Ilabas Na Ang Mga Epektus!

below are the readers for tomorrow's biweekly happy mondays poetry nights in mag:net katipunan. los chupacabras rock the house and jack to the sound of the underground (bass!) afterwards. show starts at 930pm.

please come and support us and bring your stuff (or staff, para maraming tao, o kung hirap kayo maglakad).

1. Marne Kilates
2. Lourd De Veyra
3. Adam David
4. Corin Arenas
5. Jonar Sabilano
6. Kris Lacaba
7. Allan Pastrana
8. Waps San Diego
9. Kash Avena
10. Khavn Dela Cruz
11. Mikael De Lara Co
12, Israfel Fagela

some other readers are yet to confirm. karl de mesa's newly-formed band, tabloid lite, will also hit it, hit me, do the running man.

ayuz. kitakits.

Aleman Kang Bata Ka

"knife, cuts like a knife,
how will i ever heal,
i'm so deeply wounded"

--Rockwell

eto ang sandata ng mga scottish na tinatawag na dirk:



at eto ang ilang larawan ng mga mandirigmang marunong gumamit nito:






eto larawan ng isang canadian:



eto naman isang batang aleman:



panghuli, eto pala isang bagong kuha kay mark cuban:

Sneakers

langya.

just got back from the pine city just to find out that somebody had sneaked into my apartment. my spider senses quickly told me something was wrong; the doorknob looked wobbly and was wobbly; the key was barely into the keyhole and it easily opened.

inside, the place was a mess. the lockers and cabinets had been opened, guts of clothes and paraphernalia spilling out onto the floor. wasak.

quickly called up the building guard while scouring the place to see if anything was missing. while my stuff were in total disarray, nothing seemed missing at first. in the first place, nada dinero. then i realized the guy did steal one thing: my 16gb sony flash drive which i left beside the pc.

now the weird part. on the floor, next to the swivel chair, i found these:



yep, Vans sneakers. laces knotted, with a little stain, but obviously almost-new; may sticker pa nga ng "size 10" sa loob, my size. ano to? pambawi?. or did the "sneaker" meant this as some symbolic shit of sorts?

our resident all-around carpenter/technician said the lock was irreparable. had to get a new knob and a second, double lock for, well, peace of mind.

whoever did this obviously knew that we were going away for a few days. but the pieces of the puzzle still do not fit.

so please, CSI wannabes and NBI (national bayaw inspectors) out there, tulong naman dyan.

what should i do with the shoes? isuot? ibenta? iwan sa management? o punta na ba ako presinto at dun na magpaliwanag?

***

Goes World Pop The

"it was a du bi ley,
du bi ley,
it was a du bi le-he-hey"

--from a cover of Morrissey's "Suedehead"

maiba naman. just to get my boggled mind off the eerie caper above. a friend just texted me this. i listened. and i came to realize just how shitty it is when some local band dares to "recycle" a popular song from two decades ago, adding nothing particularly innovative to the arrangement (much like that moronic acoustic cover of "crazy for you").

worse, the band obviously relied entirely on the most available "hits" for lyrics in google to desecrate the original's.




the song is two minds crack's popular ditty, "upside down". the right lyrics can be found here.

just compare and contrast to the corrupted lyrics while listening to both versions of the song.






except for that faulty "me" in the link's chorus (which the said band thankfully managed to change to "my"), the band seemingly wasn't up to the simple task of listening to the actual lyrics of the song. sadly and consequently, the original has been irrevocably bastardized. had the band taken the time to actually listen to the song they're covering (or give an honest damn about it outside its lucrative, retro-pop music re-potential [ka-ching!!!]), they might have done some justice to the song. kahit baduy pa 'yan.

as it is, the cover and the video are apparently a big hit. pinoy rock na pinoy rock daw. i don't get it, though; personally, i think the vocalist of this band sings so much like April "Boy" Regino having had too much to drink and too much pulutan.

yet my real issue is really how certain lines from the original lyrics are nowadays often carelessly and grossly transmogrified. buti na lang di pinalabas na orig nila yung kanta. and let's not forget the more popular phenomenon of riff-stealing in certain "pinoy" songs.

bamboo's cover of buklod's "tatsulok" i can probably endure. after all, he meant well. sana nga lang makinig talaga ang mga bata sa mensahe ng kanta.

but this one's just plain upside down.

hoy, mahiya naman kayo! kung di nyo pakikinggang mabuti yung nauna, magcover na lang kaya kayo ng sarili nyong kanta. meta-meta pa dating.

