“Attract your kind!”
And the screen turned black.
Then the custom text slithered to a spin, mocking:
smile! smile! smile! smile!
It’s been ten minutes of staring at the line:
Attract your kind! Attract your kind! Attract your kind!
willing the letters to re-arrange themselves,
if not to disappear;
ten minutes of shit-cursing myself for clicking on the e-mail
I vowed not to read in a thousand fiscal years.
Once, I swore not to fall for a poet:
the engineer of imaginary spacecrafts that take you,
wearing only an old shirt, to the moon;
the god who creates clichés so hated by snooty
second language English speakers; and the chefs
who fatten Mr. Webster and his friend Mr. Oxford.
As lovers, poets leave you awed and later dying wondering
what of their words that poisoned you,
and except for your life, what else it was that you lost,
except for everything, what else did you miss.
At best, poets leave you with something figurative
when all is over: you sleep with their synecdoches;
you salad on miseries French-dressed in vinaigrettes;
you turn into stress balls their odes and make bookmarks their villanelles.
You get insulted that even their break-up letters
seriously warrant a publication and centuries later will be found
in library archives as biographical citations, while you,
the addressee, must submit to the devil if only to make it
to the footnotes.
The poets I have dated wrote their best in anger
assuming, perhaps, the outburst would not see print.
And if you’re one of those who believe
that Shakespeare did not write Romeo and Juliet,
but some duke or else, then you must believe, too,
that authors are at their best
when they don’t write as themselves.
“That’s what you get for not seizing the moment. Stale leftovers.
“…and it stops right here. Attract your kind!” he said.
(What non-poet-man would e-mail “seizing the moment”?)
You get counted ten on the first blow,
still you forgive them for their metaphors.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
October 19, 2007
At half past six in the morning, a Makati Business Club officer,
in an interview over the radio, warned us on coup d’état, terrorism
and all types of destabilization. Like a sage – solemn, serious, unequivocal.
The man on the radio apologized for having to break
the news to us. But it is their responsibility to tell us what we need to know. He said – self-righteously, patronizing, advertising.
And I rolled my eyes. Seven hours later, at one-thirty, at Eastwood, we received
a series of SMS: an LPG tank exploded in a mall.
in a restaurant. in Makati. where four died. instantly.
An hour later –No, it’s not an LPG tank, but a real bomb,
a high explosive one.
(Along EDSA, traffic was not so bad as it should,
given the situation.
Buildings line up the longest, busiest avenue.
Malls lord it over.
In a country where there are more malls being erected
than churches being built,
are you sinning if you ask:
Why are bombs get planted at malls,not in churches, bridges or schools?)
On the news the next day –
Nine deaths. A few critical. More than a hundred injured.
One missing.
Soon to be statistics. Archived news.
But first to be a subject of US, UK, Canadian, and Australian advisories.
Is this poetry?
in an interview over the radio, warned us on coup d’état, terrorism
and all types of destabilization. Like a sage – solemn, serious, unequivocal.
The man on the radio apologized for having to break
the news to us. But it is their responsibility to tell us what we need to know. He said – self-righteously, patronizing, advertising.
And I rolled my eyes. Seven hours later, at one-thirty, at Eastwood, we received
a series of SMS: an LPG tank exploded in a mall.
in a restaurant. in Makati. where four died. instantly.
An hour later –No, it’s not an LPG tank, but a real bomb,
a high explosive one.
(Along EDSA, traffic was not so bad as it should,
given the situation.
Buildings line up the longest, busiest avenue.
Malls lord it over.
In a country where there are more malls being erected
than churches being built,
are you sinning if you ask:
Why are bombs get planted at malls,not in churches, bridges or schools?)
On the news the next day –
Nine deaths. A few critical. More than a hundred injured.
One missing.
Soon to be statistics. Archived news.
But first to be a subject of US, UK, Canadian, and Australian advisories.
Is this poetry?
Mate Shopping
In a world where high technology communication can go cheaper than a grain of salt, single individuals still find meeting people for true companionship the most difficult. When the best things in life are almost free, we find ourselves facing an empty wall.
