I am in misery.
For when I am in misery
The poem ceases to be
Words crafted and chiseled
From abstracted thought.
The poem begins to be me.
August 31, 2000
4.41 pm, Thursday
From the desire of being loved…
October 1, 2011Today, I amused myself with an animated series, Penguins of Madagascar.
Because today, I wondered again, how I can stop hurting someone with my doubts. And just thinking about how these doubts are getting in the way of my, as John Mayer would say, “perfectly lonely” life is making me all gloomy as the weather (a typhoon Quiel is it?).
On my walk home from work, I tried to revisit how I usually was the same period last year - take those walks with the Lord.
And I just had to ask the Lord to make my heart like His - full of forgiveness. That if I can ask forgiveness from Him, I would have to learn to forgive as well.
There is no way to deal with my doubts except by humility.
Here’s a prayer I found online that helped me a lot during my break up, and I’d like to share it here. And I hope I can pray it as often as I can especially now.
It’s the Litany of Humility. You can find it here, too.
O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.From the desire of being loved…
From the desire of being extolled …
From the desire of being honored …
From the desire of being praised …
From the desire of being preferred to others…
From the desire of being consulted …
From the desire of being approved …
From the fear of being humiliated …
From the fear of being despised…
From the fear of suffering rebukes …
From the fear of being calumniated …
From the fear of being forgotten …
From the fear of being ridiculed …
From the fear of being wronged …
From the fear of being suspected …That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.That others may be esteemed more than I …
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease …
That others may be chosen and I set aside …
That others may be praised and I unnoticed …
That others may be preferred to me in everything…
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…
I believe
September 28, 2011
I believe in love.
I believe in its power,
and i believe it can render you powerless.
I believe in its timelessness and how untimely it is -
it goes out of fashion in the eyes of the loveless
and timely for the smitten.
Love makes time move fast for the parting lovers
and slow for the waiting ones.
I believe love makes your perception inconsistent
when time is concerned.
I believe in the chaos of an unmade bed,
the randomness of breakfast in bed, and the poignant scene of waiting by a deathbed. I believe in love.
I do. And the “I do’s” of two people so much in love. I believe in love, and how streets become lovely for walking couples and how streets become truly endless when couples think farther than what they can find further in their situation. I believe in it, truly, and the complete honesty
of the now that lovers find themselves in, and the absolute clarity of the here that they claim for themselves. I believe in love - and the vocabulary that becomes selective, memories that become short, and tolerance that grow higher.
I believe in love, and -
the music that intrudes to dictate the dance of lovers,
the poems quoted to conform to a situation,
the sandwich shared by a famished lover to his partner on a diet,
and the joyful gorging of the dieting lover of a badly prepared sandwich,
the distance one travels only to be given the cold-treatment,
the bad penmanship on a birthday card,
the raving on the perfect imperfection of a lover’s face,
the re-acquainting with paintings and other visual arts
and the finding of form and meaning from abstract installations,
the holding hands, one sweaty, and the other calloused,
the blasphemously boring afternoon, and the laughter that cuts through it,
the waiting.
I believe in lovers.
The things they endure,
the challenges they face. The unsinkable optimism of
a love-struck teenager and the unreasonable pessimism
of a battle scarred lover. The impenetrable No of a decisive
lady and the unrequited love found at the wake of its declaration. I believe in lovers. Their indignation over their cheating comrades, and their solidarity with the jilted brethren. I believe in lovers, and their -
prayers,
loveletters,
kisses,
embraces,
decisions,
petty quarrels,
heated arguments,
and how complicated
they make out of a simple disagreement.
I believe in making up, for I believe in lovers
who don’t give up.
And because I believe in love, and in lovers,
I believe in the deception one can commit in its name. I believe that lovers
may turn into liars. I believe in two parallel streets, one leading to oblivion
the other to a rendezvous, lined up with lampposts dimmed enough
to illuminate the passion of the hour. I believe in love, and so believe in pain.
