Hildegarde Flanner

MOON AND MOTOR

The glide of moon along my fenders flowing
Is like a motion milking upon light,
So rapt and pallid does it lap and draw
From silver sources crescent with the night.
The earth is pouring off her liquid miles
Whose waterless water is the way I feel
Coursing on the desert, every sense
Collected and yet fluid at the wheel,
While cylinder and floating cylinder
So perfectly receive the plunge of power
That night, and rumors of capricious night,
Time’s own, the frictionless anointed hour
Wait on the motor mystical that drives,
Lean to the fury lovely and repose
That are the piston’s plunder and the sum
Of tranquil labor that an engine knows.


¤


POEM

At least and still at lingering last we can
Console ourselves because this earth is ours,
Though we could never hurl the hurricane,
Nor weld a hill, nor soft unlock the showers,
Nor rivet the diamond under the abyss,
Nor add the desert up, nor crumble the frost
Over the flower’s face. Remembering this
The warm security of pride is lost,
For we are dull mismasters of a huge event
And cannot think who tutored us to fail,
We ruin so quick, and hope is nearly spent;
But faint at intervals, benign and frail
A courage whispers, just this side of fate,
Cling earthward, inward, do not abdicate!

The Third Who Lay In Our Embrace

Woman to Man
Judith Wright

The eyeless labourer in the night,
the selfless, shapeless seed I hold,
builds for its resurrection day --
silent and swift and deep from sight
foresees the unimagined light.

This is no child with a child's face;
this has no name to name it by:
yet you and I have known it well.
This is our hunter and our chase,
the third who lay in our embrace.

This is the strength that your arm knows,
the arc of flesh that is my breast,
the precise crystals of our eyes.
This is the blood's wild tree that grows
the intricate and folded rose.

This is the maker and the made;
this is the question and reply;
the blind head butting at the dark,
the blaze of light upon the blade.
Oh hold me, for I am afraid.

Dearest Marie, this is for you. I hope you read it well. I wish you well.

A Silence Precise

In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.--Eric Hoffer

When I say, kumusta?, I do not mean it as a greeting, acknowledging your presence, informing you of mine.

When I say, kumusta?, I stop and wait for an answer. I have decided to make a fragment of your life my concern. I will not ask if I do not care, even if I know you.

Thus trust is never about another. Trust is always a trust in your self, that no matter how the world will respond to your behavior, you know in your gut that you are prepared to regard it.

The Fullunabridgedverbatim Transcript Of My Conversation With Neil Gaiman

ME: Thank you very much.
NEIL GAIMAN: You're very welcome.

Good job, girl. Good job.

Tekkie Me

I am not one to believe the best things are for free. But I'd take what's free any time.

It was in my senior year in high school when cellular phones became so fashionably necessary, and in the blink of an eye, the cell phone had been as ordinary as a pen and a hanky. Everyone had them. I didn't have one then. Until my sophomore year in college. I had my first authentic gimik. I hung out with new-found friends at the Remedios Circle in Malate till 4 AM. Going home, I expected a full hour or two of reprimand from my parents, but I received the silent treatment instead. The next night, I became the new owner of a Nokia 3210.

I'm not crazy about cell phones. Nokia features such as games are wasted on me. My average text messages sent per day is roughly 1. I have never—ever!—consumed my P300 load in two months. I hardly make calls. If I need to call someone, I look for the nearest pay phone. For 5 years, my Nokia 3210 has stayed with me—till its backlight's dysfunctional, till it can already be considered vintage, Jurassic. I would still hold on to it, if not for my Ate.

From out of the blue, she gave me a very old model of a Handspring Treo. The display's still in black and white, but it doesn't matter; a part of me can endure without color. It's a nice toy and it's once again for free. I appreciate it because it functions as a palmtop and cell phone and you can access the internet through it.

With this new gadget comes one of my most favorite activities in the world: organizing, personalizing.

My phone book's a bit of a revelation, there's so much space. My date book's no surprise, there are no dates. The only game I enjoy from the 5 games available is Hardball (which is really a version of Arkanoid, which reminds me of yesteryears with Nintendo).

