Bye-bye, 2007

Another year is ending. Why does time seem to speed up as you accumulate more years? Now I have such birthday well wishes as "Sana magka-lovelife ka na" (A.), "Wish ko sana magka-baby ka na by 30" (L.), and the simple "I hope you're happy!" (M.). Well, at least the last one is true. Thanks, you guys, and everyone who greeted me today. Thank you most of all to my wonderful Mom and Dad, to whom I owe my life.

Except for some sad news that I will blog about at another time, the last month of the year has been happily eventful. First, there was our three-day out-of-town poetry workshop at Tagaytay, which put me in touch with those soulful matters that city life tends to drown out. After that ineffable experience, I had a nice hangover. I must have walked around for days wearing a beatific smile, which pre-finals week quickly effaced. In any case, I gained a lot of insights from the workshop and was able to revise my stockpile of poems, some of which I had posted here as early drafts. Some pictures from the workshop: (1) the view from the terrace, (2) me and Dr. Marj, (3) during a session, (4) me and my creative writing classmates, and (5) one last group shot before leaving for Manila.






Incidentally, I was asked to do a presentation on behalf of the Philosophy Department during our college's Christmas party. Since I neither sing nor dance, they asked me to read some of my poems. Thankfully, I didn't have to perform alone, as J.J. kindly provided the background music from his guitar.

I began with the slightly revised "The House of Logic," an exposition of our method of argumentation in philosophy and how, in the end, it leaves you cold. Meanwhile, the crowd favorite seemed to be the second of the three pieces that I recited, entitled "The Infinitely Disappearing Stopping Distance." J.J. and I had this idea to use an old Beatles tune, "Blackbird," as a background for it. It has a wistful melody, which is often how we feel when something happens that is unexpected, unstoppable, and life-changing. In the Power Point presentation that accompanied the reading, I used Mark Rothko's abstract painting Yellow and Gold (1956) to illustrate the poem, since it is also about how we tend to miss life's warning signs. I ended with what for me is the most important of the set, "28," my crisis poem, and which I prefaced with the caveat that the titular number has absolutely no meaning whatsoever! ;p



Here are the poems in their final revised form:

The House of Logic

Impressive, how you stacked the bricks so neatly,
The main columns ponderous and confident
And on your roof, not a shingle out of place.
I can scarcely imagine the inner intricacy
What doors would open to which chambers
Or how to navigate the secret hallways.
You spent a lifetime building this mansion,
Plotting the hidden cellars and trapdoors
And a panic room in case of an invasion.

But the door was open, and I entered
Was almost lost in the labyrinth of corridors
Feeling my way through the intractable darkness,
Believing I was alone in the fortress—
Till I wandered into the farthest wing
And found you huddled in a corner, shivering.

The Infinitely Disappearing Stopping Distance

Yellow is the traffic light
when I’m far enough
to slow down to a full stop
with some elegance

I mean the grace
of wheels’ revolution
winding down
at the foreseen moment
of total stillness.

Yellow, a color hard to love
for its manic energy,
like mid-morning sun
peeking through the blinds

The first spark
before a house flares up

Cat’s eyes
seen from the ground
before a bird can fly

Your cell phone screen
lit by a new message
before it slid
into your pocket.

Yellow, a color I couldn’t love
but wish I’d heeded
two seconds before

I crashed.

28*

The weight of Saturn anchors me sleepless
on the bed. I’ve come to dread the descent
of night, a time of running through the calendar
in my head, pursued by the burden of days.
For instance, chalk dust feels unexpectedly heavy
all over my fingers at the end of the hour
talking about philosophers, or perhaps
their profundity is simply difficult to bear.
I imagine the ringed planet inching its way
to a complete revolution, back to its place
on the day I was born, making a bulge
in time’s weft where everything flows now.

It is like swerving into a new lane
as can only happen before the unprecedented:
piled-up cars ahead or a phantom street
from an old map, nowhere to be seen. It is like
the lights going out in the early hours before dawn,
navigating against the resistance of things
implacable in their wrong positions in the dark.
Heaviest of all is the weight of unknowing,
of stumbling forward and imagining
the freefall into the abyss, terrified
but not daring to stand still.

* Many thanks to my friend Hazel who told me about the Saturn return, and Dr. Marj who—having brought up the Saturnine years over dinner once—inspired me to write this.

—oOo—

I also recently went out with my friends at Mall of Asia, which by the way seems to be shrinking by the day. Or maybe I'm hanging around there too much especially after the Glorietta blast. Everyone's there these days. Anyway, we had so much fun, and I got teased again for my "one little beer." I didn't know Mitch was bringing her new Pajero (naks!) or I'd have left my own car so I could get really drunk.... hahaha, as if. Here are some pictures from that night: (1) me and my best friends Maricar and Michie, (2) Dennis and Bebs, (3) I. and Justin who, despite all evidence, are not gay ;), and (4) and (5) a couple of slightly blurred group shots.