The selective vocabulary shifting to yet another paradigm. The memories
become bitter but aspirations, still sweet. Only, this time, remaining to be
aspirations for the unsinkable optimists. And the pessimist becomes an optimist
with the paramour. I believe in love, and its power to hurt. The meals no longer
taken together and the changing attitudes toward cooking. I believe love and in changing fashion trends.
The changing color pallets of a cheating lover and the clueless partner. I believe in love.
In intuition, and how innocent it is for a hopeful and waiting wife or partner. And because I believe in love
I believe that intuition and gut feelings are the bedrock of regrets. I believe in love, I believe in secrecy
and hidden bank accounts and moonlighting partners. I believe in love, and in travels. And how it
can change perspective. And preference. And the absence of welcome-home dinners.
And because I believe in love, I believe in redemption.
I believe in endings and the beginnings it forces. I believe in
colors. That red is truly red because now I notice it is red. So blue is blue.
And yellow, yellow. And green is green. I believe in love, and the redemption that laughter
brings. I believe in coffee shops, pen and paper, and the selective vocabulary,
with each chosen words turning all encompassing with the turn of events.
I believe in the poetry of a jilted lover and the exorcism of randomly chosen synonyms.
I believe antonyms, animosity and antagonism are but alliterations and has no bearing
in your thoughts except to amuse just like violent wishful thinking of a vengeful
lover. I believe in love. In redemption. And the healing power of considering
the leaves falling off a tree, it has served its purpose well. I believe in
redemption and the fading coda of a song and how it lingers. I believe in love.
In redemption. And because I believe in love and in redemption, I believe
in feeling young again. I believe in storytelling. Of King Arthur. Young and strong.
In saints, from the popular ones to the lesser known. In banquets. In bacchanalia and
the truth it brings out. I believe in cartoon characters and droopy eyes. I believe.
In love. In redemption. I believe in falling in love again. Over and over again.
Posted originally on my Facebook, December 30, 2010.
Choose wisely
September 18, 2011Choose someone who will not cry for you.
It’s hard letting go of someone whose tears are falling in anguish when he/she has to leave you.
(I realize I cannot control what people think about the stuff written here. And I am sure this will make someone think about something that isn’t true. In any case, life goes on. For all of us.)
What’s your Moment of Madness lately?
September 14, 2011
Katie Melua’s Moment of Madness.
What’s yours lately?
Mine? It’s thinking about you….
French for Past (Short Story circa May 18, 2008)
August 1, 2011All I wanna do is make love to you
Say you will
You want me too
All I wanna do is make love to you
I’ve got lovin arms to hold on to
Here.
Where coffee is to be enjoyed with a company.
Ideally.
Yet, now, it’s a lot different. Coffee is my company. I’m sitting here alone and the best that I can do for my contribution to social interaction is my second hand smoke. Who was that who said coffee and cigarette is best described by an oxymoron – it’s a calming rush!
There’s a drizzle that hesitates to come out to a full-blown rain. Outside Starbucks, music plays and it somehow blends well with the swish of cars passing by. At half past 11, I should be drinking beer instead of taking a 15 minute break.
I look around and I see people needing something to agree on and people who simply miss the point. The first kind is always a group of people needing coffee as a means of transaction. Whether it is business or banter on just about anything, coffee levels them all. The second kind – coffee is best enjoyed with a conversation. And there they are, with a laptop, surfing the Net. They sorely miss the point.
Yet, I am here. Alone. So, I’m a fence-sitter then. Or possibly just a plain loser. I spent for something expensive and yet I missed the point. I don’t even have a laptop.
Un.
“Here.”
“There you are. Why didn’t you just tell me earlier you’re going out for coffee? I could have dropped everything I was doing.”
“You were busy.”
“Yeah. But thanks for texting me that you’re here.”