Now this is the part where I'm supposed to be wrapping up this entry and express some sort of epiphany. There is none. I don't know. Call me. Gift me with a laptop.

The Other Side Of Surrender1

What sustains. I was cleaning my room a couple of weeks ago.

It is impossible to clean an entire room. It must be impossible to clean an entire life. First the furniture. Then the drawers. Then sorting. It takes half a day to sort, but it is especially difficult for those, like me, who finds it hard to throw away things.

I was looking at 3 long rows of encoded, photocopied and printed out materials from prose, poetry, criticism to pinoyexchange threads. What I used to laugh at before weren't funny any more. A turn of phrase that astonished me once had grown stale.

But those which aged with me:

the moon not less in its halfness²

you seemed a sort of mirage, until I drank you³

Cringe-worthy as it may sound, I'm drowning in a sea of me. With all this continual cleaning, I later on incurred negative intoxication (my personal poetic term for cough and cold.) So much dust from the past!

My friend, Morx, told me that if ever his book collection caught fire, he would want every pulp gone, because if there was a piece left, there'd be something tangible to remind you of the loss.

Being the selfish materialistic person that I am, I would like to be burned as well. But then again I never get too far in proving that I am as selfish and materialistic as I think.

what you have is not yours, what you give is yours⁴

Notes:
1. David Deida: 'Give yourself to love itself, without a shred of you remaining. Die completely into loving. When you return, when your sense of self is recollected, you will be refreshed through and through, washed awake by the innocence lying wide on the other side of surrender.'
2. Anne Michaels
3. Paul Monette
4. Committed (the comic strip)

Better Articulation Of Things Learned Earlier

Jamie James (22):

We shall never know exactly to what extent the historical Pythagoras corresponds to the Master of humanist tradition, any more than we shall ever know who actually wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, or whether all those spiritual utterances in the Gospels were really said by the historical Jesus of Nazareth. Yet the doubts themselves are anachronistic: the point is that through the vast span of history in which Pythagorean humanism (and the study of Homer, and Christianity) were vibrant intellectual forces, there was never a shadow of doubt as to the authenticity and veracity of the tradition. You can put quotation marks around "Pythagoras" if that will make you feel more up-to-date, but it will not alter the meaning; the people who pursued Pythagoreanism over the course of thousands of years did believe, implicitly, in the historicity of the Master. The real Jesus may have been a charlatan, but the Jesus worshipped by millions of people changed the course of history; and it would be wrong, regardless of what a thousand copiously annotated doctoral dissertations may say, to attribute the Iliad to Anonymous.

James (18):

In this century the classics have slipped to the periphery of the curriculum, and in the place of enquiring humanism we now have condescending nihilism: the modern intelligentsia smiles at Christian fundamentalists, at credulous followers of absurd schools of psychotherapy, at adherents of what is called the New Age. Yet if people are driven to feel a connection with the Absolute by wearing crystal jewelry and listening to voice from beyond grave, as naïve as those beliefs may be perhaps we ought not castigate them for abandoning science--for has not science abandoned them? Is it reasonable to expect that the man in the street will be content with being told, "Your life is pointless, and you are destined to be a sterile, meaningless speck of stardust, but be of good cheer: science will tell you how to power your automobile with pig droppings"?

_________________________
James, Jamie. The Music of the Spheres. New York: Copernicus, 1993.

Undergraduate, Not Student

Marianne Moore:

THE STUDENT

"In America," began
the lecturer, "everyone must have a
degree. The French do not think that
all can have it, they don't say everyone
     must go to college." We
incline to feel
     that although it may be unnecessary

to know fifteen languages,
one degree is not too much. With us, a
school--like the singing tree of which
the leaves were mouths singing in concert--
     is both a tree of knowledge
and of liberty--
     seen in the unanimity of college

mottoes, Lux et veritas,
Christo et ecclesiae, Sapient
felici. It may be that we
have not knowledge, just opinions, that we
     are undergraduates,
not students; we know
     we have been told with smiles, by expatriates

