sa butas ng aking
mga ilong, tila naghihintay
ka ng sagot...
"pwes, manigas ka!"
sinungkit,
binilog,
pinitik...
bulaga!!!
"huwag hanapin
ang hindi nawawala..."
(May 2002)
[haiku] Error 404 by Lester Whisk
<haiku>
you walk the ocean,
but the water has dried up.
sorry, page not found.
</haiku>
Homage (to brew) by Pow Tuazon
It lets me speak in tongues
Shifts my sense of perception
Makes me or breaks me
Hastens my liquid waste removal
Transforms a part of my body
Develops my self-esteem
Invigorates me with confidence like no other
A way to meet "buddies"
Materializes hidden desires
Makes us "generous"
Perform "never before created" dance moves
Renders motor movements with a little color
Releases stored "energy" in a given period
Anti-anorexic
Anti-insomniac
It's my choice
My life
BEEEEEeeEEeEeEEEeeeeEEERRRRrrrrrrrrr...hik!
Two Poems by Jaime Mendoza
1. A Plea
I
Be calm
Like the saliva
That drips
On my tongue
Be my saliva
Be my tongue
II
Be clear
Like the lines
On my rough
Forehead
Be the lines
Be my forehead
Be rough
III
Be soothing
Like the words
In my poem
Be my word
Be my poem
2. My Pets
Yellow, reds, and blacks
Floating on the floor
Of my consciousness
Silence of shadows
Bouncing from
Stem to stem
Neglecting the
Gravity
Of my thoughts
Yellow, reds, and blacks
All I can do is
Become very still
Feel the gentle weight
Of my head that is
Full of butterflies
Two Poems by Gibbs Cuevas
1. Mirror
look through it, deep
not hair, face or complexion
but inner wounds and scars
do we differ in reflection?
I see two persons, dichotomy
two different beings, yet similar
one young, immature
one older, learning
one beautiful, full in spirit
one or self-reproach
one strong, one wise
one of uncertainties
one confident, one brave
one with hesitations
as both share one reflection
they stare at one another
looking deeply through each other's eyes
the held hands, joined
became one, spirit and soul
one encouraging, the other supporting
one talking, one listening
one nurturing, one enriching
maintaining balance
in a shell where both exist
together as one, whole, existing
they become me... complete
2. Boredom
a thousand sighs
birth of empty reveries
of blood and veins
no ounce of current flowing
in one frail attempt
scatter light to the vacant
gloom does dwell
demean every vision
Move!
unscathed creature
screams of your body hair
motionless even for air
[essay] Articulating Freedom: Three brief notes regarding the contemporary underground/otherstream by Jake Berry
1. By designating particular works as experimental we dismiss them as
unproven, hypothetical, of questionable veracity. This is our means of
allaying the unknown's imposition on our intellectual security. It is not
until the work is analyzed, cataloged, and finally judged valid that it sheds
its ignominious, obscured and burdened now by whatever aesthetic code may be
in currency. Yet, what we are too apprehensive to witness directly is the
very thing we profess to seek. We erect a shrine that obstructs the
beneficence of the power toward which the original impulse arose. This is an
ancient condition, mythically tragic. We are method's hostage. What we know
of reality is not in what our terminology proposes to address but only the
terminology, as it is an aspect of nature, itself.
2.A poem is not the telling of a thing, but the thing itself utilizing
language, in whatever form (and however the definition of language might be
extended), to transmigrate from one "place" to another. It trans-forms to
awaken to itself in renewed aspect, and to awaken others to its experience.
The poem and poet call one another to a common ground of being, where they
constitute a single entity. To be more specific, a poet is an individual
poetic entity biologically appearing. It speaks, it bodies forth being,
participates in the theater of objects. What might be the essential nature of
such a pansubstantial creature can only be discovered through direct
confrontation and mutual dissolution with in the shared domain, the
anitpersonal dynamic this union cultivates. We are speaking then of the
phenomenology of the open field. Yet, we must speak in the negative only
since any absolute assertion would only project an apparition onto the field.
The actual projection is the whole field of poet/poem and all participants,
indistinguishable any longer as individuals (and there is much that surely
remains unknown, latent in the field). And further, the field itself, being
open, is never subject to definition, but is realized through experience,
through communion in the common nature its very appearance makes evident.
