Ice Cream English

Yes. We officially now have a NEW President. Yes, NEW, figuratively.

Here's to another entry I wrote a long time ago (the time I was predicting Noynoy would become a President). Another whimsical thought I weaved in the present--perhaps a family appreciating the beauty of language and supposed-to-be good politics.

One night, my brother and I bought some groceries. We had Ma Leng, two eggs (the other one was broken, the cashier put it underneath the Ma Leng can), two Lucky Me Beef noodles, monay, and Selecta Double Ice Cream (super chocolate and Double dutch).

It was a very late merienda. We ate monay with ice cream, or vice versa (if you wish). After my mother had taken her first scoop of ice cream, she told us, "Delicious mga anak." To which I replied, "Yeah of course mother. That’s our favorite." And my brother agreed with a "Yes!!" I asked my brother, "Do you already have a girl friend?" He answered "No..."

I asked "why?"

He told me, "Well I wanna be single and virgin forever," to which my mother reacted, "Oh my golly, my dear son, please have a girl friend. Or may be you want a boy friend, do you?"

My brother got irritated and squeezed his nose and said "My nose is bleeding."

Because of what? No English words can describe that.

Rain Stories

"I can feel them. Scurrying in circles around me, smaller and smaller circles like rats around a crust of bread or a piece of cheese. Waiting, waiting, waiting for the right moment. The moment when I slip up, when I make a mistake, when I get careless.

I can hear their feet. Some of them pass by the gate on the sidewalks; they think I can’t see them. Some of them are brave enough to rattle the gate; they bring my mail, my bills, they ask for donations. Some of them get into the house while I’m sleeping, and I wake up and I hear their feet on the stairs, yes I do.

I can hear their thoughts. The tall man, he knows. He’s not far…"

–The Serial Killer from F.H. Batacan’s Smaller and Smaller Circles

Running for cover, almost everyone doesn’t want to get wet on rainy days. Why so? For different reasons:

1. They are well-dressed (or over-dressed);

2. They easily get sick after wetting their heads;

3. They claim they are Gremlins (ayoko! dadami ako!);

4. They’re allergic to rain;

5. There is something with or in them which they don’t want to get wet; and

6. They think that today’s rain is now acid rain.

When it’s raining, one could stay beside a window pane, watch while it’s pouring, and think of the happy and sad days, e.g. with your loved ones. Then cry.

Or remember the days when your umbrella was blewn away by the wind.. And of course, skirts flying too!

Everyone prefers to stay at home during rainy days. Students rejoice when the news announces walang pasok! It’s good to eat tsamporado and tuyo, sinigang, sopas, and other soup delights to heat up our system.

Oh the rain reminds me that God wreaked havoc on this world to let us know that we shall not abuse freedom.

"There’s a rainbow always after the rain." –Rainbow, South Border

Re-Visit to the Ivory Shanty

Along the wayward, unsung heroes

We, again, crash on crystal life

full of gray sand

gray sand

tool.



From where we started

we come back

to the everlasting

pun and twists of

living the ironies of

death and resurrection.



Where the gray sand

is the priest, and black and white

do not meet or

nothing at all.



Go under your bed

and under your bed

is an invisible truth



That is--you.

Broken Poetry

When you think someone hates you, just stay silent. S/he would not do any step to initiate a conversation anyway, much less yourself. The simplest thing to do is to walk like a cloud. As William Wordsworth puts it, "I wander lonely as a cloud." Philosophize like that. Your world is all yours. No matter what happens, stay silent, stay silent.

There are possibilities that you will endure slight humiliations upon staying silent. Swallow them all. If you can do that, then you win the silent war. Use silence as a weapon. Do not let him/her stab you with his/her sinister dagger. S/he would do anything to destroy you–like the September 11 World Trade Center tragedy–a bitter destiny.

But there is a huge paradox. When you feel that you wouldn’t win the war, write a letter. Be sincere. Tell him/her what you really feel about him/her. Do not let him/her guess your reactions after s/he has read your letter. Stay silent as ever.

Let fate intercede, or pray that s/he wouldn’t hurt you violently. Sing a song while passing by his/her place. Walk like a cloud. Walk like you have never walked before. Maintain a consistent pace–not so fast, not so slow. Just feel like you are in heaven–everybody is looking up to you.

But always look down.

Looking down will make you comfortable. Pretend you are blind even your eyes are open. Do you remember what you have learned from the Bible? Your pair of eyes is the light of your body–which is the temple of the Holy Ghost?

This will be a bloody war. You will be an assassin. You can drop a bomb and turn everything into the smallest atom (if there is any). And then, put things back to their places altogether. Mix everybody’s feelings.