of whom we had asked "When will
your experiment be finished?" "Science
is never finished." Secluded
from domestic strife, Jack Bookworm led a
     college life, says Goldsmith;
and here also as
     in France or Oxford, study is beset with
dangers,--with bookworms, mildews,
and complaisancies. But someone in New
England has known enough to say
the student is patience personified,
     is a variety
of hero, "patient
of neglect and of reproach"--who can "hold by

himself." You can't beat hens to
make them lay. Wolf's wool is the best of wool,
but it cannot be sheared because
the wolf will not comply. With knowledge as
     with the wolf's surliness,
the student studies
     voluntarily, refusing to be less

than individual. He
"gives his opinion and then rests on it";
he renders service when there is
no reward, and is too reclusive for
     some things to seem to touch
him, not because he
     has no feeling but because he has so much.

Now I've got to find the perfect teacher poem.

Honesty: From Fact To Feeling

"It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have time."

- Tallulah Bankhead

Though my family would write Roman Catholic in our documents, we didn't practice going to church every Sunday. My parents didn't teach us to pray and fear God.

In grade 4, I transferred from a public school to a private Catholic school. My new school held mandatory confession every first Friday of the month (usually after the first Friday mass.) Our teachers instructed us to write down our sins so that we won't forget them and so as to make the process fast.

I was sort of excited with confessing, as it would be my first time. I simply saw it then as another new concept to learn.

But as I got used to doing it, listing sins became just another task. There were times when I could only think of lying and being lazy to do homework as my only wrongdoings for the month. I would then invent sins as I thought it couldn't be possible for a human being to commit only 2 offenses against God in a span of 4 weeks. I was afraid the priest might perceive me lying.

My treasure, adversely speaking

After the lapse
Of a year or two,
The books your neighbor
Borrowed from you
Are his, according to his lights,
by the principle of squatter's rights.

—Anonymous

I have tons of books which I borrowed and haven't returned yet. Most of them from friends I don't see any longer and some from those I no longer wish to see.

I will return them, if the owners ask for them. Returning these books would be a nice way of seeing old friends. But if they let me keep their books, then these shall serve as good remembrances, gifts.

Relearning

ARTIST
by Robert Francis

He cuts each log in lengths exact
As truly as truth cuts a fact.

When he sawed an honest pile
Of wood, he stops and chops awhile.

Each section is twice split in two
As truly as a fact is true.

Then having split all to be split,
He sets to work at stacking it.

No comb constructed by a bee
Is more a work of symmetry

Than is this woodstack whose strict grace
Is having each piece in its place.

¤

When the class gets too noisy, my Math teacher in grade school begins speaking softly, quietly, then we pay attention.

Betrayal

What I have learned today:

1. Although story is staple, there are memories and desires that musn't be expressed at once (some times at all.) I had been in a dazzling place with a lovely person. I had a camera with me, but never thought of taking any picture. Because

2. An impulse to take a photograph is a surrender to forgetting. Furthermore, it's an insult to the subject, not seeing it with your naked eyes.

3. It is one of the most magnificent feelings walking away from an admired person without anxiety to meet again, knowing you will be remembered well.

4. But today is not a perfect day. The worst inappropriate song that could be stuck in your head has just stuck in my head. Here are some of the lyrics:

I took the hand of a preacher man
and we made love in the sun
. . . .
I've been undressed by kings
and I've seen some things
that a woman ain't supposed to see...

Still don't know it? Here's a dead give away:

I've spent my life exploring
the subtle whoring
that costs too much to be free...

It wasn't the observation of a smart aleckbut that of a truth-lover or a statistics-lover*

Home alone, for some reasons.

First stop, kitchen. There must be bread, there must be bread. There is. It's my lucky day, for there's a dozen of eggs, and there's ham, still sealed. I said lucky, therefore there's Ovaltine, and milk, instant coffee.

The eggs must be fried, a bit toasted. Its edges must be crisp. The ham will be fried as well. On the bread will be mayonnaise. Bread ham egg bread into the oven. Four minutes. The time it takes to heat the water and prepare my drink. Five teaspoons of Ovaltine, half a teaspoon of milk and a quarter teaspoon of instant coffee. Every time I concoct this, the taste is different.

Done.

