Poetry

Sonic

Ian Layugan July 25, 2024

For my grandfather, Tomàs

I only know what I am told.

Such as the continents you wish to conquer,

charted on maps on a decaying wall, a memento 

of islands and archipelago, en tous lieux, scattered.

Or the waves entombed in the cache of your

journal, flagged by the red ribbon suspended

in its spine: surfing every crease and precipice

of every place you named but cannot recognize.

Your hands are instruments of your salvation. 

The pipes, electronics, and homes you fixed and built,

your labyrinthine legacy. Penance for a wasted youth.

I remember the timbre in every plank you used,

the lilt of your longings ascribed in pencil, on footnotes,

using verses of Job, willing the mountains to be moved, 

but I know you are never satisfied.

You never address me by name, but I remember every

story told. Some whispered and some wailed,

contained in your property, to be savored and saved.

You and Who Remembers 

Vince Agcaoili July 25, 2024

You and Who Remembers 

First light at the district. The avenues barely scorched, and already men and women swarm the streets in their tired suits. Dealers, clerks, aides, an entire colony of commerce trying to catch the minute and its quick steps. Even the sparrows, tired of their melancholy songs, are poised to flee their branches for seeds. The morning is a street yanked out of a dream and thrown into the city. Never mind the signs. Never mind the trace of buses, the vague clamor of old trains. Money has a song, and I have unbound my wrists from timbers. They remain so. This instance, everything’s where it’s supposed to be. The shadow of wings on the pond comes and goes, the beggar asks and never receives. You can tally your debts on the water and hope it remembers. 

What Stirs

It might as well be disease.

It might as well be question’s echo 

Treading through such dim halls.

Whether or not it’s ghost,

It’s looking for passage 

To besiege: 

Radio static swelling

Just before the anchor 

Speaks of genocide, intervention.

Howls under rusting roofs

Below rustier bombs.

A window after dust settles

So you may overlook the wreckage.

You say, Ruin is ruin.

Still, no one rises from a grave.

In some cities, wind

Can sometimes be not breeze,

Merely tremor.

Creed

I denounce my victories. I resist my urge to hoist a blade over my days of longing, hours of work, or this ghost of frailty that lets me walk alone. I vow instead to defend my innocence, this luscious oblivion. I yearn to forget my joys – the scent of her hair, a precious meal after a month’s labor, a soft bed after a long day. At this country’s birth, when my people brandished rust to claim their throats, they decried their fears in blindfolds, convinced to pull the trigger or jump into a trench of fresh coals. They gave their arms for lesion. Blood, their word. 

Take what you can, then. I forgo my name. I forgo my money and my sanity. Just leave me my sweet delirium. When the cups clink, when the soprano sings of battles won, bear the fruit of my absence. Place my bones in a good coffin. Permit my ghost to inhabit the dim halls. 

After Hours

Lampposts forge a fortress on the pavement.

You cross the street, and a car cuts your next step.

You make a call for an extension, a check leaves your pocket

For another bill, your teeth bear the weight of your body.

This morning, the sun built a shadow of a house

Inside your house, doubling the walls, the cups on the table.

Night comes to take this away. You drag yourself

From one street to another, all set to start a fire, break

The windows, slit the throats of all the dogs who dare 

To bark and race you. A revolution is on the way,

Or so the revolutionaries say. But tonight, your heart is a child

Who had scraped a knee, getting up and looking for a place to stay.

Two Poems

F Jordan Carnice July 25, 2024

Pony Ride

At the emergency room,

trauma and tragedy slip in

and out of the door. Here

is a carousel of chances,

lifeline gliding and bobbing

in circles. Maybe we are all

clowns for even trying.

Sideshow oddities making

a mark under the great big top

of this cosmic joke. Applause

and lion’s roar, cannonballs

and dart-popped balloons.

We fill the quiet with

so much distraction.

More bodies continue

to remind this carnival room

of our fine fine flesh,

cotton candy tissues.

Every minute, pain.

Every minute, a wailing

that signals a soul

transcending the threshold.

And then a swift return

to speechlessness as if

in respect to mimes. 

Sometimes peace 

is a little pony ride

that comes to an end.

Wear This Shirt Inside Out

The ode to a t-shirt is but

an easy riddle: one way

to enter and three to exit.

You are good to go. Give in.

Here’s another one. Piles

in wardrobes and drawers

looking like sad dry lips, folds

mouthing the ancient plea,

Touch me, feel me, hold me…

At the mall we reach for the sale rack.

Fifty percent off. Another for eighty.

Add to cart. Proceed to check out.

Repeat a few weeks later.

Worries go well with the latest

trend. This new skin feels great 

until we shed it off revealing

skeletons we have long adorned

with bags, necklaces,

bracelets, earrings, bands

and tattoos, all perfumed

with the smell of crisp ATM cash.

Here’s a phone on credit

to remind us of the world’s next

expiry date. The clerk behind

the counter could only offer a smile.

In our small island province,

another mall grows and

another tree surrenders.

In the last thicket of Calcetta,

we remedy getting lost

by removing our shirts

and wearing them inside out,

to summon a trail before us

and lead us back to home safe

like deliverance. Revelations

via reversals. For some of us

there is no saving from all this,

no matter the times we wear

the shirt inside out. This is

our riddle we refuse to crack.

RIVER

Mahika Realismo July 25, 2024

Para kay Baby River Nasino

Musmos ka pang ilog, iniluwal sa kasagsagan ng katigangan ng lupa, gutom, karahasan. Naging dakila ka kaya sana tulad ng Tigris at Euphrates? O di kaya mala-Ganges, Indus, o Rio Grande de Cagayan? Hindi ka man lang naka-agos nang lubos. 

Ipinahihiram daw ang buhay bukal sa nag-uumapaw na kabutihang-loob, saka naman binabawi sa takdang panahon. Ngunit, River, hindi binawi ang iyo, hindi pa takda ang panahon (sino nga ba ang nagpapahiram, sino ang nagtatakda). Ang iyo ay ninakaw. Ang iyo ay kinitil. Hinablot ka sa bisig ng iyong inang dapat ay malaya kang kipkip ka sa init ng yakap. Hinablot ka at siniguradong mababad sa malamig at walang pusong kaayusan (o kaguluhan ba) ng lipunan. 

Magpahinga ka sana nang maigi, River. Napupuno na ang mga ilog at malapit na ang Dakilang Bahang lulunod sa kanilang magnanakaw ng buhay mo.

EVERY BODY

CJ Peradilla July 25, 2024

Everybody knows a lungful of water 

makes a body sink. Everybody knows 

a clenched fist makes a perfect weapon 

to bruise & bruise & 

bruise a body until it yields

until it doesn’t. Science works this way, see, 

and violence, too, of course—but everybody 

knows this. There is nothing left to bury

but the flowers that we’ve ripped 

from the bosom of the earth. Take what you can 

carry, but never resentment. Everybody knows 

this. The body forgets it belongs to somebody 

in the end, anyway. Mark our graves. Human 

decency. Somebody. Kyrie Eleison. Any body.