Mirror, Mirror, Wall, Wall
10.16.09I've been writing short 'wall poems' over the years. They're sort of like doodle-poems or scribble-poems, six to eight lines that I'd type on my PDA phone while on the warpath to finish some other task on time. And, with just one metaphor, ballooned to the size of a blimp in the teeny world of a short poem, you can see how moody a writer can get -- from the theatrical gut-me-with-a-spork-will-you to the clinically detached this-is-just-a-GMO-potato-with-strawberry-filling-(poke)-(poke). It can give the poor metaphor one hell of an itch to sign up for union. ;)
Here are several such poems. Cheers.
========================================EnclosureCorners make the best prisons
for the eyes of those who live not
in the present. Transients
in different periods of time held so close
that reality becomes a mere
pause.
A line-break
in a poem about walls. * written: 11.27.06
========================================Structured by DesignPurpose makes a poet break a line in two, layer meaning like blocks of brick with cement mortar, extend walls to where they pause and meet -- columns to house the poem. * written: 03.19.08
========================================(Falling on My Ass After) Not Noticing the Glassnot having the money to feel good about not writing poetry when there is not enough time to let the words not die, I could not pause, until the wall did not give way * written: 10.12.09======================
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posted by S.L. Corsua
09.27.09Listen, the world is breaking. Those who hear it, cut off your hands. What need have I, have you of such awkward things that cannot hold together a shrunken, fist- sized, sloppily wrought world? Look, everything is peeled, turned inside out; we are punched out of our center, then infinitely stretched to be the mantle and the crust of a world compressed enough to close ocean trenches, make pockmarks out of snuffed volcanoes. This compact core leaves no space, no crannies to pry apart. Layers away, geographies on the surface reverberate noise: the tearing that ensues before the continental drift. We have nothing to cover our ears with. * written: 09.25.09
Inspired by a Henry Rollins quote emailed to me by my dear friend, Bayi. You can read the quote here or here.======================
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The Complications of Eating Adobo
08.24.09Welcome to my kitchen, where nothing is real until you’ve eaten. I cooked dry adobowhile waiting for you. I wrote soy sauce
vinegar
bay leaves
peppercorns
potatoes
chicken
hearts, on separate pieces of paper dropped in a pot, simmered for hours nights rainy days weekends sick leaves December years. They’ve colored nicely steaming on your plate. Tell me all the other details: combined aromas I could not smell from where I stand, textures of everything mixed up, stewed when the lid is shut too long. I should not have cooked at all. This chicken multiplied to the power of ten years, can have my name. Cut in halves, small, the color of ash -- Eat. These are my hearts. * written: 08.22.09
This piece is a result of a self-imposed dare: to deliberately use, as a focal point, one of the words I avoid when I write poetry. In this case, that word is ‘heart’ (yes, I do have idiosyncrasies as a writer; this is one of them). Faced with that word, staring intently at me… Well, I decided to cook it. ;)
Filipino-style adobo is a meat dish of pork or chicken or a mixture of both. Chicken adobo is the most popular version, and its main ingredient can be pounds of any part of the chicken, even the heart. You can read more about this local dish here.======================
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Gilon-Gilon (The Harvest)
08.18.09gas lamps planted on cold 3 a.m. soil footpaths lined by children, open-mouthed on their front-row seats waist-deep, the men breathe as one, pull the net tightens around bamboo poles; the stage narrows the show begins; a hundred performers, in split-second flight, arch, slightly curve upward like a cup brackish water drips from silver-to-black scales -- angled to catch the most moonlight the stage is lifted out of the water; children carry token baskets home; in Calmay, moonlight is served at 5 a.m., fried * "Gilon-Gilon" refers to bangus (milkfish) harvest in Dagupan City, Pangasinan. Calmay is a riverside section of said city (which is the bangus capital of the Philippines). In Calmay, THE family business is all about managing fishponds filled with bangus (occasionally with smaller fish like sapsap, and freshwater eel). There are prawn farms, too. ;) ======================
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For the 245 Children of Guinsaugon
08.08.09LandslideRain stops. The earth falls; washed away, it comes to us. An embrace that begins too far, no louder than thunder that cuts through our class prayer we recite for midday meal. Dusk shutters the windows too soon. A blink later, we see only midnight. Shrieks fill our stomachs. Earth too loud, rests heavy on our mouths. * On February 17, 2006, a massive landslide occurred in Southern Leyte, Philippines. The village of Guinsaugon was buried. It had a population of 1500. Hundreds of houses were buried under the mud. But the closest structure to (hence, the first to get hit by) the avalanche was the local elementary school, which was, at the time, full of students. 246 children. Only one was found -- dug out -- alive.
