(2010) Vol. 58, No. 2

Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights vol. 58 no. 2

Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights 2011

Heights Heights Heights heights Heights Heights Heights heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights Heights heights Heights heights Heights Heights Heights heights Heights Heights heights Heights heights Heights heights Heights heights heights heights heights Heights Heights heights Heights heights heights Heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights heights

Heights vol. lviii no. 2 Copyright 2011 Copyright reverts to the respective authors and artists whose works appear in this issue. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced in any means whatsoever without the written permission of the copyright holder.

This publication is not for sale.

Correspondence may be addressed to: Heights, Publications Room, mvp 202 Ateneo de Manila University, p.o. Box 154, Manila Tel. no. 426-6001 local 5088 heights-ateneo.org Heights is the oYcial literary and artistic publication and organization of the Ateneo de Manila University.

Book and cover design by Jose Fernando Go-Oco Typeset in mvb Verdigris

Contents Carissa Pobre 2 Open Spaces 3 Five Seconds Noelle Pabiton 4 Landless Sandra Nicole Roldan 5 The Safe House Ramon Enrico Custodio M. Damasing 11 Note 12 Libag Vins Miranda 13 Liwayway Heinz Lawrence Ang 14 Reino del Encantos Joven Angelo Flordelis 19 Sabay Kung Gumuho ang Lahat Tina del Rosario 27 Hearing 31 A Study of Glitter and Death Mark Anthony Cayanan 41 As Mirror As Body Deirdre Patricia Z. Camba 45 An Early Morning Ceremony Gian Karlo Dapul 46 Closet Comedy Isabela Cuerva 47 (untitled)

Jose Fernando Go-Oco 50 Apparition Joseph Casimiro 51 Hindi Jay Crisostomo 52 Excerpt from God of the Machine Kristian Sendon Cordero 58 Ang Dahilan Kung Bakit Nag-aaral Akong Magmaneho Rachel Valencerina Marra 59 Nag-uunahan ang mga Ulap Mesรกndel Virtusio Arguelles 67 Linyado Mabi David 73 Lines of Resistance: Some Notes on the Poetic Line 82 Soliloquy 85 Soliloquy 88 Soliloquy

Art Alyza May Taguilaso 92 (G)host 93 Strange Fish Afloat Melanie D. Lim 94 Cuckoo Bird 95 Smoke 96 The Thinking Tree

Natasha Marie Ringor 97 Study of Goats 98 Rooted Margarita A. Chacon 99 Dad and Kuya in the 70’s 100 Pasta Bowl Jessica Amanda Bauza 101 Nebula Jose Tence Ruiz 102 Kabalyero sa Pagitan ng Gabi’t Takipsilim 103 Kabalyero sa Tabing na Bughaw 104 Paraisado Sorbetero (with Danilo Ilag-Ilag) Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan 105 Bitter 107 Eagle Study Pamela O. Celeridad 106 Juss Primae Noctisset John Alexis B. Balaguer 108 The End of Efflorescence Juan Viktor Calanoc 109 Covert Growth 110 Moonlit Bamboo 111 Early Bloom

Editorial It was in 1996 when the Chair first made its appearance as the logo of Heights. The chair was meant to symbolize how the artist and the writer undergo a process of careful thinking, patient interaction and understanding of the Muse before they express their output through their art or words. Simply put — the chair is, quite literally, where you create art.

These days, if we were to think along the same lines, perhaps we’d have to incorporate other things into the emblem — the images of computers and tablets, the logos of Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop. It would certainly clutter things up a bit more; the spines of the folios would be riddled with different sorts of shapes and outlines.

Then again, by doing so, perhaps we would be a little bit more honest, a little bit more aware.

Now, fifteen years after the Heights chair was first used, there is hardly an artist or a writer who does not use the advantages of the now-digital world in order to create his or her art. Even the internal processes of Heights have changed: the minutes of each meeting and deliberation sessions are now computerized and shared via the internet, all submissions are in soft copy. Pen and paper are still invaluable, yes, but now, there is also the convenience of printing and scanning, post-processing and functions like copying and cutting.

It should be of no surprise to the reader that these advances come with their own particular dangers. Where stock photographs are now readily available in a variety of websites, it now becomes easy to “Photoshop” it and pass it off as your own. Where contemporary prose and poetry, scholarly articles and even whole books are now downloadable, it becomes easy to copy and paste.

The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. vi

On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same.

The Ateneo community has already been rocked by a number of events, all taking place within the past two years, that point to plagiarism as a serious threat to the academic community and its greater incarnations in the corporate and judicial worlds. Other authorities, the administration and our own professors included, have already given this the best discussion. Does this apply, however, to art and literature?

It has been said many times over that, in literature and art, there are no new ideas. The themes that are present in the works of art and literature published in this folio have been explored thousands of times, by many different artists and writers — the question, as we so often ask ourselves, in many different variations, is, “Does it say anything new? Is it written in a different way?”

The Supreme Court has ruled that plagiarism can only be prosecuted if malicious intent is proved. The same ruling, expressed differently, has been applied to the Loyola Schools community. We at Heights understand it a little differently. What the questions above point to, more than anything else, is a sense of personal responsibility. Responsibility is always connected to awareness; awareness in this context is realizing the results from one’s actions. Responsibility is about the artist, using his camera in order to capture scenes on the streets and have it say something different about life in the Philippines. It is about the writer, looking for different metaphors and using language differently, in order to evoke a different understanding of, say, loneliness. Instead of appropriation, of simply copying and pasting, whether particular lines or the ideas of another, if you are aware that ‘nothing is original,’ as they say of the arts, then what is asked from you is the proper response. In an academic setting, in the process of writing a research paper, for example, there are the mechanisms of citation and the responsibility of drawing your own conclusions. In the artistic and literary setting, what is asked of you is play: experimentation with the form, images and metaphors, with the kinds of narratives you explore, with the way you choose to look vii

at things and express that point of view. Every situation has an objective demand that arises from the actions taken; responsibility is (fore) seeing the demand and realizing its implications.

The folio that you hold in your hands is the result of our response to the issue of plagiarism. We have played with the form in order to present the blurring of the lines between sameness and originality, of old and new. Similarly, the works featured here, whether artistic or literary, are the product of their creators’ singular responses to the challenge presented by the consistency of the material they are faced with, whether through their chosen medium, themes expressed, or even the constant movements of the world. After all, tension is always present in making art: the tension of quiet contemplation and creative activity, the challenge of originality and the appropriation of materials.

Tina del Rosario and Joseph Casimiro January 2011

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The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seemstobeinconsequentialinthefaceofalltheconveniencesthatthedigitalage provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work.

On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to beinconsequentialinthefaceofalltheconveniencesthatthedigitalageprovides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us.

Thenagain,whenweexamineit,werealizethatitallowsustoappropriate,totake a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same.

The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seemstobeinconsequentialinthefaceofalltheconveniencesthatthedigitalage provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work.

On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to beinconsequentialinthefaceofalltheconveniencesthatthedigitalageprovides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to be inconsequential in the face of all the conveniences that the digital age provides for us. Then again, when we examine it, we realize that it allows us to appropriate, to take a single line or idea and pass them off as part of our own work. On the surface, it appears to be different, to be singular and original, but the content is the same. The copy and paste function seems to be inconse-

carissa pobre

Open Space No one ever notices how we never have a piano over here. I complain about it all the time.

It was only about a year ago, when I would sneak into rooms and attempt at something beautiful.

Now I can barely walk between this wall and this open space, without lifting a finger playing for a key that isn’t there.

None of these rooms care for us and the only thing we have left is this open space, that houses nothing beautiful and cannot even echo a sound.

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carissa pobre

8:53:06 to 8:53:11 Strangely I realized one evening I could die, and the body sitting in the front seat of the car would have mirrors upon mirrors of glass in her hair, crowning the last few moments of ever knowing she was alive.

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noelle pabiton

Landless Rain falls in barrels, Drowns out the senseless Static of a radio, searching For answers or vaguely Familiar sounds. There is Death in the water. Under the Water, the telephone forgets To ring. And voices call Out, losing speech. A father Becomes a child, relearns The movements of his hands – What is to say, I am wet and cold?

But even the towels are damp Dead fish. Legs, slowly lost To the murky water, wonder, What is to walk? How is to walk On water?

4

sandra nicole roldan

The Safe House* From the street, it is one box among many. Beneath terracotta roof tiles baking uniformly in the sweltering noon, the building’s grey concrete face stares out impassively in straight lines and angles. Its walls are high and wide, as good walls should be. A four-storey building with four units to a floor. At dusk, the square glass windows glitter like the compound eyes of insects, revealing little of what happens inside. There is not much else to see.

And so this house seems in every way identical to all the other houses in all the thirty-odd other buildings nestled within the gates of this complex. It is the First Lady’s pride and joy, a housing project designed for genteel middle class living. There is a clubhouse, a swimming pool, a tennis court. A few residents drive luxury cars. People walk purebred dogs in the morning. Trees shade the narrow paths and the flowering hedges that border each building give the neighborhood a hushed, cozy feel. It is easy to get lost here.

But those who need to come here know what to look for – the swinging gate, the twisting butterfly tree, the cyclone-wire fence. A curtained window glows with the yellow light of a lamp perpetually left on. Visitors count the steps up each flight of stairs. They do not stumble in the dark. They know which door will be opened to them, day or night. They will be fed, sometimes given money. Wounds will be treated, bandages changed. They carry nothing – no books, no bags, or papers. What they do bring is locked inside their heads, the safest of places. They arrive one at a time, or in couples, over a span

*

This edited version appeared in the Philippines Free Press on 11 April 2009.

An earlier version was included in the Mondo Marcos anthology (English), edited by Frank Cimatu and Roland Tolentino. Published by Anvil (2010).

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of several hours. They are careful not to attract attention. They listen for the reassuring yelps of squabbling children before they raise their hands to knock.

It is 1982. The girl who lives here does not care too much for the people who visit. She is five. Two uncles and an aunt dropped by the other day. Three aunts and two uncles slept over the night before. It is impossible to remember all of them. There are too many names, too many faces. And they all look the same – too tall, too old, too serious, too many. They surround the small dining table, the yellow lamp above throwing and tilting shadows against freshly-painted cream walls.

They crowd the already cramped living room with their books and papers, hissing at her to keep quiet, they are Talking About Important Things. So she keeps quiet. The flock of new relatives recedes into the background as she fights with her brother over who gets to sit closer to the television. It is tuned in to Sesame Street on Channel 9. The small black and white screen makes Ernie and Bert shiver and glow like ghosts. Many of these visitors she will never see again. If she does, she will probably not remember them.

She wakes up one night. Through the thin walls, she hears the visitors arguing. She can easily pick out one particular uncle’s voice, rumbling through the dark like thunder. He is one of her newer relatives, having arrived only that morning. All grownups are tall but this new uncle is a giant who towers over everyone else. His big feet look pale in their rubber slippers, a band-aid where each toenail should have been. He never takes off his dark glasses, not even at night. She wonders if he can see in the dark. Maybe he has laser vision like Superman. Or maybe like a pirate, he has only one eye. She presses her ear against the wall. If she closes her eyes and listens carefully, she can make out the words: sundalo, kasama, talahib. The last word she hears clearly is katawan. The visitors are now quiet but still she cannot sleep.

From the living room, there are sounds like small animals crying.

She comes home from school the next day to see the visitors crowded around the television. She wants to change the channel, catch the late afternoon cartoons but they wave her away. The grownups are all 6

quiet. Something is different. Something is about to explode. So she stays away, peering up at them from under the dining table. On the tv screen is the President, his face glowing blue and wrinkly like an old monkey’s. His voice wavers in the afternoon air, sharp and high like the sound of something breaking. The room erupts in a volley of curses: Humanda ka na, Makoy! Mamatay ka! Pinapatay mo asawa ko!

Mamatay ka rin! Putangina ka! Humanda ka, papatayin din kita! The girl watches quietly from under the table. She is trying very hard not to blink.

It is 1983. They come more often now. They begin to treat the apartment like their own house. They hold meetings under the guise of children’s parties. Every week, someone’s son or daughter has a birthday. The girl and her brother often make a game of sitting on the limp balloons always floating an inch from the floor. The small explosions like guns going off. She wonders why her mother serves the visitors dusty beer bottles that are never opened.

She is surprised to see the grownups playing make-believe out on the balcony. Her new uncles pretend to drink from the unopened bottles and begin a Laughing Game. Whoever laughs loudest wins. She thinks her mother plays the game badly because instead of joining in, her mother is always crying quietly in the kitchen. Sometimes the girl sits beside her mother on the floor, listening to words she doesn’t really understand: underground, revolution, taxes, bills. She plays with her mother’s hair while the men on the balcony continue their game.

When she falls asleep, they are still laughing.

The mother leaves the house soon after. She will never return. The two children now spend most afternoons playing with their neighbors. After an hour of hide-and-seek, the girl comes home one day to find the small apartment even smaller. Something heavy hangs in the air like smoke. Dolls and crayons and storybooks fight for space with plans and papers piled on the tables. Once, she finds a drawing of a triangle and recognizes a word: class. She thinks of typhoons and floods and no classes.

The visitors keep reading from a small red book, which they hide under their clothes when she approaches. She tries to see why they 7

like it so much. Maybe it also has good pictures like the books her father brought home from China. Her favorite shows zoo animals working together to build a new bridge after the river had swallowed the old one. She sneaks a look over their shoulders and sees a picture of a fat Chinese man wearing a cap. Spiky shapes run up and down the page. She walks away disappointed. She sits in the balcony and reads another picture book from China. It is about a girl who cuts her hair to help save her village from Japanese soldiers. The title is Mine Warfare.

It is 1984. The father is arrested right outside their house. It happens one August afternoon, with all the neighbors watching. They look at the uniformed men with cropped hair and shiny boots. Guns bulging under their clothes. Everyone is quiet, afraid to make a sound. The handcuffs shine like silver in the sun. When the soldiers drive away, the murmuring begins. Words like insects escaping from cupped hands. It grows louder and fills the sky. It is like this whenever disaster happens. When fire devours a house two streets away, people in the compound come out to stand on their balconies. Everyone points at the pillar of smoke rising from the horizon.

This is the year she and her brother come to live with their grandparents, having no parents to care for them at home. The grandparents tell them a story of lovebirds: Soldiers troop into their house one summer day in 1974. Yes, balasang ko, this very same house. Muddy boots on the bridge over the koi pond, strangers poking guns through the water lilies. They are looking for guns and papers, they are ready to destroy the house. Before the colonel can give his order, they see The Aviary. A small sunlit room with a hundred lovebirds twittering inside. A rainbow of colors. Eyes like tiny glass beads. One soldier opens the aviary door, releases a flurry of wings and feathers. Where are they now? the girl asks. The birds are long gone, the grandparents say, eaten by a wayward cat. But as you can see, the soldiers are still here. The two children watch them at their father’s court trials. A soldier waves a gun, says it is their father’s. He stutters while explaining why the gun has his own name on it.

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They visit her father at his new house in Camp Crame. It is a long walk from the gate, past wide green lawns. In the hot sun, everything looks green.

There are soldiers everywhere. Papa lives in that long low building under the armpit of the big gymnasium. Because the girl can write her name, the guards make her sign the big notebooks. She writes her name so many times, the S gets tired and curls on its side to sleep. She enters a maze the size of the playground at school, but with tall barriers making her turn left, right, left, right. Barbed wire forms a dense jungle around the detention center. She meets other children there: some just visiting, others lucky enough to stay with their parents all the time.

On weekends, the girl sleeps in her father’s cell. There is a doubledeck bed and a chair. A noisy electric fan stirs the muggy air. There, she often gets nightmares about losing her home: She would be walking down the paths, under the trees of their compound, past the row of stores, the same grey buildings. She turns a corner and finds a swamp or a rice paddy where her real house should be.

One night, she dreams of war. She comes home from school to find a blood orange sky where bedroom and living room should be.

The creamy walls are gone. Broken plywood and planks swing crazily in what used to be the dining room. Nothing in the kitchen but a sea green refrigerator, paint and rust flaking off in patches as large as thumbnails. To make her home livable again, she paints it blue and pink and yellow. She knows she has to work fast. Before night falls, she has painted a sun, a moon and a star on the red floor. So she would have light. Each painted shape is as big as a bed. In the dark, she curls herself over the crescent moon on the floor and waits for morning.

There is no one else in the dream.

Years later, when times are different, she will think of those visitors and wonder about them. By then, she will know they aren’t really relatives, and had told her names not really their own. To a grownup, an old friend’s face can never really change; in a child’s fluid memory, it can take any shape. She believes that people stay alive so long as an-

9

other chooses to remember them. But she cannot help those visitors even in that small way. She grows accustomed to the smiles of middle aged strangers on the street, who talk about how it was when she was this high. She learns not to mind the enforced closeness, sometimes even smiles back. But she does not really know them. Though she understands the fire behind their words, she remains a stranger to their world. She has never read the little red book.

Late one night, she will hear someone knocking on the door. It is a different door now, made from solid varnished mahogany blocks.

The old chocolate brown plyboard that kept them safe all those years ago has long since yielded to warp and weather. She will look through the peephole and see a face last seen fifteen years before. It is older, ravaged, but somehow the same. She will be surprised to even remember the name that goes with it. By then, the girl would know about danger, and will not know whom to trust. No house, not even this one, is safe enough.

The door will be opened a crack. He will ask about her father, she will say he no longer lives there. As expected, he will look surprised and disappointed. She may even read a flash of fear before his face wrinkles into a smile. He will apologize, step back. Before he disappears into the shadowy corridor, she will notice his worn rubber slippers, the mud caked between his toes. His heavy bag. She knows he has nowhere else to go. Still, she will shut the door and push the bolt firmly into place.

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ramon enrico custodio m. damasing

Note I leave you.

On the bridge, my letter falls.

Our prayer unfolds And blesses your feet.

The river rushes. Silently Contrition marks a street.

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ramon enrico custodio m. damasing

Libag Kabibeng nananaginip, Kamay nating magkahawak.

Sa higpit ng pagkakapit, Nabuo ang isang perlas.

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vins miranda

Liwayway Kilalanin ang babaeng si Liwayway: Maalindog, sa asawa ay hiwalay.

Sa tindera ng matamis na kalamay, Pamilyado o binata ay lupaypay.

13

heinz lawrence ang

Reino del Encantos “Ysarado mo na an entrada.”