Two DVD's for me to watch: "The Notebook" (adaptation of Nicholas Sparks's novel) and "Closer" (adaptation of Patrick Marber's play.)

The Notebook. Who's that girl? She's sickly sweet, but charming. Well, she has a very pretty face that becomes prettier the longer you look. Great smile. I like this young lady. She's the only thing I like about this film. She is the character. Is that what you call "good casting?"

Closer. I'm an actor bigot. There are instances when I decide whether to watch a film or not depending on the actors in it. Don't like Julia Roberts. Not excited about Natalie Portman. There's no harm in trying, I can always press the stop button. In two scenes, the conflict's built. Good. There seems to be a promise of a sex scene. Good. (What am I talking about, there's always promise of sex in Hollywood films, and there's always Penthouse's Caligula upstairs if I want porn.) Do I like this film? Do I find it unable to reach its potential? How do I say something intelligent about this? I wish I could see, or read the original play.

My mother must be home by lunch time, or I'll have to order something and I hate spending money on things I could've not spent on.

A whole afternoon at home. There's the piano. After a year of practicing, I still can't play Fur Elise perfectly. And that should be an easy piece. I may not even be worth being called a hobbyist.

A helicopter crash. Mother's not yet home. What a shame. I should learn how to cook rice.

What a desperate day. I'm happy about my sandwich and hot chocolate. The films I've watched are entertaining. At least my fingers are complete and I can read notes. I have something to look forward to.

* J.D. Salinger, For Esmé--with Love and Squalor

Theeling

For the third time, my family's personal computer has been reformatted. What does that mean? I've lost yet again a gajillion mp3 files. I haven't learned. I should've saved them in a CD. But as how I would usually console myself, I have listened to these, ok those, songs for how many times until I tire of them. I shouldn't be this sad.

How about my other files? They're fine. My Word documents (CV, theses, papers, creative writing) are saved in my Gmail account. (On a side note, I don't know about you other Gmail users, but that "2000 megabytes (and counting) of storage" is starting to get scary. It's like they're up for world domination. Oh well, that's tomorrow's problem.) My jpeg files and other pictures are stored in Flickr and PhotoBucket.

I always brag about how I can live without a cell phone. But my gulay, I have become slave to the internet instead of the other way around.

By the way, Merriam-Webster Asks: What's Your Favorite Word (That's Not in the Dictionary)? Here are some of the responses:

accordionated (adj): being able to drive and refold a road map at the same time

elbonics (n): the actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a movie theater

fendicle (n): junk that hangs from fenders in winter

helixophile (n): corkscrew collector

petrophobic (adj): one who is embarrassed to undress in front of a household pet

theeling (n) thinking and feeling blended state

That's one of the reasons why I love the internet. Oh, I still can't get over those music.

I'm Ready, Depression

This is not to say I'm depressed, or will soon be. It is just that.

If only this world is cartoon. One-dimensional, but of course, the discord. Adventure and fun's a given. You face trouble, but then just like that, there's the solution. You get swallowed by a sea monster and suddenly you get out by the door at its tail. Your entire community's been manipulated by a selfish plankton, so you become a rockstar wielding a powerful laser guitar and save the day. (Yes, I've recently seen The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. This is not to say I'm a fan.)

A friend of mine just graduated from college. She was very excited about what's next. I didn't tell her this: Are you sure you have enjoyed every moment of your life as a student?

There we stood: the twenty-something idealist who was eager to ride the real world, join the Palanca, hunt for scholarships and the other idealist who did not believe in such reality and grants with conviction.

Whenever someone younger begins to dream out loud, especially in front of me, I want to turn away. I see the student debaters, speaking with confidence, flair and a sense of urgency, and I want to say, in all plainness, No.

In keeping quiet, I betray friends who solicit an honest response from me and not a generic encouragement. In defense, who am I to tell? They can always surprise themselves and the world with their well-earned and carefully understood happiness.

Still, Spontaneity

I never fantasize about having my own family. Don't like getting married. Don't like children. But of course I've thought about these things.

See, you have this space, or I have this space I've grown so accustomed to for how many years. I cannot imagine having this space shared, compromised--for all eternity, that is. In the simplest sense, I don't want to bother about somebody else who might not like a curtain I intend to put on the window.