May the 245 souls rest in peace. ======================
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posted by S.L. Corsua
06.01.09   planning to gate-crash
the masquerade ball below
He forgot his mask * The temptation to complicate the poem above is strong. But I managed to rein myself in. ;) Looking at a sky like that, first thing in the morning, makes me wonder who's looking at whom (reality TV, 4.55-billionth episode, shooting now). It has also reminded me of a poem (written last year but posted here just now, below) I've made for an old mentor-turned-friend.somewhere past a blackhole
a Sound Being conjures a poem --
this is the relevance of philosophy
I can never know:
how in some world
I can never visit
inside a room
I can never be invited
some other thinker
I can never meet
postulates on why
I can never exist
* written: 10.16.08
For all the epistemologists, plus existentialist philosophers, who made squiggly wheel tracks on my mindscape. And for S.D., my old mentor in Cosmology, who would've grinned his jaw off upon reading (between) the above lines. ;) Wherever he is (time-) traveling to right now, I hope he has found 'his answers.' ======================
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Snow White, On 'Violence Against Women'
04.29.09another leaves her something poisonous, an offering piled against the glass window at night. fruits all painted white. the color of bruise ripens inside, spreads like handprints pressing rot in layers, breaks through, sprouts black things, and grows, in her mirror, a garden. * Hullo. Again. ;) Pardon the long absence. I've been going through, and dealing with, certain personal issues (which, I assure you, has nothing to do with the title of the above poem, so fret not) demanding a great deal of alone time. Recovery through 'solitary confinement' works for me. It can be quite comfy in -- returning to -- Plato's Cave. ;)
Now, enough of that. I'm glad, and grateful, to be back. My blog turned four while I was gone. I missed the opportunity to celebrate the occasion by doing something major, like redecorating the place. Hmm. I guess you'll have to settle for me making a double post, with photos. ;) Have a look at the second poem below, accompanied by a set of pictures I took last month. Cheers. ======================
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04.29.09fire hurts, too, and screams at the unfairness of being placed in a blue world. hell borders every patch of earth, is delivered in a glass of water, lives in moving containers of flesh that breathe out death to the life at the wick of every candle. when it rains at night, all flames tremble; campfires, bonfires get stabbed everywhere at once, scream 'why' heavenward. their countless gods in reply, merely blink. the devil drops more rain, the storm cuts power, candles are lit in homes. a human sings to a child about twinkling gods, leaves after killing the screaming light. * The photos came first, but I forgot all about them. ;) It was only after writing the above poem that I remembered saving the following digital images to my hard drive. I've been meaning to post them anyway. (grin) I've named the set "Roses Under Fire." (Click the image to view higher resolution.)   ======================
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No-Flying Zone for Winter
02.16.09Winter declined to come back after its first visit when it found leaves here swayed, all stayed in trees, green flags in humid air waving. Not the welcome it had ever known. Stopped by dread in its tracks, Winter slunk backwards, marked boundaries, refusing to be the weight that gnarled leaves so young, frozen or torn before they could brown -- thin limbs that would, in a blizzard, snap as a multitude, audible enough for one tree to crack-pop in concert little thunderclaps spelling severance, rumbling early death. How could Winter bear thousands of islands' worth of it? * written: 02.13.09
A bit of nature poetry this time, with a twist. ;) Here in the Philippines (with its 7000+ islands), we don't have autumn, winter, spring. Summer, yes, but only as part of the dry season; then there's the rainy/wet season with numerous typhoons in tow. So, we have two seasons instead of four. Anyway, it's been a while since I've written a nature poem. This gives me an opportunity to post the following photo (click it to view higher resolution) which I took last month. I relish looking up (and through) umbrellalike treetops. ======================