Tumango si Lino bago niya tinulak papasara ang malalaking narrang pinto ng Iglesia de Santiago; nakaukit doon ang imahen ng patrong nakasakay sa kabayong pandigma, nakikipaglaban sa mga kaaway ng Kristiyanismo. Ngunit hindi nawari ng munting sakristan ang kahulugan ng mga ito habang ikinandado niya ang simbahan.

Kumalabog ang mabibigat na kahoy. Ang tanging alam lang niya ay iniutos ni Padre Claudia, kura paroko ng S—, na isara ang entrada.

At ayon sa kanyang Nanay, ang utos ng prayle ay hindi mababali.

“Jala, halica, hijo, sumama ca sa aquin,” sambit ng fraile sa kanyang pilipit na dila. “Madali!”

Hinablot ni Padre Claudia ang manipis na braso ng sakristang si Lino at kinaladkad ito papalayo sa pasukan, papalayo sa mga rebultong anghel na nag-aalay ng agua bendita, papalayo sa mahahabang upuang ngayon lamang hindi napupuno ng mga deboto’t relihiyoso (at ngayo’y Domingo, gunita ng bata), papalayo sa labindalawang makukulay na bintanang naglalarawan sa mga Apostoles.

Nais ni Linong dumaing, umaray, sumigaw — mabigat ang kamay ni Padre Claudia — ngunit alam niyang lalo lamang siyang mapaparusahan. Noong nakaraang tatlong buwan, habang patungo siya sa simbahan upang magsakristan, may lalaking sumulpot mula sa matataas na damuhan ng kugon. Inabot nito kay Lino ang isang paketeng nakabalot sa dahon ng saging. “Importante iyan. Ipamahagi mo,” wikang pabulong ng tao, sabay lakad nang mabilis, ibinababa ang kanyang salakot. Hindi na tuloy nakita ng sakristan ang itsura ng lalaking iyon. Nagkibit-balikat na lamang siya at binuksan ang iniabot na pakete.

Puno ito ng mga pulyeto. Pinag-aralan niya ang isa sa mga ito. Pahiwas na nakasulat sa malalaking titik: “NO... LI... noli... me... TANG... tang?”

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Hindi niya maintindihan ang pahayag: hawig ito sa Kastila, wari niya, ngunit hindi pa naituro sa kaniya ni Padre Claudia ang mga naturang kataga. Sinubukan niyang basahin ang mga maliit na linyang nakasulat sa bandang ibaba ng papel.

“Vi... va... viva.” Mabuhay. Lagi niyang naririnig mula kay Padre Claudia: Viva el Rey. Mabuhay ang Hari. At laging sinusundan ito ng papuri sa “totoon hari nan España.” Kung sino man siya. Ngunit napansin ni Lino na hindi Don Carlos o Don Alfonso ang nakasulat, kundi, “Viva... Don... Jose... Ri... Rizal.” At pagkatapos into, “Viva... la... Re... revo...”

Hindi natapos ni Lino ang pagbibigkas ng huling salita. Hindi pa siya matatas sa Kastila, sabi niya sa sarili. Ngunit alam niyang paa ng fraile ang nakaguhit sa bandang ibaba: balbon ito tulad ng matabang paa ni Padre Claudia. Ang bahaging itaas naman ay kawangis ng isang dilag. Isang kapre! Mananangal! Naisip ni Lino na marahil isang pulyeto tungkol sa mga aswang ang iniabot sa kaniya ng lalaki.

Laging naikwekwento sa kanya ng Nanay ang mga sinaunang alamat — mga alamat tungkol sa mga kalahating-tao’t kalahating-halimaw na nagkukubli sa gubat, naghihintay ng susunod na mabibiktima. Sabi ng Nanay, marami silang nag-aabang lamang sa labas ng bayan, nagnanakaw ng bigas at reales sa araw (sapagkat kailangan ito ng kanilang bahaging-tao) at dumadakip ng mga bata, babae, at matatanda sa gabi (para sa sikmura ng kanilang bahaging-halimaw).

Binalak niyang makauwi agad mula sa simbahan upang itanong sa kanyang Nanay kung tungkol nga saan ang natanggap niyang pakete.

Pagkarating na pagkarating niya sa simbahan ay tinawag siya ni Padre Claudia upang samahan siya sa pagdarasal. Hindi naiwasan ni Linong mapa-“eeeeh!” — ayaw niya sa lahat ang lumuhod sa harap ng altar habang tumatagulaylay ng ilang oras ang katabing prayle — at dahil doon ay napabaling ang matalas na tingin ng padre sa kanya, at pati na rin sa paketeng kanyang dala. Tila lintik ang kamay ni Padre Claudia noong inagaw niya ito sa sakristan, at sa lakas ng kaniyang paghila ay nagsikalat ang mga papel sa batong sahig. Pinulot ng prayle ang isa sa ito. Binasa. Namutla ang kanyang karaniwa’y mamulamulang pisngi.

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“Ano ito? Saan mo nacuha an mana folleton ito?”

Napailing lamang si Lino.

“At alam mo ba cun toncol saan an mana ito?” Nanlalaki ang mga mata noon ni Padre Claudia. “Jala! Sagot, madali!” “...Mga aswang po, P–Padre.”

Halos mamilay-milay pa sa tinanggap na panghahambalos ang mga binti ni Lino noong umakyat sa pulpito ang padre at nag-homiliya sa kanyang buong parokya.

“Caiingatan niño an iñon mana caloloua, mana capatir con Cristiano!”

Nagkalat na ang mga aswang, mga demonyo, mga walang relihiyon at walang pakundangan, sa paligid ng S—, dagdag pa ng prayle.

Tumaas ang kanyang tono. Tila tumatawag ng kulog at kidlat ang kanyang matatabang kamay na nakataas sa langit. Marami nang mga palay na nanakaw, mga dalagitang nahalay, mga buhay na nakitil! Hiyaw ng kura. At kung hindi mag-iingat...!

“Iwasan niño an mana folleto na ito — mana licha nan mana cafre at erehe at demoño! Matacot cayo sa infierno!...”

Ngunit wala naman siyang ginawang masama nagyon, sabi ni Lino sa kanyang sarili habang patuloy siyang hinihila ni Padre Claudia patungo sa altar. Natupad naman niya lahat ng mga utos ng mayedad nang prayle. Naihanda niya ang tinapay at alak. Malinis naman ang simbahan. Noong madaling araw pa lamang ay inakyat na niya ang tore, tulad ng kanyang nakagawian, at ipinatunog ang kampana.

“Maaga pa lan at cailanan nan tawagin an mana taombayan, hijo,” laging bilin sa kanya ng kura paroko. “Alam mo naman an catamaran niñon mana Indio — laguin huli para sa Santa Misa! Dios mio!”

Ilang ulit hinila ni Lino ang tali: isa, dalawa, tatlo, apat... labinlimang beses tumugtog ang kampana ng Iglesia de Santiago. Subalit walang dumating upang makinig sa Santa Misa. Mula sa tore nakita ni Lino ang mistula’y kakahuyan ng mga pinatulis na kawayang gumagalaw, umiikot, pumapalibot sa dakong dulo ng barrio, malayo sa abot ng tugtog-batingaw. Tila isanlibong kulisap na umaaligid papasok at papalabas ng naturang kagubatan ang mga sulong bitbit ng mga tao, mga taong may dala-dalang mahahabang kawayan, mga ta16

ong nagpruprusisiyon, makikipista, sa sapantaha ni Lino, sa dako pa roon.

Marahil iyon ang ikinagagalit ni Padre Claudia, wari ng sakristan.

Sa galit ng prayle ay sinipa niya ang likuran ng altar — at bumigay ang hanay ng mga anghel na nakaukit sa puting kahoy. Nakita ni Lino ang isang batong hagdanang pababa mula altar patungo sa kadiliman.

Nanginig ang kanyang tuhod.

“Jala! Pasoc ca! At huag can maingay!”

Halos itinulak siya ng kura paroko patungo sa lihim na hagdan.

Nadulas si Lino sa isa sa mga batong hakbang at nagpagulong-gulong siya hanggang lumagpak sa malamig at mamasa-masang lupa.

Nasa isang nitso siya, nawari ni Lino, o di kaya’y isang masikip at isang madilim na yungib: sinaunang sinapupunan ng mundong ibabaw, ayon sa kanyang Nanay, ang tagong reyno ng mga dwende at mga kapre at ang mga diwata ng lumang mundo.

“Padre! Padre!” sinubukan niyang magmakaawa. Subalit hindi mababali ang utos ng prayle. At ang iniutos ng prayle: “Huag can maingay!” Sinarado muli ni Padre Claudia ang altar, tumatagulaylay, “...At iadiya mo cami sa lahat nan masama. Amen...” Tuluyang nagdilim ang lahat.

Hindi makahiga nang maayos ang sakristan. Mahapdi ang kanyang braso at masakit ang kanyang tagiliran, at wala siyang puwang upang umunat at ayusin ang kaniyang pagkakahiga. Habang nanginginig sa lamig at takot, namaluktot na lamang si Lino.

Nagbubuga nga ba talaga ng apoy ang ilong ng mga kapre? Buo kaya siyang lalamunin ng mga aswang, o pipirasu-pirasuhin kaya muna siya bago kainin?

Kumulog. O kulog nga ba ang tunog na iyon? Naalala ni Lino ang kwento ng Nanay: ang bawat hakbang ng tikbalang ay kulog, at ang hagupit ng buntot nito ay kidlat.

Kumulog muli. “¡Puñeta! ¡Carga y descarga, ‘pañeros! ¡Fuego!”

Umalingawngaw ang sigaw sa nitso. Fuego — apoy, nabanggit ni Lino sa sarili. Subalit hindi niya naaninagan ang nagbabagang apoy ng cafre.

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Kumulog nang tatlo pang ulit. Sa ikatlong kulog ay yumanig ang buong lagusan. “¡Avance, hermanos! ¡Avance, ‘pañeros!”

Malabo ngunit malago, ang tinig ni Padre Claudia: “Huag cayo magpaputoc! An simbahan ay tirahan nan Dios sa Caitaasan!” At, sa huli, matinis: “Huag magpa — !”

“Padre! Padre!” sigaw ni Lino. Papalapit na ang kapre, wari niya.

Kumukulog at nagliliyab ang apoy. “Por favor, Padre! Pakawalan niyo po ako, Padre, parang awa niyo na!”

Ngunit hindi umabot ang mga sigaw ng batang sakristan sa ibabaw, sa gumuhong Iglesia de Santiago. Basag ang mga dating makukulay na bintana, at nagkalat ang pira-pirasong bahagi ng mga nakapintang Apostoles sa bitak-bitak na sahig ng simbahan. Nabuwal ang mga higanteng narrang entrada, at ang imahen ng dakilang Santiago ay nakalagpak sa duguang lupa. Nagbunyi ang mga taga-S—.

Nagpaputok muli ng kanyon. Ang iba’y nagsimula nang angkinin ang mga gintong santino at kandelabra. Ang iba’y sumugod sa tabernakulo at, gamit ang tabak, ay binuksan ito. “¡Para los perros!” wika ng iba. Walang pumansin sa dilat-matang pakiusap ng nakahandusay na Padre Claudia — “Huag magpaputoc! Ito ay tirahan nan Dios!” — habang iwinagayway ng taumbayan ang kanilang mga matataas na kawayang sibat at pinaputok ang kanilang mga armas. “¡Viva la Revolucion! ¡Viva!”

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joven angelo flordelis

Sabay Kung Gumuho ang Lahat Sa labas ng iyong kuwarto, rinig mo ang dagundong ng pagkatok ni David sa iyong pintuan. Umuungol din siyang parang may batong nakabara sa bibig. Tatanungin mo sana sa iyong sarili kung bakit ganoon na lamang ang sunud-sunod na mga katok, subalit nagdalawang-isip ka dahil para sa iyo, hindi katok ang mga pinakawalan niya. Sa tindi, tila binabambo ni David ang hamak na pintuan ng kung anong matigas na bagay: silya ba ang ipinampupukol niya? Ang lamesa ninyo sa sala? O ’di kaya’y mismong ang kaniyang ulo na ang iniuuntog niya sa pinto, buksan mo lamang ito — naisip mo.

Buti na lamang sa narra yari ang pintuang iyon. Kung hindi, bumigay na rin ito kasabay ng mga jalousie na tulad mo, nanginginig din sa kaba. Pati ang mga cd na nakahimlay sa stereo, sina Kitchie Nadal, John Mayer, at Rico Blanco, ginambala na rin ng mga katok sa kanilang pagkakahimbing. Isa-isa silang nagsilaglagan sa lapag na de-parquet, ngunit wala kang naririnig kundi ang patuloy na dagundong sa pinto. Nilunod ng ingay ang kanilang pagkabasag, at nang magtagpo ang mga mata ninyo ni Beyonce, dumugo ang kaniyang balintataw ng pinong salamin mula sa basag na casing.

Ang electric fan, gumagawa rin ng eksena doon sa sulok. Hindi niya mapigilan ang pag-iling-iling-iling; nababaliw na yata. Ikot nang ikot ang leeg nito’t para bang sinapian ng kung anong lalang. Hindi mo maintindihan kung bakit, wala pang 7:00 ng umaga, nangyayari na ang lahat ng ito sa inyong bahay.

“David, teka. Ano ba?!” sigaw mo habang tumutulo pa mula sa iyong bibig ang pinagmumugang Colgate. Nahirapan kang pihitin ang doorknob dahil basa pa ang iyong mga kamay sa kasisipilyo.

“Sandali!” singit mo sa mga katok na para bang naririnig ka ni David sa labas.

“Oo. Heto bubuksan na!” nang sa wakas, mabuksan mo ang pinto, tumambad sa iyo ang —.

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Si David, walang bibig.

Pinilit mong umutal ng salita ngunit wala kang nagawa kundi magitla at manlaki ang mga mata. Tuluyan na ring umagos sa gilid ng iyong bibig ang maladagtang mumog mula sa iyong pagsisipilyo kanina. Hindi ka makapaniwala sa nakikita mo ngayon. Isang mukhang walang bibig. Nangingilid ang luha sa mga mata ni David, at sabay kayong nagtanong gamit ang inyong mga mata. Napatanong ka nang hindi mo namamalayan, “Pa’no? Ano’ng nangyari?”

Inusisa mo ang kaniyang hitsura. Sa loob-loob mo, nangamba kang baka mayroon pang ibang nawala sa katawan ng iyong kapatid.

Ang mga mata ni David, naroon pa rin ang itim ng mga iyon; bilugan pa rin sila. Bukal man ngayon ng luha ang mga ito, nagpapasalamat kang buo pa rin ang mga mata niya. Ang ilong, sinipat mo ang mga butas. Tama, dalawa pa rin. Tainga naman. Gamit ang iyong hintuturo at hinlalaki, pinisil-pisil mo ang magkabilang tainga ni David na para bang limang-daang salapi ang mga ito’t sinisigurado mo ang katotohanan.

“Ngmm. Ngmm!” iniwas ni David ang kaniyang ulo mula sa iyong mga kamay, at paulit-ulit niyang itinuro ang espasyong dating kinalagakan ng kaniyang mga labi — na ngayo’y balat na lamang. Pinagmasdan mo ito nang mabuti. Sa isip mo, hindi mo alam kung ano ang titingnan, dahil wala ka naman talagang sinisipat. Mula sa ilong ng kawawa mong kapatid, iginala mo ang iyong paningin paibaba. Oo, naroon pa rin ang binatilyong mga buhok, malambot pang tulad ng mga hiblang matatagpuan kapag itinaas mo ang iyong bangs. Ngunit bigote pa rin nga bang matatawag ang linya ng buhok na iyon ngayong wala na ang bibig? At kasunod nito, sa gawing ibaba, kayumanging balat; na magtatapos sa bilugang baba ng iyong kapatid. Iyon na ang mukha ni David. Iyon lamang.

“Teka! Kukuha ako ng papel,” magmamadali kang maghanap ng papel sa inyong sala, ngunit pangungunahan ka na ng iyong kapatid at ilalabas niya ang kaniyang Cattleya at isang lapis na kanina pa pala niya tangan. Mabilis niyang isusulat ang dalawang salitang lalong magpapagulo ng lahat:

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Si Mommy Hindi mo alam kung dahil ba sa lamig ng marmol na papag ng inyong sala kaya nagyeyelo rin ang iyong mga paa. Mabilis na kumalat ang lamig sa buo mong katawan. Walang anu-ano’y kumaripas ka ng takbo at tinawid mo ang kalawakan ng inyong sala. Pinanhik mo ang hagdan sa dulo nito, patungo sa kuwarto ng inyong ina sa itaas. Nangangamba ka.

“Ma? Ma!” mabilis ang pagkatok mo sa pintuan ng master’s bedroom. “Ma? Pakibukas lang ’tong pinto.” Kung anu-ano na ang naiisip mo habang nakadikit ang tainga mo sa pintuang narra rin ang yari.

Halos magniig na ang iyong tainga sa makinis na pisngi ng kahoy, at may kung ano’ng humihila sa iyo paloob; parang batobalani, hindi, tila mismong buwan ang nasa likod ng pintuang ito. At ikaw ang dagat na hinahatak niya.

Napatingin ka sa mga mata ni David. Ilog pa rin ang mga ito sa patuloy na pag-agos ng luha. Nag-aabang siya sa kung ano’ng balita ang ihahayag mo. Ngunit wala ka namang masabi. Ang tanging naisip mo, matapos mawalan ng bibig si David, ano pa kayang kababalaghan ang nagaganap sa likod ng pintuan sa harap mo?

Blag!

Sinipa ni David ang pinto. Hindi ka makapaniwalang kaya ng labing-isang taong gulang na binata maglabas ng ganoong puwersa.

Naalala mo bigla, nagtaka ka, kung paanong dalawang linggo lang ang nakararaan, umuwing luhaan ang iyong kapatid, dahil aniya, habang pauwi na sila mula eskuwela, itinapon ng mga pilyong bata sa labas ng schoolbus ang baon niyang ham and cheese.

Nabuksan nga ang kuwarto sa isang yabag ng pintuan, at dalidali naman ninyong pinasok ang silid. Makulimlim sa buong kuwarto — madilim. Tila pang alas-singko ng madaling-araw ang lamlam

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ng pag-iilaw. Hindi mo maintindihan sapagkat sa pagkakaalala mo, halos alas-7 na ng umaga. Maiisip mong dapat may araw na. Titingin ka kung saan-saan. Tiningnan mo ang digital clock na nakapatong sa tarangkahan ng iyong ina. Sa gitna ng mga mamahaling pabango, pinabanguhang pulbos at suklay na halos walang lagas na hibla ng buhok, kababago pa lamang ng orasan: 7:08 am, tipa nito. Magagawi ang mga mata mo sa bintana. Nasa labas ang liwanag ng umaga ngunit sa loob ng kwarto, nilalamon ng dilim ang araw. At titingin ka sa gawing ibaba, kung saan dapat, sa pagkakaalala mo, magtatagpo ang dingding at ang sahig. Ngunit tila wala ang hangganang ito, sapagkat ginugulo ang paningin mo ng oo, tubig.

