Dear Silence, p.4

Are you in league with the wind? How far must the ostrich run to escape extinction? Was it necessary for Marduk to slay Tiamat with an excess of air in order to invent guilt? Will the resurfaced ship dislodge the echoes of her drowned? What color of cat would you take for your own? How do the strands of your hair establish the precise and legitimate minute of their descent? When did remembering ever stop you?

Dear Silence, p.3

Will enough dandruff lend themselves to a sculpture of your nape? Would you rather choose between Osiris and Seth or keep them both? Does the moon have a full voice? Why be vice president? Do you drape the underwindows of your nest with webs or would you rather keep a crystal view of the soil? Since more amphibians than birds are killed by the day, will the frog seek refinement? Why won't you cross the road?

Dear Silence, p.2

Among the perfume drops, which would you lend to the gutter? How much debt is necessary to make the world go round? How could you forget exactly - or exactly forget - the face of the mountain? Between the archangels Gabriel & Michael, who would you trust with the analysis of your essential phlegm? Who was it, really, who finally made sense of the lock on your door? Which is the ant that lost its way?

Dear Silence, p.1

What will persuade the petals of Dona Aurora to look up? How does the coccoon contrive the butterfly? How ardently do you challenge your zit? What chance does the person in your dreams have of discerning your intentions? Do you still wish to remember how the ash fell? Does your silence wish the interrogation to continue? Where is the flying fish who prefers the wrong side of the water?

Diderot I

It was night and on a jeepney from a writing workshop when the faux Chinese commented on the volume of my written work (he was poking at my attempts to publish at least two things every semester). He was unaware of my model - let us call him Diderot out of narcissism - against whose books my pages weigh no more than dead insects. I knew he was looking at his own achievements (as all faux Chinese are wont to do), maybe savoring the brilliance of all his unwritten concepts and scenes. Out loud, he said that we LB writers must have so much time in Laguna.

All I get from the highway store is discipline and buko pie, I said, annotating his pedestrian thoughts.

Panayam ni Vlad

Alinsunod sa hindi mahihindiang mga hiling(hing) ni Vlad.

V - Sino ka (o, ilarawan ang iyong sarili sa loob ng 100-300 salita)?

A - Mabuhok ako kung sa mabuhok. Huwag mo nang itanong kung saan. Basta kahit saan mo ako hawakan, hindi ka mapapalagay kasi maghahanap ka ng balat at wala ka namang mararamdaman. Huwag mabahala, maging ako hindi ko kilala ang balat ko. Ngunit may alam ako sa sarili ko, isang bagay na hindi ko mapasisinungalingan: ako ay mangingibig. Matagal na akong umiibig at matagal pa akong iibig. May isa pa akong alam: marami akong nakilala at binuo sa aking mga panaginip upang makilala. Karamihan sa kanila, makinis. May ilan pa nga sa kanila na madulas. Ngunit anuman ang gawin kong pagpuwersa sa aking sarili, wala akong mahal sa kanila. Ni isa, wala. Maraming hindi nakaiintindi - sana hindi ka isa sa kanila - ngunit mangingibig ako, alam ko. Bagay ito na hindi ko mapasisinungalingan.

V - Saan o kanino ka nakaugnay o nakikiugnay (o, pagkukuwento ng mga relasyong napasukan sa loob ng 100-300 salita)?

A - Paborito ko sa lahat (bukod sa aking pag-ibig na naipaliwanag ko na) ang araw. Pluto ang ngalan ng kinatatayuan ko, at ipapaliwanag ko mamamaya itong lugar. Sa ngayon, kailangan mong malaman na ang relasyon ko sa araw ang paborito ko. Madalas kung sa madalas ideya lamang ang araw. Konsepto ito, at dahil sa haba ng panahon, hindi ko na mawarian kung saan nanggaling. Bakit may ideya ako ng araw? Bakit minsan, kinikilala ko ito bilang ama. O, mas eksakto, kinikilala ko bilang isang bagay na kumikilala sa akin bilang anak. Hindi ko ito makausap. Kahit sa panaginip, hindi ko ito makausap. Kahit sa ilang pambihirang panaginip na napakatotoo at tila nakikita ko na ang higanteng itlog ng liwanag (na siyang konsepto ko ng "araw"), masyado akong nasisilaw para magsalita. Minsan, lalong pambihira pa kaysa sa panaginip ng araw, ang mismong panahon na nakikita ko ang araw. Naaaninagan ko ito, pinakamabangis na tala. Ngunit saglit lamang. Bago ko pa mawarian kung araw na nga ba ang nakikita ko o isang repleksyon ng araw, wala na ito. Nangyari ito, halimbawa, kagabi (at mahaba ang gabi ng pluto, saglit lamang ang umaga at madaling malimutan). Darating ang panahon na hindi ko na naman alam kung saan ko nakuha ang ideya ng araw.