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02.11.09With small hands, he would form three-dimensional clouds out of paper and twigs and glue, drop them two at a time over bridges, squint his round eyes to follow them float until, far away, they would sink. Flowers he discovered when first he loved. He was told petals had speeches already written over them; so he carved lilies out of scented candles and fragrant soaps that reminded him of hallways she had just left. On the night he proposed, he brought twelve roses long-stalked and thornless, all chiseled with mindful detail out of a single log (to which they remained attached) resting on his arms as their petals spoke for him in vain. They grew roots to break into his soul on his long walk back home, passing bridges, stopping at the last to rip the log from his chest, throw it over the railing, watch it hammer the night sky outlined below -- splinters of a galaxy in the unmaking. * written: 08.20.07 (now reposted)
Here's my little offering for the month of love. Not a cheery piece, though. My happy-ending poems are on lockdown. Kidding. ;) Anyway, onto more sharing: here's my short list of recommended love poems for (feel-good) leisure reading --
More Strong Than Time by Victor Hugo (1802-1885). link
She by Theodore Roethke (1908-1963). link
Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days by Ted Hughes (1930-1998). link
Plus a lot of such poems by E.E. Cummings (1894-1964). And a screaming LOT of them by Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). Then we can have a swooning frenzy. ;) Cheers.======================
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For the Guitar Makers of Guagua, Pampanga
01.29.09Guitar ChildrenIn Guagua, guitars live like big families inside workshops fronting homes of craftsmen who see a musical string-child in every board of wood waiting to be given the shape of a body that can, by being hollow, push vibrations into melody. Seventy years of rearing guitar children with hands that grow more callused every decade, the guitar maker still touches wood, knows life. "You'll love the riffs in blues," he says to one, in a soft voice cracked by old age. He no longer sings with his children, though his home is never silent at night when he brings them, one at a time, with him to the old bamboo bench right outside his workshop to tune the strings, to teach the guitar child in his arms how to speak for, cry with, croon the soul out of those who can only strum. ======================
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On Mortality (Two Poems)01.22.09VestigeLaughter -- may it be the final reception, the song that ushers the end, my enduring requiem. When old age renders an encompassing fading, when the mind is but a string of shivered echoes in the interim of counted breaths unadorned, bereft of words, I hope that however sparse the remainder of substance would cling to accompany my mind through the whirr and blur of letting go, I could still firmly preserve the one memory -- the last I would need to recognize the tilt, list and lilt of the sound I have known to be my own voice: that once, many times it danced, streaking chords of homespun joy. * written: 06.10.06 (now reposted)
========================================A Night of PaymentOur dear loanshark, eternally you impose a staggered payment scheme on all of us walking debts. We borrow what we forget you own; we owe interest with laughter and jest as currency, and for all the audacity we muster with age we never can tell when the next payment is due. I, for one, am silenced
for the time being
and no richer than the night
that rents its coat from you.* written: 02.13.08 (now reposted)
Mortality has been a recurring theme in my poetry, over the years. Not that I'm suicidal, perpetually depressed or goth-inclined. (grin) It's just that, well, this is a topic that's inevitably linked to most philosophical discussions and writings. My interest in philosophy, then, I reckon, is the key to why mortality (as an umbrella subject) keeps popping in my head when I write. And, given that I value variety as regards my poems, I try to make sure that, despite the number of 'death pieces' I write, no two are really similar (with regard to voice/mood, content/story, etc.). Which brings us to the two poems above -- a couple of old ones, with a touch of generality, both mentioning "laughter," and differing in, well... (I leave that up to reader interpretation). Cheers.======================
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