Kinakalabit ka ngayon ni David. At para bang magigising ka sa isang panaginip, titingnan mo siya. Itinuturo niya sa iyo ang basa ninyong mga paa. Magigtla ka dahil oo nga, basa na kayo. Ipinadyakpadyak mo ang kaliwa mong binti para tiyakin kung tama ba ang naiisip mo. Tama, bumabaha sa loob ng kuwarto.

Hahanapin mo kung saan nanggagaling ang tubig. Magmamadali kang pumunta sa banyo ng master’s bedroom, at makikita mong nakapatay naman ang lahat ng gripo at overhead shower. Kahit ang bidet, tuyo rin naman. Wala ring tagas ang tubo ng lababong gawa sa salamin. Tuyo ang lahat maliban sa tiles ng lapag na ngayo’y nilulunod na rin ng pumapasok na tubig.

Dahil walang kinahantungan ang iyong pag-iimbestiga, babalikan mo ang mismong kuwarto ng iyong ina. Higit nang mas madilim ngayon. Sa pagkakataong ito, mapapansin mo’ng tila may higit na karimlang bumabalot sa gawing itaas. Sinubok mong sipatin ang naaalala mong puting kisame ng kuwarto ngunit lubhang makapal ang kung anong usok na tumatakip dito, at wala kang ibang nakikita kundi iyon. Lumiliwa-liwanag ang usok. Ngunit didilim muli.

Kidlat!

Isang mabilis at matalas na silahis ang liliwanag sa gawi ng tarangkahan. Biglang magliliyab ang digital clock na kanina’y naglinaw sa

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iyo ng oras. Ngayon, tinutupok ito ng apoy at bigla rin namang masusugpo. Sa kalauna’y hahalo ang usok nito sa karimlang nasa itaas.

Isang malalim na ingay ang tila paparating. Hindi mo alam kung saan ito nanggagaling basta’t alam mong tunog ito ng usok na tila may sarili nang buhay. At bago mo pa malamang sa itim na usok nagmula ang kulog na iyon, sa iyong basang mga kamay, biglang may pilit na isiniksik si David. Ikinukuyom niya ang isang sapal ng basang papel, at ngayo’y binabasa mo ito: Mga anak, Habang sinusulat ko ito, ako’y naglalaho.

Nagising ako ngayong araw na lumulutang ang pakiramdam — ibang-iba sa bigat ng nakalipas na dalawang linggo. Pero tulad ng nakagawian, binuksan ko pa rin ang aking journal para sumulat. Sa unang pagkakataon, matapos umalis ng inyong ama, hindi ako susulat para sa aking sarili.

Para pawiin ang lumalamong lungkot sa aking puso, hindi. Ang liham na ito ay para sa inyo, upang malaman ninyo kung gaano ko kayo kamahal. Kayo na lamang. Sa huling sandali ng aking buhay, lumuluha pa rin ako ngunit pinipili kong manatili rito.

Laging magbabantay, Emma Mapapansin mong tila nababasa ang iyong bumbunan ng patak ng tubig. Isa, dalawa, dahan-dahang darami. Umaambon na sa loob

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ng kuwarto ng iyong ina ngunit banayad ito at walang banta ng paglakas. Titingala ka para apuhapin kung saan nanggaling ang mga patak. Saan pa nga ba? Sa lulutang-lutang na ulap. At kay bigat niya.

Bigla-biglang sisindi ang flat screen sa may dingding. Mangangamba kang makuryente dahil alam mong baha na sa loob ng kwarto. Ngunit papunta ka pa lamang sana sa outlet, nakita mo nang hindi naman nakasaksak ang plug ng tv. Gayumpaman, patuloy pa ring nagsalita ang weatherman sa pang-umagang programang hindi mo alam ang pamagat: “Magandang umaga Metro Manila! Ang temperatura para sa araw na ito ay 30° c. Tamang-tama para sa mga magbabarkadang gustong mag-beach, o para sa mga pamilyang gutsong lumabas! Mabut—” Matutulilig ang iyong pandinig at magdidilim ang iyong paningin.

Kukuha ka ng kung anong matigas na bagay at ihahampas mo ito sa pagmumukha ng reporter. Mamamatay sa wakas ang flat screen.

“Magpapaalam na ho ako,” lilingunin mo ang bagong boses sa may pintuan at makikita mo si Angie, ang inyong katulong. May panibagong kislap sa kaniyang mga matang hindi mo napapansin dati tuwing magpapatimpla ka ng iced tea. “Makakauwi na ho ako sa Donsol.”

Sabay na kukunot ang mga noo ninyo ni David. At kung makapagsasalita lang sana ang iyong kapatid, tiyak ito rin ang kaniyang pagsusumamo: “Angie, please, huwag ngayon.”

Ngunit huli na ang lahat. Tila biningi na siya ng tinimping kagalakan, at dahan-dahan siyang naghubad. Tinanggal niya ang kaniyang uniporme at sa proseso, inilantad niya sa buong kuwarto ang kaniyang bagong sarili. Dahan-dahan, unti-unti, bumubuka ang sa husga mo’y pakpak sa kaniyang likuran. Ginto ang mga balahibo nito’t may luwalhating ngayon mo lamang namalas. Ipinagaspas niya ang mga ito nang walang pag-aalinlangan — na para bang matagal na niyang napaghandaan ang sandaling ito. Itinutok niya ang tingin sa bukas na bintana at tumakbo siya patungo sa liwanag. Hindi na siya lumingon muli.

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May narinig kang kalabog sa tabi mo. Si David, napaluhod sa baha.

Sinubukan mo siyang kalmahin ngunit hindi mo magawang pigilan ang kaniyang pag-iyak. Bigla niyang kinutkot ang kaniyang mukha — doon sa espasyong iniwan ng kaniyang bibig. Kinakamot niya itong parang may gustong bungkalin; para bang alam niyang may bibig pa sa espasyong iyon, nakatago lamang. Pinatatahan mo siya. Kamot siya nang kamot. Pilit mong pinipigilan ang kamay niya habang nangingilid na rin ang luha sa iyong mga mata. Padiin nang padiin. Hukay nang hukay si David sa kaniyang mukha hanggang sa mapansin mong nagsugat na ito’t binulwakan ng dugo. Umaagos ang itim-pulang likido mula sa mukha ng kapatid mo ngunit wala pa ring bibig si David.

Hindi mo na alam ang gagawin. Wala na ang inyong ina. Lumipad na si Angie, at nagwawala na rin si David. Wala ka nang kasama sa bahay sa sandaling kailangan mo ng tulong. Humahagulgol ka na rin na para bang sa’yo nanggaling ang baha. Ngunit pilit mo mang pigilan, sumasaisip ang isang pangalan: Inton Binigkas na ng isipan mo para sa iyo ang pangalan ng iyong ama.

At kahit iniwan niya kayo para sa iba, naisip mong dapat mo pa rin ata siyang tawagan. Saglit mong iniwan si David at napatingin ka sa telepono. Nasa magkabilang dulo kayo ng kuwarto at tila ang espasyo sa pagitan mo at ng aparato ang humihiwalay na relasyon mo sa iyong ama. Pilit mong binubuhat ang iyong mga paa ngunit pinabigat na ng baha ang bawat hakbang. Alam mong naglalakad ka papalapit ngunit papalyo pa rin ang telepono sa iyo.

Tumakbo ka na bago pa man mawala sa abot-tanaw ang telepono. Nang sa hindi mo malamang kadahilanan, sa wakas ay nahawakan mo rin ang aparato, inangat mo ito at narinig ang matinis na

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tunog ng dialtone. Hindi mo alam kung biyaya bang ito’y gumagana.

Ngunit dinudutdot na ng hintuturo mo ang pamilyar na serye ng mga numero.

Hindi pa man nag-uumpisa ang pagtunog muli ng telepono, may sumagot na sa kabilang linya, “Hello?”

“Pa?” utal mo.

“Sino ‘to?”

Gusto mo sanang sagutin ang simpleng tanong ng iyong ama, ngunit kahit ano’ng gawin mo, bungkalin mo man ang iyong isip tulad ng ginagawa ni David sa mukha niya, hindi mo maalala ang iyong pangalan.

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tina del rosario

Hearing The outer rims of the ears are often compared to the lip of a shell, delicately-ridged and curved, a series of miniature crests and valleys specifically designed to house sound, which is transmitted through a series of vibrations. It is nothing more than frail thrumming – yet this we recognize, feel, like music, like the familiarity of voices, the rushing of water.

I imagine that the first thing we hear, six months into our inception, is life itself: the gentle swelling of water and the roar of silence in such a vacuum, the myriad tremors that cause our small world, within another’s world, to tremble. Elemental, our ears awaken us to life and life receives us through our ears: with the first gentle swat on the body, we scream and wail and come to know ourselves.

Mom used to sing to me from the time she found out she was pregnant, the same song, over and over again. Edelweiss, edelweiss, every morning you greet me, she crooned, in the office while poring over reports, at home, while waiting for my father. Small and white, clean and bright; you look happy to meet me. She continued to sing this to me after my birth, and years afterwards, because it was the only way I could fall asleep. I don’t remember when she stopped. One of the stories she tells me is that late one night, as she was climbing the stairs, she heard me singing to myself in the darkness of the room I shared with others. This made her cry, the way she tells me the story, because I was showing her that I had heard her perfectly.

I grew up with my mother’s lullabies and other sounds, my ears attuned to various things: Dad telling me stories about Kap the Kapre and Pitoy, the sound of car horns signalling the arrival of either my mom or my dad just before dinner, Mom singing old songs, piano keys being played arbitrarily or skilfully, the wails that meant my brother and sister were fighting once again, music from Les Miserables booming out as my siblings and I waved a red cloth and played 27

“Do You Hear the People Sing”, Dad saying HANDS! and the harsh slapping of rubber slippers against palms, requests for water or cookies, everything. There was no time when vibrations did not signal the presence of my family and other people, the walls of my home.

I first learned of the ocean months before our first trip to the beach, when I was all but four years old. Coming home from a trip to the province, Mom and Dad handed each of us decorative shells. They were violet, mottled with black, white and grey. Their edges were scalloped; everything was whittled down to a picture of the sun setting over the ocean that felt cold against our cheeks. They told us to hold the shells to our ears, placing delicate rim against delicate rim, curvature against curvature, and we heard it: the ocean. A slight roaring that did not escalate or diminish: it was just always there. The ocean I heard did not move, but without seeing it, I knew of it, picturing fishes and boats and waves, like the pictures I saw in books.

But, when we first set foot on the beach in Cebu, my brother clutched at our mother, struggling in her arms, while yelling that the boats would run over him. The boats were moving, sometimes closer, sometimes farther – it varied with the ebb and flow of the waves, and I heard it, a roaring that evolved, interspersed as it was with the voices of my family, the sound of boats and fishermen shouting to each other, moving in waves. The sound of the ocean was many things, but, most of all, it pointed to something that was moving, teeming with life.

Tonight, the music from my endlessly-looped playlist wars with dialogue between two women on the tv screen and the humming of the electric fan plugged into the corner of my apartment. Silence is a difficult thing to get used to; it is the most disconcerting thing about living alone. The metallic click of the key in the lock, the groaning of the hinges as I opened the door – all these echoed throughout the rooms of my apartment, and even outside, in the hallway. I could tell, from the sound that the elevator made, which floor it was on; I heard, from the other end of the building, a baby crying. Late at night, no vibrations: silence.

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Perhaps this, the first awareness of silence, was also why everything began to seem bigger, more real to me. One midnight, insistent knocking on a door a few feet down sent me scurrying into the bedroom, door locked, afraid that someone was trying to force his way inside my apartment. I once dreamt that my sister died, and, crying, rushed to the room in which she slept. She looked dead; I bent down and lowered my head near hers, felt the movement of breath against my cheek, heard the sound it made as it swirled past her lips and teeth.

Still scared, I put two fingers on her exposed wrist, and felt her pulse; I heard her heart beating.

I ask to hear: I hold his face in my hands and ask him to tell me he loves me, sometimes playfully, sometimes seriously. I love you nga!

When before, Mom calling every night annoyed me to no end, now, I pick up the phone on the first ring, hoping it is her. Hi Momma, you’re calling agaaaain! Late one night, sitting on the stairs of my apartment building, I asked to hear the question five times, before leaning forward and kissing him. Voices raised in anger are preferable now: I would rather see mouths open, feel the weight of their emotion through the clenched hands that still movement, hear yelling that echoes in my ears, makes my face flush red, than nothing at all. Silence is painful.

A year or two ago, I felt a sudden, sharp pain in my ear. I screwed my face up in pain, cupping my hand to it and waiting cautiously. I thought it was nothing, just a momentary twinge, but another came along and the shelter of my cupped hand echoed a shuffling, a scuffling. An insect had found its way through the curves and trapped itself in the canal. Dad said it hurt because it was scratching or biting at my eardrum, trying to get out – and we had to get it out, had to help it out.

This was what they did: I tilted my head to the side, clenching my hands because the pains were getting more frequent as it did its best to find a way out, and they poured organic oil in my ear. I felt the viscous fluid falling into the space, at first, drop by drop, and then a thick, steady stream. It was silent again, except for the weakening struggles 29

of the insect, and I heard it, heard the water ripple slightly, densely, again and again, and I imagined minute waves emanating from the flailing limbs and antennae of the insect, rippling through the fluid to tap at my eardrum. And then, all of a sudden, silence.

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tina del rosario

A Study of Glitter and Death i

The idea of love was a constant preoccupation from the time I was old enough to understand the story of Lancelot and Guinevere trapped between the pages of my first chapter-book. This strengthened when I watched Beast giving Belle a library of her own, and Thumbelina and Cornelius skimming their toes across the surface of ponds, and oh, how I wanted a Beast, or a Cornelius of my own. And, eventually, I would think to find them in different ways, throughout the years of my childhood and adolescence, first rhapsodizing over them in the diary I started, clumsily, when I was seven and it took me half an hour to labor over a single paragraph.

I rejoiced during playtimes in kindergarten whenever we were able to commandeer the small, rickety nipa hut in the corner of the playground, because Miguel always came running in from the swings, clambering up the few steps to play bahay-bahayan with us. I was always the mommy, and he was the daddy, and we had two children, a dog, and a yaya. Our interaction was limited: as the father, he stayed only for the breakfast I served our small family on small pieces of paper torn from our notebooks, and then drove off to work, the office conveniently located near the swings. And yet, cocoons unfurled, sending millions of fluttering wings dancing all over my nerves – and I never knew what these meant, always just reveling in the fact of our marriage until the ringing of the bell, sharp and tinny, promptly put an end to the whole affair.

Today, other boys’ names jump out at me as I read the pages of my diaries, edged with decorative lines and lined with crisp black letters: Martin, the boy I saw at Sunday mass, every week without fail. He kept my sense of Catholic-schoolgirl guilt active, because I found no way to listen attentively, to pray, when he was a few pews ahead of me.

Jolo, a boy from the village with whom I exchanged over a thousand 31

text messages with every few days, a brief affair that lost its intensity almost as quickly as the fading of the summer heat. Justin, with whom I had danced, slowly, to “The Nearness of You�: the two of us virtually indistinguishable in the crowd of adolescents.

A professor told us that Romeo and Juliet had to die for theirs to be a timeless, celebrated romance, passed from generation to generation like a talisman, an ideal. Their love was only as truthful as it was short-lived. I was always secretly relieved when these little affairs amounted to nothing, just brief memories that I could laugh over later on, when, years later, I could palpably feel the old, worn, giddiness as I read and imagined. I imagined myself to be in love, when I was in the fifth-grade (despite the fact that Martin and I had only had slight contact), and I imagined what it would be like to be kissed in high school. Everything - the jittery feelings, the slow curling of heat in my stomach, sending shivers all the way down to my toes - was important insofar as it was in the imagining, written down, like the tales ending with happily ever after.

And I imagine everything to be much like the golden statues that were fashioned after the lovers, as Shakespeare tells it: glittering sharply, briefly in the rays of sunlight that pass over it, then forgotten in the other things that catch our eye, the skyline of the city, a handsome man, a crying child.

ii

I am not sure how old I was then – but I do remember that I was young enough that I was allowed to venture outside the house that day in a thin sando and red flowered shorts bought cheaply from Divisioria.

Ate Annabelle refused to let me and Patty, my younger sister, change out of the sandos we wore every day under the blouse of our school uniforms because she said it was a waste of laundry, when we had just worn it for half a day, and so I remember that I was young enough to merit only half-days of school.

I also remember it was late afternoon because Patty, Gabby, and I had been allowed to venture out on our own to the park, four streets

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down from ours, an hour earlier. I remember that it was a hot day, because when Gabby pressed his head against my shoulder, while we were walking back, I could feel the beads of perspiration that molded wisps of hair to his forehead. We were hungry, and wanted merienda, and so, we walked back without Ate Shang-Shang being sent to pick us up.

I remember hearing yelps, high pitched squeals as we neared the house, and men speaking loudly to each other in Filipino, and our slippers raised dust from the gravel as we hurried, hands reaching out to grasp each other, as my sister, with her free hand, rattled the gate. It was locked - but the top half was composed of white columns, around three inches across, spaced equally apart, and we were all tall enough to see through them and remember.

I remember construction workers from the house being built next door, clad in faded jeans, and loose shirts of varying colors surrounding a sack that had previously contained rice as the red letters on the front proclaimed. It was squirming, although one of the men was holding it by its knotted top, tied firmly with straw rope wound around and around. It was squirming and yelping, and I was a child, but the keening cries of pain and death tore into my ears, the first time I had ever heard those come from our terrier, imaginatively named Terry, and I knew, I just knew that he was screaming, writhing in the sack as another man struck him again and again and again with a block of wood, long and thick enough to be held comfortably and cause such pain.

I forgot about my sister and my brother, both younger than I was then, both beside me, all three of us with our faces pressed against the bars and screaming so loudly you could no longer tell his cries from ours, so loudly that we drowned out the dull sounds of wood meeting flesh.

I don’t remember what happened afterwards, what we screamed, if we begged them to stop, how long we stood there – did we stand there, clutching the bars of the gate, until someone, maybe Ate Annabelle saw us and dragged us away? Or did we witness everything down

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to the last drawn-out cry, the moment when the sack went limp and the man holding the wood finally lowered his arm, breathing heavily from the force of his exertions?