V - Sa anong mundo ka umiiral (o, paglalarawan ng mga kinalakha at ginagalawang lugar/kaligiran sa loob ng 100-300 salita)?

A - Mabuhok ako sa isang mundong mabuhok. Tawagin na nating "Pluto" ang mundong ito, gaya ng nakagawian ng ilang nakilala ko na napakahilig magpangalan at madaling magsawa sa mga panaginip. Tawagin na rin nating "mundo" ang lugar na ito, at baka ikasaya pa ng Pluto. May isa akong hubo't hubad na nakilala, malinaw ang kanyang mata at dahil sa nipis ng kanyang kilay ay madali siyang paniwalaan. Ayon sa kanya, hindi maituturing na mundo ang Pluto. Sa halip, isa lamang ito sa malalaking obheto sa tinatawag niyang "Sinturon ni Kuiber," isang napakalaking espasyo sa bingit ng solar system. Nais ko sanang ipaliwanag niya ang mga binitawan niyang salita lalo na ang isa na tila solido at tila rin hangin kung kumilos bilang tunog sa utak ko: Solar. Ngunit sinabi niyang hindi siya tutugon, sinabi niyang ako ganoon kamahal, at nagawa niyang umalis sa kabila ng kanyang mga halik.

Notes for a Never-Paper on Jollitown,

The show will be 3 months old next week. It airs on GMA-7, 9:30-10:00am every Sunday. My wife and I have been following it albeit not religiously. It was something done more out of a spirit of fun.

Permanency

I'm about to use Multiply as some sort of group mail, I hope you don't mind. It's a bit handier that Yahoo, etc. I don't really know, it just feels that way. I hope it's safe because this is going to contain some shop talk.

I'm a step closer to tenure. You know how I've been spoiling for it. Last week, I got the referrees' replies to my journal article back. It gained one rejection and one acceptance-as-is. The rejection got me dejected for a while.

After a while, I just focused on the last line of the editor's letter: "Congratulations!" Because, well, they took it anyway - accepted with revisions. It didn't get my spirits up. But then it's not about spirits and lofty-lofty, silly. It's about holding down the job.

After the necessary 2-3 days mulling, I revised. It took less than an hour of Saturday (nitty gritty lang naman, citations etc). So there, I passed it. I just hope it gets published soon. But in itself the letter of acceptance will "stay the execution," so to speak, if ever the journal doesn't see print before the year (and my contract) ends forever.

So here I am, hanging tough, and there you are, reading.

Saya pa naman (yata) ng UP charter ngayon. Mo' Money. Bad time to out. And "Mabulok ka sa LB, gago!" sounds to me more of a well-wishing than a curse. So pray for the editor, the Director of the UPLB Publishing Office, so that nothing happens to her. So that finally, finally I get lifetime supply of milk for Neneng. Because she's kicking and the Pink Lady's belly's black and blue with heel-prints and toe-prints.

Peace out. Aaight.

Heard You Were Leaving

I remember dreams of Spain and the best of oars. I remember and old couch, worthless and diseased if not for our butts. Pages and pages and pages. And lips before daybreak. My dear, dear friend.

Is it sad or is it magic that I call you friend because you are leaving?

May your luck keep you warm.

The Darlings, v.1

I'm sure it was well-meant. And these are darling people who approach you. But early this week, they wanted me to write a poem for the graduating batch. I said "no," which was, as usual, the summer flower of at least nineteen original negations. Foremost among these negations go thus: "A poem for them, the relieved ones? Haven't you heard: I sing dead people."

But all they heard was my "no." They must've been angry at most, must've been disappointed at least, must've remained my friends. So, it remains sunny and sunny and sunny.

