Bottle (edit.)

Bottle

It stands on the edge of the table.
Its sweat, a bead, a tear,
trickles from its lips
along the lines of its breast,
and drips down to the wooden
cracks on the floorboard
forming a stain, a blot, a spot
where other sweats from
other bottles wet.

It stands on the edge of the table.
A woman, a goddess, a mother deity,
a staple of modern-day dietry,
posing its ancient beauty
for the world to see.
Its caramel fizz freezes the nose.
Its soda bubbles burns the bones.

It is cold, it is cool, it is a cooing crow
that fills up man’s sweat
he lost to a woman’s scent.
It stands on the edge of the table,
erected, mounted, and very tangible,
a rising tower, a hardening dark claw.
Its lips glistening with
its sweat, a bead, a seed,
longing to be grabbed on its
head to quench an
animal thirst.

It stands on the edge of the table,
sexless for its being sexy.

Ghost Writer (edit.)

Ghost Writer

You look out through the window:
a glass, a sea, a mirror
reflecting coffee smokes
out from a cup
and a vision of a man with
hardened face and with much
hardened stare.

This is the window
where they change your name.

You write another stroke on the white,
a story where they change your name:
a line, a life, a poem.
What is your first word?
Will it end with a simple dot
or another loopy question mark?
Is that a coffee stain you will
leave behind, or tear marks
for the blue lines?

Sipping the air for the last cup,
a world, a sea, as deep as your stare
onto the piece of paper lined with
cigarette burns and creases,
counting loops and slashes
where spaces should be plated.
Holes emancipate you
through your face on the window
that served as your prison,
a face is filled
with singing pricks.

You are silenced but your name sings.

For this is the face
where they cannot touch your name.

This Paper Will Bleed (edit.)

This Paper Will Bleed

Once bare,
like the midnight sky on New
Year’s Eve in Davao wrapped in
muffled rain shower,
no smelling of gunpowder,
no screaming of bright lights,
black and white thoughts of
a sick young poet will fill
this blank paper.
Once an empty shell, this
thin crust will house a citadel of outpouring
wild and savage emotions,
gashing forth the poet’s black
lead, white ink, fake tears and fresh drool
on the whiteness of its skin,
playing the fortune-teller that he is.

Once young,
like the virgin pulp from which
it is made, the moment
this paper will leave its nest,
the harbour of the young poet’s mind,
it will live and die at the same time.
It will flourish away from its parents to
live what has been foretold,
to fulfil a prophecy.
It will live to glorify the poet’s words,
and die for the sake of it.

Once true,
like the purity and nakedness it
truly conveys, it once possessed,
this paper will bleed on the hands
of the fortune-teller’s oppressors:
his classmates, his teachers, his idols, his gods.
And like the back of his hands,
the poet will know that
this paper will bleed like an
assassinated congressman,
fire-cracked fingers, or
any tomato-pasted dish.

And once used,
it will strip off its essence
and will emulate an identity:
not the nakedness it once gleamed,
nor the youthfulness it once owned,
especially not the truthfulness
it will always live by to deny;
but it will continue to live, to imitate
only the face of the pale young poet
draining with what words he wanted to write.

“The last look through the window” (edit.)

“The last look through the window” 

The last look through the window is the hardest
as the thought heavies
like a stone dropping into an empty well,
screaming as it hits the bottom,
piercing echoes of deafening mute.

My hands long to touch your face
as a palm to the glass is always never enough.
To sink my nails into that reflection
which separates what I believe is true
and what is becoming the truth,
like seeing my face fading
and smelling the sky in a blurring,
to give you more than a fleeting kiss,
to say more than this is all too well.

But I will not touch you
nor even come close to you
(my hands all trembling
my breathing pausing),
not to pretend this is not happening,
not to give you another handprint that
will bastardize your face that is drying.

I want you to break that glass.
To replace that dead hallow inside your chest
with my fist
that will pound
the way your heart beat on your skin
much harder and much, much stronger
than how you gathered the claws
that singled your life into a single wound,
a mere cry to the world.