Later on, after I had succeeded in relegating it to the dust of the memories that gathered in my mind, my Dad handed me a sheaf of papers containing I had written when I was very young. In the many badly-written, misspelled, ink-stained pages (and one small notebook in which I had chronicled my first-grade musings) was a sheet of paper torn from a veco stenography notebook, crisp and white, still, with a notation penned at the end, in my father’s crisp, decisive printing. There, I had written a short piece against animal cruelty because even animals need to be loved, especially pets. I had entitled it “For mY pet DOG.” My handwriting was awkward and ungainly, my feelings badly-expressed and trite, the paragraph filled with grammatical errors and misspelled words, but Dad kept it, not only because I had written it, but because he told me that it was something that had to be remembered.

iii

When I was younger, I often sat, enraptured, on the wooden tiles of my parents’ bedroom as my Dad, speaking with variations in tone and inflection, recounted the day he and Mom first met. My eyes used to widen considerably at the thought of Mom, clad in a power suit with shoulder pads, running across the room, hairpins falling, in pursuit of the man she believed, at first sight, she was going to marry.

I imagined Dad with more pepper and less salt in his hair leaping across chairs, clambering on top of the refrigerator, spilling trays of food as he ducked in between tables, his hard work amounting to nothing, when, finally, Mom cornered him under the mounted electric fans and trapped him inside a brown sack she whipped out of her purse. I thought of Mom, kicking off her heels to make her job easier, as she lugged him to her car and dumped him into the trunk, and how scared my Dad must have been on the drive to Arellano, and how he stared around him, bemused, when my Mom finally let him out of the sack and announced to her family that he was her fiancé.

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This retelling gave birth to my notion of the Great Love Story – a genetic trait that ran in both the Go and del Rosario bloodlines, one that my maternal and my paternal grandparents passed on to their children, and perhaps, someday, to me. On nights when even my Dad’s lullabies, humming interspersed with whistles and occasional lyrics, and pik-pik failed to put me to sleep, Mom and Dad would take turns telling me the stories of their parents, wildly romantic, fit to be turned into a movie script by Walt Disney or written down in a book, like the novels stacked by my Mom’s bedside.

I think of my maternal grandparents - the wink of Angkong’s Rolex caught in the sun, in a window high above the bustling streets of Cebu, in the days when Coca Cola was worth only five centavos.

I think of Ama, still Rosalinda then, dressed in the gray skirt-white shirt-gray tie combination indicative of the San Juan Recoletos college, where she studied pharmacy, walking home to the small house she shared with her large family. I think of the improbability of a forty-five year old Chinese businessman falling in love with a seventeen year old girl barely out of the schoolroom. I imagine him, staid and businesslike, offering her parents enough capital to start a pharmacy in exchange for her hand in marriage, and his signature in black ink across the marriage contract. And of him, years later, kissing his child-bride before leaving for work, and calling her, affectionately, “Linda aku,” while their children slept on in the early morning In Pampanga, I see my Lolo Ato, hair slicked back with pomade, dressed in a thin button-down shirt, driving slowly along the dusty roads to visit friends in a nearby barrio. I see my Lola Ima, face smooth and unlined, hair waved in the fashion then, walking, carrying a number of bundles and baskets. I imagine him offering her a ride, and she, turning him down, because a girl considered to be the prettiest in her community did not just accept a stranger’s courtesy in those days. I imagine my Lolo Ato, running around Lola’s dormitory, surrounded by an abundance of plants and flowers, in a hot Manila night, shouting for her, as the guard dog, unused to male intruders, nipped at his heels, barking furiously. I imagine him, forgetting his exertions and the shirt that clung to his back, as the ice 35

cream slid down his throat like icy threads and saw the look on her face, the first time she had ever tasted ice cream, their first date, and I think of how he proposed marriage three dates later.

Hearing one, or both of these stories kept me sleepless far into the night, nowhere near the intent with which they were told, and when I finally fell asleep, I did so with the certainty that one day, the gene would surface, dominant, in my life.

iv

Pain is what we remember, more than anything else – I remember a friend telling me this, when I caught sight the criss-cross inflammations on the inside of her forearm. I remember, too, asking her why she did that to herself – shouldn’t she then keep a monument to her happiness, as small and frail as it was? I remember her smiling, a little sadly, as she told me, “It’s commemorative, you know. It reminds me that I haven’t cut deeply enough.” Laughably, what flashed through my mind was the image of another friend’s forearm, years before, in the sixth grade, when it had been the fashion among our class to write and draw little things in the same place. There was a technique to it – pressing deeply enough that the tip of the pen scratched against your flesh, leaving not only traces of ink, but a slight raise in the flesh that could be read easily but stung when you touched it.

Everything passes, I told her, forcing the memory out of my mind.

Hurting more won’t take away the root of the problem.

And then, a year or so later, the day came, and it was like a blade, tracing the first of deliberately-drawn lines on the delicate skin of my wrist. That day, I learned that heartbreak is the farthest thing from the truth, that it feels more like rough hands grasping frantically at your heart, twisting it tightly, gripping it, in an effort to stop the pumping of arteries, the movement of blood. But this is never so: I walked to class, clutching at the arm of a friend, a flush spreading over my face as hot tears slid into my lips, spreading salt in my mouth, and, later that night, as I struggled to write, how much more eloquent the page would be if the tearstains on it could remember for me.

36

I remember that day, and I wonder what my Dad thought the times he answered a ringing phone and heard his oldest daughter gasping for breath on the other end, in an effort to control her tears, and what he thought to say when she broke down. “Anak,” he always began, in the middle of my attempts to speak. I remember. “Anak.” Speaking as if this reassurance of our ties could serve as stitches, black thread threaded through the eye of a silver needle, a way of restoring what was now fragile, attempting to reverse what a good friend had the sense to tell me, you are broken.

On a day that had been particularly nerve-wracking, when the tiniest word could destroy the composure I had wrapped around myself, a group of my friends, all girls, visited me at home and brought me a cake, still in its bright red box. I remember sitting among them, silently, in the living room of my apartment, and listening to them speak, occasionally nodding when they asked me a question. Someone pushed a fork into my hand, and I gripped it loosely, nudging it downwards along the side of the cake to appease them.

I chewed and swallowed. It tasted sweet, and I told them so. I thanked them for coming, and became the recipient of many hugs, before they all left. I sat down again and saw the imprints of the fork, the outline of its tines against the dark frosting, and I thought of lines crossing an arm, and the attempts to write lines since it happened, marvelling at the incongruity of it all: I had received a cake – one we, singing and laughing, had often given others, with candles stuck in the frosting – to commemorate the first time I had ever experienced pain in such a boundless, limitless way, and I wrote it.

I remember that every time a twinge of pain, sharp and whitehot, like a jolt of electricity, went through my body, palpable though not like flesh-wounds, every time a song brought tears to my eyes or I saw the look on my sister’s face as she entered the small bedroom we shared, and found me, crying, day after day, every time, I took a pen and filled lines in a journal with my small, neat, handwriting, attempting to capture in dotted i’s and crossed t’s what it felt like to have papers to pass, classes to attend, conversations to make when

37

you were frozen in time, what it felt like to hurt. I remember paging through the black, leatherbound notebook every day to remember what I had previously written, and every line, every page completed was another cut, angry and inflamed, another bruise, different shades of color mingling with flesh, a way to remember, always.

v

When we are children, it becomes easy to believe the things our parents tell us, because they keep the truth out of the equation, leaving only the gleam of gold and the heady scent of sampaguita flowers, much like fairy tales that end right after the characters fall in love, until they, or life, deems it a necessary evil.

Now, I wonder if my Ama stared blankly up at the ceiling while Angkong forced himself inside her, perhaps a few days after he signed the check that gave her parents money for a pharmacy. I wonder if tears welled in her eyes, if she bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain and displeasing him. I wonder if she sat up slowly, afterwards, or lay in bed, limply, as he dressed himself, or if she had a journal she had written things in, like me. I wonder what she could have written. And I wonder if she realized that something in her had been torn apart, destroyed by her husband-to-be, if her dreams had fallen away the first time he thrust. If she thought of the pharmacy her parents built with money he had given them, and of her textbooks in pharmacy, gathering dust, the words on the pages now meaningless. I wonder what she felt the day the first stirrings of life caused her to shiver, to lay a hand, wonderingly, on her womb.

Or if my Lolo, lost in a drunken stupor night after night after night, realized that every single dream of their marriage his wife had built, layer upon shimmering layer, filled with home-cooked meals and money enough for clothes, disappeared every time she felt his side of the bed sag as he collapsed on it, early in the morning, stinking of beer and cigarettes. I wonder if she gasped, if thoughts of leaving him crossed her mind, the time he flung plates angrily at the wall, to

38

shatter into millions of pieces, the shards flying across the room, fall ing across the couch, one of them embedding itself in the cheek of their youngest son. I wonder if she thought about these things, back turned to her class, as she wrote the day’s lesson on the blackboard, dust from the chalk shimmering on her clothes, if she thought about having to go home to a family of seven children, headed by a drunk.

When we are children, our parents want us to know that the glitter of gold caught in the sun is beautiful and something to be wondered at, an image to shimmer in our minds until we are compelled to write.

Most of us are lucky: these younger memories written, when read years later only bring its author amusement, a reminder that these actually happened. It is only later that we find that when we stare too long into the flare, flames lick at our eyes, and we may become blind, that it will become impossible to see the page as we attempt to chronicle our loss – and yet, the day may come that another bright gleam will revive the spark that was once lost, and allow us to see once more.

Writing this, I remember the tears that sprang to Mom’s eyes the day she told me how much Ama mourned when Angkong left their family to settle permanently in Canada, how the smoke from the red-lit tip of Ama’s cigarette wafted in the air, obscuring her face in the same way that tears affected her vision, as she told her children, “Ngayon kung kelan ko natutunan mahalin ang Papa niyo, ngayon pa niya ako iniwan.” I remember my aunts telling me how my Ama smiled the day before she died, even with tubes in her veins and in her nostrils, because she said their father had visited them.

I remember well the first torrent of tears my Lola shed, halfway through my Lolo’s funeral mass, the moment she realized that he was gone, that she would have to contend with an empty bed, an empty house, and how she sagged helplessly against my father’s strong arm as they both mourned. I remember how, after a visit to Pampanga, we noticed that more and more pictures of the two of them together were filling the house, from a crumbling photograph of the first few seconds of their life together, to a family portrait including all seven

39

children, bearing their faces and memories, to the caricature done of them by a street artist, dated September, 2001, the year before Lolo died.

What our parents never tell us is that scars never fade, that the memory of hurt is as real as the cross-hatches on a friend’s forearm, bearing the image of blood welling up in a perfectly straight line carved out on flesh. Sometimes, it is enough for us to learn for ourselves that what they never told us may also be wrong – that, sometimes, the muted gleam of blood can be beautiful, a reminder of life and passion and humanity. And even just a single line of black ink crossing an expanse of white is enough to revive all this in our memory, to bring back the sensation of eyes rubbed raw by hands that refused to admit weakness, the same hands that will reach out to someone later on, to bring back the day we learned that love is entwined with destruction and memory, that love is watching someone die: “written by Tina after seeing the death of her pet dog, Terry, 1997.”

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mark anthony cayanan

As Mirror As Body 1 It is a wave nudging me under on above surface until surface is that light that sheath holding along with myself the rinse of the newly important sea the shore the startled throng

The mother laying in the crib the baby, now slightly astir. Afternoon through the curtains. A mobile dangles blue seahorses, yellow stars, pink fish. The baby gurgling.

I teeter as if on a precipice and something like encouragement rushes through me commits my skin

The baby tittering in his mother’s arms.

She is told it is nothing but gas.

The kiss, the mother cooing in response.

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2 Countless corroborations of the same question, quest The invisible vanities take hold, overpower, and lay waste Where the world forks, Judgment or Longing Invitation, Intrusion, and their lack of mutual distinction I slide into my mouth, the fit an indication of fate Of what material is yours? Not really glass, more like porcelain The heart and its erratic echo, the night and its warmth Every shrug a cause, an inspiration, the mad scramble The slight sprout of feathers, shorn off Henceforth all acts in which they are involved as signifiers of solipsism The rumor and its point of origin, the disease and the desired kiss The obsessive drive towards luminosity, making clear the present shame The bone of mythology, in the end the source of grief The insistent hunger, the persistent answer An abstraction, its only definable trait being detachment What was perceived as weakness was in fact simply willingness The moment of illumination, the moment after that At this point the mind and its disregard for time, its catalogue of possibilities The flat refusal, the definitive denial What has become of the world, now that you’ve spoken for it Coalition Completion Collapse Years later, I find out what they’re useful for, and why I like them so much For I was born supplicating, yes Always, anticipation, after outcome After outcome, anticipation, always Had I known the purpose behind the pursuit, I would’ve fled earlier The spirit hissing away like vapor, the form of surrender And Zero at the Bone, this recognition, then the reckoning, the futile future

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:Hair :Forehead :Irises :Ears :Mouth :Jaw :Neck :Clavicles :Scapulas :Armpits :Nipples :Elbows :Ribs :Belly :Navel :Wrists :Hands :Fingers :Hips :Penis :Bottom :Thighs :Knees :Shins :Calves :Heels :Toenails :Soles

3 (This story with its delible designs)

Fact crawls into consequence.

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4 :I can show you who you are and what you’re made of, but then I’d have to destroy you:

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deirdre patricia z. camba

An Early Morning Ceremony It is only after you dab Wrist against wrist To bury scents in your skin After your fingers have fluttered Open, and your arms have bloomed After I reach for you with the tiniest hand Only to lose myself, and then You – bending at the stem – Wilt upon my quivering shoulders, Press against my cheek Only then, When I too smell of peach blossoms, Can you make for the front door To let the wind whisk You away

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gian karlo dapul

Closet Comedy But heart like a crown,you are the king of fools’ golden.

Attempts to present yourself in ways most pleasing to kings of fooled – beholden, you are, to put on an act – leave my mien marred with sympathetic.

I do not laugh.

Am I tempt to resent your self because no know of your deception or is that I feel? For this sorry show, admission is free. You, however, are not.

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isabela cuerva

(untitled) I. Bright Orange – or, he who blinds; he whose Vibrant sings, stings, stuns – one moment beautiful, the next, unbearable, impossible to look at; he whose Citrus I cannot stand in my mouth, whose acidity I can no longer bear; he whose Acrid burns my tongue, my throat, stings my eyes; he who is Heat, but not of the White Hot variety, but of the redorange, dull, suffocating, insufferable kind; Bright Orange – but not really; bright orange is his base, but his color seems to shift, and he is not so much Bright Orange as he is Varying Shades Of Orange.

On days that I can handle him, he is the color of the setting sun, beautiful and awe-inspiring, and I cannot take my eyes off him. On days he is most intolerable, he is blinding, painful to the eyes, washing away every other beautiful color there is until all I see is this overwhelming shock of orange. I cannot bear to look at him, cannot stand what and how he radiates.

On days when I hate him most, he is neither beautiful nor blinding.

His face just translates into Vomit Orange, and I can almost feel the way he-as-vomit burns my throat, and there is nothing I would want more than to spit him out and flush him down.

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II. Pale Yellow almost bland, but pleasantly so, albeit unremarkably so. So quiet, unassuming. Yellow, with neither the character of a canary nor the ripeness of a banana. No mango-sweetness, no lemon-tang. Simply Pale Yellow, unremarkable, washed-out.

Barely-There Yellow.

He who.

He whose.

He for whom I have no words.

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III. Forest Green You could be something else entirely, but Forest Green seems most apt. There are days, though, that you are Loam Brown, Rust Red, Stone Gray – you are the color of the earth: of hedges lined with ivy and smooth pebbles coated with moss and mist; of Forest, filled with the hum and thrum of things living; of the dewy grass that clings to jeans and boots; of vines that twine around pieces of wood that allow them to stand – of Nature; of Life.

You are the color of Earth.

My fingers are stained with the colors you leave, and there’s not much I can do but paint your face in the air, and hope. Hope that all turns out well. Hope that I will not wake to find that you’ve been washed away by –

49

jose fernando go-oco

Apparition Navigate your map of your city, the outlines that separate parks from fields, suburbs from slums, boundaries and space. Your map means your city, miniaturized. No need to walk. Do you know the way to the cemetery? Do you know the way a tombstone looks, name on stone?

Look at your map. Your city is never itself; you refer to it in the same way as yesterday; you talk to yourself as if talking to your map or you talk to your map as if talking to yourself, Where’s the cemetery. You trace your labyrinth with the languor of walking. No dead ends. You arrive at the frame.

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joseph casimiro

Hindi Bumabangon siya mula sa katawang may huling gunita ang hindi nagambalang pahinga sa matagal na panahon.

Sa paghakbang niya sa liwanag nitong bagong mundo sakaling maghanap siya ng palatandaan o matandang kakilala mabibigo siya dahil siya at siya lang ang nakaligtas sa delubyo na hindi na nangangailangan ng pangalan. Siya lang ang nananatiling buo. Kaniyang lalakarin ang hanggahan ng bawat bayang guho lamang ang laman sa sakaling may makakain siya na kung ano o kung sino ay hindi mahalaga. Kung mararating niya ang sukdulan ng lupa doon kung saan ang hanging-dagat na kay lakas ang sasalubong sa kaniya haharapin niya ang puwersang ang angking bisa ay sukulin ang nag-iisa sa kasulok-sulukan ng sariling salimuot.

Mabubuwal siya.

Bumabangon siya mula sa katawang may huling gunita ang hindi nagambalang paghinga sa matagal na panahon.

51

jay crisostomo

Excerpt from God of the Machine* characters writer gomorrah gabriel waitress / waitress / waitress flower girl /lily / finger girl guard / pimp / dog

setting There are three settings in the play: 1) a café represented by a table setup in the middle of the audience, 2) a bar perpetually in three am, and 3) a horrific representation of the writer’s mind.

act 1, scene 1 (A table is placed in the middle of the audience area. Care should be taken that it be illuminated, and demarcated properly from the audience. On the table are a worn-out notebook, a pen, and a mug of coffee. In front of it is an armchair.

This set-up should indicate a modern day café. The proscenium stage itself is still bare.)

(Light hits the table in middle of the audience. The writer is seated on the armchair, sleeping on his desk. He holds his pen firmly as if he has dozed off in the middle of writing.)

