spread - new underground guerrilla experimental art + literature
BUMMERANGST. bits and beats canned fresh from the can.
NEW POEMS. now the following two poems are no remainders. they are fresh and haven't seen light of previous publication or presentation to anyone. the first, "shout bingo! if you are," i thought of submitting to one of the national sunday magazines. i retracted out of not wanting to go through the tiring rush to the newsstands of sundays to see the piece's publication, if at all. those SASEs aren't always dependable--- i have one poem of which acceptance by a weekly magazine i was notified more than a year before but had to quit following up on in the newsstands months ago. the wait used to take more or less six months. the second poem, "hole suite hole," i began middle-to-late last year but got to finish only this may. i chose this and the first for bumhead because they shared a lightheadedness that offered respite during some period of depression i was experiencing, about the time i was undertaking them. this ragged dog deserves a meander in sunshine now and then. peace.
Shout Bingo! if you are
Under B...
One reason I tried writing poetry
Is the glamor I thought it would cloak me
When I strutted for the girls on campus
But for which reason instead I became
Fair game for the inevitable bullies
Under I...
Sixteen roses I should have given
To the glamor coed in college
Instead of the poem I filched
From e.e. cummings to romance her
Until I was betrayed by the "Beauty
And the Beast" theme song
For which reason I started
To shun love poetry
Under N...
Thirty-three was the glamor age
I thought I should die at like Jesus
Although I had become partial
To the god-killer existentialists
While I persisted writing poetry
To ward off some foreboding
I might still be a bachelor then
Under G...
Forty-six I am now middleagingly
Alive and morosely single after all
Having blown my chance of dying
Glamorously when I was thirty-three
But too chicken to slit my throat
And so carried on writing poetry
Mostly about why I was too chicken
To slit my throat
Under O...
Seventy-five is a definitely long-shot age
I shall attain given the glamorously slow
Torture with which I subject my lungs
Kidneys and sanity imbibing the bohemian
Regimen of beer cigarettes poetry
And celibacy
(No, I am not Bingo. Neither am I Ringo,
Although I claim he is my favorite
Simply so I can duck debates
On who is the more poetic Beatle,
John or Paul? And George is just way
Too spaced-out for me. That's all.)
(written april 17-18, 2002/bumhead entry may 19, 2002---thedong)
Hole Suite Hole
What brings us here is hardly a question.
Indeed our coming is more than custom.
Still, in spite of us tipping the old days,
It is a hard job filling up this place.
How so when music is in steady supply,
Beer all we can and bar food on the side?
Oh, and poetry to boot on Tuesday
Engaging the walls' grotesquerie.
The youth takes the stage handily
To our eager delight, genius envy.
Here we can all be handsome alright---
Or are we just lonesome tonight?
Expect us back through Saturday night then;
Not at the summon of the stage, even
If we might have some tune or verse to unsleeve.
The bar stool is still our safe place to bleed.
Come to think of it, hey---this used to be
A folkhouse. No cause to worry, the beat
Goes on and more because we are the show.
It is folksier here than ever, now.
* hole: a bar on fields avenue corner teodoro, angeles city, philippines
(written through august 11, 2001 to may 8, 2002/bumhead entry may 19, 2002---thedong)
NINE PIONEER POEMS: Peace. These were the things I was trying to write in college. All were first published in The Pioneer, official student organ at the Angeles University Foundation in Angeles City. It was during the tenure of Mr. Titus dg Toledo, as editor-in-chief, (who now moonlights as spreadhead webmaster, among other capacities at large), that The Pioneer flowered into a veritable eden of then progressive ideas and innovative literary works. The bohemian spirit trickled and spurted now and then for a while after Mr. Toledo's term, only to inexorably backslide to the relatively laidback, "campus-friendly" paradigm of school organ mills---which is not to discredit, however, the ever potential breeding ground that student organs in general, The Pioneer in particular, provide for budding poets and journalists. The inclusion of these poems here is not an exercise in holding them up for whomever's benefit (prime suspect: me) as exhibits or case studies in the service of constructing a map of how, for what or whom, or why I write poetry at all---where I must have found it, or where I lost it. My aim here is to simply provide a home for these poems, which otherwise will suffer the same fate as my copies of The Pioneer have, sorrily languishing at the mercy of mice, roaches, bugs, and the wife nagging me to throw away for good, along with the garbage, the musty, ragged, stinking cardboard box that I packed them in on several house moves. I can find no more welcoming home for these poems than what bumhead promises...
