What a dream! I have six poems in the 12th issue of "Likhaan: The Journal of Contemporary Philippine Literature" by the UP Institute of Creative Writing. As far as literary journals in this country go, this is the mothership. Four of these poems--"An Ecological Disaster," "Men in the Woods," "Gallbladder" and "To Build a House"--were workshopped during the UST Workshop early this year (many thanks to Ned Parfan and his critical eye!), while "Cul-de-sac" was part of the suite that got rejected from the 2018 Ateneo Writers Workshop. Honestly the layout of this issue is giving me major ADHD vibes, so in lieu of screenshots here are the full texts.
* * * * *
An Ecological Disaster
When
my father starts his prayers,
it
is an ecological disaster:
a
boulder tumbling on the face
of
a naked mountain, baked
to
a perfect brown by the sun.
His
words, needle-thin and ripe
with
intention, plummet like acid rain
at
the end of a drought.
Boys must be boys, he says,
to
no particular name.
In
my head, the rain gains strength,
scalding
the sandy surface
of
sinful dreams. It isn’t normal,
is
what he means, like snow
that
falls on the desert floor
and
stays. When I leave
the
house, it is a nightmare
for
my father, who must think
I
tumble from one bar to the next,
from
one lover to another,
and
so he spends the night
staring
out the window, while I
spend
my money on keys
to
rooms I’d never own.
What’s
natural is pre-ordained:
This,
my father does not know.
The
fall of a drop on parched soil,
or
a boy’s heart into another’s arms,
is
a story as ancient as amen,
and
the storm that crumbles
rocks
into grains of dirt
is
as true and pure as his oldest
wish.
* * * * *
Men in the Woods
I
remember Julio: scar beneath a mournful
eye,
and scowl on a face of china white.
A
lighter peeking from his pocket the night
we
met. Soaked shirts and sharp breaths
in
a glade of leaves and fallen fruit.
Dante,
too, and the dandelion fluff
on
his crown of silver hair. His panting,
I
can’t forget, gray-maned animal
in
leather pants, and shower of spit
with
each thrust. Most of all, Gael,
flat
on a stretcher, half-conscious, his leg
spurting
blood, his head all blues
and
crusting red. Took a shortcut that led
to
brittle earth, then a ten-foot drop
on
logs and rocks. His scream I heard,
but
who called the ambulance, I don’t recall.
At
break of dawn, they let us go, but not
before
a round of questions, fired
at
breakneck speed. Took our names,
but
not what games we’d played, then sirens
breaking
the silence. Nobody offered us
a
ride, but we didn’t mind. Better to walk
and
shake off the night, embrace the cold
spring
morning all the way to the nearest
bus
stop. Sunshine, soft as angels, fell
on
our faces, casting our devils aside.
Nobody
spoke; we only listened
to
one another’s breathing, counting
our
blessings. Jangle of coins in our pants,
hastily buttoned, caked with mud.
* * * * *
To Build a House
we
first build a ship. My father points
to
the slow unmasking of the night sky,
shedding
its cape of stars over parabolas
of
mountains. He tells me the story
I’ve
heard many times, how the king
of
Athens sent his army to the woods
to
bring home all the trees, each log
skinned
of bark, flattened and polished
to
rectangular planks. The hour too early
for
breakfast or tired stories, there’s no
telling
what he knows, but I know he smells
the
whiskey and weed on my jacket.
Yet
he chooses to say nothing, as do I,
our
mutual silence as cobwebbed
as
the ship on Theseus’ port, welcoming
a
new plank to its soggy skeleton
until
nothing remained of its old frame,
letting
the builders strip it naked
rather
than complain. I think of words
that
hurt, like seawater feasting
on
the hull of a tethered ship, and sip
my
coffee instead. What does one say
to
weathered kings, to fathers whose lives
are
built on pretense? He points to a stain
on
the linoleum, and I nod, shifting
my
gaze downwards, guided by the ring
on
his crooked finger: the rusting toaster,
the
threadbare curtains, the staircase
in
need of replacing, every surface
of
this house torn apart in his mind
with
the speed of one getting rid
of
a sinking ship, our most sacred parts
so
willfully effaced. Might as well
begin
with How have you been?
Tell me everything. Tell me of your days
in
prison, and I’ll tell you today
it’s
been three years since I buried
my
mother. And maybe we can skip
the
more somber parts, the years
marked
by your cold absence.