I want you to breathe again
to wake up
and slap the hell out of me
until the brushing of my wet eyelashes
on the back of my arm is nothing more
than a fresh butterfly drying its wings from its cocoon.
I want you to look straight at me
and shake the life in me
until I stop recalling
that they all die too soon.
That butterflies are never free.
I want you to wake up
and tell me that the rain
does not fall to mock us all,
to whisper that the heavens feel our loss,
to caress that the gods did their call.
I want you to break that glass
and scream the hell out of your abyss,
to crawl the hell out of your pit,
out of that deep shit
you holed us all in.

I want you to cry
This is not how I want to die.
Not bleeding on a cold concrete,
not alone on a side street.
I want you to get up
and tell me how to be there
to stop the blood from oozing out,
to stop the breaking out of sweat,
to lock up the gates of our hell
and to assure me it is not too late.

But I want you to have peace,
peace that will make the heavens cry
peace that will bury your mind.
I want you leave with
a lasting beat that it was not in vain,
to leave with the knowledge
that you are always with us in the rain
never leaving our side
always playing in our minds.
I want you to go.
I want you to go now.

This is not for you.
And I swear to you
this is not through.

I may have stared at your face longer than I should
but not to linger on the last image I will have of you.

“The last look through the window is the hardest ” (edit.)

“The last look through the window is the hardest “ 

The last look through the window is the hardest
as the thought heavies
like a stone dropping into an empty well,
screaming as it hits the bottom,
piercing echoes of deafening mute.

My hands long to touch your face
as a palm to the glass is always never enough.
To sink my nails into that reflection
which separates what I believe is true
and what is becoming the truth,
like seeing my face fading,
like smelling the sky in a blurring,
to give you more than a fleeting kiss,
to say more than this is all too well.

But I will not touch you
nor even come close to you
(my hands all trembling
my breathing pausing),
not to pretend this is not happening,
not to give you another handprint that
will bastardize your drying face.

I want you to break that glass.
To replace that dead hallow inside your chest
with my fist
that will pound
the way your heart beat on your skin
much harder and much, much stronger
than how you gathered the claws
that singled your life into a single wound,
a mere cry to the world.

I want you to breathe again
to wake up
and slap the hell out of me
until the brushing of my wet eyelashes
on the back of my arm is nothing more
than a fresh butterfly drying its wings from its cocoon.
I want you to look straight at me
and shake the life in me
until I stop recalling
that they all die too soon,
that butterflies are never free.
I want you to wake up
and tell me that the rain
does not fall to mock us all,
to whisper that the heavens feel our loss,
to caress that the gods did their call.
I want you to break that glass
and scream the hell out of your abyss,
to crawl the hell out of your pit,
out of that deep shit.

I want you to cry
“This is not how I want to die”.
Not bleeding on a cold concrete,
not alone on a side street.
I want you to get up
and tell me how to be there
to stop the blood from oozing out,
to stop the breaking out of sweat,
to lock up the gates of our hell
and to assure me it is not too late.

But I want you to have peace,
peace that will make the heavens cry
peace that will bury your mind.
I want you leave with
a lasting beat that it was not in vain
to leave with the knowledge
that you are always with us in the rain
never leaving our side
always playing in our minds.
I want you to go.
I want you to go now.

This is not for you.
And I swear to you
this is not through.

I may have stared at your face longer than I should
but not to linger on the last image I will have of you.

Growing Up (edit.)

Growing Up

Carelessly you toss your head
into the air while your hands whiten
as you hold tight onto the truck railings.
Child-like spirits die old
but the scream of sea lives on our skin,
flowing and always thrashing,
never afraid of slipping away.

Our hair races in the night,
never fading but to the denim sky.
Our weights are crushing the brittle nuts
inside canvas sacks that presses prints
on our dancing bare feet.
The night wind washes our faces,
spacing out our burnt cheeks
(like the kisses we make
on the bottles we share)
while you close your eyes to the little lights
wishing summer is not dying so soon.

It may be our young hearts’ desire
that takes chances of what has entrusted.
Forgetting what we are leaving for
you slip your arm around my shoulders
to whisper “we’re gonna be okay”.
This is not the end
just another beginning.
Going back to the city takes only a short while
and these hitch-ride will quiet us down.