"No," and I have not stopped humming since.

After Another Leaping of the Year

Last week, Ava e-mailed me about the death of her student. I have been selfish with the death of mine. Her death has appeared in my long fiction, in many journal entries, and in one or two of the least disciplined of my lectures. But she's dead just the same. And I keep her death as if an amulet. As if the death were mine at the outset (And if so, at the outset of what? Of her life? Of mine? At the instant of our meeting? At the moment of her final breath?)

Maybe I am only allowed to call Lontoc's death mine if I was there at the time and killed her.

I tried to dispel these thoughts with a handful of fictions I have wrought about Alexander, how his greatness was not merely displayed by but in fact depended on the Gordian Knot. How Aristotle could not have been so myopic to encourage in his ward a singular genius in the customs of terror and neglect to train him in the subtler ways.

How, when Aristotle saw the knot, he immediately saw both solutions: one by heave of blade, the other by dexterity of finger. Upon concluding, in his mind, the weave through which the hand can uriddle the rope, his sword flashed. Thus ended the elegance of long divisions.

Thus also did his bleached face, baring all Alexander's military teeth, severe my speculations.

I remember Atienza, my teacher, whose first name is sacred to me, whose thought allowed me to penetrate the profound hypocrisies of infant formula companies, whose long death drew to a close that December 5, an entirely other death, contrasted against the deliberate clangor of Villanueva's passing. I remember that I must forget, as I had to forget then, December 7, because I had to take the stage (shooting my mouth off on Creative Nonfiction, of all things!), and entertain some applause and questions, and pretend that I could contain him. My hand held the podium like a crutch.

I omit two months, because within it is the eye. The eye that sees cannot see itself. Unless it does what I now undertake - yet also, what I have always been undertaking: pretend that everything else is a mirror.

So February 28, I gave a 20-point quiz. Then this mythology class evaluated my months of teaching through the secret forms of Mrs. Daisy Diola. After she left, we checked the quizzes together. Then I called for the papers so that I could receive them from highest to lowest and thereby ascertain my average: 20? No one.

19? No one.

18? Still no one. But I think by the children had begun to laugh.

Only two of the twenty-seven passed. This fact, they met with increasing laughter - so much laughter. Too much, and so I must have said some words. If I know myself well enough, I must have resorted to anger. Yet I cannot in all honesty recall my words. Did I curse? Did I shout? Did I ascend to bitter Filipino or maintain some level of cool in English?

All I remember was hearing a voice trembling over and over inside my head, mounting as their laughter mounted: "They should have failed you. They should have failed you." It was a female voice. It was young. It was right.

I have tried to create another world where Alexander chose to apply his fingers to the knot. He undid it, but after some thought, he restored complexity to the ropes. He abandoned his campaign to dominate the world, maintained governance of Macedonia with the prudence of three years, then retreated to anonymity disguised as a beggar. His face was soon discovered, so he broke his teeth and rolled the sharpest pieces across his face. He kept the pieces in waxcloth and scarred his face every year for the rest of his life. He lived long, well beyond the age of thirty. He took jobs such as a cattle-driver in Gordium or a porter in the Persian docks. They say he also became a fisherman, but also more than that: a carpenter.

They should have failed you, said the voice.

But I disgress. This world dissolved after he died or was killed. So, I created another. In this world, the great ruler freed the ropes of the Gordian Knot precisely as history tells us. But some Asian legends report that at the eve before each conquest, the royal messenger of the besieged state would be cordially received by Alexander in his own tent. The messenger would bear a knot from the court mages. He solved them all two ways in his mind, but his sword was singular in its reply.

In India, where he was to erect the twelve altars that mark the end of his conquest, he received an elephant's tusk, abominably knotted and naturally imbued with a beauty to keep the King's sword hand at bay. Alexander died within three years of the tusk.

Aristotle died. Atienza. Lontoc.

She should have failed me, I said.

Doubleyou

Poem published at Philippine Graphic, the March 3 issue.

Kambal Cliche

Gabi na naman ng mga librarian. Itinakda ng punong librarian na kumuha kami ng cliche ng pag-ibig at paglaruan ito, baka sakaling maging tula. Kaya ayun, napabaka-sakali tuloy nang di oras.