“Well, I thought I could do this alone.”
“Do what alone?”
“Coffee.”
“Well, can’t we go inside? Why are we outside Starbucks?”
“I’m smoking.”
“If I am your lover I won’t be kissing you.”
“And you’re not.”
There’s a drizzle that hesitates to come out to a full-blown rain.
I’m no longer enjoying this. What’s worse than being alone is my over-analyzing brain asking why. Funny but I’d like to think I’m paid to have the answers for troubles at work. Yet here I am sitting silently, clueless like a 16 year old pre-first love phase!
Ah to be young. I once heard my aunt say idle hands are the workshop of the devil. So my cousin and I would always busy ourselves by jacking off daily.
Deux.
“Drizzle. Coffee. Talk. Elements of romance that leads to sex. Romantic, isn’t it?”
“You’re making it sound more erotic than romantic.”
“So you’re turned on?”
“LOL.”
“LOL? Seriously, LOL? I can’t believe you had to say LOL instead of actually laughing out loud.”
“Well, that’s the first thing that came out of my mouth!”
“Let’s play word association.”
“Nerd.”
“What?”
“I’m already playing. Word association is for nerds.”
“Then, over-sexed.”
“You.”
“Hot.”
“Not.” (Laughter.)
Who was that who said coffee and cigarette is best described by an oxymoron – it’s a calming rush!
We could have been a pair out of a movie – but the Turkish version of Star Wars sort. Our scenes couldn’t really match but it was spliced together just the same. Or was I just forcing it? Liking a person is no different from asking for coffee here in Starbucks. You couldn’t really be straightforward as it’s full of variations.
There’s a question I’ve never asked myself since I became single again. “So I bide my time?”And try to find out if liking is a two-way process for us?
Trois.
“Guess how old I am.”
“24?”
“Ouch. I’m only 22.”
“Oh. Guess I added the two years I wanted to spend with you.”
(Smile.)
Our scenes couldn’t really match but it was spliced together just the same.
At some point, it was like a chat between two men standing next to each other peeing on a common urinal. It was so guarded. That it was really awkward.
That’s why I envy women. They can be brutally frank and still maintain a sense of nonchalance.So it wasn’t turning out the way I wanted it. I wanted to be liked. No. Actually, to be owned. Only then can I be good.
Quatre.
“Do you think it’ll stop drizzling real soon?” “I don’t think so. So… stop hoping for it.”
“Well, I’m optimistic. It’ll be sunny tomorrow.”
“Nah.”
“Why are you so grumpy?”
“I’m not.”
“ Well, I guess it’s part of my being idealistic. That’s the way I am.”
“I really don’t have a problem with idealistic people. It’s the ideas up their heads I’m worried about.”
“LOL.”
(Laughter.)
It was so guarded.
And I’m afraid there was nothing to prove anymore except the fact that this is but a conversation we’ll both forget. Or I’ll try to forget, at least for me. But there was nothing more to say at all. As soon as we both had coffee, the conversation that I was hoping for became pretty much like a conference – it was all about work.
Yes, I was talking. It was a conversation. In truth, you can let me talk with sense if it was something that I read on a book, learned from work, and applied as a decision at work or in life that gave me benefits.
Cinq.
“Hey, I have to get back to the office.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll be there in 20. I’ll probably take this as an early lunch.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
(Silence.)
“Bye.” “Bye.”All I wanna do is make love to you
Say you will
You want me too
All I wanna do is make love to you
I’ve got lovin arms to hold on to
Where coffee is to be enjoyed with a company.
Ideally.
Yet, now, it’s a lot different. Coffee is my company. I’m sitting here alone and the best that I can do for my contribution to social interaction is my second hand smoke. Who was that who said coffee and cigarette is best described by an oxymoron – it’s a calming rush! There’s a drizzle that hesitates to come out to a full-blown rain. Outside Starbucks, music plays and it somehow blends well with the swish of cars passing by. At half past 11, I should be drinking beer instead of taking a 15 minute break.