1. To any Filipino from a former expatriate in limbo
You ask for
poems, friend
I oblige
and find out
how scarce my
words are---give
me time to
breathe ripe the
poetry
of your strife
--Sendong Makabali, KS (The Pioneer, Vol. IX/No. 3, Oct. 1987)
2. Zoo I Lab Class, 1st Sem., 1987
Miss, I love
the way you
pamper the
microscope
(I starve on
poems' un-
social cells.)
--Sendong Makabali, KS (The Pioneer, Vol. IX/Special Issue, Nov. 1987)
3.To my niece and new brother
I tell my
cousin this,
"Your youngest
son bears my
new brother's
countenance."
"Subtly," he
remarks and
adds,"laughter's
what makes us
wish each child
were our own."
We drink rum
and watch leaves
fall humbly
to the ground
--Sendong Makabali, KS (The Pioneer, Vol. IX/Special Issue, Nov. 1987)
4. To any Filipino from a former expatriate in limbo 2
We who stumble
upon casualties
comprehend
only ghosts
Late patriots'
dreams remain
ellipses
resurrected
occasionally
to crutch
shaky placards,
to patch on
half-masted
manifestos---
We who shun
truncheons,
teargas and
watercannons
perch on
anodyne fences
and pad up
our slumbooks
with heroes'
birthdays
--Sendong Makabali, KS (The Pioneer, Vol. IX/Special Issue, Nov. 1987)
5. Noel
Sel Amor
and I dared
explore
a child's
birth in
swaddling
metaphors---
were it not
for shallow
snow-crusted
carols
curdling in
the mouths
of brown
street babes
Third World
magi like us
would yet
pursue with
hope the
star's tidings
and not
confine our
quest in
beer bottles---
orphans in
ideology
and mirth
--Sendong Makabali, KS (The Pioneer, Vol. IX/No. 6, Dec. 1987)
6. Nocturne
Beside the live lamppost
he sits and craves.
He dips his hand
into his bag
and fishes out
a last cigarette.
Beneath the trees
the chill becomes worse.
He plants the lonely stick
between his lips.
On the second floor
silhouettes are milling
out of classrooms.
Once or twice
he rouses up to make out
among the anonymous shadows
the tender contour of a girl.
Failing to catch prey
he comforts himself:
"Yet she must be looking
down at me now--
like in the other nights!"
Reluctantly,
he finally shifts his head
towards the lobby
of the library
where a security guard
has been watching
him all this time.
He guiltily plucks
from his mouth
the lifeless cigarette
upon the filtered tip of which
a peel of skin from his lips
is cemented.
He grimaces secretly
and then withdraws
into a dismayed slouch.
Beneath the trees
where the chill becomes worse.
--Sendong Makabali, KS (The Pioneer, Volume IX/No. 7, Jan.-Feb. 1988)
7. Song in the paddies
Mang Juan
is illiterate,
yet from his sweat
springs forth
the sun's
literature---
basic yet vital
--MAKI-ALAB, KS (The Pioneer, Vol. IX/No. 8, Feb. 1988)
8.Homecoming
For my two grandsons
who believe. Not for
courage they pay to
shelter a birthmark,
but for sanity
and mutual humor
that bear our orphan
freedom. We can fall
from now on without
feeding the world's loss
--Sendong Makabali, KS (The Pioneer, Vol. 1/No. 1, Dec.1989)
9. Untitled twosome for the times
(1)
Chores dragged in from the past
defy the wear and tear,
the frequent lapses
only courage remembers.
Long ago we outdid
ourselves, huddled (sheltered, once
less brave) in irresolute
reunions. Always
what brings us back, common
wrecks, escapes the noble
novelty in deaths our dear
fathers can ever yield to.
Strophe after strophe, we lisp
to postcript our toil and strife.
(2)
The alarm is set for three.
It is always set for three.
A single match lends itself
to a bold breakfast for one:
coffee must stir well with roach shit
when the children are asleep.
One should not linger though, long
enough for the faithful cat
to deserve some leftover gas...
The well-oiled flies
in the canteen
fare better
enough to snob
the slick fat
on our sparse trays.
After we have fed
the machines
(when you're hungry
how time flies!)
we stray for home.
One should not linger though, when
the children dream of a fresh
box of matches sitting
by the alarm, set for three.
--Sendong Makabali, KS (The Pioneer, Jan.-Mar. 1990)
EIGHT BUMHEAD POEMS: once upon a time, i thought of taking up a career in "bumming." i was young then, and the word conjured for me a life of freedom in the asphalt wilds. except for "early supper scenes" (i had others of its kind, but my manuscripts were either lost or burned by me out of frustration with the craft---a most unoriginal excuse, really), the rest of the poems here are definitely not from those bumming days. they were written much much later, after i'd sort of settled down, began raising a family, making sense of a civil career. i must admit these poems are utterly short on the color and temper of the times that enriched my raw youth---as slacker/spectator, as activist/critic of a quirky fashion, and as slacker/slacker. they merely suggest if not acknowledge for me, matter-of-factly, that life i'd had. perhaps they are prompts for deeper examination of that life, a chore i simply have neither time nor energy for in the drab rut i presently inhabit. peace.