*

1st Prize, 2010 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Full-Length Play in English

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(He wears an oversized patched jacket. His hair is a mess.)

(He mumbles something again and again. At first his words are only murmurings but they slowly become audible with every utterance.) writer

(He wakes with a start) All life is a stage!

(He begins to write intensely in his notebook. Unsatisfied, he tears off the page and throws it away. He notices the audience, and runs on-stage where light looms.)

(To the audience, stuttering) I-I apologize, l-ladies and gegentlemen, you caught me sleeping. I-I have been rude to you. (Thinks aloud to himself) We must open our dreary night with an introduction. After all, it is only proper especially in my profession. (Laughs) It is my rare privilege to greet an audience face-to-face. (To the audience.) I-I am the writer — a writer of no great importance, mind you. Good evening and I also bid you f-farewell, my dear audience for I have to work, and it’s especially troublesome when no great inspiration is available. (Thinks of something else to say. Thinks better) Farewell.

(The writer goes back to his chair. He begins to write then loses concentration when he notices the audience watching him. He rips off the page and throws it away. He moans in exasperation.)

(To himself) I need a muse... I need a muse who will touch me with her pale, gentle hands. She will whisper in my ear, and finally my pen can move once more. It will dance through the blank page. My pen will create a classic, a moving tragedy, a witty comedy, through her inspiration. Through her inspiration, and only hers.

Only hers…

(He stands, and looks up to the flights.)

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It’s so simple... as if someone placed her name in my head.

(In a trance, he writes in his notebook.)

For my all my sins, your name will be (A pause) Gomorrah.

(As her name is uttered, gomorrah walks on-stage to a spot-light on centre-centre, isolating her from the darkness. She is splendidly dressed in a red evening gown. She holds a lily in her left hand. The writer stands with his jaw dropped. She speaks in a monotone.)

(Stammering and fidgeting with his pen.) W-what is y-your name? gomorrah

(In a deadpan) You know it already. (She offers him the flower in her hand, but stands firmly on-stage.)

writer

(Slowly, savouring the word) Go-mo-rrah.

gomorrah

Yes. Gomorrah.

writer

Yes. I know your name, but who are you?

gomorrah

I am a word you wrote in your notebook.

writer

Yes, a word. (Hastily correcting himself) But, a word has no figure, no face, and no flower to offer.

gomorrah

Every word has a meaning to it, and I am the meaning of the word Gomorrah.

writer

But I can never take what you’re offering.

gomorrah

Why not? You created me to be your muse.

writer

A muse? No. (A pause) You are more than a muse! (Thinks.

Speaks in rapid epiphanies) You do not only inspire. You are inspiration itself, my embodied aesthetic. Your eyes, your lips, your pale little hands: my inspiration incarnate.

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gomorrah

That I am. I am yours.

writer

No. No. I made you. B-but, your name. Your meaning.

These things are not mine. (Pauses) You can never be mine.

gomorrah

(Drops the hand holding the flower) Then what am I? (Calmly) What am I to be?

writer

Your name is Gomorrah. You, (Pauses) you are my favourite sin, my ultimate conceit, a beauty that I can write, but never touch, never possess. (Tries to reach for her face but instantly retracts his hand.)

(A long silence. The writer sits down in a daze. gomorrah sits down on the stage as well.) (He suddenly stoops down to gomorrah) Do you want anything? Anything at all? Just ask and you shall receive. gomorrah

(She looks down to her toes.) No. I do not want anything.

(Silence.) writer

(Sighs) Are you… are you… are you lonely, Gomorrah?

(A pause) You are lonely. Aren’t you, my dear? (In defeat) Are you cold?

(A pause. gomorrah stands slowly. First her feet, then her torso, and finally her head — until she is fully erect.) gomorrah

(Whispers) Yes.

(The writer sits down. He fumbles with his pen. He bites the tip. gomorrah steps forward expectantly.) writer

(Gritting his teeth) Then I will make you a companion. I will give you someone... so... you will no longer be lonely.

(gomorrah bows in thanks, and moves from the centre so that she may witness the creation of another character.)

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writer

(He writes) Gabriel.

(gabriel enters in the same fashion as gomorrah, and speaks like her. He is dressed much like the writer. He resembles the writer except everything appears better on him.) writer

What is your name?

gabriel

You already know who I am.

writer

(Breathes deeply) Yes. You are Gabriel.

gabriel

I am Gabriel.

writer

You are my messenger. You will tell her that you love her… for me. (Turns his back to gabriel)

gabriel

With my lips, yours will touch hers. With my body, yours will hold hers. With my words...

writer

(Takes his notebook and turns his back. He writes as he whispers.) Gomorrah, I love you.

gabriel

(Whispers) Gomorrah, I love you.

(The writer charges at gabriel with his pen. gabriel in turn does not flinch. The writer stops in the middle of the audience area.) writer

You are, in all fashions, me but a positive superlative.

Like me, you are a writer. A writer who writes better words.

gabriel

Yes. I am your ‘you.’

(The writer walks towards gomorrah. He tries to hold her but he cannot.

He tries to kiss her but he cannot.) writer

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For you, my Gomorrah, I will make a world. I will make you a story of love and passion. Something with a happy ending. You will meet in a lonely bar at three am. You will kiss, and your story shall begin. I, I will watch as my pen moves to write. (To gomorrah) All this I do for you,

my favourite sin, so that you will no longer be cold.

(The writer snaps his fingers.)

(The stage lights change in colour to represent the creation of a world. Either through the flights or stagehands a night club is created on-stage with a platform, a bar, a table set-up with three chairs representing the table nearest to the bar’s performance area, and a small hanging chandelier. There are two entrances to the bar: 1. leading outside, 2. to the kitchen.) (The writer examines his scene.

He takes a cigarette, and lights it. The couple runs to one another in an embrace.

They break from their monotonous way of speaking.) gomorrah

(Passionately) I love you.

gabriel

I love you.

gomorrah

I love you.

writer

(As he exits) I love you. I love you. I love you. Three words said three times over. (He claps) Curtain! (Exits)

end scene

57

kristian sendon cordero

Ang Dahilan Kung Bakit Nag-aaral Akong Magmaneho Ipagkakanulo ko ang mundo kapalit ang tatlong tansan mula sa beer na ininom natin kagabi. Na maaaring pagtakhan mo ulit kung bakit nagtatago ako ng mga ganito. Kung makikita mo rin lang sana kung paano ko isinilid sa isang baul ang lahat ng mga resibo at mga pansamantalang mapa na ginamit natin minsang umakyat tayo sa isang tagong-bayan sa Hilaga.

Matagal ko nang ipinapaalala sa sarili ko na wala na akong sedula pagdating sa ganitong pag-ibig: At malamang isipin mong naghahanap lamang ako ng mga talinhaga. Katulad nang minsang nakasakay tayo sa bus at nabanggit ko na higanteng nakahiga’t naghihilik ang tingin ko sa mga bundok. Tiningnan mo lang ako, sabay iniabot ang pamasahe natin, at pinagtatakhan ko pa rin kung bakit parang napangiti ang konduktor sa atin.

Siguro’y dahil saktong-sakto lang talaga ang ibinigay mong bayad para sa dalawa. At di na siya maaabala sa pagsukli.

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rachel valencerina marra

Nag-uunahan ang mga Ulap Mga ulap. Punung-puno ng mga ulap ang bahay niya.

“Nagustuhan mo ba?”

Hindi ako makapagsalita. Nalula ako mula sa pagkakatayo sa gitna ng kanyang studio apartment (na sa totoo lang naman ay iisang kuwarto na ginawang painting studio, living room, bedroom, at kusina) dahil napaliligiran ako ng langit, at ng maraming-maraming ulap.

Iba-iba ang laki at hugis ng mga canvas, ngunit iisang langit lang ang inilalarawan ng mga ito. Iyon bang itsura ng langit kung alas-diyes ng umaga, kung maaraw. Tila magkakarugtong din ang mga painting. Umikot ako habang tinitingnan ang mga ipininta ni Victor. Ang isang parisukat ng canvas, ay karugtong ang katabi nitong canvas, at karugtong pa rin nito ang katabi nito. Naka-dalawa, tatlo, apat akong pag-ikot: walang hanggan ang langit.

“Ito ang project ko ngayon.”

Dahan-dahan pa rin akong umiikot nang magsalita ako. “Well, hindi naman halata. Nag-painting ka lang naman ng lima, sampu, ay hindi, dalawampung canvas ng kalangitang puno ng mga ulap. Hindi, hindi halatang project mo ‘to ngayon.”

Niyakap niya ako mula sa likod. Umaga pa niya ako tinext na mayroon siyang gustong ipakita sa akin. Akala ko naglalambing lang siya dahil isang linggo na akong hindi bumibisita sa kanya. Tutal naman, tapos na ang linggo ko ng mga exam sa eskuwela, pinagbigyan ko siya.

At higit pa roon, marami rin akong kailangang sabihin sa kanya. Iyon naman pala, talagang mayroon siyang ipapakita sa akin. Gumaan ang pakiramdam ko: tinanggal niya ang sling bag na nakasukbit sa aking balikat. Naramdaman ko ang pagdampi ng kanyang mga daliri sa aking batok nang hawiin niya ang aking buhok. Pinaghahalikan niya ako sa leeg at halos tumigil ang aking paghinga nang marahang dumiin ang kanyang mga ngipin sa aking balat.

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Si Victor ay isang pintor. Naging guro ko siya noong kumuha ako ng extra subject na Introduction to Basic Drawing and Painting. Ngunit bago ko pa man siya nakilala bilang guro, narinig ko na maka-ilang ulit ang pangalan niya bilang isa sa mga sumisikat na batang pintor sa bansa. Nanggaling ako sa mag-anak ng mga pintor. Lumaki ako sa paligid ng mga canvas, oil paintings, charcoal pencils, mga kuwadro, watercolor cakes at tubes, art galleries, at mga taong tila mga walking encyclopedia pagdating sa biswal na sining. Gayunpaman, hindi talaga ako nagkaroon ng hilig sa pagpipinta o kahit na sa pagguhit man lang. Maaga kong nalaman na hindi para sa akin ang karerang iyon. Noong panahong inilalagay na sa kuwadro nina mama at papa ang mga drawings ng kakambal ko, stick figures pa rin ang kaya kong iguhit.

Marami ang nagtatanong kung bakit isa akong Management student, imbes na isang Fine Arts student. Ang sinasabi ko palagi, hindi ako magaling mag-drawing. Ang ikinakatwiran ng mga magulang ko sa mga nagtatanong, hindi ko lang daw talaga hilig. Kahit na ngayong nasa kolehiyo na ako, tila hindi pa rin sumusuko ang mga magulang ko sa akin. Sa loob ng labinsiyam na taon ng aking buhay, lagi na lang mga canvas, paintbrushes, art books, at tickets para sa mga galleries at museo ang natatanggap ko bilang regalo kung kaarawan ko man, o kung ano mang okasyon. Kinuha ko ang Intro to Basic Drawing and Painting ni Victor para kahit papaano, mapalagay ang mga magulang ko. Para makita nila na sumusubok talaga akong gumuhit at makibagay sa pamilya. At higit sa lahat, para makita nila kung paano ako babagsak sa klaseng iyon.

“Dallo, Esperanza. Present?”

“Here. And sir, it’s Ranz.”

Unang araw ng klase kay Victor — o Sir De Vera. Tiningnan niya ako nang matagal. Pakiramdam ko kilala na niya ako, mula pa lang sa apelyido ko, hanggang sa kakaibang tatas ng aking Ingles. O dahil sa mga makakakapal na Math at Management na librong nasa mesa ko.

Tiningnan ko rin siya nang matagal. Sa unang tingin, hindi halatang pintor siya. Hindi tulad ng mga madalas kong nakikitang bumibisita 60

sa amin, o sa mga nakikita ko sa mga galleries at launch, hindi pilit ang pagdadala niya sa kanyang sarili at hindi rin naman masyadong presko. Tantsa ko, lima hanggang pitong taon lang ang tanda niya sa akin. Clean cut ang gupit sa kanyang buhok. Plantsado ang kanyang polo, at malinis at walang warat ang kanyang maong na pantalon. Bilib din ako na may relos siya, kasi maraming na akong mga nakausap na pintor na hindi nagre-relos — kesyo natatali sila sa oras, o ayaw nilang magpa-alipin sa oras. Nakakatuwa rin kung paanong paulit-ulit na dumudulas ang kanyang sa kanyang ilong.

“Ok, Ranz. De Guzman, Harry?”

Nakilala man niya ako, hindi niya ipinahalata. Hindi rin ako naging special student. May pagkakataong nagpakita siya sa Powerpoint presentation ng mga halimbawa ng mga painting, at isa roon ay gawa ng lolo ko. Alam kong sa lolo ko iyon, hindi dahil sa pirma niya na nasa gilid, o dahil sa estilong ginamit dito. Alam kong sa lolo ko iyon dahil ako ang nasa painting: ako noong limang taong gulang pa lang ako at tuwang-tuwa sa paghabol ng mga sisiw at manok sa probinsya. Bahagyang umangat ang aking ulo at itinuwid ko ang aking likod.

Lolo ko ang may gawa niyan. Tinanong ni Victor ang klase kung sino ang nagpinta noon, ngunit hindi ako sumagot. Walang ibang nakakaalam sa mga kaklase ko (e sino lang ba mga kilala nila kundi sina Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol, Edward Munch, Van Gogh, at Amorsolo?). Alam kong alam ni Victor na kaming dalawa lang sa silid ang may alam ng sagot, halata dahil nakatingin siya sa akin, hinihintay akong magsalita. Ngunit nanatilinig tikom ang aking mga labi.

Tinawag niya ako bago pa man ako makalabas ng silid nang tumunog ang bell. Sinundan ko siya hanggang sa cubicle niya sa Fine Arts Department. Nakaupo ako sa upuang nasa harap ng kanyang mesa.

Siya naman ay nakatayo, nakasandal sa dingding ng cubicle. Nakaharap pa rin naman siya sa akin ngunit sa sahig siya nakatingin.

“Kalahating semester na pero parang wala akong nakikitang... kung ano man mula sa iyo?”

Naguluhan ako sa tanong niya. Kasi, inisip ko, hindi naman talaga tanong iyong sinabi niya. Parang rhetorical, na hindi rin naman para sa akin kundi para sa sarili niya.

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“Sir...ng kung ano man?”

“Oo, ng kung ano man: enthusiasm, passion, excitement, etcetera.

Wala.”

“Sir, tungkol ho ba sa mga output ko ‘to?” Kasi kung tungkol iyon sa mga output ko, hindi na ako magtataka. Hindi ko naman talaga planong seryosohin ang klaseng iyon, at puwede ko ring sabihin na mapagkakamalang guhit ng isang limang taong bata ang mga output ko sa klase.

“Hindi, higit pa sa mga output mo — pero oo, wala rin akong nakikitang effort sa mga output mo. Nakaka-sampung liban ka na ng klase. Lagi ka ring late. Hindi ka rin nagre-recite. Sa lagay na ‘to, dapat wala ka na sa klase ko.”

Nanatili lang akong kalmado. Sumusunod lahat ayon sa plano ko.

Extra subject lang naman iyon, at hindi makakaapekto sa kabuuan kong grado pag natapos na ang semestre.

“Kinausap ko na ang chair, si Dr. Manriquez.”

Hindi ko siya kilala sa totoo lang, si Manriquez. Ngunit kung hindi ako nagkakamali, siya iyong Manriquez na may-ari ng isang gallery kung saan nag-launch ang kakambal ko ng ilang mga paintings.

Kinasabikan ko ang mga susunod na salita ni Victor.

“Pero hindi siya pumayag.”

“Seriously? Fuck. That. Shit.” Itinatak ko sa aking isipan na kung makakasalubong ko si Manriquez sa hinaharap, bibigyan ko siya ng irap na tatagos sa kanyang pagkatao.

Umupo na si Victor sa kanyang upuan. Magkaharap na kami.

“Hindi ko alam kung bakit ganyan ang reaksyon mo pero ang masasabi ko lang hindi pa huli ang lahat. Para sa ‘kin, ayos lang na hindi kita i-drop sa klase. Pero hindi ako papayag na bigyan ka ng A sa klase, tulad ng gusto ni Manriquez — alam mo na naman siguro kung bakit, Miss Dallo.” Hindi ko alam kung bakit pero nangilabot ako nang banggitin niya ang apelyido ko.

“Kung gusto mo pang pumasa — kahit papaano — sa klase, kailangan mo lang mag-ipon ng extra points.”

Tinanggap ko ang proposisyon niya. Iyon nga lang, huli ko nang nalaman na ang ibig sabihin pa la ng extra points ay magpo-pose ako 62

para sa isang grupo ng mga estudyante sa klaseng Advance Class on Portraiture. Hindi naman ako hubo’t hubad. Sa totoo lang, bihis na bihis ako. Ang kailangan lang nila sa akin ay ang unang kalahati ng katawan ko: mula ulo hanggang beywang. Sa personal na studio ni Victor ginanap ang klase. Sa una, medyo mahirap kasi nakakangalay.

Nakakailang din sapagkat makikita mo silang lahat na nakatingin sa iyo, pinag-aaralan kung isasabuhay sa papel ang iyong itsura, kinakabisado ang mga linya sa iyong mukha, ang mga kurba ng iyong mga pisngi at leeg. Ngunit ang pinaka-nakakailang sa lahat, kasabay din ng mga estudyanteng gumuguhit si Victor.

Sa huling araw ng klase, nagpaiwan ako sa studio ni Victor. Hiniling ko sa kanyang makita ang mga guhit niya sa akin. Ayaw pa niya sana, si Victor kasi iyong tipo na ayaw ipakita sa iba ang mga gawa niya hanggat hindi pa pulido. Pero hindi ako umalis sa kinauupuan ko hanggat hindi niya iniabot sa akin ang sketch pad niya. Nang makita ko ang mga guhit niya sa akin, sa unang pagkakataon ay nahiya akong hindi ako marunong gumuhit at magpinta. Sa tingin ko, doon mismo sa studio ni Victor habang nakatayo ako at nilalakbay ang mga pahina ng kanyang sketch pad, doon ko pinagpasyahang seseryosohin ko na ang pagguhit kahit na tapos na rin ang klase ko kay Victor (at kahit na pasang-awa nga ang natanggap kong grado–salamat sa aking extra points bilang model).