I look around and I see people needing something to agree on and people who simply miss the point. The first kind is always a group of people needing coffee as a means of transaction. Whether it is business or banter on just about anything, coffee levels them all. The second kind – coffee is best enjoyed with a conversation. And there they are, with a laptop, surfing the Net. They sorely miss the point.
Yet, I am here. Alone. So, I’m a fence-sitter then. Or possibly just a plain loser. I spent for something expensive and yet I missed the point. I don’t even have a laptop.
No meat.
July 10, 2011
After almost eight months, I finally found time to unpack my books and files from their dusty boxes. My room, finally, looks like a room. When we moved to our new address, I simply didn’t care. I was excited for the “new beginning” - I was in a couple of forced beginnings (read: break up and in between jobs) - but I simply didn’t care about how my room looked like. It was small compared to my room at our previous house but it was okay. But I didn’t have the time and/or energy to unpack memories. And books, of course.
What made the process of cleaning and clearing up the room too difficult to finish was finding files of old, some unfinished, poems. Below are two of them. The first one wasn’t given a title, not even an indication of the date but I am guessing it’s somewhere between 1995 and 1998, judging on the paper that was used. I remember that legal pad I used to write my attempts at poetry.
I won’t give too much introduction except to say that I have not edited them. The handwritten poem had minor corrections and I am guessing I wrote this in just a few minutes as there were no effort to edit it. So, respecting the mood I was in at that time, I will also refrain from making any revisions below.
Here goes:
The crooked circle, closed
as it is, captures the
anonymous facade
each drunkard presents
to the stranger before him.
And though three or more
shares common life-spaces,
it is nevertheless Greek to
the other three or more
gathered near.
As the meat, pierced
and marinated, lies above
the scorching embers,
one or two would laugh
unmindful of the others,
one picked his nose, a
decadent social conduct
the shouts indifference
to anyone and everything but
his own discomfort.
The cleansing started half
past eleven with the master
of ceremony swigging first then
distributing the liquid
proportionate to the squirm
one performs after
a previous shot.
The facade came rolling
down, volunteering courteous
smiles & greetings to the
oddest one -
a marriage between a cocktail
and a carnival ensues.
Kindred souls and like minded
navigated towards each other;
waxing poetic, i marinated myself;
mouthing philosophy, I
barbecued myself;
and didn’t you wonder I was
meaty?
The first bite proved harmless
but succeeding ones
consumed me and left nothing
but a wooden stick
not even good for recycling
till the next barbecue.
One by one, the spawn of Bacchus
fell…
And I ask, “What? No more
barbecue to chew on?”
Picking nose is a social conduct?! Ha ha ha! Leaving the poem as it is. No editing. Found your favorite gramm-errs? LOL
I don’t exactly recall what I was trying to say here but it seems I was describing a drinking session. I know I was out drinking a lot at that time.
Here’s another one written around that time, too. It’s an embarrasing attempt to be “profound”. Because of that, I am posting it for laughter’s sake. I must be hallucinating when I was writing this. (When I found this earlier, I kept asking myself this question: What was the point again?)
The title should make you start laughing!!!
The Burden of Being Rational
There exist an unwritten
territory of the right
and the wrong,
made sovereign by the
reward for the former
and the punishment for
the other. Both mandated
by feeling good either
way a decision may trek.
The burden lies not so much
on the choice one makes
using criteria such as
the lesser evil or the moral
choice; but with the knowledge
of the tremendous responsibility
of knowing what’s right
and being right, and
the boundless enclave of what
is wrong, and the freedom
in which it operates on.
I think this is unfinished. I probably gave up when I realized I was running in circles. That second poem? I remember my state of mind at that time. And I am never, ever going back there! LOL
I wait. Because Dad said so.
June 12, 2011I learned the value of waiting from my father.