1. Early supper scenes
(1)
Jeepneys follow each other,
stray empties that plod after
pedestrian rank and rain,
in streets blind and barely sane
Past junkshops that recycle
the bottled city jungle,
homing the myriad lost
in the gutter's holocaust
Red light clenches into clouds
scattering cigarette lads
into bloodletting pursuit,
some idiot flies his coop
Soon the dogged day spills
its late drivel upon hills
of casualties and flies,
and the pipers heal their tires
(2)
In meager graces that run
the streets of their means,
some without names carry on
early supper scenes
The heavy dusk robs
them of their faces, mangled
by fire's bitter sobs
that little ones hug in bed
Mantled in the city's rank
and kiss, strewn across
long ravaged histories, sunk
in hope's raw repose
In some shanty's dawn
rabid hands, nurtured on nails,
stab bosoms of sun
pulsing yet among pet spoils
In meager graces that run
the streets of their means
(1987-1988/Published in the Philippine Graphic (my first) on January, 25 1994)
2. An ear fell
It wasn't the beer made him do it.
God knows he's too young for heroics,
misguided as we all are on most
delicacies as politics and
women; and to think there is much of
the future still for us to shatter.
Neither does it have to do with the
old unhappy childhood pitch, we're sure;
we're big boys now entitled to big
mistakes, bigger than the mess the world
is in. Only we don't go around
blaming anybody, not even
for what our good friend was on to when
he started gobbling up the jukebox.
(November 28, 1991/Revised on April 23, 1997)
3. About where the poets may take us
We hardly ever arrive at what
place names are for. We linger onward
the way unwilling exiles reprise
apologies for overstaying,
hastily initialing postcards
to race against losing their way home.
We imagine some doorstep avid
for tokens of life and industry
and subtle longing, and wake up at
diverse entries that cheat the date line.
Which brings us back to what for are place
names: we who never fingered the globe
before injure ourselves, as we read
through thin weather for hiding places.
(December 8, 1991/Revised in 1994)
4. Caper
I see my master no more
I cannot tell quite whether
I am free or just bumming
Yet I am taken most of
the time, by people who have
all sorts of empires to win
I absorb the scenery:
the lonely and the hungry
what they actually mean
My master shines, where I cast
my coins of love faith and trust
I lose but break even still
For a song I have nothing
and a mystery to sell
(January 1 & 2, 1995)
5. Melancholia 2000
I make it so I have lean
prospects for the day ahead
I wear an old shirt akin
to my face weary, unfed
I stroll the city and meld
in its drab mob in motion:
I thrive on the exhausts
of traffic, the sores of whores
the soiled silver of street waifs
the gut sex of the homeless
I assume my godhood and
thus speak tabloid verities
I incite the polity
of discarded fetuses
(January 2 & 26, 1995)
6. Bum propositions Bella Luna
You smile at me as
Though it were for a good cause.
I know you know I
Only put on lack or loss.
I'll raise my can and
Tip a toast of gin tonight,
As sure as your scent
reining in a trick or bite.
Leave me be here at the church
Gate where I don't disappoint
Charity's last show.
(Aren't we counterfeits both so?)
Later, if you find the time
or taste for any stray kill
or spoils on the street,
count on me sprawling here still.
(November 11, 1996/Revised on September 6, 1999)
7. Shadow recokoning
I can promise nothing but
random seeds, roots, cuttings to
give good ground to grow in
I can offer company
to bum, soldier, passerby;
praise to any given name
I can go places on foot
or drive, sail, or mind-fly to
touch down on a sunny day
I can last eternity
that burns in my thoughts only
(stars turn brightest as they die!)
Still I'm bound for shadows to
reach almost but not quite God,
whose home is already known
(October 1 & 2, 2000)
8. Leaflet
The first step: a mapless push
Toward one aim or promise
That is named, for want of name,
The next step (pure evolving,
At times haltingly---but on
It presses through point to point
Of no return or reaching).
It is all mind at prayer:
Pace of series of first steps.
(April 19, 2001)
EIGHT BUMHEAD POEMS was prepared for bumhead entry on August 20-21, 2001---thedong]
i grow claustrophobic when i'm out of my room (1988) 