May Day Eve

it's fast turning out to be one great weekend in Baguio for us and the kids. much thanks to sir jimmy abad for letting us use his beautiful condo unit for this family trip. :)

and so IntPoWriMo ends! what a great month of writing. mostly drafts, of course, but the challenge has really been a great push to sit down and revise, work on new ideas, and relish drafts. thanks to ivy and the rest of the NaPoWrimo initiators and participants for coating this blazing summer with torrents of poetry and accommodating the others from the peripheries who are as equally interested. :)

Roam If You Want To

"Vacation
all I ever wanted,
Vacation
had to get away"

-- The Go-gos

The winter issue of Rogue Poetry Review Online is finally up. Again, much thanks to editor Michael Wells for accommodating my poems.

maligayang kaarawan pala kay Ramil Gulle. wasak ka, bayaw!

at kung sakaling makalimutan, itaas natin para kay:




Nick Joaquin, pambansang alagad ng sining
May 4, 1917 - April 29, 2004









Off to Baguio with the family. Posting two drafts to make up for the missed post yesterday.

***



Grace

I am reluctant to tell you this, but
there is death in the Old Testament,
numerous and final, bodies drowned
and unredeemed, forty days, forty nights
of rain, somebody struck by wrathful
lightning, Philistines in a city destined
to fire and ruin. There is even a chapter
that forbids merriment, a law permitting

crucifixion. But it is also written
that we should be happy, full of praise
and ready for the dance, prophecies allowing
for water to mean wine, the once-blind
witnessing this and other miracles. The way
we may still rise up to the music, like we did
not too long ago, forty years now, and how
we are again tip-toeing toward grace, life.

For Jet


Mountain Province

A white afternoon shivering to dusk.
In the distance, niches in even starker white
inhabit the hills. I think them cold,
colder than this air gathering around us.

Everything here is hunched: the trees, the houses,
the people. The natives drag their footsteps
heavy as in a procession. Twilight lurks
candlelight-yellow behind the mountains,

heightening the silhouettes of their soon-
monstrous sleep. The bus engine roars;
startled, we put our cigarettes out and quickly
get back on board. It's still a long way to the city.

Mini Retro Review: Flaunt the Imperfection

"hear my silence, see my blindness
a love ascending, and never ending
you did cut me, from the same tree
a love incision, my inner vision"

-- You Did Cut Me

Flaunt the Imperfection
China Crisis
Virgin UK Records
1985

the band's superb and landmark third album transcends the cutesy and lilting riffs and synths of their more popular and overplayed song, "Wishful Thinking". produced by Steely Dan's Walter Becker. becker's influence clearly showed in the more mature arrangements (complemented with a nice horn section) and innovative instrumentations, without compromising China Crisis' brilliant lyricism. flaunt the imperfection houses hit '80s anthems "Black Man Ray," and "King in a Catholic Style," plus some of less played but equally well-written tracks such as "Highest High," "Blue Sea," "Bigger the Punch I'm Feeling," and my personal fave, "You Did Cut Me".

Bayaw Slam Book (Part 1)

subject: Marnie Tonson
occupation: Non-Practicing Lawyer
age: (almost a) 40 year-old virgin
school: UP Diliman
highest degree obtained: Fahrenheit 451
positions held: former president, U.P. SFNFS (Science Fiction and Fantasy Society)
interests: girls, Stephen Hawking, more girls, and...



favorite tv show: buffy the vampire slayer
favorite actor: steve carell
favorite actress: many to mention
favorite animal: many to mention
does he believe in engagement: (empathic) YES! PLEASE!
favorite words/phrases: yup-yup; the thing is...
what is his motto: Long live Isaac Asimov! May he rest in peace!