Have we all contracted a disease that makes us all numb, bereft of any feeling the exact time we meet our match? What happened to Shakespeare's "love is blind and lovers cannot see" outbreak? Hundreds of years have left us simply looking, scrutinizing, checking sizes, color and fit. And most of us end up late for our years still looking and going through a series of failed matches.
But aren't we just being the intellectuals our generation has produced? Learning from history books of failed relationships after our mothers burned all the fairy tale books.
I am guilty of this, too. And when I meet a nice guy, I may just have to ask him if he believes in fairy tales. And it will not matter what his answer is going to be. Because starting today, I will abandon the ideas of matches made in heaven, of opposites attract, of must- have/must-be lists.
Life is too short to be simply short-listed. Or rejected as a mis-match.
Have we all contracted a disease that makes us all numb, bereft of any feeling the exact time we meet our match? What happened to Shakespeare's "love is blind and lovers cannot see" outbreak? Hundreds of years have left us simply looking, scrutinizing, checking sizes, color and fit. And most of us end up late for our years still looking and going through a series of failed matches.
But aren't we just being the intellectuals our generation has produced? Learning from history books of failed relationships after our mothers burned all the fairy tale books.
I am guilty of this, too. And when I meet a nice guy, I may just have to ask him if he believes in fairy tales. And it will not matter what his answer is going to be. Because starting today, I will abandon the ideas of matches made in heaven, of opposites attract, of must- have/must-be lists.
Life is too short to be simply short-listed. Or rejected as a mis-match.
Can't Sleep
From 2008
How redundant can one get - writing about not being able to sleep in one's sleeplessness?
Oh, let's be redundant, baby.
Every toss and turn ought to have been with you between my sheets. My wakefulness ought to have been caused by those hands that would not keep to themselves, by the comfortable disarray of togetherness.
But I can't sleep for the wrong, uncomfortable reasons. Sleeping alone at the age of reason ought not to be allowed. Sleeping alone ought to be by choice, not by consequence.
How redundant can one get - writing about not being able to sleep in one's sleeplessness?
Oh, let's be redundant, baby.
Every toss and turn ought to have been with you between my sheets. My wakefulness ought to have been caused by those hands that would not keep to themselves, by the comfortable disarray of togetherness.
But I can't sleep for the wrong, uncomfortable reasons. Sleeping alone at the age of reason ought not to be allowed. Sleeping alone ought to be by choice, not by consequence.
Something To Believe In
I know how you struggle with the things most difficult. You take comfort from the fact that God understands, God forgives. Over and over.
Most times, I pray for something selfish. And God asks me, "why dare second-guess what i deem selfish?" And i recoil. And I feel most unworthy, most undeserving. I sigh the big sigh. For all eternity, God knows what I can never start to comprehend in my very short while on earth. I am ambitious to try to know what I need only feel and believe.
Yesterday was the Immaculate Concepcion day. Her birthday. I went to the Padre Pio Sanctuary in Libis. She was there in all her glory, manifested in stone. I walked to where her image stood. I held her with both hands, one in each of her own. I prayed the prayer of the old, of women represented by my age. In that instant, I saw and felt for the nth time that there is something greater than the universe, than our sins, than worldly love.
And i cried the longest time, the freshest tears of the one blessed, of the one loved, of the one cared for, of the one being looked after. And I wondered again, why do we ever doubt, why do we ever feel afraid, why do we think we are alone.
Most times, I pray for something selfish. And God asks me, "why dare second-guess what i deem selfish?" And i recoil. And I feel most unworthy, most undeserving. I sigh the big sigh. For all eternity, God knows what I can never start to comprehend in my very short while on earth. I am ambitious to try to know what I need only feel and believe.
Yesterday was the Immaculate Concepcion day. Her birthday. I went to the Padre Pio Sanctuary in Libis. She was there in all her glory, manifested in stone. I walked to where her image stood. I held her with both hands, one in each of her own. I prayed the prayer of the old, of women represented by my age. In that instant, I saw and felt for the nth time that there is something greater than the universe, than our sins, than worldly love.
And i cried the longest time, the freshest tears of the one blessed, of the one loved, of the one cared for, of the one being looked after. And I wondered again, why do we ever doubt, why do we ever feel afraid, why do we think we are alone.
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