Smile for Me, You Monkey

Smile for Me, You Monkey

It has been three decades now, thirty-one years to be exact, since the Philippines won its last Miss Universe title and the only consolation prize that has been loyal to this country’s pride, probably the only reason why the Philippines has not lost its hope on reclaiming the universe, is the Miss Photogenic Award. Dr. Vicky Belo showed her disappointment for being an all-time loser by offering the next Bb. Pilipinas Universe her free services. She said Miss Brazil admitted in her interview that she had twenty-three or so operations, just on her face, winning her the first runner-up place. We are thirty years behind this competition. All the other candidates have either a nose lift or entirely a different new face. Belo added that it would be okay for her that the Bb. Pilipinas Universe would not acknowledge her clinic just as long as she would bring home the bacon. But what kind of smile would Belo make to keep the Miss Photogenic Award keep coming on our side? For all I know all the Miss Photogenic Filipina awardees had natural smiles. And at least, whoever the Binibining Pilipinas Charity throw into that international pit of women oppression Filipinos know that she would be a girl.

Although I somewhat agree that these competitions are degrading women, we cannot deny the fact that these are beautiful woman showing their beauty at their best. Camille Paglia is screaming in my ears. We cannot simply allow social stances to contaminate aesthetics. If possible, let beauty stand for beauty itself. Not as a sign for oppression, not as a symbol of dominance. But nah, the girls were fixing their bodies and faces for us to appreciate them.

Television networks, especially ABS-CBN, have their ways of fooling people into believing a trivial program, such as the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant, turn into seemingly a major world event, making it look like it was the Summer Olympics or FIFA World Cup. Only after watching the conceited young girls that it was realized it was actually the Olympics of plastic surgery-ed face and the World Cup for bleached smiles. Nonetheless, after watching the show I browsed the Internet to see what kind of smile Anna Theresa Licaros did in front of the camera to have nailed the award. I was a bit surprised.

She was beautiful in her photographs. She looked pretty much like a girl. But that was not the surprising part. I browsed for the other contestants and their not half as bad. What made me grin (I grin when I’m surprised) like little hell is that they all looked like models. Previously, Miss Universe contestants would simply look beautiful in swim wear as if cut out from Playboy magazine. There was no power, only the body. Now, contestants look like real models posing for Vogue in Versace 2008 Spring/Summer collection. How’s that for you, Miss Tyra Banks?

I remember watching one episode of America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) that Banks criticized how phony it would be to have her contestants pose that Miss America smile. Your models may not be competing for any beauty pageant, Miss Banks. But guess what? Your show has beauty contest qualities that roil feminism with their copies of The Vagina Monologue. And guess again. Beauty pageants are moving in to take over the modeling world.

Speaking of Miss America smile, I cannot take my laugh off the image of Miss USA’s face when she slipped on her evening gown walk. Her eyes widen like two orbiting moons. She could not believe it was happening to her. Beauty pageant was invented by Americans and they dictate what is good and bad for beauty contests. When they said slipping on gown is the worst thing that could happen to a contestant, it would really sound like hell is chanting when someone slips on the stage. Then the amazing thing happened: Miss USA stood up. She continued her walk, smiled to the universe and twitched her eyebrow that said, “Hah! In your faces!” and Mexico City gave her the loudest applause of the night.

For Filipinos, the scene called to mind the Miriam Quiambao episode. She did not really slip but rather fall off the ramp during the pre-pageant show, not during the coronation night when three-fourths of the world would be watching. Quiambao climbed back to the ramp in a poised “I am still a whole” stand. Unlike Miss USA, in her “I am still okay” smile, the world saw that she had been broken.

But Mexico was not applauding for Miss USA’s rise. Mexico was applauding for her fall. Mexicans knew USA was not going to win the competition in any way after her trip. But another amazing thing happened: Miss USA made it to the top five finalists. When she was called for her question, Mexico was on its feet booing every word of her answer. Donald Trump, multi-billion Trump Enterprise owner and Miss Universe Beauty Pageant co-owner, said the booing was part of Mexican protest to USA’s tighter immigration laws. He said Mexico was most affected because every year thousands of its sombrero-wearing citizens dream to cross the USA-Mexico border freely and without American custom’s fat hands whisking them for illegal grass. Trump also got the Mexican boo when his presence was acknowledged but behind the pretentious smile, which translates into an arrogant smirk, we can hear him say, “Boo all you want, taco freaks! You are still feeding America’s fat economy and my multi-billion belly by having the pageant held here. Boohoo you!” By the way, has Trump been always a part of Miss Universe or did he just popped up and acquired the pageant through a deal?

