Happy Mondays Pix: January

photos above from the last two installments of the bi-weekly Happy Mondays Poetry Nights. See you on Feb 2 for the 45th edition. konti na lang 2nd year anniversary na tayo! wasak! salamat po sa lahat sa suporta. :)

Happy Mondays XLIV

featured readers for the 44th installment of the bi-weekly Happy Mondays Poetry Nights @ mag:net cafe Katipunan TONIGHT, Jan 19, @mag:net cafe Katipunan are as follows:

Gatula Reunion!

1. Ed Geronia, Jr.
2. Lilledeshan Bose
3. Israfel Fagela
4. Joseph Saguid
5. Doodz Generoso
6. Drey Teran
7. Pancho Villanueva
8. Khavn Dela Cruz
9. Waps San Diego
10. Sasha Martinez
11. Jaton Zulueta
12. Pancho Alvarez

13. Petra Magno

14. Mikael Co
15. Carlomar Daoana

*plus other regular and surprise guest readers.

*readings start promptly at 730 pm 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 Rogel, the bar tender of mag:net cafe. please feel free to sign up and read your work. :)

FREE ADMISSION. Kitakits po tayo. :)

YEARS LATER: Holding Back The Years

the fifth installment of the monthly Years Later New Wave music all-cover night happens TONIGHT @ mag:net cafe Katipunan.

8pm onwards, with spinning of New Wave anthems and oddities in-between sets. featuring the following bands:

1. The Superchongs
2. Angel Radio
3. Atomflot
4. Skies of Ember

FREE ADMISSION. kitakits, mga chong. :)

Walking Free

I no longer write of loneliness,
It has enough food in the world;
Nor about love either,
There are enough detractors.

Why not, I said to myself,
Just walk about, without aim?
It may be, not having a subject,
The joy of motion creates itself.

My feet joyfully remember their past,
Tickle of grass, bruise of stones,
Clasp of mud--all earth's pull
And possessiveness.

Now I feel quite bare, exposed,
My thoughts underfoot in lushest green,
And no words to think me,
Nor myself distract.

I hear the birds call to one another;
Their inhuman cries gladden my soul,
They mark a boundary of the sacred
That in a distant time pierced myfeet.

A light breeze touches my face,
I feel the longing beneath human speech,
Like ashes upon my tongue,
And my feet shudder where they fall.

-- Gémino H. Abad

for discussion, E-105 classes

Happy Mondays XLIII

featured readers for the 43rd, happy new year installment of the bi-weekly Happy Mondays Poetry Nights @ mag:net cafe Katipunan today, Jan 5, @magnet cafe Katipunan are as follows:

1. Sarah Gambito
2. Aldus Santos
3. Joseph Saguid
4. Angelo Suarez
5. Marne Kilates
6. Mikael Co
7. Krip Yuson
8. Jimmy Abad
9. Kash Avena
10. Waps San Diego
11. Iñigo De Paula

12. Totel De Jesus

13. Wincy Ong

14. Emong De Borja

15. Carlomar Daoana

*plus other regular and surprise guest readers.

*readings start promptly at 730 pm followed by the Open Mic sessions @ 930pm.

*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 WasakenRol! follows at 1030 pm featuring the following bands:

1. Patience, Dear Juggernaut

2. The Purple Chickens

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

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

Happy Mondays XLI

below are the featured readers for the 41st installment of the Happy Mondays Poetry Nights @ mag:net Katipunan tomorrow, December 1:

1. Totel De Jesus

2. Sasha Martinez

3. Pocholo Goitia

4. Doodz Generoso

5. Lourd De Veyra

6. Waps San Diego

7. Kash Avena

8. Mikael Co

9. Pancho Villanueva

10. Wincy Ong

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

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

Happy Mondays XL

featured readers for the 40th installment of the Happy Mondays Poetry Nights @ mag:net cafe Katipunan tomorrow, Nov 17 as follows:

1. Lourd De Veyra

2. Adam David

3. Ramil Gulle

4. Jonar Sabilano

5. Kash Avena

6. Angelo Suarez

7. Mikael Co

8. Marne Kilates

9. Jing Gaddi

10. Mia Tijam

11. Pancho Alvarez

12. Lawrence Bernabe

readings start at 730pm, followed by the open mic sessions from 930-10. *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. Toi

3. Ang Bandang Shirley

4. Goodbye Tracy

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

YEARS LATER: Pale Shelter

The 3rd installment of the monthly Years Later New Wave Music Retrospective tomorrow, Nov 15 @ mag:net cafe Katipunan will feature the following bands:

1. Angel Radio

2. XLuthor

3. Atomflot

4. Dream Kitchen

5. Tey's Revenge

6. Scarlet Tears

the event opens with spinning of new wave anthems and rarities at 7pm. live performances follow at 830pm.

kitakits, mga chong!

Amihan

above is the teaser poster, some artwork, and studies from the play, Amihan, which opens at the Marian Auditorium, Miriam College, Katipunan Avenue, QC this coming Tuesday, November 11, at 10am and 2pm, with the Gala on Nov 18 at 7pm.

schedule of shows below:

Nov 11 -- 10am and 2pm

Nov 14 -- 10am and 2pm

Nov 15 -- 3pm and 7pm

Nov 18 -- 10am and 7pm

Nov 21 -- 6pm

Nov 22 -- 6pm

Amihan: A Play
by Liza C. Magtoto and Joel M. Toledo
Directed by Tuxqs Rutaquio

Music: Jed Balsamo

Libretto: Chynna Roxas

Movement: Dexter Santos

Lighting: Voltaire De Jesus

presented by the Miriam College Institute for the Arts

Amihan is the elder of two orphaned kids living with their grandparents in Barrio Binhi, a remote place where magic still thrives, undisturbed by the logic and sciences of the distant cities.