Come Summer

"I walk along these hillsides
in the summer 'neath the sunshine
I am feathered by the moonlight
falling down on me"

-- Counting Crows

essential summer listening albums (covers):






***

Scorched Earth

Brilliance

We crept out of the water and shivered under our skins. We isolated the weak.
In the widespread cold, we strove for company. We huddled together, growing
Warmer and surveying the view. We discovered beauty in stones. Eventually
We put away the furs and left the wild beasts alone. When we decided to settle,
We lined the sunset with a collage of trees. We learned landscaping, irrigation.
We built high roofs and even higher walls. We relished culture, privacy. All this
During the early years, long before we managed to separate ice from water,
To push it out of our territories the way we drove away the wolves. Until today,
Illuminated by sunbeams, pillars of glacier collapsing far away, dwindling into
The keening sea, where now resonates but some vague memory, history offering
Nothing but water, more water. Or none. Where a brilliant change is taking place.

Sablay King

You see, to someone, somewhere,
Alma matters in mind, body and soul
In part, and in whole
-- Morrissey

finally. formally finished my masters yesterday. the CAL graduation rites was held in the hardin ng mga diwata outside the U.P. faculty center. suma. sumasampu. hehe. 10 years in the making. ganun kasablay.

much thanks and gratitude to Dean Rio Alma and Sir Wendell for the best m.a. thesis honor.



other happy news here.

Straight to Hell

read that the Catholic church has finally "buried" the concept of "limbo," that middle place between heaven and earth better known in Christian dogma (or in classic, "Alighieric" literature) as the purgatorio.

the main idea for this religious revamp is really to resolve the age-old issue that has to do with unbaptized children not going straight to heaven. of course, it goes without saying that the new treatise does not say anything in regard to what Dante says in the Divine Comedy of purgatory being the resting place for non-believing philosophers and intellectuals like, well, Plato and Socrates (or Spartan warriors like Leonidas).

the funny implication is that we may now say that their long wait is over and they can now "go to hell," as far as the Vatican is concerned. hahaha. wasak.

and by the way, are catholic churches now required to revise some "staple lines" from the mass? and will there be more circles to be added to the inferno?

from the onion




Tenth Circle Added To Rapidly Growing Hell

The First Picture of Ewe

"the first picture of summer,
seeing the flowers scream their joy"
--The Lotus Eaters






wala lang. i love the animal condition. ahehe. photos credited to their respective sources.


































***

photos below from the happy mondays reading last april 16 in mag:net, courtesy of kit

Sizzling Puzit and Other Newssssss

photo from here

lintek. sobrang init. eto muna, pampalamig na halu-halo.



from Poetry Daily, Eugene Gloria comments on The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter

"The mucilage that binds my New Directions copy of Selected Poems of Ezra Pound has dried and crumbled like crushed Communion hosts. I have neglected this artifact of my student days in Ohio far too long.

What I have not forgotten is that this poem was the one I found most striking when I first discovered the Moderns. The poem takes a long look back to make poetry new. With Ernest Fenollosa’s notes on the Japanese translation of the eighth century Chinese poet Li Po (Rihaku is the Japanese name for Li Po), Ezra Pound re-imagines the ancient poet’s wartime emotions he himself did not possess as a noncombatant in World War I.

In the first of Li Po’s “Two Letters from Ch’ang-Kan,” the poet is speaking in the voice of a woman left at home while her husband fights in some distant war. Waiting, she consoles herself by recalling him dragging his feet and imagines his footprints still fresh near the gate.

Here emotion is understated, subtle and given to us through image (now a cliché in our workshops): “By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses, / Too deep to clear them away!” As their parting lengthens, the woman left behind asserts: “At fifteen I stopped scowling, / I desired my dust to be mingled with yours / Forever and forever and forever. / Why should I climb the look out?” Pound allows the lyric to lapse into a feminized longing for a lover who may never return.

In one translation from the Chinese, the reference to “the look out” alludes to a story of a woman waiting patiently for her husband on a promontory. Another layer unveiled from this version shows the woman turning into a rock having waited so long (see Wai-Lim Yip’s lucid translation of Li Po’s “The Song of Ch’ang-kan”). How curious it is in world literature for a woman to be transformed into a rock while in the throes of deep longing.

One needs only to look back at the story of the indomitable wife of Lot (yet another nameless woman, identified only in relation to her husband) and the brilliant poems by contemporary women poets such as Jane Shore and Wislawa Szymborska who have transposed this biblical narrative from the woman’s point of view.

