. Over.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Wordpainting: One afternoon, walking around Freedom Park
(Note: These "poems" are an attempt to break the uncontrollable tendency to write poetry in obstructively highfalutin language and mind-numbingly convoluted syntax and structures, to shatter the ubiquitous illusion that agreeably good poetry, admittedly, need not be fully understood -- no wonder some writers hate, no, loathe adverbs.)
SEVERINO WALKING HOME
They call him a terrorist
The white hairs of his beard twitch
If he is a terrorist, he is an old one
Too old, perhaps, to wrestle with picket police
But still too young to be immortalized as Ka Severino
He looks up at the trees near Men's Dorm
As he takes step after weary step
I pass him on the turn, seeing his tired face
"He could use some cheering up," I say to myself
So as our eyes meet the way people walking past each other do,
I smile at him, the widest I can without having to bare my teeth
(For we all know baring teeth is an instinctively, animalistically hostile act)
Trying to get my face to say, "Cheer up Sir," as noiselessly as possible
Somehow, I am not surprised to see that he does not smile back,
That his impassive half-frown (it must be the moustache and beard)
Stay even as he walks past
Now, I am truly not surprised
This man has probably received too much hate today;
Hundreds, even thousands of frowns that a single smile
Could only against hope to counteract.
Too much for his old soul to bear,
Too much for his old soul to care.
LONE PALM
Testament to nature versus nurture, he stands
The lone advocate of wood and leaf in his Alamo
Surrounded by soldiers of black steel and brown cement
He does not grow taller anymore, as organisms are wont to do
He simply sheds his old fronds, drops his fruits, and begins anew
Until old age and disease take their toll on his life
Unlike hie enemies, who are immune to the ravages of time
Whose only sicknesses are rust and chipped paint
They who will light the evenings
Even after their single enemy is long gone.
ARTURO'S SON FLIES A KITE
Arturo holds one wing in each hand
It is one of those delta-shaped kites,
Green to match the lightest of the field's grasses
Arturo tells his son to run
And run the rotund little boy does
All smiles,
Hands sweaty in their grip,
Legs pumping
Arturo lets go of the kite
Steadily, steadily it rises
Catching the air the child's feet rush past
Between the motions of running, looking forward and back,
He feels a certain stillness in the kite's flight
This zen allows for him to keep running
Until alas, he has reached the field's edge
He stops on the edge of the road and catches his breath
Letting the kite float down and become one with the grass,
Its string slicing through the chitchat of a benched couple
The boyfriend is considerate:
He holds the wings up the way Arturo did
And tells the boy to run back where he started
The child obeys, and pretty soon he is in zen again
Until he runs into Arturo's embrace
Father and son now exhausted, they fold the kite up
And hail a jeep to take them back to the Batcave.
Wordpainting: One afternoon, walking around Freedom Park
Sunday, March 15, 2009
On passion, performances, and performers (batu-bato sa langit, ang tamaan MAMATAY)
I miss the days when people actually believed in the power of brainstorming. There is nothing more comforting in creative work than to see your fellow man and woman, like-minded or otherwise, thinking along with you, participating in this collective creative process which churns out projects so beautiful that they would have strained the sanity of a single individual.
I miss the days when people maintained enough humility, and probably enough faith in how effective developing muscle memory is, to actually attend practices; those who, in spite of the knowledge that they have a lot of things to do (don't we all?), are still willing to dedicate whatever time they have left for the project's cause. After all, time is never wasted in a meeting: the time between practices and brainstorming sessions allows one to talk, and perhaps bond, with the people you work with, and a performer knows that these bonds will endure way after the ephemeral high of the performance itself has worn off. Nowadays, all we have is a bunch of primadonnas who are OBVIOUSLY so talented that they don't need practice, and show their smug faces only on the night before a performance, or worse, on the morning, or worst, on the afternoon of the performance itself. I don't even know which one is worse: showing up late, or backing out of a performance? What, may I ask, ever happened to hard work?
I miss the days when people did volunteer work because of an itch, a passion for creating beautiful things for their supposed audiences, and not for a fucking grade. I miss people who perform for the sake of performing, for the high that you can only get from close to a thousand people's eyes and attentions (which, I may add, are a wonderful source of motivational energy) turned towards you. Who cares for a .25 incentive, when supposedly you have been given an opportunity to bring art to those who may bask in it, and may probably be inspired by it, making you one to be remembered in the process, a reward not even a flat 1 can replace.
Jackie, Eljay, Pen, Tin, Anjai: Thank you.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Ran-dumb (w/ linkspam)
-Bandwagoning the fact that people haven't written anything, much less anything decent, in their Multiply blogs recently. Real life (and Plurkers) getting in the way again, I suppose. And that can only mean one thing: DAILY SUMMER BORED BUM BLOGGING muahahaha
-Can't get Ikue Ohtani's voice out of my head.
-Corruption is evil. So evil, in fact, that not even we toy collectors are spared (I don't know if this is bad grammar).
-Everybody was right: Cyclonus is an awesome figure. Am also getting addicted to the Rushed Reviews on YouTube. Something about the combination of poetry (so what if its bad?) and Transformers.
-Good thing Ma'am Pinpin's trippy with her 11:59pm online paper deadlines. Only got to post mine at around 11:25pm.
-Did drums for Isang Daan last Friday night. Thought I did horrible, but Angge and the others didn't seem to notice. Come to think of it, haven't picked the sticks up and used the set for months now. Don't worry Angge, we'll be good boys and girls.
-The fireworks after the centennial concert weren't actually for said event; they were for the COMA 104 foodfest in the Mariang Banga area. Kimchi for the win.
-Hung around for a while and watched part of the National Grappling Championships in Megamall this morning. And for some reason, watching kids trying to choke and bar each other into submission amused me in a way I haven't experienced in some time.
-Somewhere in the Shaw area, there is a person by the name of Joanie Mitchell who leases office spaces. Wonder if her parents were tripping when they thought of her name.
-I'm as stable as the wheels on LC Bulkhead. I think.
