Two Kinaray-a Pieces

I submitted these two pieces for the fellowship to the University of San Agustin's 2nd Fray Luis de Leon Creative Writing Workshop held last May 17 to 21, 2004. There arose among the panelists (among them Alex de los Santos and Isidoro Cruz of San Agustin, and Melchor Cichon and Alice Tan Gonzales of UPV) an issue whether to call these pieces poems or essays or what. I stuck to believing they are prose poems (as defined by Lawrence Perrine in his book Sense and Sound: An Introduction to Poetry) which has the qualities of poem but has the form of prose.

Alex de los Santos offered an alternative term: sugidanon. Sugidanon, he said, is a Kinaray-a traditional literary form which is quite all-encompassing. The only point is that the author, teller, or speaker tells something. Nagasugid. Be there a complete story (i.e., the formalists' establishment-climax-denouement parts) or none. Just a slice of a probable whole (but won't be told) story.

I leave it to the reader to decide on what these pieces really are.

Kanta Ni Inday (Padangat Kay Dandansoy)

Nagbalik ako liwat idya sa aton payag-payag. Sirum pa lang nag-abot ron ako.

Ang usbong kang basa nga lupa kag ang masaulo ko pa nga pagkanta kang mga sirum-sirum nanghagad kanakon liwat nga magsulod. Waay ron ako magpanuktok.

Gusto ko ikaw daad kibuton.

Buhay nga waay ako nakabalik.

Akon ron gani nalipatan kung ano gid man bala kato ang ginhalinan kadya tanan. Akon dalang ginpangbilin ang mga kangkan-o nga pinangbakintol ko; ang bug-at kang mga binagtong nga ginpangdara ko kangsan-o.

Kamag-an kang baratyagon dalang ang dara ko pabalik.

Akon ruman gani liwat nabatyagan, kag amat-amat nakilala-an, ang dapya kang hangin nga sa mga inadlaw, sinemana, binulan, waay ko mahaklu kang nagaparapit ron ang ginasakyan ko paadto idya: Mabalik ron ako. Gusto ko ikaw daad kibuton.

Ugaring kay kaina pa nag-untat sa pagkulik-kulik ang mga sirum-sirum. Kag sa tupad kang nagakiraw-kiraw ron nga kingki, padayon lang angud ako sa paghulat kanimo.
Tulad, imaw ang nagasaut ko nga haron nga amat-amat ginapanas kang kadulom, akon ruman madumduman nga waay mo gid ako malantaw, maski kaisa, sa Payaw, Dandansoy.


Dalum Ang Kadulom Kang Gabii

Sa kadulom kag kalinung kang gabii, si Binang nagsindi kang posporo para sa anda nga kingki.

Sa pagduut kang kalayu kang sugi sa pabilo, ang mga mara kag laya nga dahon nga nagkarataktak halin sa mal-am nga paho sa kilid kang payag nag-untat sa pagpadara kag pagkulas sa huyup kang init kag ragkut nga hangin-Kwaresma. Sa dahi, irong, birigutihan, liug, lubut, likod, kag dughan ni Budok, bugnaw ang balhas nga nagbirilog-bilog angay kang tun-og sa nagakuru nga dahon kang croutons sa kaagahun. Amat-amat, hinay-hinay, nagdalum ang pagkalubong kang ana nga ulo sa nadat-ulan nga basa ron sa balhas nga ulunan. Gintrapuhan ni Binang kang sibin ang balhas, kag ginhuruhapuhap ang dahi kag dughan ni Budok. Kadungan kadya, isa man ka gamay kag kolor-abo nga alibangbang ang nagsulod halin sa giwang kang bintana kag naglupad-lupad sa kung diin asta ang malab-ot kang kasanag kang kalayo kang kingki. Sa sagwa, sige sa pagdalum ang kadulom kang gabii.

Dayun naghuyup ang daw natalang nga maburubugnaw nga hangin. Kag nagasaut-saut ang kalayu sa pabilo kang kingki. Sa sagwa, sa kurungan, nagsiyak ti tatlo ka beses ang isa sa anum ka mga pisu nga nakup-an kang pakpak kang munga kag naghipus liwat. Ang nipis kag puti nga mga panganud, nagpadugang sa kadulom sa palibot-sa parayan, kamaisan, kawayanan----sa anda paglubas sa dalum kang balsa nga bulan. Si Budok, sa ana damgu, nagalanguy sa suba nga bulawan, imaw sanday Pato, Pimbang, kag Kaloy. Bugnaw ang hangin nga naghuyup pasulod sa payag kag nagpasaut-saut sa sulo kang kingki; dalum ang pagginhawa ni Budok. Dalum man ang pagginhawa ni Binang sa pagturok kay Budok: ginsampawan na kang hinipid nga tualya ang basa ron nga ulunan ni Budok, dayun liwat trapo kang sibin sa bugnaw nga balhas ni Budok. Nagadalum nga nagadalum ang kadulom kang gabii.