Sana dalawa

Sana dalawa ang puso ko
Para dalawa silang iibig sa iyo

Hindi ko alam kung nagustuhan nila iyon. Malamang hindi kasi hindi pa ako humihingi ng permiso, piunayagan na nila akong maghanap ng isa pang cliche. Hindi ko rin alam kung nagustuhan nila ang kinalabasan ng ikalawang pagpili kasi umalis ako agad pagkatapos bigkasin ang tula.

Isang Salita

sinabi mo na
kaya’t sabihin mo pa
pabulong at paihip at palagi
na ibibigay mo ang lahat

halimbawa
ang inipit mong pilik-mata
ang nilunok mong dighay halimbawa
ang iyong mga kinupkop
mula sa paghihinuko
ang hindi mo maisuko
sa regla bilang halimbawa

ipagpalagay na nating lahat
at ibulong mo pang “ibibigay”

halimbawa
maliban sa buwan at suntok
maliban sa tala at tadhana
maliban sa daigdig at ikot

bukod pa sa hangin
dahil aking tatanggapin

kada alikabok na ipit
sa kada kulubot ng iyong siko
isa-isa sa sari-saring lansa ng iyong pawis
kada patak
ng iyong hindi pa yumayaong kandila

hanggang magpantay-pantay
ang bawat titik sa nag-iisang tunog
ang la
at ha
at hat

hanggang magniig patungong tuldok
at mahalo sa paglaho
ang kumpleto mong handog

hanggang wala nang “ni isa”
at walang matira
at wala ka na

maliban sa palagi at palaging iihip
na hindi mo ako mahal
at hindi mo ako kailanmang minahal

Mmm-Bop: The Trouser Song

They tell me it's bound to get ugly. They tell me I still have time to back out, don't rush into these things. Because these things will prove to be one irrevocable decision after another.

Whenever I hear the word ugly I remember Khojee, da man. I remember his long afternoon.

Khojee's not ugly, facewise. But you know how these things go. I'm not allowed to call him pretty. He was earrings and muscles, was bad genie laughter and a bald head. We loved him as far as love can go in the sergeants' circle of the old university. We loved him even if we never saw him coming, and even if he always popped out of nowhere right into the middle of the tambayan, grabbing one of us by the trousers - usually the thin Mosqueda - and shouting: Gang Rape!

Then we would each grab a limb, in earnest, so that he could rub his knee into Mosqui's groin - or that of anyone of us - and we could then chant Children of the Corny: Gang Rape Gang, Gang Rape Gang! And he could then ullulate.

Then we would be satiated and play magic cards or rehash boy bawang jokes or listen to Khojee detail the latest H-wood object of his masturbation ask Mosqui how life was with a penis as broad and as short as a can of Maling. One day, late in the morning, we were bad-mouthing his penis when Mosqueda got so damn piqued that he threatened to unzip. So Khojee signalled Gang Rape Gang though as far as we were concerned he didn't have to, we were already up and grasping, and Mosqui never wore his pants hiphop style ever since the passing of that day.

Khojee wore hiphop himself, wore it long after most of us gave up on the fashion, wore it loose and low even after I warned him that a stupid Manuela mall-rat was posing hip-hop when he busted his head by challenging a yuppie to a fight in the middle of the food court. The yuppie raised his fists, boxer style, and the Manuela hiphopstah delivered a high kick. His own seams were his undoing. The flight of the right leg pulled the low pant-leg up and snatched the left leg off the ground, wham! Went the head.

But Khojee was da man, and I was still thinking of Kierkegaard with his two horses, one heavenward another earthbound. And the man in the chariot getting torn to pieces.

So Khojee was in his hip-hop get-up, his waist superfluous with abs and belts and chains when he popped up one afternoon. Because he found Mosqueda absent, he said we'd postpone the rape although he was so horny because of this new girl he saw in an MTV, a Claire Danes look-a-like and boy would he like to teach that girl the difference between a daisy and a rose.

Rose. Uh-ohs. We asked him if he'd jacked off already. He said of course, oh god why would he pass her up? He's seen the video several times. He heard the song once standing up on the bus and began rubbing his member on the pole, never mind the sidewise glances of the driver! I was about to ask him how many times he saw the video when Mosqui suddenly appeared and asked Khojee: "You know why Taylor Hanson's flat-chested?"