3. Finally, we should not concern ourselves with the establishment of
movements or schools, by the name 'experimental' or any other. There is
nothing noble in relinquishing our presence here to the status of artifact,
shelved, another moment documented and weighed against the rest, even if that
moment is granted fundamental importance. It falls on us to strive for a
cognizance liberated from static ideologies and subservience to the symbol.
The histories must be ended and the museums closed (they both are, as we now
have them, closed anyway). We must find value in the moment's appearing
rather than the misapprehended corpse of its past. With that approach it is
our responsibility to be and allow creations presence that have in their
character no tolerance for the spirit of closure no more than any other
organism can tolerate imprisonment. They are creatures without dimension, the
living courses of liberation through the infinite.
[essay] Name by Jojo Pasion Malig
Is the classification of names into things always truly arbitrary? Or is there not some meaning to how something is named? While a name itself is a primitive sign and cannot be dissected any further by means of a more detailed definition, there are names, which, when given, seem to be replete with profound and sometimes mystical significance.
Names have power. The name Jehovah, considered too sacred by the Jewish people to even utter. Or Macbeth, never spoken by superstitious theater folk. They revere Janus, the Roman god of doors. A smile and a frown he has. Of new beginnings.
At the name of Christ, every knee shall bow. Buddha, the enlightened. Mohammed, the prophet. The name of the slough was Despond. Keat’s name was written in water. And some are written in fire.
Names have numerological significance too. Readers of Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” will recall that Pierre Bezukhov, under the influence of his brother Freemasons, managed to turn the name of Napoleon into numbers, th esum of which equals 666. The name of the beast, or the number of his name. “Breath not his name, let it sleep in the shade where cold and unhonored his relics are laid.”
King Solomon’s name is forever remembered for his wealth and his wisdom. Don Quixote is the buffoon who fought and chased windmills, thinking they were dragons. Still, the world hardly remembers the women in their lives, Queen Bathsheba who captured King Solomon’s eyes, and the maiden Dulcinea, who rejected Don Quixote’s every approach. Never tell anyone a baby’s Christian name until after it is christened or the pixies and fairies may hear it and charm the child away.
And who could forget the ugly dwarf Rumpelstilskin, who taught a village girl how to spin gold from straws, but threatened to take her child away? Sirens and mermaids, the lovely creatures who lured sailors to the depths of oceans, revealed their names only to their men of desire. But be forwarned. “They have a more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence.
Some may have escaped from their singing, but from their silence, certainly never,” speaks Franz Kafka in “Parables”.
Witches and warlocks have names to conjure with. And there are names that live forevermore. Norse, Roman and Greek myths and legends are replete with names of gods, goddesses, demi-gods, demigoddesses, even mortals and the cities of yore and lore, which have become rootwords in terms of common use today.
My name is Legion, for we are many. And it was archangel Gabriel who bore the news among the angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim.
Some names are being removed at the turning of night and day in the book of life. And others cannot be removed until their time comes.
Writers carry a nom de plume. Warriors, a nom de guerre. Tell me honestly, do you like your name? Are you not bored with it? As a child, didn’t you want to be called something else? A name with more dash, more spirit? You wondered how your parents could have been so lacking in imagination to have named you as they did to say nothing of the surname they, or at least one of them, inherited.
And if by Jungian synchronicity (Jungian, taken from the name of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung), you share a common name with a hunted man, that wish to chase your name even grows stronger.
You wear your name like a hidden shirt. But once it is revealed to someone, it can never be properly hidden. That person can never then forget that you are wearing it. Having explained to your friends that you are “X”, they will forever think of you in terms that may be simply called as “X”. It is a pure sign of you, and why, and what you are, and where you come from. A name means an object. An object with a meaning.
“My name is for my friends,” says T.E. in “Lawrence of Arabia.” Indeed. Once given out, your name may be used for or against you. But there is power in the unspoken name, in the mold of the main character in the movie “The Usual Suspects.”
In the man with no name, who had also been made hero a thousand times over in movies and in works of literature. The stranger. He rides into town, shoots all the villains dead and then rides away again.
by Ann Erickson
by Ann Erickson
access archive: all issues