Anyway, the hosts were cute. Mario Lopez still has his boyish smile when he was still in Save by the Bell. And the girl from MTV’s Total Request Live, she was pretty, like Screech. I loved the way they announced the winner. It was so fast, so action-packed that the 2007 Miss Universe winner had no time to pull off her dramatic effects. Miss Japan would really love to cry and pause for a while to take in what the entire universe, and the Trump Enterprise, had just bestowed on her. But organizers quickly shoved to her the sashay and flowers and merely tapped the Mikimoto crown on her head. Aw. A Japanese girl with Japanese pearls on her hair.

***

I remember seeing Pearl Dy (or was that her twin, Rose Dy?) during an event celebrating the profession and passion of journalism held in Kanto Bar at MTS. There were many media practitioners at the event, from AM radio stations to national daily newspapers, from local television networks and to the internet-based news organ, which I was supposed to be one of the representatives. The event was not to rattle the government of the plights of media people: the kidnappings, killings, human rights violations, censorship, etc. They were merely there to come together and be thankful that they are still alive in a profession they love which someday might kill them. I think the event was held last May 3. Was it called the World Journalism Day or International Journalists’ Day? Aw. I am a poor bastard when it comes to recollecting basic information. That is why journalism never works for me.

Going back to Pearl, I saw her for the first time this summer and I found myself looking intently at her face. My aesthetics for people is that you are beautiful when your face is interchangeable. That is to say your face is genderless; it can be of a woman or of a man. But with this standard, women come hardly beautiful. When you are a man with face of a lady, you are lovely. But when you are woman looking like a man, you are not exactly what I prefer pretty. But watching Pearl closely, I was reminded of ANTM’s Elise.

Elise was for many ANTM avid watchers as the most beautiful contestant the show ever produced. She had the face of a young boy looking fresh from a swim in a nearby stream. She smiled in front of the camera sounding carefree and smelling of early testosterone, but still mindful and conscious of her femininity. She was axed by the judges during the first season when she was close to winning the reality show. The judges said they do not want people in the modeling business who does not have a heart for modeling. Elise was opting for a medical school.

All night, I watched Pearl in all angle, saying to her that she reminds me of Elise. This side her cheeks, like a young boy’s, were brave to the young world. On this side, her eyes melted with the softness of the night and the warm lights of the bar. Then someone commented about her hair. For the first time did I realized that they were cut so short that she was really a boy. Throughout the night, someone kept on passing behind us and taunted Pearl’s being boy. But she was so goddamned beautiful.

The night I saw Pearl I was told that Elise was the only one who really took up modeling and became successful in Asia’s modeling circuit. Two nights ago I saw Elise on FTV. She was First Face for a Korean brand. Elise still possessed her waif boyishness, sporting a hair made trendy fifteen years ago by the original waif-boy face, Kate Moss. Elise also walked the Kate Moss walk: slow, heavy crossed walk with bony shoulders in constriction. Only when Elise reached the end of the ramp did she turned, smiled, twisted, grinned and glared. What was that? But she was applauded.

***

I could have written more things aside from pageantry and modeling. But just last week our computer crashed. The hardware is okay only there is something wrong with the system that prevents the goddamned thing from turning on. Plus, the CPU buzzes in strange whirs. Someone said it was only the cooling system.

Tonight, ABS-CBN is again airing the 2007 Miss Universe. I can not wait to look at Miss USA’s face again. And next Tuesday on RPN, we will witness who will take the title as the first Philippine’s Next Top Model, hosted by Ruffa Gutierez-future-ex-Bektas with Wilma Doesnt, Robbi Carmona and Xander as the panel of judges.

Whoa. The monitor is blinking again. My face is getting hot. I need to cool down.