Whether or not Pound’s “non-Chinese” translation of “The River-Merchant’s Wife” is in the tradition of a war poem or a love poem, what I as a reader value most is Pound’s precise language, a discernable idiom that is spoken plainly, what William Carlos Williams would claim as “an American idiom.” What Pound transports into English is a pure emotion—without sentimentality, a kind of precision that is part and parcel of our modern and contemporary tradition."

Eugene Gloria was born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in San Francisco. He earned his BA from San Francisco State University, his MA from Miami University of Ohio, and his MFA from the University of Oregon. He is the author of two books of poems — Hoodlum Birds (Penguin, 2006) and Drivers at the Short-Time Motel (Penguin, 2000), which was selected for the 1999 National Poetry Series and the 2001 Asian American Literary Award. He has also received a Fulbright Research Grant, a grant from the San Francisco Art Commission, a Poetry Society of America award, and a Pushcart Prize. He teaches at DePauw University and lives in Greencastle, Indiana.

***

from the onion:



Signature Dominates Sympathy Card

***



Medicine

So that when I discuss with you
my idea of empathy, I am really

stepping into a clinic, the walls
white or off-white, waking vaguely

to color, finding myself hurting
somewhere, like it’s no accident to be here,

that whatever happened should bring me back
not to regret, but to the stain of blood.

That I can comprehend; looking at myself
beside my body, playing doctor examining

a patient, feeling for my own pulse. And if I
should stop by some morgue, it is because

when I beat my chest, it should be out of triumph,
and incidentally, I’ve given up on electricity

or gambling, definitely on sleeping
with other women, preferring instead

to focus on the slow, diminishing light
that confounds and readies my mind

for forgetting, like sealed inside a coffin,
I am now descending into the future

tombstone, the irregular visits
and wilted flowers and rain and years.

That all I really want is to lie down
underground, free from the things

the living do, like breathing or loving.
So don’t feel bad that I cannot talk

as much as these cooing nurses,
nor my children, slumped on the bed,

saying no, all the while I am trying
to say don’t cry, look, see how I die.

For Jem

***

Phillipines

So that if we alter the spelling, say,
Phillipines, it might just sound biblical,
ready for war in some chapters only
resolvable with God’s grand mediation,
somewhere proximate to the digging
that persists on the margins. Exegeses,
they call it, though it sounds too Greek,
too final. Yet with the scrutiny comes
real value: a heeding governed not by
Romans, but by liberation and post-

script: the letter hurriedly sent because
it’s too urgent, modern, so email.
So that when someone says it’s time
to move, that’s really saying submit
yourself to the language, rely on nouns
and the now brimming voices speaking
in tongues—local and blessed and
totally, inviolably official. A testament
to change. To true glory and precedents.

Monday Bloody Monday

AP Photo


Tell me why I don't like Mondays
Tell me why I don't like Mondays
I want to shoot the whole day down

-- The Boomtown Rats

this is really troubling. the identity of the gunman who shot 32 people in Virginia Tech before turning the gun on himself--what is now considered the deadliest shooting rampage in modern US history--has just been revealed. it turns that the asian guy was a south korean native residing legally in the US and is not 19 as initially reported, but 23 years of age.

even more disturbing for me is that the guy was a senior student of creative writing in the said university, majoring in english, who had written a few plays, the ones shown in video footages all around the web littered with lines that read "i'd kill him", "he should die", etc. according to one of the gunman's former cw teachers who was interviewed, the gunman's works hinted of deep-seated, if not outright, anger at the world.

now the mourning american populace is looking for patterns, how to profile the killer, the psychology of shooters, etc. preventive psychiatric measures and clues to the personal life of the gunman himself. was there really a love triangle? did he, in fact, talk to anyone after he killed the first two victims? were the killings pre-meditated?

some initial reports seem to put the easy and convenient blame on the guy's writing, the literal paper trails of his so-called "history of violence" which actually is non-existent.

yet there are more pressing issues here: the lax gun law in virginia, the two-hour gap between what the police thought was an isolated incident (two people murdered!) and the killing spree (30 more innocent lives!), the fact that the classes went on, on-campus (mis)communications.

AP Photo

the world is watching as the sorrow starts to sink in. how surreal. yet, sadly, all too real; it did happen. truth stranger than fiction. so many needless deaths. a 23 year-old. a virginian. a quiet, alienated asian. an alien. a writer.

and i'm really affected--no, wrecked--by this. wasak.