The story begins with a prologue depicting the demise of Amihan’s grandfather, Tandang Sebio. On his deathbed, the old man gives Amihan a pendant and recites to her a magical chant that is quickly forgotten by the 17-year old girl. This way a certain passing on of her Lolo’s magic takes place.

Amihan, however, is not entirely remorseful of his Lolo’s death because she does not believe in magic; she has decided long before that her own father’s disappearance had been caused mainly by her Lolo’s foolish belief in magic, which had led her father to abandon Amihan and her brother Pablo.

A great drought has struck Barrio Binhi. Everywhere, farmers and most of the other village folk are leaving the barrio. The land is barren and the ground cracking from the unrelenting heat; the crops have long-wilted away. Water is terribly scarce and there is no sense in remaining in Barrio Binhi.

But Amihan could not leave; her brother lay in bed suffering from a seemingly incurable disease that the village albularyo could not remedy, in spite of his elaborate incantations and rituals. Her strong-willed grandmother, Lola Adiang while still inconsolable after the death of Tandang Sebio, tells Amihan that the only way to cure Pablo’s mysterious illness is for Amihan to fetch the magical water from the Bukal, the magical well-spring situated deep in the heart of the Kakahuyan, the dense forest that, like an arc, walls in Barrio Binhi from most of the outside world.

The barrio elders of the barrio had long insisted that it is forbidden to venture into the Kakahuyan, as the forest is cursed: protected by wild magic and guarded by all sorts of demonic creatures. Amihan detests these old folk with their ridiculous, impossible stories. As far as Amihan’s concern, it was the one hateful place that took her father away, coaxed by her Lolo Sebio’s firm belief that the forest holds riches beyond their wildest dreams.

Two years before, and months after her father journeyed to the Kakahuyan, travelers passing by Barrio Binhi brought torn pieces of what appeared to be Amihan’s father’s clothing, found at the outskirts of the forest. The village elders were quick to agree that it was the curse. But Amihan simply did not believe -- it was not magic that led to her father’s death, just petty thieves, common humans. Her own mother had died giving birth to Pablo and nothing the villagers had done could save her as well -- not their complex ointments, not their intricate prayers. When the news came of her father’s death, Amihan told herself never to believe in magic again.

Amihan could not find any other way of procuring water for Pablo. There is very little water left in the barrio and the few remaining neighbors would simply not share theirs with Amihan. While her whole being revolts against the idea, she finds herself with no choice but to travel to the Bukal, to the Kakahuyan.

Amihan is a journey-and-return adventure following the fantastic mode. In Amihan’s journey, she will encounter different Philippine folkloric creatures like Lumbo and Maximo (both Tikbalang), Kalahi the Kapre, the Nuno sa Punso, the Diwata (Haina), Kibaan, Engkanto, and Duwende. For her to succeed, she must come to terms with her own disbelief in magic and display her cunning and wit in defeating and/or befriending these creatures.

In the end, Amihan will find herself the necessary human element who will address the waning magic inside the Kakahuyan, the drought in Barrio Binhi, her brother’s persistent sickness. Most of all, her growing belief in magic will her help her reconcile with her father’s disappearance. Little does she know it, but the chant whispered by her dying Lolo and the pendant that she carries hold the key to everything.

Amihan is the tale of how the real and the magical must go hand-in-hand in the world, and how one young woman, against many odds, is able to keep this balance.

Amihan is an adaptation of Joel M. Toledo’s novelette for Young Adults, Pedro and the Lifeforce (Giraffe Books, 1997).

***
please come and watch. for more information, kindly call 580-5400 loc. 1105 and 1114 or text 0927-4664806. thanks po. :)

The Early November

photos from last night's 39th installment of the Happy Mondays Poetry Nights. salamat po sa suporta. kitakits ulit sa Nov 17th. :)

***

two of my recent poems ("Enclosures" and "Seeing Things") came out in the November 3 issue of the Philippine Graphic Magazine. thanks to Ma'am Marra Lanot for the heads up. :)

Happy Mondays XXXIX

below are the featured readers for the 39th installment of the bi-weekly Happy Mondays Poetry Nights @ mag:net cafe, Katipunan tomorrow, November 3:

1. Pocholo Goitia
2. Jonar Sabilano
3. Doodz Generoso
4. Keith Cortez
5. Carlomar Daoana
6. Rafael San Diego
7. Angelo Suarez
8. Lawrence Bernabe
9. Khavn De La Cruz
10. JC Casimiro
11. Sasha Martinez
12. Marie La Viña
13. Pancho Villanueva

14. Camille Banzon

readings start promptly at 730, followed by an open mic from 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. :)

Performing @ 10pm onwards are:

1. Roberto Nicholas

2. Boyet Vasquez

3. Patience, Dear Juggernaut

FREE ADMISSION the whole evening. kitakits po tayo! :)