But I like sharing, I like relationships. I like them so much I want a lot of them. It is just that I love solitude. And I want to spare myself the worry. I worry too much about myself already. If I have a child, I will go crazy thinking how s/he fits in her/his environment, that s/he might get into an accident, and the list goes on.

Batangas will always be my favorite place. Lolo and Lola Lipa will always be my favorite couple. Theirs is the energy I desire.

Every time we have a reunion, I appreciate what a family is (supposed to be.) You know it's not about the reunion itself, but what it elicits from you. Curiosity, care. You catch up, not just on each other's lives, but on how each other look like. Of course the stories. Tita Ning cries to Lola while talking about being cheated in her business.

Lolo Lipa, at 94, is a bit quiet. He can no longer walk on his own. He can't hear well, he can't see well. He can't see me. If he sees me, he doesn't remember who I was.

I feel lucky enough to have had a great grandmother in Lola Abe. She had reached more than a century. I want to reach more than that age.

Whenever we're at my grandparents' house at Lipa, we'd always eat mangoes fresh from the tree at their backyard. That Mango tree is older than me or any of my cousins. The new park just across the house is getting better and better every time we visit and my brother and I loves having coffee there. We've yet to try flying a kite in that well-contrived nature. And then there's Tito Joel's motorbike, well, him and his motorbike. My father used to have one, but I was so young then, I didn't have the chance to ride it. Now I can and I always do when I go to Lipa.



My parents say that when my grandparents die, their home will be turned into a rest house. There was once a tree house in the backyard and a small bahay kubo. The bahay kubo was meant for us, the young ones, when we were still children. It was destroyed a couple of years ago. This time the two houses in the lot will be completely destroyed. I don't know if that means they'll also demolish the little village fixture in the backyard, which used to amuse me as a child. I would imagine a whole story set in it.

Lolo speaks up. He wants to go to their old house at San Juan where my father was born. Lola tells us that Lolo loves that place so much, because he loves the people in it. Without hesitation, Lola calls her brother at San Juan. A few more minutes, my father tells us to get ready and get in the car.

The house at San Juan is small, but tidy. The furnishings are color coordinated, the tablewares match.

At the dining table, while having merienda, Lolo animatedly recalls the time he went to Mindoro in search for anting (of all the things he can remember...) He says he found it. The story must be cut short. It's almost four o'clock, which is the hour for the last mass. If we don't hurry, we might suffer the heavy traffic.

Lolo takes the front seat of the revo van, all to himself. He needs that space. Lola sits at the back with my mother. My brother and I are in the middle. Lola tells my mother that she recently brought a monoblock chair with armrests for Lolo.

"Para mas madali kapag pinapaliguan ko siya. 330 ang bili ko. Mabuti iyong matibay," Lola explains to my mother. "Daddy, okay ka lang diyan?" Lola shouts to Lolo. Traffic's getting bad. "Masaya ka ba?"

"Ay hindi pa 'ko natatawa," he answers.

For _____

WHAT I LIKE
by Alice Fulton

Friend--the face I wallow toward
through a scrimmage of shut faces.
Arms like towropes to haul me home, aide-
memoire, my lost childhood docks, a bottled ark
in harbor. Friend--I can't forget
how even the word contains an end.
We circle each other in a scared bolero,
imagining stratagems: postures and imposters.
Cold convictions keep us solo. I ahem
and hedge my affections. Who'll blow the first kiss,
land it like the lifeforces we feel
tickling at each wrist? It should be easy
easy to take your hand, whisper down this distance
labeled hers or his: what I like about you is

I am reminded of this poem after watching "Kung Ako Na Lang Sana," starring Sharon Cuneta and Aga Muhlach.