Isa ka sirum-sirum ang nagsulod sa giwang kang sarado nga pwertahan, dayun na huni-kulik-kulik-kulik-kulik-sa dalum kang itum nga bato nga ginatukudan kang bangian nga lamesa. Kulik-kulik-kulik. Nagkiraw ang siga kang kalayu sa kingki. Ang kolor-abo nga alibangbang nagparapit sa tagumatayon nga kalayo. Napatay ang suga. Dayun may daw sa baho kang sunog nga hilamun ang nasimhutan sa sulod kang payag.

Dalum ang pagginhawa ni Budok. Dalum man ang pagginhawa ni Binang.

Dalum ang kadulom kang gabii.

Days, Dates, Names, Numbers

This is a draft of a story (or what) I wrote over a year ago. I always wanted to rewrite it but it's funny how some works defy revisons and just keep on being themselves. This one has a funny way of self-preservation. I just hope that after putting it here (meaning, to be always seen by the very me), I will finally have mind to do it. "Revise me, you idiot!" I hope it screams.

I hope to find the discipline to do things better soon(er). Or that the discipline finds me.

1

You hurt.

You say you hurt yourself because you think too much. You think it hurts you to think that you’re thinking too much. And it hurts you to think you think faster than you can talk, you think faster than you can write, you think faster than you can express yourself. You try to find a way----or ways----to express yourself better. You believe you don’t know how to express yourself----that you never express yourself well, enough. That’s why you try to write. You try to join groups, you try to do things, that you think can help you in expressing yourself. So, one, two, three, four: you close your eyes, you breathe deeply. You hum. You whisper to yourself, Hmmm, but you’re still there, trying.

2

The world is never with you. You think----you believe, you convince yourself----it may not be against you, but heck, neither is it for nor with you. The world never cares. The world never cared. Why? Who does? Who did? Fuck the world. Fuck them all. And you say to yourself, fuck you.

3

You met her five years ago, and you think she never changed: the way you think her eyes evade you, your gaze, when you pass each other, and you believe she thinks the same way about you still. You wonder whether she wondered. Or maybe she still wonders----why you stopped seeing her, stopped talking to her, you snobby little snot----why you stopped to get so faltering, stopping there, standing still, trying to breathe that waft of air that carried the smell of her perfume. You gathered enough strength, enough courage to stop, and you did (for some reason that even you don't know if you really understand) but ended up hurting yourself wondering whether she wondered or still wonders why.

4

You know that eternity lies in brief, brief moments one can never hold. So you close your eyes and think: Maybe----maybe----this was really meant to happen.

Then you stop and ask yourself, "But you don’t believe in fate, do you?" Of course you don’t. It’s not fate. It's never fate. Things happen simply the way they are meant to happen. That's why they happened.

But it’s never fate.

5

You know that eternity lies in brief, brief moments one can never hold. You think, therefore, all your moments together were an eternity. All of them may have been long gone, long passed. Long gone. But then again, they were past. Thus gone. But meant to be.

You hold them thus, those brief, brief moments, if only in memory (for you know that moments can never be held in your hands, of course you know), eternally.

6

So you let things be.

7

So one day you hear she gets pregnant, you wait for yourself to feel something. Grief maybe, sadness maybe, pity maybe. Anger maybe? But no, nothing comes. You only feel the warmness of the wind slapping your face, you standing there again, alone, waiting, thinking. So you wonder why. And the more you wonder why, the faster the hurt comes running, wheezing, rushing back. You’re hurt again.

8

But what is "hurt" anyway? For hours, you sit there looking at the blackness of the coffee trying to think about things but nothing comes. Only a feeling. You’re hurt, you know it, but you don’t know why.

9

You seem to always run out of answers and you know that this too is one question you can’t find an answer to. So you come back to realizing that you really don’t know how to express yourself. So you look at yourself in the mirror and see whether its true, what they say, that when you feel lost you see a different person there looking at you. But no. For you, it’s never true. You look hard and you see there, you see yourself again. It has always been you, you know it. You just don’t know who you are.