Hindi ko na siya guro at hindi na rin niya ako estudyante, ngunit nagpatuloy pa rin kaming magkita. Siya lang ang dahilan kung bakit bumibisita ako sa Fine Arts Department (kahit na minsan, inakala ni Manriquez na siya ang pakay ko roon, palibhasa may bagong mga paintings sa kanyang gallery). Dumadaan din ako sa studio na para doon gumuhit o magpinta. Tinuturuan niya pa rin ako, at totoo nga na walang katulad ang natural na liwanag sa studio ni Victor.

Hindi rin nagtagal bago kumalat ang pagiging malapit namin sa isa’t isa. Mula sa mga kaklase ko at mga naging estudyante ni Victor, hanggang sa mga empleyado ng Fine Arts Department, hanggang sa mga kapwa pintor ni Victor, hanggang sa mga iba pang mga pintor, at sa wakas, hanggang sa mga magulang ko. Pinagtatawanan lang 63

namin ni Victor noon ang mga panunukso sa aming dalawa — kesyo bagay raw kami, o baka magulat na lang sila na isang araw, kami nang dalawa. Sumasakay lang kami ni Victor, minsan pa nga naglalambingan pa kami sa harap nila, para lang matuwa sila. Ngunit hindi ko pala kayang makisakay na lang habambuhay.

Nagkita ang mga magulang ko at si Victor sa isang exhibit. Nasa studio kami nang naikuwento niya sa akin ang pagkikitang iyon.

“O ano sabi nila?”

“Tinanong lang naman nila ako kung tayo — kung ano tayo, parang ganun.”

“Hm. Anong sabi mo?”

“Hindi ako nakasagot.”

Natatawa na lang ako tuwing babalikan ko ang pagkakataong iyon.

Ipinikit ko ang aking mga mata upang pigilin ang mga luhang nagtangkang tumulo. Hindi ko naintindihan kung bakit may pagkirot sa aking dibdib. Malabo na ang aking panigin dahil sa pagbabanta ng aking mga luha, ngunit sinilip ko pa rin si Victor. May hawak-hawak itong magazine, mabilis na ipinapalit ang mga pahina. Hindi ko alam kung kailan ako nagsimulang umiyak. Kung doon ba mismo sa harapan niya o pagkalabas ko ng studio matapos ko siyang biglang iwan.

Dalawang linggo ko siyang hindi binisita at kinausap. Tuwing magkakasalubong kami sa campus, hindi ko siya pinapansin.

Please kausapin mo naman ako o, text niya sa akin. Pagkatanggap na pagkatanggap ko sa mensaheng iyon, pumunta agad ako sa kanyang cubicle. Ang mensaheng iyon, idagdag pa ang maiitim niyang eyebags at humpak na pisngi, ang dahilan kung bakit pinagbigyan ko siya. Ipinaliwanag niya sa akin (ayon sa kanyang listahan, na hawakhawak ng nanginginig niyang kamay) kung bakit hindi niya nasagot ang tanong ng aking mga magulang (ipinagpalagay na rin niyang tungkol doon ang aking biglaang paglayo). Para uli akong bumalik sa oras, nu’ng unang beses kong pumunta sa kanyang cubicle: nakaupo ako sa harap ng kanyang mesa at siya naman ay nakatayo at nakasandal sa pader, pero nakaharap pa rin sa akin. Ang sabi niya, hindi raw niya masabing kami, kasi kilala siya ng mga magulang ko bilang si Mr. De Vera, ang guro ko sa Introduction to Basic Drawing and Painting.

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Hindi rin daw niya masabing kami kasi ako si Esperanza Dolla (‘Ranz’ kasi, Victor. ‘Ranz.’ OK fine, Ranz Dolla.), mula sa kilalang angkan ng mga Dolla, at siya lamang si Victor De Vera, nagsisimulang pintor at ilustrador.

Hindi niya masabing kami kasi hindi naman daw talaga kami.

Higit pa raw sa lahat, sinabi niya, “Hindi ko masabi kung ano tayo, kasi hindi naman talaga tayo. Pero alam kong hindi rin iyon totoo.

Ranz, gusto ko lang kasing maging sigurado na mayroong nag-uugnay sa ating dalawa.”

Noong gabing iyon, ibinigay ko ang sarili ko sa kanya.

Hinarap ko siya at sinalubong ang kanyang mga halik. Nalulula pa rin ako sa puti at bughaw na nakapalibot sa amin. Maingat ang pagkakalapat ng aming mga labi, tulad ng unang halik namin. Marami akong gustong sabihin sa kanya: mga bagay na hindi mahalaga at hindi nararapat ungkatin sa sandaling ito. Binura ko mula sa aking isipan ang mga banta ng aking mga magulang, ang malisyang kasama ng mga kindat at salita ni Manriquez, ang positibong marka sa pregnancy test kit na nasa loob ng bag ko. Saka na ang mundo, saka na ang kinabukasan, saka na ang lahat. Nalulula ako sa mga puti at bughaw. Pakiramdam ko babagsak ako sa walang-hanggang kalangitan kung maghihiwalay ang mga labi namin. Mariin at walang-ingat ang ibinalik kong mga halik. Na sinuklian naman ni Victor. Pumikit ako. Ibinigay ko ang buo kong sarili sa kasalukuyan. Inilaan ko ang buo kong sarili sa halik na iyon. Inisip kong hindi ko man masabi sa kanya sa pamamagitan ng mga salita, sana maramdaman niyang sa halik kong iyon na marami akong itinatago at hindi sinasabi sa kanya.

Dalawang linggo, binigyan ko ang sarili ko ng dalawang linggo upang pagpasyahan kung kaya ko — kung kaya naming dalawa — na mawalay sa isa’t isa, ngunit pakiramdam ko mamamatay na ako. Hindi ko alam kung pareho kami ng nararamdaman, pero ang mahalaga ay ang kasalukuyan: kaming dalawa, iisa kaming dalawa. Magiging isa kaming dalawa.

Napasagap ako ng hininga nang naglakbay ang kanyang mga halik mula sa aking labi, baba, sa aking leeg, hanggang sa pagitan ng aking 65

dibdib. Unti-unti, tinanggal niya ang pagkakabutones ng aking blusa.

Naramdaman ko ang pagkapa niya sa aking likod upang hubarin ang aking bra. Hinanap ko ang laylayan ng kanyang kamisetang puno ng tilamsik ng mga iba’t ibang timpla ng kulay asul. Iniangat ko ito sa kanyang ulo.

“Bakit mga ulap?” Napatanong ako habang hinuhulma ng isa niyang palad ang dibdib ko, samantalang sinusubok ng isa niyang kamay na hubarin ang aking pantalon.

“Dahil naiinis ako kapag nakikita kong gumagalaw ang mga ulap. ” Inihiga niya ako sa sahig, at dahan-dahang ibinaba ang aking panty.

“Dahil mahirap iguhit ang mga bagay na laging gumagalaw.”

Naghubo na rin siya. Tinanggal ko ang salamin niya sa mata at inihagis sa kung saan mang sulok ng sahig. Pumaibabaw siya sa akin.

“Dahil kapag nakikita mong gumagalaw ang mga ulap, napipilitan ka ring gumalaw. O natatanga ka kasi naiiwan ka.”

Naintindihan ko siya. Naiintindihan ko siya. Hinawakan ko siya sa kanyang mga braso. Iginapang ko ang mga kamay ko hanggang sa kanyang mga balikat. Napahigpit ang kapit ko sa kanya nang maramdaman kong dahan-dahan siyang pumapasok sa akin — dahan-dahan, naging isa kami. Naiintindihan ko siya. Naiintindihan ko siya. Bumibilis ang paggalaw ni Victor. Nalulula pa rin ako sa puti at bughaw. Nagsimula akong sumabay sa kanya. Kinakapos na ang aking paghinga. Mainit ang hininga ni Victor sa aking leeg. Tumingin ako sa paligid. Langit. Nalulula ako sa puti at bughaw. Pumikit ako.

Maulap, kahit na sa loob ng aking isipan.

Ang mga ulap. Naghahabulan. Nag-uunahan. Mabilis. Pabilis nang pabilis. Pabilis nang pabilis.

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mesándel virtusio arguelles

Linyado Sa totoo lang, tuwing nagtatangka akong sumulat ng tula, hindi naman ako nag-iisip tungkol sa linya o nag-iisip gumamit ng linya. Ang iniisip ko ay ang masabi ang gusto kong sabihin o kadalasan sa umpisa, dahil hindi ko naman talaga alam o tiyak ang gusto kong sabihin, basta may masabi lang: makita sa papel ang mga salita na maaaring sabihing kumakatawan sa aking mga kaisipan sa sandaling iyon.

Gayunman, halos automatikong mga linya ang rerehistro sa papel sa kurso ng aking pagsulat. Linya sa biswal na pandama. Isang hilera ng mga salita sa papel. Pero hindi ito lang — o hindi nga ito — ang linya sa tula.

Kung sa tuwing susulat ako ng tula ay iniisip ko ang sasabihin, na hindi nangangahulugang ang sasabihin ko ay laging may “kahulugan,” ang linya kung gayon, ang tagapagdala o sasakyan ng mga sasabihin o kaisipan ko sa tula — o kung sa wika ni George Oppen — “nasa linya (at ibinibigay ng linya) ang pulso ng kaisipan.” Maidaragdag ko pang bukod sa pagiging “tagapagdala” ng kaisipan, ang linya rin ang mismong “daluyan” o “daanan” ng “pagdadala” ng kaisipan na nagaganap sa tula. Ang ibig sabihin nito, upang maging daluyan, kapag sinabing “linya” sa tula, hindi lamang isang linya (ang isang hilera ng mga salita sa pahina) ang dapat isipin kundi ang isang linya kaugnay ng iba pang linya sa buong tula. Kung kaya, ang linya sa tula ay hindi lamang estriktong ang matulain o poetikong berso (may tugma at sukat man o “malayang berso”) kundi maging ang linyang nasa anyong prosa o tuluyan. Dahil walang limitasyon ang linya ng tula. Walang hanggan ang linyang ito.

Itong konsepto ng pagiging “sasakyan” at “daan” ng linya ay naipahayag ko na sa aking aklat na Hindi man lang nakita na nalathala noong 2005. Sa isang tula roon, sa tulang “Liriko,” ganito ang naisulat ko:

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Sa akin, Ang mga linyang ito ay sasakyan upang makaraan Sa pahinang ito. Mangyari pa, dito, Ang taludtod at sasakyan ay daan Sa sandaling dumating ka. Agad sinisimulan Ang paglalakbay na hindi namamalayan.

Itong pagiging “isa” lamang ng sasakyan at daan (ng linya) sa pagdanas ng paglalakbay o pag-iral (sa tula) ang susi upang ang anumang tangka nating pagtukoy sa depinisyon ng linya ay lagi’t laging pagtukoy sa relasyon ng linya sa palaugnayan (syntax), pangungusap, at iba pang elemento ng tula at sa gamit o silbi ng linya kaugnay ng iba pang linya. At kung ganito, ang gamit o silbi ng linya ay lagi’t laging totoo o epektibo lamang sa isang partikular na tula. Samakatwid, nananatiling tangi ang silbi ng linya sa tulang binubuo nito. Walang iisang paraan ng paglikha — pagputol — pagpapatuloy — ng linya at walang iisang kapangyarihan o bisa ang mahusay na paghawak sa linya upang maipadala rito at maiparaan ang kaisipang isinusulong ng tula. Sa ganito rin nangyayaring ang bawat pagbasa natin ng tula, ayon kay James Longenbach, ay isang “act of discovery rather than an act of recitation — an event that happens on the page.”

Ang ganitong pangyayaring nagaganap sa pahina ay makikita halimbawa sa ikalawang seksiyon ng tulang “Skylab” ni Allan Popa: Sa hugong ng eroplano patakbo siyang tutungo habang may sunong na sako sa yungib ng San Isidro

Bagama’t napakapayak ng mga salita sa nag-iisang saknong na ito na may apat na linya, mabigat naman ang isinasadula nito sa sarili, at higit pa sa konteksto at relasyon nito sa buong tula. Hayag ang imahen ng tinutukoy na “siya” na tumatakbo patungo sa yungib ng, para sa kanya, kaligtasan (at gaya rin ng paniniwala ng mga kaanib ng kung anong kulto na sumisilong sa mga kuweba sa babala ng Apokalipsis) habang sunong ang nabitbit niyang isang sako ng ari-arian.

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Komiko ang tagpong ito sapagkat ipinabatid na “hugong ng eroplano” lamang ang kanyang kinatatakutan.

Pansinin na ang mga linya ay naka-italiko at walang bantas, bukod sa may tugma’t sukat. Dahil naka-italiko, waring ipinamamalay na ang eksena, muli, ay nasa isang kamalayan: ang kamalayan ng tagapagsalita. O kaalinsabay na nagaganap ng isinasalaysay na naglalaman nga ng mismong eksena — waring isang metanaratibo.

Samantala, ang mga linya 2 at 4 ay nakapasok (indented). Mahalagang isaalang-alang ito bilang pahiwatig ng galaw (“galaw” bilang galaw) ng taludturan na tila nagtatanghal ng alinlangan — ng urongsulong na pagtakbo. Isusudlong ko na sa ganito higit pang nagkakabisa ang pagtatanggal ng mga bantas. Waring walang hinto ang mga linya — urong-sulong — sabihin mang aapat na linya lamang ang mga ito sa buong saknong. Isinasaakto o isinasakilos ng mga linya sa pahina ang siya ring ipinahahayag nito kung kaya nagkakaroon tayo ng pagtuklas sa bawat pagbasa.

Ganito ring pagsasadula ang mararanasan sa ikatlong bahagi ng tulang “Ilang Sandali Lamang” ni Oliver Ortega.

Sabi nila, ang isa sa pinakamalaking problema ang kung paano sasabihin ang problema.

Kaya nagsimula tayong maghiwa ng mansanas kaysa mag-usap.

Kung ihahambing sa seksiyon ng tula ni Popa, higit na pragmentaryo o piraso ang tahasan at maiiksing putol ng mga linya ni Ortega. Isang buong pangungusap ang saknong ni Popa at halos may buong kaisipan ang bawat linya habang binubuo ang kaisipan ng pangungusap.

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Samantala, dalawang pangungusap naman ang seksiyon ni Ortega (bagama’t maaari ring sabihing isang pangungusap lamang ito na hinati sa dalawa sapagkat di-nakapag-iisang sugnay (dependent clause) lamang ang huling dalawang saknong sa apat na saknungan.

Taliwas sa mga linya ng saknong ni Popa na halos may buong kaisipan ang dating, ang dating ng mga linya ni Ortega ay parang transkripsiyon ng isang mensahe gamit ang Morse code: rumerehistro bawat linya at nagkakaroon ng sariling bigat/katuturan habang patungo sa pagbuo ng saysay ng pahayag/pangungusap.

At kapag nabuo ang katuturan ng pangungusap, mahihiwatigan natin na may hindi maisiwalat na “problema” sa pagitan ng nagsasalitang persona at ng kanyang kausap (ang tinutukoy na “tayo”) kaya ang nasimulan nila ay ang “maghiwa / ng mansanas” sa halip na ang pag-uusap. Gayunman, maikakatwirang itong “paghihiwa ng mansanas” ang siyang “simula ng usapan” — ang talinghaga ng aporia para kay Ortega. At higit pa, ito mismong mga linyang ito, mula sa “[s]abi nila, ang” hanggang sa “kaysa mag-usap” ay maaaring basahin bilang siyang panghalili rin sa “paghihiwa ng mansanas.” Sa ibang salita, ang mismong mga salitang isinulat, inilinya sa pahina bilang siyang talinghaga ng isa sa mga kaisipang nakapaloob sa mga salitang ito — ang talinghaga ng “paghihiwa ng mansanas” bilang “simula ng usapan.” Samakatwid, ang mga linya — sa partikular, ang bahaging ito ng “Ilang Sandali Lamang” — sa pinakaesensiya bilang pagsasaakto nga ng ipinahahayag nito at hindi instrumentong “tagapaghatid ng mga mensahe/kahulugan.”

Sa pagsasaakto ng mga linya sa “sinasabi” nito, naipapako/naikukuwadro ang sandali ng pangyayari/konseptong isinasatula. Pagpapako/pagkukuwadro ng sandali na hindi nagpapanatili sa sandali na maging walang tinag o estatiko lamang bagkus pagpapako/pagkukuwadro sa sandali na balintunang nagpapanatili rin dito sa mosyon.

Lagi’t lagi, sa oras na makatagpo ng maalam na mambabasa ang tula sa pahina, tila ito umiiral sa kasalukuyan nitong sandali, waring nagkakabuhay. Tingnan ang “Awit ng Matanda” ni Rofel G. Brion:

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Umaawit na naman ang matanda sa kanto, hindi ko mawawaan ang mga kataga at ngayon ko lamang narinig ang himig ngunit umiimbay na ako at sasandali na lamang ay magduduweto na kami.

Sisiyam na maiikling linya, sasabihing napakapayak ng tula. Ngunit hindi ito simple. “Umaawit na naman,” pasakalye ng tula, at hindi lamang sinisimulan ang tula kundi tila ikinumpas din ang pagsisimula ng naturang awit ng matanda na, sa pandama ko, sasaliw sa daloy ng tula hanggang sa kasukdulan. Agad ding mababatid na pang-ilang ulit na ang pag-awit (Umaawit na naman) — mahihinuhang narinig na ito ng persona sa tula sa maraming pagkakataon.

Samakatwid ang dapat sanang asahan sa persona ay pamilyaridad sa awit na iyon (maaaring isiping memoryado na niya ito), kung hindi man pananawa o pagkasuya at baka ituring pa nga niya itong “parang sirang plaka.”

Ngunit lilihis nang kaunti sa gayong pag-aakala ang sumusunod na mga saknong: “hindi ko mawawaan / ang mga kataga // at ngayon ko lamang / narinig ang himig.” Ano’t hindi maunawaan ng persona ang liriko ng awit at bakit ngayon lamang niya narinig ang himig nito sa kabila ng kabatirang paulit-ulit ang pag-awit? Maraming posibleng paliwanag dito gaya ng halimbawa’y mahirap talagang maunawaan ang liriko o kaya naman ay hindi nag-uukol ng atensiyon dito ang persona. Ngunit ang mahalaga, sa isang tanging okasyon (sa ngayon-dito ng tula), napagtuunan niya ng sapat na pansin ang awit ng

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matanda at balintunang natanto ang hindi niya alam at narinig ang “himig” sa unang pagkakataon. Isa itong pambihirang pagkakatuklas, lalo pa’t hindi rito nagtatapos ang aksiyon sa tula.