Collage Of The Day

MY COMPUTER, MY EXECUTIONER

Via Larawan:


THE BLAH IN "BLAH BLAH BLAH"

From a phone conversation with my high school friend, Marie:

MARIE: Sa August ako due--second week.
ME: Alam mo na kung girl o boy?
MARIE: Hindi pa. Huli kasing nagfoform ang genitals.
ME: Talaga? Hindi ko alam yun, ah.
MARIE: Miss na kita, sobra. Kita tayo bukas, sa Festival.
ME: Oo naman, malapit lang naman ako dun.
MARIE: Ay, hindi, 'wag na lang. Makikita kita, ang sexy mo,
maiinsecure lang ako.
ME: Haha.. . . .MARIE: Buti na lang inisip kong ituloy 'to.
ME IN MY HEAD: I knew it. It's unwanted.
MARIE: Pero sabi nila kapag nakita mo na raw yung anak mo, it's all worth it.
ME IN MY HEAD: Naniwala ka naman.
MARIE: Besides, after college, labas ako nang labas--I've had my fun. Tsaka papalakihin lang naman namin 'to ni M, tapos puwede na kami bumalik sa dati.
ME IN MY HEAD: As if ganun kadali yun.. . . .MARIE: Matino na si M ngayon, hindi gaya nung magsyota pa lang kami, laging nangangaliwa. Dalawang beses ko siya nahuli. Buti na lang yung isa inamin niya.
ME: So... paano ka niya napapayag magpakasal?
MARIE: Alam mo, wala ka nang magagawa e...

Sad.


PISCES

From Rob Brezsny:

"What I give form to in daylight is only one percent of what I have seen in darkness," wrote the artist M.C. Escher. Though he wasn't a Pisces, he could have been speaking for you and your tribe when he said that....Now here's some really good news: In the coming weeks, you could raise that to a whopping 10 percent.

CONFESSION

I like Coelho's "By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept."

The Act

Sohee was the first Korean I formally tutored. She was 9 years old. She had this rule: on Mondays, I had to call her Sandy; on Tuesdays, Candy; Wednesdays, Winny; Thursdays, Annie; then she'd be back to being Sandy (her English name) on Fridays. That's how cute she was.

Imagine the horror I felt when I was assigned to tutor her for 3 hours every day, from 8 to 11 am. I had to teach her 2 books. She was naughty, playful, proud, smart. After a week, we learned to fall in love with each other. But this is about the first time we met, and something else.

We drew and played games for an hour and a half, as she didn't like to study. When I started feeling too irresponsible for not doing my job, I thought of being strict and forced her to read with me. After a few minutes, she acted as if she was choking. I just looked at her, thinking, What do I do with this kid... Since she got no response from me, she stopped her act, sat on her chair, then read with me.

It came to my mind all those times I acted myself, cheated my way with things. I first remembered my parents, when I would tell them about fictive school projects, so as to get some money to buy cassette tapes. Then there was high school when I would fake headaches and sleep in the clinic so as to skip unwanted classes.

And then now. Somehow I am amazed at our ability--or our choice--to let people we care about act like fools around us. I know now that my parents all along knew about those lies. It's embarrassing.

I recently found this Robert Walser statement: "No one has the right to act as though he knows me." Ouch. The very thing I love and fear most about people is their intelligence.

Prose's Power

From Natasha Bedingfield (my current favorite):

These words are my own

Threw some chords together, the combination D-E-F
It's who I am, it's what I do, and I was gonna lay it down for you
I tried to focus my attention, but I feel so A-D-D
I need some help, some inspiration, but it's not coming easily

Trying to find the magic
Trying to write a classic
Don't you know, don't you know, don't you know?
Waste-bin, full of paper
Clever rhymes- see you later

These words are my own, from my heart flow
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you
There's no other way to better say
I love you, I love you

Read some Byron, Shelley and Keats
Recited it over a hip-hop beat
I'm having trouble saying what I mean
With dead poets and a drum machine

You know I had some studio time booked
But I couldn't find the killer hook
Now you're gonna raise the bar right up
Nothing I write is ever good enough

I'm getting off my stage
The curtains pull away
No hyperboles to hide behind
My naked soul exposes

I love you, I love you, that's all I got to say
Can't think of a better way, and that's all I got to say
I love you, is that ok?

I love that part where she says: "These words are my own... I love you." It reminds of the first few sentences of Jeanette Winterson's "Written on the Body."

You said 'I love you.' Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? 'I love you' is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them.

I've always believed in prose's characteristic power.