10

This other girl you first saw almost two years ago. What with her, but how you did it, only you can tell. You got to know her name, her address, her cell phone number, her home number, her class schedule. Everything except her middle name. You talked with her friends, her classmates, her teachers, but not with her, you idiot. So what? You ask yourself. So what?

11

It’s February and you know it. It’s Valentines but you don’t care. Well, at least, you tell yourself you don’t care. For 20+ years now, you've never cared. But come the nights or mornings or afternoons when you’ve nothing better to do (which come most of the time anyway), you find yourself sitting there, sitting there again, staring at that cup of cooling coffee, thinking, thinking, asking yourself why.

12

You have tachicardia, you know it. Your heart thumps faster, heavier everytime you take in caffeine. But you still take that cup of coffee anyway. Stare at it for some moment, watch it as its steam goes up, rise, disappear to nowhere, and you look at the cup, and you sip from it. Slowly. Little by little. And you wait for that distinct beat, thump-thump, thud-thud, to come.

13

And you feel awed, you wonder why.

Three Love Poems And A Work Of Despair

I have never known any other longing

I have never known
any other longing than to look
at your face ever
dis-
.................appearing among crowds
whose faces, when I start to search,
start to resemble yours,
only that they look back at me
while you don’t-you, the ever-
fleeing, the ever-escaping-my-eyes,
the ever-increasing-my-longing,
when will I ever know you?


as when i was before like this( that is

as when i was before like this( that is
when i was unlike how i am now
)i ask myself am i
not a wonderer( am i? )who am
supposed to wonder and ask why
ask why ,askwhy, why there is no wonder----
there is no more wonder----there is no more
wonder........... in the wonder
...........................................of your eyes.


letuscome and take a ride

letuscome and take a ride
and in the jeep allow me : i will
put my arms around your shoulder (putmyarms
....................around your shoulder )and i’ll
stroke your hair ,and i will play
run my fingers through your hair
and i will whisper in your ear( letmewhisper
..................................in your ear
..............................................whilethejeepisrunningwheezing,
..................................whilethewindiswheezingbreezing
)i’ll shushingly whisper in your ear ,and i will listen

to the wind

carry whispers from your hair,
whisper silence to my face.


Grief

i.

I will remember everything of it: how my hands were wanting to clutch yours----you, allowing me to now, then moving them suddenly, but how subtly, away; how, when we took the jeep, my shoulders felt the weight of your head as the breeze blew and brushed strands of your hair to my face; how my arms were wanting to feel how is it embracing you.

I was always ever searching your eyes for signs, but there came none.

ii.

Feelings, I told you once or several times, come without being invited. Or they will not without announcement. I understand my words more now, as I still am trying my best at understanding what you meant then by saying "a reason for everything".

You had your reason for saying it, I’m certain.

iii.

I will remember everything of it.

When you told me it----it that I anticipated would cause me grief----I was waiting for the feeling to hit me, permeate me, consume me. But there was none. Why do they come too slowly for me? Why don’t they come earlier so I may sooner get over and forget them? The only answer there was for me was silence; and I know, when silence answers, there is weight.

iv.

But we have no memory for feelings.

I know that someday, I will recall all of these things, when I will, in a different way. And I will wait and search and want for the feelings again.

I will remember everything of this. But when the time comes that this will have all passed (if it ever will), the feeling will be gone, and I should feel better, and I should be glad, because the pain----the pain that I am waiting for now to come----shall have left me, too, by then. But it will cause me grief again. For even if I want the pain to pass, to dissipate, I will always----always----want the feeling again.

The Eternal Nothingness Of An Empty Mind

......................................................."Life is what happens
.................................................... ...while you're busy
..................................................... ..making other plans."
...............................................................- John Lennon

There is one thing I know, and it is that things are beyond knowing. I can only start trying. All things are moving, fleeting, escaping, and I am just here, looking, observing, trying to hold in my mind's eye the fleeting moments, which, deep inside I want to be in: there, among the moving.

I want to move in beautiful conjunction with how-is-the-world. I want to move, and I want to be moved.

I believe in the pointlessness of understanding when one is in motion. I just want to be moved. I want to stop trying to understand.

But every movement, if from a resting beginning, is a disturbance. And the resting, if from movement, is also a disturbance.

There is a universe within me, and it is constantly rearranging itself. If I believe The Big Bang Theory, this universe is always moving. Moving, spreading itself to further infiniteness, moving away from, and thinning at the center. Soon enough, this universe within will tell me, and it will make me feel, "Ahh, yes. Here, at the core, you are empty."