We
begin with small things, words
light
as feathers, maybe a smile,
maybe
pardon for remembered sins.
Until
gradually our vessel takes form,
its
stern gilded with the faces of future
kings,
its mast soaring to the ether.
Until
finally, we set sail, wordless,
toward a home we no longer know.
* * * * *
Gallbladder
First,
fix on the valley beneath
the
ribs. Know the weakest spot,
where
flesh will most likely give.
The
skin is thin and breaks once
pricked
by nail or blade or pick.
Pick
his frame, framed between
metal
bars. Memorize his outline
in
the dark. Often, the lights
are
dimmed, if not out. Often
the
others are down, if not high.
Aim
the shiv, whittled from the edge
of
a toothbrush, like a dart practiced
and
hurled. Anticipate the hushed
thud
of the stab—muscle pierced
as
fish speared in a shrinking pond.
Your
part is done, now play
the
clueless one. Turn in bed,
facing
the wall, and heed the lure
of
sleep, as war spreads from
cell
to cell, con versus con.
Watch
as circles multiply on bodies
in
the showers. Listen at night
to
screams muffled by a shirt or a palm
pressed
against the lips, then see
next
morning who walks with a limp.
See
to it they do not stop until
they’ve
come for him: the whole
of
him, the bits of him, his heart
and
lungs and liver, his gallbladder
and
the intestines coiled in his gut.
Make
more shivs. Nick your neighbor’s
razor.
Bribe the lout above your bunk
to
do the nicking for you. Fifteen years
means
a wife all wrinkled, and a son
all
grown and smart, who’ll look you
in
the eyes with no hint of recognition,
and
he bought that for you—a decade
and
a half wasted in this ten-by-ten
with
three other men. So return to him
what
is owed: Keep him high, adrift
in
some make-believe cloud, thinking
you’ll
still run for him when both of you
get
out. Wait until the dead of night,
when
he’s dead asleep and can’t run
from you. Then take your aim.
* * * * *
Pink and White
Four
in the morning, a man begins
a
hymn on a harp. Blanket of snow
on
the pavement, basket of blooms,
pink
and white, in the absence of light
shapeless,
like a newborn melody
from
way back when the hour
was
slow, the ether pink and white,
the
air thick with his wife’s perfume.
Notes
pricking on his open wounds,
bleeding
a minute trail of words.
Children, for one, though they had
none.
Now a note folding
into
a syllable landing square
on
his tongue. Must be the taste
of
warmth, bubbles in an evening
bath,
a rubber duck between
slippery
legs, fists of inch-long fingers.
Must
be nice, this sight in a tub,
tiny
bodies to rub afterwards.
If
only she had more patience,
waited
for this song now breaking
loose
from the back of his throat,
now
more croak than croon.
Old
tune, older than the sky
on
his forehead, the lines inscribed
beneath his eyes, the quiver in his bones.
After Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta
* * * * *
* * * * *
Cul-de-sac
There’s
logic to this place: how these slender streets
bleed
into one another, concrete weaving into concrete,
the
way nerves entwine within layers of tissue,
the
way familiar structures disappear in plain sight.
Turn right doesn’t mean that time we stood under
the
lamppost’s amber glow, wishing the rain would end
that
row over something small. The chip on the china,
perhaps,
the sunflower wilting on the terrace.
Turn right means ten shots of whiskey without ice,
humming
something slow and dark and glum,
like
smoke trails at day’s end, like an old house
stricken
with insomnia, wooden doors creaking
even
with the gentlest wind. So when I told you
I
was never leaving, I was hoping you would get
the
smallness of my aim, not to confuse desire
with
devotion, the way night lights obscure details
of
a face, a dress, the faded colors on street signs.
Hoping you’d turn around, turn into the city
I’d learned to love like our own child, this
city
of barren women, scarred, a free-for-all
nursery.
On the way home, we passed the house with
the red gate,
the carved Virgin weeping upfront. While I whispered
another prayer, plucked at random from my
childhood,
you said we were past reason. Then you turned
left,
which made me think you had left for good.
But you only wanted to see our old house
one last time, at the cul-de-sac where
nothing good
ever happened. Where days were hard to
recall,
they blended into one another, the way
buildings start
to look the same after so many years, the
way, waking
in the middle of the night, I can no longer
tell our faces
apart, or if you've already vanished, perhaps for good.