For hours he would wait for my mom dress up and prepare her hair, change into this and that only to decide later there’s something better to wear than the five get-ups she tried on. We never heard our dad complain. I guess for him, it wasn’t about the time wasted, it was seeing the person he loves so much change from being pretty, to beautiful and then on to astonishingly lovely right before his eyes.
So, my dad would just sit there listening to the tension, the chaos of seven kids and the sweet funny indecisiveness of the lady of the homestead. And when it’s finally time to go and rush off to church, trusting that everything’s in order, we’d realize the youngest, Sam, was left behind playing at the frontyard. We were often late for the Mass. I don’t know about you, but I’d say it’s still one facet of keeping the Sabbath holy: preventing seven kids in a van from having fistfights and quarrels.
My dad’s patience is emphasized when mom did her grocery shopping when we were young. He would sit in a coffee shop waiting for hours for mom to finish buying the week’s supply and it would later turn into a major shopping venture. Mommy knew what we needed and these would have to be secured. (What we wanted, now that’s a different matter altogether.)
Through all that waiting, my dad stayed in the background. And looking back, it was a wonderful way of teaching me patience. We never felt the tension. He never made us feel any of it, if there was. If at all, he’d break the tiring experience with his funny one-liners.
It’s not much different today. After Sunday Mass, dad would sit quietly in a coffee/donut shop while mom did grocery shopping. I have often wondered what went on in his head while waiting. And back then, when we were young and at a time when gadgets like celphones and iPods haven’t been invented yet, all he had were his coffee, paper and his fountain pen (Darn, I miss the smell of Quink ink.)
Did he kill time by thinking about work back then? Or the state of politics in the country? Or reminisce, as I would often do when I am alone in a coffeeshop?
Waiting, for some, or most/all of us, is a pet peeve. It is losing control over our time and activities. Yet, my dad doesn’t seem to think so. He was in control. At least, he didn’t lose his control. And lest you think my mom had no respect for my dad’s time, I think it was the opposite. By covering everything in one trip while dad waited, they were both in control of the family’s direction.
Now what about waiting? I learned from my dad to patiently wait. I had accompanied Dimples, my sister, when we were young to many errands (classic was her final interview with Honda Magallanes, I finished three movies at their waiting lounge) and I patiently waited, often, by daydreaming.
There is “glory” in waiting, I believe. That after the long wait, as exemplified by my dad, there’s a smile when it’s ready to go back home. The glory there, I would suppose, is seeing everything in place or falling into place - my mom making sure everything’s in order like food and clothing and what not, kids enjoying the day out, bonding time for us siblings (I was just following Alain’s lead everytime we’re at Rustan’s Cubao!!!) - and he would be right there with a smile for the family he started.
And so, at a time when I am feeling much has been too long to come by my way, I look at my dad and learn from his patient wait when mom’s doing her grocery shopping.
Never mind the long wait (career, lovelife, big dreams), as if my dad would say. Because, just when your patience is about to run out, it’s just like waiting for mom - you will go home with everything you need, always!!
(Posted this orginally on my Facebook for my Dad. The inspiration, I should say, comes from a couple of things. 1. I love my Dad. 2. I’m waiting for someone. Someone I would introduce to my Dad. Ha ha ha!)
Goodbye, snakepit.
June 10, 2011I deleted my profile over… there.
I figured - while I am feeling this way about you - if it isn’t you, there’s no point in liking someone else.
Hey, Chum
June 8, 2011
I may have seen what’s forever and the morning after when I saw your
picture staring back at me.
I wish for peace for your every night’s sleep, that daily,
as you rise, you would have
that same look - and give to me
hope, that a hand to hold would
otherwise give.
Staring still I see the bliss disguised by your half grin,
and I, from where I stand,
could only smile and wish that
the lens that was before you that captured your image
with that lovely soulful eyes, was my own two eyes.
June 8, 2011.