Back to the letter. When you write, be synaesthetic. Do you remember your Creative Writing workshops? Smell to see. See to touch. And touch to hear.

Say that you really did not want to start the war. It just happened. Say you can’t explain what you’d felt about him/her. Say that you are willing to spare him/her your packed lunch your mom prepared. Say it’s very special; and s/he is too.

"Let it be," the Beatles say. Bring everything back to life. Do not lose yourself just by thinking aloud. Think of a way to end the war; this silent war. Not until you consider this as a cold war, you wouldn’t think it’s got to end. Forgive yourself. You are not yourself. Think of another way. Be brave–not like Brave Heart or Lion Heart. Why don’t you try to utter a word? You can say, "Ahem" (chuckle, chuckle) or even whistle. You can PSST too, aimlessly. Let everything flow oblivious of yourself. Do not mind their reactions. Think of what they’re gonna think of you. A big irony, isn’t it? You can eat sampalok afterwards–then spit the seeds near their feet, then say "Oh! I’m really sorry!" Pick the seeds up not too fast, not too slow. Let everything flow like a fall.

You may grit your teeth.

Cest la vie.

Smell your perfume. They might smell you. They are watching you. Close your eyes but open your mind.

Open your heart to the truth.

You are..

alone

but

someone

is

watching

you.

Post-College Syndrome

I have been writing and appreciating poetry since my primary school days. I wrote almost anytime, anywhere. Some of it I have lost; some still with me. Now the following "disturbed" poem was the product of a post-college syndrome, which lingers up to today. This is "intertextual," so language majors say, and I can say, perhaps, very complex and raw:

(Notice I have images before or after the poetry--those are to approximate my perception of the contents of poems and those I wrote.)

I Have Sinned

A

mongrel

in the night

whoo-whooing–

man of culture, su-

percalifragilisticexpiali-

docious. He triggers the gun-

blade among the children of desti-

ny/advent children. Akin to faith he asks

the saint of labor why he is nowhere. Tonight,

the mongrel grasps the Beatles. Twelve Midnight.

He holds tight. Upright. Diamond tears in the chamber

react to ammos. World War. The Holy Mongrels:

the hollow men are his comrades. Legalese &

hotel. Partner. And, eureka. He meets The

One. Salvaged from Evanescence. Al-

low me to zell smile. His Guardian

Forces rejoice. The English Ma-

jor is The Lionheart--needs

sharpening. No more Dark

Matter & Black Materia.

Devour Ultimecia

For me. Miss

X

Mea Culpa

Birth of the New Man

Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali

What Happens

It has happened
and it goes on happening
and will happen again
if nothing happens to stop it

The innocent know nothing
because they are too innocent
and the guilty know nothing
because they are too guilty

The poor do not notice
because they are too poor
and the rich do not notice
because they are too rich

The stupid shrug their shoulders
because they are too stupid
and the clever shrug their shoulders
because they are too clever

The young do not care
because they are too young
and the old do not care
because they are too old

That is why nothing happens
to stop it
and that is why it has happened
and goes on happening and will happen again

--original in Polish by Tadeusz Rózewicz

You who never arrived

in my arms Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me--the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and un-
suspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house--and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back
my too-sudden image. Who knows, perhaps the same
bird echoed through the both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening?

--Rainer Maria Rilke

The Meaning of Simplicity

I hide behind simple things so you'll find me;
if you don't find me, you'll find the things,
you'll touch what my hand has touched,
our hand-prints will merge.

The August moon glitters in the kitchen
like a tin-plated pot (it gets that way because of what I'm saying to you)
it lights up the empty house and the house's kneeling silence--
always the silence remain kneeling.

Every word is a doorway
to a meeting, once often cancelled,
and that's when a word is true: when it insists on the meeting.

--Yannis Ritsos (translated from the Greek by Edmund Keeley)

It was not so long ago

Come to the places where we rode your bicycle

And we both fell to a puddle of mud splashing earth in your face

It was not so long ago.

Come to the bridge where we started to think about your beautiful day

when your teacher said you have got the world in your hands

It was not so long ago.

Come to the train station where we were talking about breaking someone’s skull

and wondering what was inside it

It was not so long ago.

Come to the top of the hill where we flew our kites

that were entangled when the wind blew so hard

It was not so long ago.

Come back to the earth where our feet were coated with dung and mud —

When we did not care how we stank and stepping on the floors our mothers industriously swabbed.

But I cannot come to the time when we said goodbye on one violet afternoon, you flew away like our kites.

I am afraid the wind cut your string I was holding.

Then someone called me to do the dishes.