Happy Mondays LXXII: The 3rd Year Anniversary

featured readers for the 72nd, 3rd year anniversary installment of the bi-weekly Happy Mondays Poetry Nights this coming Monday, March 1 @ mag:net cafe Katipunan are as follows:

1. National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario
2. Gemino Abad
3. Alfred Yuson
4. Rayvi Sunico
5. Marne Kilates
6. Mikael Co
7. Rafael San Diego
8. Andrea Duerme
9. Jacob Dominguez
10. Yol Jamendang
11. JC Casimiro
12. Dave Buenviaje
13. Lawrence Bernabe
14. Pancho Alvarez
15. The Batutes
16. Las Bungangeras
17. Sasha Martinez
18. Bethina Elmido
19. Khavn De la Cruz
20. Marie La Vina
21. Carlomar Daoana
22. Gian Lao
23. Allan Pormento
24. Pocholo Goitia
25. Andrea Teran
26. Tom Sykes
27. Nikko Vitug
28. Camille Rivera
29. Lope Cui, Jr.
30. Kash Avena
31. Corin Arenas
32. Pancho Villanueva

plus other special guests and regular readers.

Roberto Nicolas, Wincy Ong, and Popoy Diokno are the evening's guest acoustic acts, playing in between the readings and immediately after.

*readings start promptly at 8:00pm followed by the Open Mic sessions @ 930pm-10pm.

*for those interested in reading during the open mic, we will leave a sign-up sheet with the bar tender of mag:net cafe. please feel free to sign up and read your work. :)

we'll kick off the evening and cap the night with music from alternative/indie act Gonzo Army.

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

*photo courtesy of seventytwowords.com

Elegy

I wonder now why everyone is drawn
to sadness. I guess we all need that kind
of awareness, like this aching I feel
for the many hues of sunsets, the small
crack on my wall, couples whispering
to one another on benches in parks.

I put on a song and the verse just
devours my heart with such vivid distress
that I have to walk away, anciently young,
to my earliest memory: the sea, its stones,
the blue plume of a wave's crest. I guess
this makes for consolation, the horizon

insisting on how high things are, and
always that wide expanse of, of, well,
nothing. Maybe loneliness. The sounds
of the city tend to betray what I want
to say. Mufflers and what is droned
by untamed engines passing through

the poem's take on what's the word
again? I can barely hear it now,
that word, hiding in its own shadow
muttered under someone's sigh,
allowing the leaves to fall in their
usual, quiet way, toward their usual

quiet places. And we wake up to
the beautiful mess we've made
of our lives -- the constant sweeping,
this want for cleansing, this need
to rub my eyes, rise up, and just
give in.

R.I.P., Karla.

Happy Mondays LXXI

featured readers for the 71st installment of the bi-weekly Happy Mondays Poetry Nights this coming Monday, Feb 1 @ mag:net cafe Katipunan are as follows:

1. Felix Cheong
2. Conchitina Cruz
3. Keith Cortez
4. Marielle Nadal
5. Mikael Co
6. Rafael San Diego
7. Andrea Duerme
8. Jacob Dominguez
9. Yol Jamendang
10. Dave Buenviaje
11. Lawrence Bernabe
12. Pancho Alvarez
13. Pancho Villanueva
14. The Batutes

plus other special guests and regular readers.

this particular installment is made more special by the presence of visiting Singaporean poet Felix Cheong and a tribute by a group of readers for the victims of the Haiti earthquake called "Pecha Kucha Night: Postcards for Haiti". guest readers will be reading 20-second messages for Haiti.

Johnoy Danao and Popoy Diokno are the evening's guest acoustic acts playing in between the readings and immediately after.

*readings start promptly at 8:00pm followed by the Open Mic sessions @ 930pm-10pm.

*for those interested in reading during the open mic, we will leave a sign-up sheet with the bar tender of mag:net cafe. please feel free to sign up and read your work. :)

we'll kick off the evening and cap the night with music from alternative/indie act Gonzo Army.

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

*photo courtesy of natresnet.org and Marielle Nadal of the Postcards for Haiti Project.

YEARS LATER: The Shadow Cabinet