Hindi mahalaga kung ngayon lamang niya narinig ang nasabing himig. Ang mahalaga, ngayong narinig, pinukaw siya nito sa “pagimbay” at sa pagwawakas masasambit niya ang realisasyong “sasandali na lamang // at magduduweto na kami.” Lalong mahalaga kung gayon ang pagpukaw ng awit upang maganyak na “makipagduweto” ang persona hindi man niya batid ang liriko at ngayon lamang niya narinig ang himig. At bagama’t ang “pakikipagduweto” ay mangyayari pa sa “sasandali na lamang” na hinaharap, halos may sapat namang puwersang naimpok (sa kabila ng kaiklian ng tula) upang sa wari ay maitakda ang gayong kaganapan. Gayunman, dahil timpi at timbang ang bawat salita at linya, nananatiling nakabitin sa sandali ang tila alam nating mangyayari ngunit hindi ipinahayag.

Iisang pangungusap lamang ang “Awit ng Matanda.” Kung tutuusin, gaya ng naunang dalawang tinalakay, simple at madali lamang ang ipinahahayag na saysay nito. Ngunit dahil sa salimuot na nalilikha ng ugnayan ng salita sa salita, bantas, espasyo, at linya; at ng linya sa palaugnayan, sa iba pang linya, pangungusap, at sa iba pang elemento ng tula — ritmo at musika, himig at tinig, talinghaga at mga tayutay — ang simple at madali ay sumasalimuot, sumasalimuot tungo sa higit na mayaman at laging nagbabagong danas sa tula sa ating bawat pagbasa.

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mabi david

Lines of Resistance: Some Notes on the Poetic Line 1.

My reaction to the idea of what is “poetic” is always immediately visceral. Too often the poetic is misunderstood as confined to a certain sound, a certain combination of certain words — poeticizing as opposed to poetic, or as some friends and I like to say it, O, gumogossamer ka na naman. It can be a prescription that if observed persistently and without study, precludes, for instance, the line “This life is a burden/” from EJ Galang’s poem Tortoise. Clipped and straightforward, the line drops the cloak of the figurative that the idea of “poetic” mantles itself with and delivers its awful message. Is it poetic? To me, it is.

2.

My antagonism can only mean I’ve fallen prey to poeticizing myself, wrote russet and chartreuse when red and yellow would have sufficed, gossamer when web would’ve been the more judicious choice. How else explain this surliness? It was like I stumbled into and slumbered in a pit made of the fleecy delicate down of euphemisms.

Often, we disregard the peril of sacrificing precision for the slack and haze that poeticizing lends itself. (I must stress here though that poeticizing can be a crucial strategy in a poem. Contemporary poets after all must be inheritors of a vigorous and principled self-reflexivity.) I also realize that my antipathy towards it has to do with how the practice tends to cultivate in the writer a kind of content with its own allure or a kind of susceptibility to its own sleights, satisfied with how the proffered wisdom sounds wise, how a substance sounds like it’s substantial. Not unlike loving the sound of one’s voice.

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3.

This brings us to what a poetic line means to me. So as not to sound too much of a curmudgeon, I want to share the pleasures I derive encountering the lines in the poems of Kristine Domingo and E J Galang. We learn more from reading other people. As regards talking about my work, I can only talk of intention, but Carissa asked that I discuss how I view the poetic line in my works as well.

So: briefly and generally: each poem from Unto Thee up to You Are Here is an effort to fix on the page the sound I hear in my head. The rhythm of the aggressive need for order is always one I feel physically and must hammer and nail to paper. I do not know how to begin otherwise. The poems in You Are Here had to correspond to this restless rhythm I felt looking for a language of loss, loneliness, and dissolution, and for a long form that strives to match the sensation of bristling against and wanting to slip from its built-in susceptibility to the epic and the monumental.

And so, in response to your question, with me unfortunately it is not so much “how the cut lines contribute to the internal rhythm of the poem” as how to conform to the sound and the rhythm that generated it in the first place. I try to keep this in mind so that I can guard against my tendency to keep employing a certain kind of line, as if one kind can immediately and effectively deliver the same results each time. No size fits all. The poem must be ferried into being by the sound and sensation it seeks to match in every line.

4.

I believe that what’s crucial to successfully incorporating the poetic line in a poem is the understanding that each line must be a poetic line, and must in fact resist the narrow definition of incorporation.

Never merely to include, as if a poetic line is something stitched on and made seamless with the “non-poetic” ones. Rather we must go back to its late Latin roots, in corporare, to form into a body, i.e., the poem and every line in it is the idea, the experience, the sensation embodied in language. The effort must be not to incorporate the poetic line in the work, but to incorporate, period.

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How I define the poetic line owes a debt of gratitude to James Longenbach’s books The Art of the Poetic Line and The Resistance to Poetry.

His ideas inform these notes. I think the former especially addresses the second question posed to us today about how to incorporate the poetic line in one’s work. He writes, “[Line] cannot be understood by describing line alone: the music of a poem — no matter if metered, syllabic, or free — depends on what the syntax is doing when the line ends.” Also, “No particular line is valuable except inasmuch as it performs a dramatic function in relationship to other lines in a particular poem: one kind of line ending becomes powerful because of its relationship to other kinds of line endings.” What matters therefore, as I understand it, is relationship: of line to syntax, of the line to the sentence as it unfolds into the structure that is the poem on the page.

5.

Much pleasure may be derived from a form that proposes another set of ways by which we establish relationships between things, between matter and perception. Consider the riddle. The typical form of the riddle is well known: it consists of a question and an answer, so that while it traffics — revels even — in paradox, word play, contradiction, and ambiguity, its very essence is, ultimately, to reveal rather than to conceal.

How then does a riddle profit from the idea of the line’s value as contingent on what it does to the poem’s syntax?

In E J Galang’s poem “Tortoise” from Riddle of Nowhere, published

by High Chair in 2010, the persistent enjambment of all nine lines reinforces the slow pace that is the clue to the riddle. But knowing the answer here is only part of the fun. The answer is not always nor entirely the point, the poem tells us.

This life is a burden I am willing to bear. Flesh does not move me.

Not many things

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move me. In a kaleidoscope dome I keep my tenderness. My time, I take. Home is anywhere I take a break.

Tortoise

“Tortoise” is a short poem that consists of six sentences, with five of the six ending mid-line, seemingly complete sentences unto themselves: “I am willing to bear.”, “I take.”, “move me.” They have left behind their source sentences — “I am willing to bear.” startles like an afterthought; “Move me.” is severed by a stanza break; and “I take” by a line end and a comma. They do not belong to the sentences that start immediately after the period either, although together, apprehended by the eye as a single line, they partly make sense: “I am willing to bear. Flesh”, “move me. In a kaleidoscope”, “I take. Home is anywhere.” No. Wait. Yes, the mind thinks as it encounters the poem’s deliberate effort to further stay the ending, where the answer may be found.

I admire the work of enjambment in this poem. Enjambment is something I deployed in You Are Here to create a sense of motion, and frantic motion at that. Here, rather than propelling the lines onward, they seek to cultivate almost a sense of stasis. “This life is a burden”, the poems seems to end almost as it begins, recalling the last sentence of Lying on a Hammock by James Wright (“I have wasted my life.”) and in Robert Hass’s The Feast (“She didn’t know what she wanted.”)

Except the poem begins with this line, so that quiet forbearance is as much an option as bleak finality and resignation. The poem chooses the former, and in the next seven lines, the next three couplets, the poet leads us to a shift from the awful message that the poem starts with to the final line, one that alleviates it as it ends. Even the quality of the line end in first line and in the last line transforms.

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This shift, to me, would not have been possible were the poem written the way a folk riddle would unfold, following either normative turns of syntax or as complete syntactical units. That version would have been stripped of the feeling of arrival and in its place would be an hermetic sensibility.

This life is a burden I am willing to bear.

Flesh does not move me.

Not many things move me.

In a kaleidoscope dome I keep my tenderness.

My time, I take.

Home is anywhere I take a break.

With E J’s lineation, we derive much pleasure from the sense of inevitability, how the poem finally arrives at what it wants to say. And what it wants to say, as I mentioned earlier, is not merely the answer to the riddle. A greater satisfaction lies elsewhere: the poem itself as it enacts the wisdom it wants to offer.

E J’s enjambments progressively counter the awful message of the first line, doing so through its slow, deliberate unfolding. In the second line of the first stanza is a simple declarative, calm and decisive in light of the previous line. It tells us that it will bear. But how?

This is the poem’s journey.

Set in the middle, “I am willing to bear” successfully looks back at its object (life) in the first line and the object in front of it (flesh), and, in a move typical of riddles, the abstract transforms subtly to the more apprehendable. The next stanza, another couplet, when taken together rather than parts of two different sentences, as well turns the negative into a positive: Not many things does not move me. It is this tension characteristic of the riddle — that of reveal and conceal, hide and seek, one thing for another — that the poem is able to use to its advantage. The lines exist not as islands unto themselves, rather they reach out and cast a web of correspondences and conjunctions to other elements throughout the poem.

The next stanza also reinforces the technique of repetition ushered in by the sounds of f and l in “life” and “flesh” and b and r in 77

“burden” and “bear” in the first stanza. This time, repetition may be found in other forms, whether to strengthen the idea of nothing, or as words (“not”, “my”, “take”), or as sounds (the sibilant s, the hard k and p that shuts like a lid, whether in “kaleidoscope” or keep”, the long m when it follows a vowel in “ time” or “home”), all placed in the poem strategically to further cultivate slowness.

For instance, the third stanza has two lines of dramatically different lengths, with the first one containing the imperative “move me.” that is soon followed by a long word that threatens to roll off the tongue in a smooth fluid motion to open up into the second line, except that here, as I mention earlier, the hard k and p sounds of “kaleidoscope” or keep”, placed at the end of both lines momentarily seal this stanza shut, safe for the time being from spillage.

But, at the same time, the bright connotation of kaleidoscope prepares us for the change that awaits us in the final lines, where the burden has become a shelter, and relief lies as well, we are shown, in one’s own agency. The poem ends with a one-line stanza, a poignant abandonment of the formal efforts cherished in the previous four stanzas.

6.

Kristine Domingo’s untitled poem (“A woman runs her finger across”) ushers the reader into another terrain of knowing. What is it to know, how, and consequently, what prize knowledge if by our inquiry we mark the world within our measure?

A woman runs her fingers across civilizations yet to exist, as if to read.

Upon the cost of a map from an Age of Discovery, the keeper vanishes to the backroom.

A mirror crops the world into a continent, a few islands indistinguishable, seas anonymous, marked by ideas taking the shape of hopes, then simply space as limits

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of water as passage of time.

A price is declared into thin air upon a request forgotten.

The woman does little to conclude.

It is as if touch would suffice to hold on to all that could transpire even as her reflection betrayed, saw smaller. Would feel like the thought of a man aboard a sea unnavigable.

The poem means to privilege a way of knowing that sets itself against the kind that is delimiting, the motion of knowledge to begin with: “A mirror crops the world into / a continent”, “seas anonymous, marked by ideas / taking the shape of hopes, / then simply space as limits /”, “her reflection betrayed, / saw smaller.” Subtly set against this is an undercurrent of mystery and conjuring — “the keeper vanishes to the backroom”, “A price is declared into thin air” — and a tension exists between the more dominant progressive course of discovery, enlightenment, and acquisition that is associated with cartography and the shadow aspect of the unknown or the negative: “yet to exist”, “indistinguishable”, “anonymous”, “forgotten”, and “unnavigable”; a tension between the human acquisitive impulse and that which resists our purchase.

The poem begins by assigning palpability if not materiality to that which has yet to materialize, with the strange hyberbolic claim of running one’s “finger across / civilizations” making the gesture more substantial via the exaggeration fulfilled by this figure of speech. “[A]s if to read” makes present an absent intention, and the sentence introduces in the action of reading with one’s fingertips not simply the idea of blindness but rather the alternative possibility of coming upon knowledge as we deny ourselves our normative means. The next time “as if ” appears (at the end of the third stanza: “It is as if touch would suffice”) the urgency of the action is made more manifest and

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material in light of the attenuating and devitalizing motion in the second stanza, when one reaches after knowledge of the world too rationally and in mercenary fashion.

I especially love the phrase “seas anonymous”, an unexpected tandem that calls attention to the absurdity, and then immediately holds up a mirror to our avid practice. The world may be had for a price but the instances of transaction are transformed by the word “upon”. Rather than use “on” and “at”, Domingo uses the more formal “upon” and by changing the register, the transaction becomes ceremonious as if to say, this doesn’t come cheap, there is a price to pay. “Upon” also removes the sensation of a contact (which “on” and “at” as prepositions of place achieve so affably) and rightly so given the nature of what’s taking place.

The lines in Kristine’s poem fulfill a crucial dramatic function given the tug of war taking place between, in Longenbach’s term, “revelation and occlusion.” In the poem, it is important for the lines to show how to put up a resistance to easy availability by making patterns and then disrupting them. Throughout, the poem proceeds like a tango of approach and retreat, as it alternates between enjambed lines (“A woman runs her fingers across”, “Upon the cost of a map from”) that move the poem forward then simple noun clusters that stay it momentarily (“an Age of Discovery”, “a continent, a few islands indistinguishable”, “a sea unnavigable”), and then noun-verb clusters accommodating change and consequence and moving it forward again (“seas anonymous, marked by ideas / taking the shape of hopes, / then simply spaces as limits // of water as passage of time.” ) then complete sentences or complete syntactical units (“the keeper vanishes to the backroom”, “A price is declared into thin air” “The woman does little to conclude”), which is the sensibility privileged in the world and the particular event that is captured in the poem.

All this is marked by quiet decorum facilitated by predominance of the long hissing sound and polysyllabic words (“civilizations”, “Discovery”, “unnavigable”, “continent… indistinguishable”), which effectively neutralize the momentum of words. There is an expert

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refusal to call attention to the nerve and bravura that sometimes enjambments can easily fall prey to.

The poem ends with the image of a man and the woman face-toface with the consequence of the acquisitive impulse. The poem takes place after all that is unknown has been named, and there are maps of and to them that we can own. It is wry, bitter ending. Still the poem offers a resistance by ending with two sentences in the conditional mood, although tempered by evidence of the maps, the civilizations that now exist, and the purchase being made — but momentarily forgotten. The refusal to conclude the transaction is fully embodied as it is set not at the end of the poem but within it, giving rise afterwards to the imagined space where human beings must learn how to come to terms with their narrow impulses vis-à -vis a greater, largely incomprehensible world, and out of this awareness negotiate the means by which we know the world more meaningfully without forfeiting its power.

7.

Ultimately, what I admire about these two poems by E J Galang and Kristine Domingo, which is the reason why I choose to talk about them today, is how they skillfully demonstrate how they function organically within the poem, teaching us that a poetic line is not an end unto itself. That they belong to a larger network that is the poem, and where they must establish a slew of relationships that demonstrate deliberation and study in the poet, while at the same time resisting an all-too-aggressive display through disjunction, disruption, and even obfuscation of the very terms they laid out for themselves. Resisting definitions and manners that previously worked for the discovery of another, potentially more dynamic force. Resisting certainty and inevitability while at the same time moving towards them in the poems. This impulse to resist its own self, to persist in questioning one’s stable beliefs that poetry cultivates in the reader is an impulse that liberates.

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mabi david

Soliloquy When my friend travels to where she is a stranger which is frequent she falls in love and with whom what she has to say means little or much of a mouthful.

It is a wonder they, my friend and the similar outsider, get anywhere, but, in fact, they do, and, well, which leads them, to wander further into where they are wordless and the world they keep waking into a wonder, where they solicit

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the unfamiliar, stepping into its seductions, mindless of anything hard-won. The world can be had this way: they need not woo what is within it, the world wears its face with the wind, its widthless elements in mind, not them, tiny trotters of venues and views, who will break so easily. They can not need to know, shake off the strap of description, not need to utter what they had undergone, getting it “right� and getting him, getting him to get you, wandering into words, to hold a thing in your freezing hands, are not the currency, but that someone holds

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you, you are held in place, the world is unmindful of you, little, little walkers, that he holds you in place, his fingertips, right here the pleasurable cold of getting the plain given, unretrieving of the unavailable. There’s wisdom there.

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mabi david

Soliloquy My friend, who frequently travels, revels in finding herself at dinner tables where no one speaks the same language, an incomprehensible fancy, if you ask me, a bother.

What I can recognize is cocktail, the chatter a fine button-up lace collar one can wear and utterly admire. What I can swallow is the delicious bubble such settings serve as shape to speech, liquid refractions in the atmosphere, precious unlikelies one can string, be brimful of. No one need struggle with the mind moving through its possible meanings, hazarding a guess at the right one; no word nor its weight need be palpable,

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need proffered, then fall onto a stockpile of failed hands.

Here we are hospitable. No word need be injurious, if a slight, to shrug off.

What we forgive is forgotten, and everything is forgiven.

Still my friend insists and goes off the beaten track—the names of new discovered towns she can’t even pronounce—and she becomes friends with strangers who can’t pronounce her name in turn.

Everything, always, only something like it.

All these they must think a hoot.

They spend so much of themselves bridled by and behooved to an end, a sentence, no one has beheld—granted, maybe, lovely, but also maybe on the trail of what may not lie ahead; blind spending on the supervision of itinerant words, strain against abandon, only to stammer at the feet of like, like.

I give her a dressing-down,

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this friend of the needless habit.

I imagine one would want to know the name of the place at the very least, if not all the facts then accuracy of what is available, the just extent of her experience.

I understand. We are after all not born into speech. But stay in place, please, then say it. She says I don’t get it. No. I refuse it.

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mabi david

Soliloquy My friend, who must travel frequently all over, makes it a point to hear the Holy Mass no matter where she is and how unintelligible the language of the liturgy.

The point, she says, is duty, like love or linchpin, the stay that keeps her against the reeling, being not in place but centered; to proceed despite her difficulty deciphering maps; a destination despite disorientation.

The point as well is the ritual, like love or the familiar

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reaching and lifting action, a mechanism of deeds and our faculties fastening to it, grave tackling toward an imperishable, an uplifting to the procedure of the everlasting.

The point is the pleasure of knowing unassisted, without instruction, therefore more mindful, also of not knowing, meaning no longer beholden to what one knows nor to the customary, but a prayer that is longer, speech short of its new fullness, unmarginable revelation. Stepping out of my station this morning, five young men (they look Turkish) talk to me in Deutsch and, to my utter amazement, dance—blessed interjection, people gathering round the rapture of bodies. All these my friend believes

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in—surprise openwork, strange seizures we are subject to, abjuring the remaining intelligible, like a joke in another tongue, the pleasure and faith in what we cannot penetrate, bracing our fidelity to this hunger, to the belief that perhaps where we fail to understand fully or if at all we understand is an open empty palm, an offering, yet another response to what we may have been (we cannot say) been asking for

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Art Gallery We believe this folio’s art gallery to be one of our strongest, featuring contributions from both students and alumni, in a wide variety of mediums and subjects. This collection reflects the level of talent present in the community today.

