Very Strange Day, With Bicycle

So the little black dog Diablo died. And humidity is a sticky wife.
For Yoyoy and Kuya Cesar, the eulogies will be late.
Today is the hottest day of the year.
All the instruments agree: the day of their deaths
Was a bright, blistering day.
The world exacts revenge through dry petals and forgetfulness.
The path to the garden will never be so clear,
but never so treacherous, so heartbreakingly opaque.
Parched fountain. Imaginary breeze.
At this hour only dogs defend you,
Only the wind believes you.
Only the heat understands you.
Only the plants listen to you.
Only TV holds you in utter contempt
As you, Lourd de Veyra, begin to understand
The true meaning of certain words, transparence
For instance, tracing tiny paths around the backyard
and the granite implications of the afternoon.
Eventually you will know that light begins with rediscovery,
As Marjorie gently dissolves in the majesty
of a thousand white sheets flapping.

So today nothing exists except this mind,
this frequency approximating true love
humming through tubes of black steel–
Meet your new aluminum skeleton—
purest poetry of lightness.
Two wheels buzzing, the music of insects,
metallic and mortal, rhythm of faithful muscles.
Gravely radio voice, imagined. “Granada”
makes all the sense in the world.
Dirt road stretches downhill like a dog’s tongue.
No problem. No hands, ma. See there.
End of the road. Sharp cliff.
Hologram of blue glass.
Sea like blade in the sun.
Eyes to the skies. Pedal like hell.
Giant cumulus explodes
into cotton tufts that stay eternally white.
Today there will be neither blood nor gravity.
This is the self, the unwounded self
speaking in futile metaphors
to one who is in perpetual motion:
You are Lourd de Veyra.
You are bicycle
You are air
And you are without fear.

--Lourd De Veyra

for discussion, E-105 classes

Happy New Year!

Painted from Memory

***

Condolence

Sooner or later you will go
To Araneta Avenue, the row
Of funeral homes and flower stores,
White flowers and baby’s breath
Magically bursting forth from white pots
To gather around someone in a box
Ready for loading, mass cards processed.
It is usually heavy business,
Not like this, half-mocking or
Coolly indifferent when you and the dead
Weren’t particularly close, but in some funerals
I had been to -- really tragic ones --
The sudden demise
Of a child, or someone in his prime, or
A wife of many, many years,
The bereavement is so intense
It is like watching them sift through
The ashes of the house they grew up in.
They cry and beat their chests
Because they want to hold on
And at the same time forget.
You approach the husband who is passing out
The crackers and you want to
Reach inside your wellspring
And offer water to his heart now shrunken
Like a sun-dried tomato and you cannot.
You hear yourself saying condolence,
Not meaning to sound curt or insincere but
No pronouns, the way we say it here,
As if it does not come from you and
Is not directed to anyone in particular
As if it comes from outside of you and
You called it, pointing outside the window
To the ache in the swollen belly of the sky
To the trees letting their branches
Fall to their sides, relenting.

--Israfel Fagela

*for discussion, E-105 classes

***

photos above taken during the Christmas edition and 42nd installment of the Happy Mondays Poetry Nights last night. salamat po sa lahat ng pumunta. kitakits po ulit next year (January 5)!

Happy Mondays XLII

featured readers for the 42nd installment of the Happy Mondays Poetry Nights @ mag:net cafe Katipunan this coming Dec 19 are as follows:

1. Rayvi Sunico

2. Allan Popa

3. JL Poquiz

4. Angelo Suarez

5. Lawrence Bernabe

6. Ken Ishikawa

7. Marne Kilates

8. Mikael Co

9. Jonar Sabilano

10. Pocholo Goitia

11. Glenn Atanacio

12. Ramil Digal Gulle

13. Khavn Dela Cruz

14. Krip Yuson

15. Enuh Iglesias
16. Sarge Lacuesta

plus other regular and surprise guest readers. readings start at 730 pm followed by the Open Mic sessions 930-10pm. *for those interested in reading during the open mic, we will leave a sign-up sheet with Rogel, the bar tender of mag:net cafe. please feel free to sign up and read your work. :)


Happy Mondays music follows at 10pm featuring the following performers/bands :

1. Johnoy Danao
2. Roberto Nicolas
3. Patience, Dear Juggernaut
4. Broken Sauce



FREE ADMISSION the whole night. Kitakits po tayo. :)

: Z e R 0 . 9 r ^ V / + Y :

The dry basin of the moon must have held
the bones of a race, radiant minerals,
or something devoid of genesis, angel-heavy,
idea-pure. All summer we had waited for it,

our faces off-blue in front of the TV screen.
Nothing could be more ordinary -- two figures
digging dirt in outer space -- while mother repeated
Neil Armstrong's words, like a prayer

electronically conveyed. The dunes were lit
like ancient silk, like clandestine pearl.
In the constant lunar night this luminescence
was all we hoped for. A creature unto itself,

it poured into the room like a gradual flood
of lightning, touching every object with the cool burn
of something not quite on fire. If we stepped out
Manila would be blank ether, way-station,

a breathless abeyance. It didn't matter,
at that moment, where our lives would lead:
father would disown one brother,
one sister was going to die. Not yet unhappy,

we were ready to walk on the moon. Reckless
in our need for the possible, we knew
there was no turning back, our bags already packed,
the future a religion we could believe in.

--Eric Gamalinda

*for discussion, E-105 classes