How Could The Poet Deny Her?

How could he deny her,
she the Facebook lover?
The poem is a part of her.

The Argentine name is not hers. Neither is she a Mangyan girl.
When she read the verse, did she recall her lovers?
They who ravished her innocence?

Was the poet thinking of her
That dark and wintry day?

THE LAST DAY OF WINTRY WEATHER, THE MANGYAN MAIDEN AND HER LOVERS

All rights reserved

if i should love again
wails barry manilow on u tube
it's 6:30
in the
still-cold
6th morning
in theodore roetke's worst ugly day
a dark, dark sunday in december

the rain-shattering storm from hawaii
is leaving, the tail wind howling
and lashing the leafless oakwoods
outside the house in winchester

in the grassy yard lined with potted
desert plants, young coconut-like palm trees
quake to the roots, their fronds
swishing
and
swishing
and
swishing
like the black tresses of a frail woman
weeping for her lovers in the night of dreams.*

Andres Miguel Pasion (aka Peter La. Julian)


*Nairaman iti antolohia dagiti dandaniw, "Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger"

FACEBOOK COMMENT

On Philippine Star columnist Alex Magno calling Ricky Carandang and Edwin Lacierda, as liars: Ricky Carandang as a journalist par excellence is not supposed to tamper with the facts; he should know what the Nobel Peace Prize means. Edwin Lacierda, the lawyer as chief presidential spokesperson, is a political flatterer and may not be condemned in the strongest terms. But his orientation--moral, intellectual, cultural--is suspect for one who holds a lofty government position. Decision-making is hard for tyros whose fingers do not walk the yellow pages of history.

Time magazine's Philippine icon of democracy, Cory Aquino, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988, must have been uneasy in her grave. Did Noynoy speak to her memory before the decision to boycott the ceremony in Oslo, Norway was finalized? But then the weak always cowers in fear before the strong and do whatever it perceives the strong wants it to do.

PADRE DAMASO's GIRL

for marietta

may i offer you, mangyan maiden,
this sweet cup of poetry
that you may drink it
and terminate
the ecclesiastical memory?

RP SPIRITUAL POVERTY

POVERTY WHICH CONCERNS the stomach stalks the land where food crops could grow abundantly. On the other hand, graft and corruption in which billions of pesos of pesos go into the greedy pockets, is draining the government coffers. The country is bleeding.

What exactly is ailing the country?

It was a Saturday during the reign of the convicted plunderer JE that a P.E.N (Poets, Essayists, Novelists) International Conference was held at the Oasis Country Resort in San Fernando, LU. We were one of the panelists that included Charlson Ong, Star Columnist Isagani Cruz of La Salle University, Elmer Ordonez and Juan S. P. Hidalgo, Jr.

In attendance were F. Sionil Jose, the 1980 recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and the Communication; Alejandro Roces, Nieves Epistola,our English professor of the University of the Philippines in Diliman Arts, and more than 300 Ilocano writers and English and literature teachers in Region 1.

PLJ introduced Juan S.P. Hidalgo, Jr. who delivered the keynote address while Jose delivered the perennial Jose Rizal Lecture and during the open forum, Jose gave acidic comments on the country's political, social-economic state.

The country is not only suffering from poverty where people get hungry, Jose said. It is suffering from spiritual poverty which is more worst than poverty of the stomach.



to be completed

ILOKANO LITERARY AYATOLLAHS

Dear Errol,

It is 7:30PM here, but it's bright as day even with cirrus clouds in the wide California sky. Summer is ending. I am in my white Rimat t-shirt, and tsinelas my wife and I purchased at a Greenhills mall a day before we took the PAL flight 112 at NAIA Terminal 2 for the 13-hour non-stop flight to LA. It's daylight saving time, just like in Singapore where it is a broad day even if the hours are late and people are still out at 12:00 midnight.

My son, whose house we are staying in Winchester, says it is 10:30 in the morning in the Philippines.

Three days ago, it is 94 degrees F in Hemet, where Anib-Israel and his wife, both nurses, work in the graveyard shift. To the south, in Temecula city, where we purchased a sack of Thai rice at an Asian store, the 12 noon sun was oppressive but I saw an elderly white woman pushing a grocery cart on the pavement and a huge black man jogging on the treeless highway. Awan ti abbong ti uloda.

Where did we leave off re discussion on Saluyot literature? Ah, that one in Amarillo, Texas. Wen, bay-an latta idan ngem makidangadangka latta babaen  ti panagsurat--daniw, sarita,salaysay--adu a sinurat a kas iti kaadu ti problema dita. Layusem ti Bannawag ken dagiti pasalip. Ngem masapul ti disiplina ti panagsurat. Tuladem latta ti gramatika ken estilo ti kunkunada a magasin dagiti Ilokano, ngem saan a ti nagelgelen a subject matter wenno estraktura ti presentasion iti sinurat.

But what used are these writings if they are not published and read by Ilocanos who read the magazine?

What's important is that you write the fiction, the poems, the novels, and the features. These are historical documents of the kind of life you lead and the people that roam and live and love and hate and die, perhaps, as you see them grapple with their own problems and other difficulties in the land that nurtured you. There is much to see and bear witness to and record in the landscape of the mind. Gather the facts that will translate into beautiful fiction, poetry of memory.

Mainaig iti panagimutektek, can we develop a Milan Kundera, the Czechoslovakian writer, (diac pay ketdin ammo ti ispelingna--ammoc laeng a Prague ti setting ti obra maestrana a "The Lightness of Being") who can manipulate similar materials and experience into a truly Ilokano novel?

Going back to the weekly magazine headed by the person whose father-in-law appeared to have mismanaged the funds for the construction of the writers' house in Suso. (Santa Maria nga ina ti Dios! Macatitileng ti ulimek dagiti bangolan iti daytoy nga isyu. Ket napanan daydi $600 a nai-c/o--nairekord daytoy iti 2005 GF Financial Report? $1,000 daydiay, Manong, inteks ni R.C. a sigud a Bannawag staffer. Wen, Manong, amangan no nasursurok pay, insarurong ti kasimpungalan daydi nangted idi nagkitakami idiay Riverside, CA.)

The practice of the editorial prerogative -the editor's selective policy--is a cold, bloody fact. We can do nothing but accept it.

There is a higher power that will execute punishment on them who have been unfair for doing what is inimical to the interest of their fellow writers, kindred spirits, who also contribute to the growth and development of Litsaluyot?

TWO MODERN HAIKUS*

Wintry Day, California
Brown man in black hooded
jacket jogging. Tree-lined pathway
shining bright in morning rain.

Facebook Lover II
for dulce cantos, dj

frail woman, laughing, in yellowed
photograph criscrosses
the mind: the silence of sunflowers
on hillside in summer.


*Not necessarily the 5-7-5 syllables structure. As ancient practitioners tell us, haiku poetry is the rendering of experience, not a comment on it.
No embellishments. Just the cold bloody facts--what,where, when-- like those Desiree Caluza would gather for her Inquirer news articles.

photo: the author's jogging route in Winchester