*btw, as Augie Rivera pointed out to me just now, the song above by Bob Geldof and the rest of the Boomtown Rats was also about a school shooting in London. and yep, on a monday.

"The pre-Littleton school shootings, the one that that sticks in people's minds best, is recalled primarily because of its impact on pop culture — it inspired the popular Boomtown Rats song "I Don't Like Mondays." Released in October 1979, this song captured the insanity of the moment by working the killer's chilling utterance into its lyrics.

Of course fallible memory being what it is, folks now remember the shooting spree behind the song in only the most haphazard of fashions. They recall that there was a shooting at a school, that lives were lost, that the shooter was female, and that by way of explanation for her actions she said "I don't like Mondays," but some have her as a high school student gunning down students at her own school, while others remember her as a high school teacher who turned a gun on some of her pupils."

well, they're likely to remember it now.


***



no poem today. just mourning for the departed,
those poor, suffered children and teachers.

I Read the News

and all the natural and human mixture of beauty, wreckage, violence, and loss just disarmed me.

one, there's the awarding of the Pulitzer prizes. the Pulitzer for Poetry was awarded to
Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey, winning over the other finalists The Republic of Poetry by Martin Espada and Interrogation Palace: New & Selected Poems 1982-2004 by David Wojahn. Ms. Trethewey's bio here.



and oh, one of my favorite writers, Ray Bradbury, was given the special citation "for (Bradbury's) distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy." He shared this year's citation with the late jazz genius, John Coltrane.











***

the other news is the harrowing shooting in Virginia Tech yesterday that left 33 people dead, including the gunman, who allegedly killed himself after. this is by far the worst shooting in modern US history, and more than doubles the body count of the infamous Columbine shooting. stumbled across this in paolo's blog.

the identity of the lone gunman is yet to be revealed. students who witnessed and survived the shooting said that the gunman was around 19 years old, wearing a boy scout's uniform, and is apparently asian.

the entire US is reeling from the tragedy, as much as it is smarting from one of the most violent storms to hit the country, now currently lashing the east coast, including, of all places, Virginia.

wasak talaga.

***

much thanks to those who read and supported the second installment of the Happy Mondays poetry nights in mag:net katipunan last night. salamat kina Ramil Gulle, Kris Lacaba, Marc Gaba, Marie La Vina, Arkaye Kierulf, Pancho Villanueva, Waps San Diego, Javie Bengzon, Mikael De Lara Co, and the "late" Angelo Suarez. hehe.

the next reading will be on May 7, with Los Chupacabras playing after. punta kayo!

photo below is of bayaw adam's new and equally disarming arm tattoo and is courtesy of corin, who likewise read last night during the open mic. more photos in her blog. will update when other photos of the actual reading come in. (hehe. sa sobrang lasing yata ni corin, pagkatapos na lang nang reading nakakuha ng piktyurs)



wasak talaga.

Happy Mondays

thanks a heap to editor Michael Wells for accepting two poems I wrote ("Architecture" and "Craft") for the winter issue of online poetry journal Rogue PR.

btw, see you guys in a while for the poetry reading in mag:net. starts at 8.

***



Hubris

Kicking leaves on the way home,
the rain pouring, the lover speaks of
the brokenness of history, how it keeps
forgetting the tragedies of small people,
their constant abandonment, says this aloud
to himself, to this perfect evening of his loss,
breezing past him now with such celerity,
he risks looking back, shuffling his feet
in the process, and falling once again,
imagining his beloved equally drenched,
her hair dripping, that very same fall, standing up
and the focusing on, to some other direction
in his mind, toward day, sunlight, this need
to divine change, master it in a way, rip open
the aging tomes and include his little story,
write of the rain, his recovery, his waking to mist,
his time with clouds, that white union with space.

I Like Chopin (and Munchin')

basa d'yan chopan at moonchan. hehe.

picture from an old post by Cos. just celebrating another triumph by the Pacman. never did get to see it; no tv. woke up 1pm, plus no tv. knockout na si solis, knocked out pa rin akows. and have i mentioned i've no tv?

*speaking of chopan, update lang: nakapasa si pancho sa dumaguete workshop. complete list of fellows posted in ian's blog. congrats, pards! wasak ka!