fullman*

Archive for the ‘Literature’ Category

a poem to end a long week and derail Monday – and perhaps to put one’s heart on one’s sleeve. Indulge.

Casabianca

Love’s the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite “The boy stood on
the burning deck”. Love’s the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love’s the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love’s the burning boy.

– Elizabeth Bishop

I remember how, after seeing Notre Dame in Paris for the first time, loneliness arrived without any warning. I was alone, my Algerian companion was either shopping or plotting with her comrades their own revolution, when I decided to go around the city, to visit sites that I initially thought to be too touristy. My first stop, Notre Dame, astonished me. A middle-aged lady from New Jersey said to me that she wouldn’t mind getting married there, to let the weight of the church become the symbol of her vow.

It was right at that moment that loneliness stepped forward and looked at me. Notre Dame became a summary of my losses, an alienating monument that evoked a desperate and frantic attempt to connect with former lovers, with people I’ve been with, with those who were close to me. Anything, anyone, just to deny that I am truly alone. It was Notre Dame at first, then Eiffel, Mont Mart, Arc de Triomphe: each one offering a testimony of sadness, each one telling me that the heart grows heavy before it breaks.

Which brings me to the point of this entry. Where I am right now is far from Paris, but tonight, everything – the ordinariness of cabs parked in the streets, the stray dogs scouting for a quick meal, the beggars – they are all saying that the heart grows heavy before it breaks.

One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

– Elizabeth Bishop

Today, I woke up with a persistent buzz inside my head. I knew immediately that a shift in my world happened, a not-so subtle change. It was not in the morning news but I noticed even before rising that the pillows on my bed were into something, trading rumors in whispers.

While having my breakfast, the bowl I took from the shelf stared back with a malicious smirk on its face. My oatmeal giggled as i poured milk on it – or was it just the buzz in my head? Poets have claimed that rivers sing, but I swear today it was the faucet that I heard, teasing the sink with its sexy humming. Even the electric fan nodded its agreement: today I woke up with a psychedelic buzz inside my head.

Outside, while walking to my office, a jogger leaped, landed in India, and discovered that butterflies and lovers are of the same origin. The traffic light dismantled itself and discarded its lights, replacing them with images of vast sunsets. The alley cats declared their sovereignty, walked on walls, and marched for the moon. The newsboy sold tabloids that screamed poetry in red. To settle things the sun itself issued a ruling, final and executory: love cannot be denied.

As a man of reason, I chose to ignore it all. I walked past the cheering crowd that greeted the decision. The clouds declared a holiday and turned themselves into wings; I skipped their celebration. I went straight to my office instead, poured myself a cup of coffee. Its blackness was defiantly bitter. I drank it anyway, bottoms up. It was only then, in the stillness of the room, that the buzz in my head unravelled its syllables: all along it was saying your name, your name, your name.

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Stumbled upon this poem, and fell in love with it again. I was moved by its honesty, by the resonance of its metaphors for loss. I wonder what kind of grief – its dimension and depth – that provoked the creation of this work. Indulge.

Funeral Blues
W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

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[here's a short piece i wrote in 2005. i was left behind in our cottage in busy and overcrowded Puerto Galera, enjoying a strange moment of solitude. that was the last time i went to the notorious White Beach during the long Holy Week break, when the entire gay crowd in Malate goes to Puerto Galera.]

It’s best to do it at dusk. Grab a bottle of beer, cold or warm, it doesn’t really matter because it’s the devotion that counts. Let it enthrall you with its sway, its fronds dancing away a faithful desire to fly. Before the day ends, it giggles ruthlessly, like a boy who, after all the side glances and the furtive smiles, stands up slowly to take his leave.

Today, the one that caught my attention stands solitary in the horizon. It is unmindful of the crowd, ignoring even the careful fondness that i have slowly but earnestly nurtured. Lest misunderstood, I have no agenda or ulterior motives: I just wish to be mesmerized by its obsession with the wind. I would like to stay this way until the evening sky reveals its gems. I would like to stare at it until the madness raging inside my head becomes summer bubbles and float away with the wind.

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Give me a Duffy for Christmas. Please.

Last year, Jeanette Winterson interviewed Carol Ann Duffy for her collection of poems, Rapture. I want one for Christmas. Period.

The poem below is from a different collection called “Mean Time.” Indulge.

Valentine

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

– Carol Ann Duffy

Shortly after President GMA announced that the Philippines has already become a Second World country, “Milenyo” (international name: Xangsane) slapped her with a wet rebuke. “Milenyo” does not even qualify as one of the strongest typhoons to hit the country; its sustained speed of 130 kph is nothing compared to Loleng’s maximum winds of 290 kph in 1998. Yet power supply is down in most parts of Luzon and some areas remain waterless. Worse, 72 people were killed. Whoever told President GMA to proclaim our ascencion from a Third World to a “Second World” country should be made to travel the length of EDSA in the middle of a tropical typhoon.

(Incidentally, and a colleague was wise to point this out, “Second World” as a term collectively refers to the communist-socialist states that were within the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union.)

Anyway, power is still down in our village. I’ve been calling Meralco‘s 16211 24-hour customer service hotline since Thursday, and this morning, at 4 AM, I finally got through. I had to endure Meralco’s jingle (“Bagyo o bumaliktad man ang mundo, maasahan ninyo… Mas masaya, mas maganda ang may kuryente…“) for several minutes, and finally a voice – a male voice – answered on the other line. I asked him immediately when Meralco would be able to restore power in our area, and he said that they don’t have an estimate yet but – and here he was suddenly upbeat – i should be happy to note that 60% of Luzon has electricity already.

I would have asked him to give me a list of places with power supply – anywhere in Luzon – so that I could immediately pack up and move out, but that would have been too calloused on my part.