"Because she's a kid, stupid," Khojee said.

"Because he's a boy, like his brothers in the Hanson brothers who are also as boys as brothers go," Mosqueda said.

He chanted Gang Rape Gang, and I'm willing to bet it was the longest afternoon in Khojee's life, and no one in the sergeants' circle ever wore hip-hop style again. And no one kept in touch after graduation.

Beatitude of the Moment

Blessed are the judgmental
For in this instant they know
They count not among the blessed

Emo Trip

At the outset, I should say that this is not my story and will never be my story. This must be said with a healthy dose of vehemence, and maybe only the fly register can serve the purpose of caveat to the hilt: this is so not my story.

As in.

Once there was a couple, the usual hetero, and the girl was in the red so the guy had to content himself with the capitals B and J. They were the wild type, doing the do everywhere but on the bed. There were sheets all over the house but no underwear. Neither of them bothered with underwear unless they had to work or go out to buy some food.

The do. Guy did it for the fun. Girl did it for the exercise. Of course they say it's for love. Three permutations of speaking the love-word apply to them. Before the deed, it's beg. During, it's shout. After, it's whisper. It's the panting, the moaning, and the foreplay: love. A fly syllable. Of course.

It was not their first time with the red. They've had months between them. They've accumulated hours of tongue, so to speak. But in this particular hour, this "once," the guy tried for the throat, past the palate and down the uvula. Or maybe it was the girl who sought the good choke. These are lost details.

What they did not forget is that the girl began to vomit and the guy held fast her nape when it happened because he found it warm. And the girl vomitted some more because she liked him holding fast.

They were all laughter and hoots in the showers. Cheers all around!

They took some of that celebratory spirit to bed and, without knowing it, they fell asleep at exactly the same time. They also did not know that they shared a minute before sleep and it was a minute of wondering. The girl thought: Would he like us to do that again? Would I?

The guy thought: Did she swallow?

Athiopie

"Kapag maganda ka na,"
Tanong ng pinakalihim
Na Angelina Jolie,
"Kelangan pa bang lumaya?"

Aking Araw

Makailang beses sa buhay ko, ngunit pabiro, na sinabihan akong "may araw ka din!" Ilang beses na kaya akong pinag-ukulan ng ganitong mga salita nang hindi ko narinig? Na pabulong, o maaaring pasigaw ngunit sa mga lingid na silid ng kongkreto o puso. At sinusino kaya: mga nahirapang estudyante, mga hindi naworkshop nang maayos, nag-iinarteng kaibigan na nakaligtaang himasin ang ego, isang nabigwasang kapatid, nasaling na magulang - ilan kaya sa mga dating kasintahan? - at isang estranghero sa dyip na inabot ang aking pamasahe sa drayber sa kabila ng pagwasak sa kanyang araw ng nagsusumigaw kong anghit.

Bilang sukli, isang walang pangalang "may araw ka rin!"

Sinuman siya, sila, o ikaw, baka ikaliligaya mong malaman. Alam ko na kasi kung kailan.

Bukas.

Sefirot III

ix. Palad ang kanyang instrumento sa pagdinig ng puso.

iii. Ginamit ni YHWH ang 22 titik upang buuin ang mga nilalang sa 3 antas ng uniberso - ang daigdig, panahon, at katawan ng tao.

vi. Ayon sa liksyon ng mga mata, ang unang 2 entrada sa taong target, mahalaga para sa mga asesino ang pagmanipula sa mga senyas.

viii. Pesos fuertes, o malakas na piso, ang pangalan ng unang salaping inilimbag ng El Banco Espanol Filipino de Isabel II noong May 1, 1852.

v. Ipinagmisa rin ng mga deboto ang 2 namatay sa pag-abante ng Itim na Nazareno.

vii. Bago ipinamalita ng kumpanya ng kape ang antioxidants bilang bentahe ng produkto, inilahok muna nito sa label ang paalala na "nakadaragdag ang kape sa pang-araw-araw na konsumo ng tubig."

ii. Kinakain na ng munting pating ang kanyang kapatid sa loob ng sinapupunan.

iv. Partie honteuse

i. Tinaguriang penoscrotal transposition ang kondisyon ng sanggol na nasa ibabaw ng titi ang bayag.