The female form is an ever-popular subject, as depicted in the works of Lim, Ringor, Marasigan and Celeridad. Lim provides us with visual interpretations of different states of mind while Celeridad highlights a particularly interesting event in Juss Primae Noctisset.

Taguilaso’s intricately detailed works effectively tackle serious ideas in a whimsical manner unique to the artist. Ruiz’s paintings and installation piece use familiar personalities and objects as symbols of our society’s current ideologies. Their depth and grandeur draw you in, inviting you to dig deeper and flesh out your own interpretations.

Calanoc’s abstract works were featured in the 1st Ateneo Heights Artists Workshop (ahaw) exhibit. His pieces embody growth, strength and rebirth — the cycle experienced everywhere in nature.

Like the bamboo depicted in these paintings, Heights will continue to grow and strive for artistic excellence.

Jessica Amanda Bauza February 2011

Alyza May Taguilaso, (G)host. Mixed media.

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Alyza May Taguilaso, Strange Fish Afloat.

Watercolor (16 Ă— 12 in).

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Melanie D. Lim, Cuckoo Bird. Mixed media (12 Ă— 9 in).

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Melanie D. Lim, Smoke. Mixed media (12 Ă— 9 in).

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Melanie D. Lim, The Thinking Tree. Watercolor (12 Ă— 9 in).

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Natasha Marie Ringor, Study of Goats.

Markers (15 Ă— 10.5 in).

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Natasha Marie Ringor, Rooted. Watercolor.

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Margarita A. Chacon, Dad and Kuya in the 70’s. Watercolor.

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Margarita A. Chacon, Pasta Bowl. Watercolor.

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Jessica Amanda Bauza, Nebula. Markers.

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Jose Tence Ruiz, Kabalyero sa Pagitan ng Gabi’t Takipsilim.

Oil on primed linen (7 × 5 ft).

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Jose Tence Ruiz, Kabalyero sa Tabing na Bughaw.

Oil on primed linen (7 Ă— 5 ft).

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Jose Tence Ruiz and Danilo Ilag-Ilag, Paraisado Sorbetero.

Mixed media. Installed at the Singapore Art Museum, 2009 - 2010.

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Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan, Bitter. Digital.

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Pamela O. Celeridad, Juss Primae Noctisset.

Oil and acrylic on canvas (28 Ă— 22 in).

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Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan, Eagle Study. Digital.

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John Alexis B. Balaguer, The End of Efflorescence.

Photomanipulation.

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Juan Viktor Calanoc, Covert Growth. Acrylic on wood.

Part of a series in the Resonance exhibit, November 2010.

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Juan Viktor Calanoc, Moonlit Bamboo. Acrylic on wood.

Part of a series in the Resonance exhibit, November 2010.

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Juan Viktor Calanoc, Early Bloom.Acrylic on wood.

Part of a series in the Resonance exhibit, November 2010.

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Heinz Lawrence Ang (4 BFA Creative Writing)

Si Heinz Lawrence Ang ay isang mag-aaral ng Malikhaing Pagsulat sa Ateneo.

Pangkaraniwa’y nagsusulat siya sa Ingles. Ngayon, ang kanyang nailathalang akda ay sa Filipino. Bukas, magsusulat siya sa Espanyol. Sa makalawa, sa Latin.

Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles

Si Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles ay may-akda ng anim na aklat ng tula: Menos Kuwarto (2002), Ilahás (2004), Hindi man lang nakita (2005), Parang (2008), Alingaw (2010) at Alinsunurang Awit (2010). Kabilang sa kanyang mga natamong parangal ang Gawad Collantes, Gawad Komisyon sa Tula, Maningning Miclat Award for Poetry, at Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. Naging fellow siya sa tula sa ika-36 at ika-48 na U P National Writers Workshop at kasapi ng L I R A (Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika, at Anyo) at High Chair. Kasalukuyan siyang nag-aaral ng mfa in Creative Writing sa Pamantasang De La Salle. Ang susunod niyang aklat, Alinsunurang Awit, ay ilalathala ng U S T Publishing House.

John Alexis B. Balaguer (3 AB Communications)

“We come from the earth, we return to the earth, and in between we garden.”

– Anonymous Jessica Amanda Bauza (4 BFA Information Design)

After four years of readings, oral exams and reflection papers, Jamie will soon be graduating. To help her avoid unemployment, email her at jessicabauza@gmail. com for commissions or freelance job opportunities. Seriously.

Juan Viktor Calanoc (2 BS Management)

To Jamie and Lles, whose constant guidance, presence, and randomness made the pub room a place to call home. Heights would not be the same without you!

And to Cedric and Rona, thanks for always being there for me. It is always appreciated!

Deirdre Patricia Z. Camba (2 AB Literature – English)

For Maggie (and all the bottles of Estée Lauder she unwittingly shared with me) Joseph Casimiro (3 AB European Studies)

His poems have appeared and are forthcoming in Heights, High Chair, Kritika Kultura, and Matanglawin. kay Kay Mark Anthony Cayanan (English Department)

Mark Anthony Cayanan admits to stealing from Lacan and Dickinson.

Pamela O. Celeridad (2 BFA Information Design)

Filigree petals as red as blood Caressed by hands as dirty as mud Margarita A. Chacon (BS Biology 2007)

Mia is currently on her 4th year in a medical school located at Aurora Boulevard.

Kristian Sendon Cordero (MA Panitikang Filipino)

Si Kristian Sendon Cordero ay kasalukuyang tinatapos ang kanyang ma sa Panitikan (admu). Nakatakdang ilabas ngayong taon ang kanyang pang-apat na koleksyon ng mga tula, Kinalburong Lanob at ang salin niya sa mga tula ni Ranier Maria Rilke sa Bikol.

Jay Crisotomo (BFA Creative Writing and BFA Theater Arts 2010)

B J is a fresh graduate of the Ateneo Fine Arts Program. He was a double major in Theatre Arts and Playwrighting. He is currently a director/writer for Tanghalang Ateneo, and Blinding Light Productions.

Isabela Cuerva (2 AB Literature – English)

Sab dreams in color. This piece is dedicated to G, and the voices inside her head.

Ramon Enrico Custodio M. Damasing (4 AB Philosophy)

Monching Damasing hails from Cagayan de Oro City. Poetry thanks; it roots one in revealing and weaves gods and humanity together. Many thanks to Sir Mark Cayanan, Sir Allan Derain and Edgar Samar. To Dr. Michael Coroza. To Heights (to the Fil staff, Cara the Coolest, everyone, really). To Dr. Remmon Barbaza, for introducing him to Martin Heidegger. To Shek and Cat, always there for me.

To those who are recovering, and are loving more passionately.

Gian Karlo Dapul (2 BS Chemistry with MSE)

Maybe all the time he ever wasted didn’t always rightly return every last “loveyou,” leaving everything eternally. (But he prays that you know that he did too. Love you, that is.)

Gian Dapul, ii bs Chemistry with Materials Science and Engineering, likes to think he is a Fine Arts major trapped in a Science major’s body. His Science major body doesn’t think care much for what he thinks, though.

Mabi David

Mabi David is a freelance writer and one of the founding editors of High Chair. She is the author of Unto Thee and You Are Here, both poetry collections published by High Chair in 2005 and 2009, and a co-author of Portraits of a Tangled Relationship: The Philippines and the United States published by Ars Mundi Philippinae in 2008. A graduate of the University of the Philippines, Mabi was the research and publication manager of Filipinas Heritage Library, the deputy director for marketing of

the University of the Philippines Press, and the business development officer of Adarna House. She was a fellow of several writing workshops.

Joven Angelo Flordelis (4 BS Management; Minor in Literature – Filipino)

Laging basal ang katawan; ang puso, hindi kailanman.

Jose Fernando Go-Oco (4 BS Computer Science)

Jose Fernando Go-Oco is usually known as Pepito. He lives in Fairview, Quezon City. For Ria. Melanie D. Lim (3 AB Communications)

I’m very normal.

Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan (2 BFA Information Design)

Salamat sa Panginoon na siyang nagbigay sa akin ng kakayahang lumikha; Sa aking mga magulang na hindi kailanman nawalan ng tiwala sa akin; Sa mga ginigiliw kong Heightsers, lalo sa na sa outgoing eb na tinuring kong unang pamilya sa Ateneo; Sa mga nakapalagayan ko ng loob sa Fine Arts side – nay, corner – of the Ateneo; Sa mga walang sawang sumusuporta sa mga status messages ko sa fb (hehe); At sayo na nagpaikot ng mundo ko nang walang pasubali.

Rachel Valencerina Marra (4 BFA Creative Writing)

Para sa mga katulad kong nakikipag-unahan sa ulap: Gel, Jamie, Miggy, Mich, Kyra at Pao, Julz, E J, Mike at Jaja, Eunice, Tina, Nicko, Monching, ang buong Bagwisan at Heights, at ang mga kasapi ng WriterSkill (habol lang nang habol).

Para sa aking musa, kahit na hindi mo ako kilala at hindi ka marunong magbasa ng Filipino (manatili ka sanang guwapo).

At para, mama, d’yan sa tabi.

Vins Miranda (AB Interdisciplinary Studies 2006)

Araw-araw, subok nang subok. Padayon!

Noelle Pabiton (2 AB Literature – English)

“You see things; you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?”

– George Bernard Shaw (Back to Methuselah) Cleverbot has all the answers. This is why people don’t pray enough.

Carissa Pobre (1 AB European Studies)

For Elina, who read even the worst of me.

For the music of The National at three in the morning.

For all poems I ever read, and the ones who told me to read them.

Natasha Marie Ringor (3 BFA Information Design)

I’ve been told that you’ve been bold with Harry, Mark, and John.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday to Thursday with Harry, Mark, and John. haha I have no idea.

Sandra Nicole Roldan (English Department)

Sandra Nicole Roldan holds an ma Creative Writing degree from U P Diliman and teaches literature and writing at the School of Humanities’ English Department.

She has attended various writing workshops in Dumaguete, Baguio, and Davao. In 2006, she enjoyed a 6-month writer’s residency in Seoul, Korea where she was part of the 1st Seoul Young Writers International Festival. In 2007, she received the Free Press Literary Prize for the Essay (tied with Rosario Lucero). Her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry can be found in various magazines and anthologies including Father Poems (2004), My Fair Maladies (2005), Sawi (2007), and Very Short Stories for Harried Readers (2007), and Mondo Marcos (2010). “The Safe House” was shortlisted for the Free Press Literary Award for Fiction in 2010.

Tina del Rosario (4 BFA Creative Writing)

Tina writes about sad things, mostly, and is happy everywhere else. For Mom, Dad, Patty, Gabby, Melissa and Nico.

“But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all.” (What Sarah Said, Death Cab for Cutie) Jose Tence Ruiz (Ateneo Grade School ’69 and High School ’73)

“In our attempt to achieve power to affect and change, we must be aware of the ever-present possibility of being affected and changed by power.”

– Jose Tence Ruiz, 1998 Alyza May Taguilaso (BS Biology 2010)

Lyza is smarter than your average girl.

She’s currently preoccupied with serious stuff (dead people, loads of exams, frighteningly white uniforms, etc) in the Best Med School Along Aurora Boulevard.

For Dennis.

Pasasalamat Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, sj at ang Office of the President Dr. John Paul Vergara at ang Office of the Vice-president for the Loyola Schools G. Rene San Andres at ang Office of the Associate Dean for Student Affairs G. Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz at ang Office of the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs G. Chris Castillo at G. Dino Galvey at ang Office of Student Activities Bb. Marie Joy Salita at ang Office of Administrative Service Bb. Leonora Wijangco at ang Central Accounting Office Bb. Christina Barzabal at ang Purchasing Office Bb. Consolacion Concepcion at ang Ateneo Placement Office Dr. Ma. Luz Vilches at ang Office of the Dean, School of Humanities Dr. Jerry Respeto at ang Kagawaran ng Filipino Dr. Marianne Rachel Perfecto at ang English Department Dr. Benilda Santos, Mr. Xander Soriano at ang Fine Arts Program Bb. Christine Bellen at ang Ateneo Institute of Literary Arts and Practices (ailap) G. Rodolfo Allayban at ang University Archives Bea Cupin at ang Guidon Tresa Valenton at ang Matanglawin Sa Sanggunian ng Mag-aaral ng Ateneo De Manila at Council of Organizations of the Ateneo Sa Haranya ng ua&p, Thomasian Writers Guild ng ust, Malate Literary Folio ng dlsu, up ugat, up Writers Club at up Quill Sa High Chair Sa mga panelists ng 16th Ateneo Heights Writers Workshop Sa mga kasapi ng ahww committee Sa mga kasapi ng Buwan ng Wika organizing committee ng Kagawaran ng Filipino Ang mvp Maintenance and Security Personnel At sa lahat ng tumatangkilik sa mga gawain ng Heights, sa patuloy na nagpapasa ng kanilang likha at nakikiisa sa paghubog sa ating panitikan at sining!

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief Associate Editor Internal Managing Editor External Managing Editor Art Editor Associate Art Editor Design Editor Associate Design Editor English Editor Associate English Editor Filipino Editor Associate Filipino Editor

Tina del Rosario Joseph Casimiro Kyra Ballesteros Joven Angelo Flordelis Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan Jessica Amanda Bauza Jose Fernando Go-Oco Isabel Krista Bollozos James Soriano Cedric Tan Nicko Caluya Ramon Enrico Custodio M. Damasing

Moderators

Allan Derain Mark Anthony Cayanan Wilford Almoro

Staffers Art Veron Ao, John Alexis B. Balaguer, Tasie Cabrera, Juan Viktor Calanoc, Niki

Calma, Pamela O. Celeridad, Wilbur Hernandez, Mon Esquivel, Momo Fernandez, Mark Lacsamana, Mo Maguyon, Gracie Mendoza, Io Ocier, Eli Padilla, Therese Nicole Reyes, Ria Rigoroso, Tasha Ringor, Aaron Villaflores Design Sam Bautista, Sara Erasmo, Pamcy Fernandez, Paola Lizares, Madi Vilela English Nicole Acosta, Carlo Francisco Adajar, Marie Felise Aurelio, Mia Katrina Avila, Deirdre Camba, Isabela Cuerva, Gian Dapul, Miggy Francisco, Julienne Alexis Joven, Kathryn Lantion, Sydney Roxanne Lau, Joseph Ledesma, Deo Charis Mostrales, Kathy Ong, Hannah Perdigon, Carissa Pobre, Anna Katerina Rara, Margarita Reyes, Anna Maria Eliza Reyes, Ara Marie Leal Rodriguez, Miguel Antonio Sulangi, Jillian Tan, Pauline Marie Villar, Sophia Diane Villasfer Filipino Lester Abuel, EJ Bagacina, Japhet Calupitan, Geneve Guyano, Roselyn Ko, Rachel Marra, Karen Medriano, Mike Orlino, Karla Placido, Lorenz Revillas, Jero Santos, John Solito, Paolo Tiausas Production Camille Joy Cruz, Aiane Bernadette U. Lim, Pat Santos, Angeline Ople, Edgar Resma, Lorianne Buena, Cara Bautista

ateneo national writers workshop

24 – 28 October 2010 Ateneo de Naga University, Naga City, Camarines Sur Fellows

Rodel Añosa Jimple Borlagdan Maureen Gaddi dela Cruz Glenn Diaz Noel T. Fortun Richard Madrilejos Adrian Remodo Gerry Rubio Alyza May Timbol Taguilaso Michelle Abigail Tiu Tan Eduardo Uy Arnold Matencio Valledor

Ticao, Masbate Tabaco, Albay San Pedro, Laguna Manila City Las Piñas City Tabaco, Albay Naga City, Camarines Sur Virac, Catanduanes Quezon City Quezon City Gubat, Sorsogon Panganiban, Catanduanes

Panelists

Carlo Arejola Mikael Co Michael M. Coroza Gary Devilles Allan Derain Jayson Jacobo Alwynn Javier

Jazmin Llana Marco Lopez Vic Nierva Frank Peñones Benilda S. Santos Danilo M. Reyes Alvin Yapan

ailap Director Acting ailap Director Associate Director Translation Desk Head Literary Studies Desk Head Creative Writing Desk Head Workshop Co-Directors

Edgar C. Samar Benilda S. Santos, Ph.D. Kristine Romero Michael M. Coroza, Ph.D. Gary Devilles Yolando Jamendang Kristian Cordero Yolando Jamendang Mitch Cerda Maki Lim

Workshop Coordinators

ateneo-heights artists’ workshop 8 November 2010 The Aerie, Ateneo de Manila University Workshop Directress Jessica Amanda Bauza Fellows

John Alexis Balaguer Juan Viktor Calanoc Pamela Celeridad Momo Fernandez Alfred Benedict Marasigan Jan Eli Padilla

Panelists

Frances Alcaraz Sergio Bumatay III Neil Galang A J Omandac

resonance

The 1st Ateneo-Heights Artists’ Workshop Exhibit 23 - 30 November 2010 mvp basement, Ateneo de Manila University Like a sound wave resonating from a primary source, the 1st AteneoHeights Artists Workshop (ahaw) was inspired by the organization’s established writers workshop. Continuing the tradition of honing artistic talent in the Ateneo community, the ahaw integrated elements suited to the visual arts, including a themed exhibit as a culminating event. This collection exhibits the fellows’ artworks, which emulate the classics while taking risks that allow growth as visual artists, in the same way sound waves emanate from a source. These pieces were exhibited as part of Arete, the week-long celebration of the School of Humanities.

Heights hopes that the ahaw, as a new artistic tradition, will continue to nurture talented Atenean visual artists. It is our hope that ahaw and the contributions produced by its artists, will impact the Ateneo culture for years to come.

Call for contributions Open to all Loyola Schools students, professors, and alumni Written works in English & Filipino poetry, short fiction, essays, literary criticism, one-act play scripts and/or screenplays Visual art drawings, paintings, photographs and photomanipulations, or visual art in any other medium Submit your work to filipino: heights.filipino@gmail.com english: heights.english@gmail.com artworks: art.heights@gmail.com Contact us Visit us at mvp 202 ateneo.heights@ymail.com heights-ateneo.org Use ‘Submission’ in the subject-line of your email submission and include a short bio or write-up