6/3/2007 3:16:19 AM

demo

Demo

If it were not for the free snack,
I would not be here where
the room darkens as
conversations die into hushes and into
complete silence in the background.
The big screen blinks white, then
winks blue, then into
a myriad of flashing images of
glistening frying pans and
glowing electric stoves and
shining blades slicing through
bleeding tomatoes like
sliding away samurai limbs.
“This is our latest product,” says
the man in black suit and
blinding white smile.
He takes out a metal rod,
lengthens it by pulling its tip and
points to the screen
slashing the images into two.
“This one is best for cooking eggs.”
His gaze searches the crowd for
a willing face to help
his trembling hands.
He finds mine and
pulls me into a table where
white lights shouts like
a child drowning in black water.
“This is made with high precision.”
I pick the knife and
rub the dark handle with its rough plasticity.
The blade shines in the white lights as
it slices onions and
minces garlic cloves and
cuts my finger into two.
The appendage falls and
rolls on the floor into
the darkness where the crowd holds its gasps
while the wound burns from
the thickening organic juices.
I clutch my hand and
run to an open door where
orange lights are seeping through.
I left but not before
grabbing a plastic bowl
filled with onion-and-garlic soup.

This is not for You

This is not for You 

The last look through the window is the hardest
as the thought heavies
like a stone dropping into an empty well.
It screams as it hits the bottom,
piercing echoes of deafening mute.

My hands long to touch your face,
as a palm to the glass is always never enough,
to sink my nails into that reflection
which separates what I believe is true
and what is becoming the truth,
like seeing my face fading,
like smelling the sky in a blurring,
to give you more than a fleeting kiss,
to say more than this is all too well.

But I will not touch you
nor even come close to you,
(my hands all trembling,
my breathing pausing)
not to pretend this is not happening,
not to give you another handprint that
will bastardize your drying face.

I want you to break that glass.
To replace that dead hallow inside your chest
with my fist
that will pound
the way your heart beat on your skin,
much harder and much, much stronger
than how you gathered the claws
that singled your life into a wound,
into a mere cry to the world.

I want you to breathe again,
to wake up
and slap the hell out of me
until the brushing of my wet eyelashes
on the back of my arm is nothing more
than a fresh butterfly drying its wings from its cocoon.
I want you to look straight at me
and shake the life in me
until I stop recalling
that they all die too soon,
that butterflies are never free.
I want you to wake up
and tell me that the rain
does not fall to mock us all,
to whisper that the heavens feel our loss,
to caress that the gods did their call.
I want you to break that glass
and scream the hell out of your abyss,
to crawl the hell out of your pit.

I want you to cry
“This is not how I want to die.”
Not bleeding on a cold concrete,
not alone in a side street.
I want you to get up
and tell me how to be there,
to stop the blood from oozing out,
to stop the breaking out of sweat,
to lock up the gates of our hell,
and to assure me it is not too late.

But I want you to have peace,
peace that will make the heavens cry,
peace that will bury your mind.
I want you leave with
a lasting beat that it was not in vain,
to leave with the knowledge
that you are always with us,
never leaving our side,
always playing in our minds.
I want you to go.
I want you to go now.

This is not for you.
And I swear to you,
this is not through.

I may have stared at your face longer than I should,
but not to linger on the last image I will have of you.

now na?

Growing Up

Carelessly you toss your head
into the air while your hands whiten
as you hold tight onto the truck railings.
Child-like spirits die old,
but the scream of sea lives on our skin,
flowing and always thrashing,
never afraid of slipping off.

Our hair races in the night,
never fading but to the denim sky.
Our weights are crushing the brittles nuts,
inside canvas sacks that presses prints
on our dancing bare feet.
The night wind washes our faces,
spacing out our burnt cheeks
(like the kisses we make
on the bottles we share).
You close your eyes to the little lights
wishing summer is not dying so soon.

It may be our young hearts’ desire
that takes chances of what has entrusted.
Forgetting what we are leaving for
you slip your arm around my shoulders
to whisper, “we’re gonna be okay”.
This is not the end,
just another beginning.
Going back to the city takes only a short while
and these hitch-rides quiet us down.