pangarap cong maging pintor

Painter’s Room

A four-post bed here, a 1986 stereo there,
This room will stay the same, father says.

The smell of oil paints and egg yolk will also remain,
It goes the same for the patches of colors on the floor.

His brushes and palettes will need not to be burned.
His paintings will all go to the family heirloom.

With hair in burnt-brown curls and eyes askew,
That portrait alone will hang on the wall.

His smile, together with his shoes and plastic fruits, will
Forever echo a sigh: silent, unmoving and still.

Tonight, mother will secretly gather the photos from its frames
And will read the unsent letters hidden inside pillowcases.

She will empty the glass jars filled with murky waters
And will bleach unused canvasses white for keepsake.

Can I have his guitar and CD collections, Papa?
No, father says, everything will stay the same.

This room will be untouched, un-trespassed.
This room will stay the same, father says.

Except for the heap of laundry on corner unwashed
And your brother that still hangs alone by the door.

let’s sing a song

The Royal Song

I write songs on this white shiny
bowl, sitting like a king
on his ceramic throne,
gathering distant inspiration
from muses locked up
within walls of roof tins
and stain-old plywood.

Up in the ceiling of cobwebs
in this comfort outpost,
a bulb hangs and glares
in a yellow-dull stare,
solitary and rusting,
lighting the darkness of
this kingdom of cold, mossy tiles,
illuminating subjects
of born silence:
a soap dish, shampoo sachets,
and the living sound of water
dripping endlessly down the drain.

I scribble words to describe
the rat stealing glances on
my unpolished toenails
while a black little spider,
shining in the dark,
moving in a polygonal dance,
weaves another house of silk,
adding another lot to its estate of dust.

Standing up to wash my past,
I gather the muses of the ripples
and of the undaunted scents.
I flush the world and there goes another song,
singing its way down the cesspool
where all my works they say should belong.
I leave my position and kingdom
to live a life of an ordinary man.

Tomorrow night, my throne will sing
and I shall reign again.

lessons from jean claire dy

Lessons from Jean Claire Dy

(from Jean Claire Dy through Angely Pamila Chi)

 

Math tells us three of the saddest love stories.

Tangent lines:

which have 1 chance to meet but then part forever.

Parallel lines:

which were never meant to meet.

and Asymptotes:

which can get closer and closer but will never be together.

Jonathan

 

JONATHAN
(After Lilledeshan Bose)

Everybody has a boyfriend named Jonathan. Jonah, Junjun, Nathan, Anthony, Tony, Wanwan, John, Troy.

They are sweat-smelling and rough and big from a basketball game. They have clean haircut, pressed polo, big backpacks and white rubber shoes. To be with a girl, they hold doors for her, shake their shoulders and puff their chests like young roosters.

These Jonathans have roses and chocolates for you, a candlelit dinner for two, and quick kisses in dark movie houses. You practice your lips every Friday night for a date on Saturdays with Anthony.

Junjun waits for your arrival in his favorite internet station. You imagine a night on a secluded beach with Wanwan, gathering smooth shells like counting small stars. During afternoon breaks, Troy steals away from his class just to join you on your pineapple pie diet. You sit on a park bench with Jonah, holding hands, talking about nothing. Nathan is hesitant but lets you have a sip on his beer. At the finals, Tony waves at you from the court and you give him a flying kiss. John drives you home after a party and talks to your father like any good boy will do.

Many times you travel out of the city and you are tired for the trip back home. You yawn at every passing town when Anthony pulls your hand, let your sleep on his shoulder and he smelling of baby powder. From then on, you dream of every bus trip smelling like his shoulder.

But during the lonely Christmas when every Jonathan must go back to their provinces, the cold freezes your heart and the rustle of the people isolate you in your own city. The colorful lights blind you away back to a childhood dream, a vision of a different boy.

Arms flung apart, his eyes wide like smiles; he takes you away from your family on your sixth simbang gabi. He asks you to run through his meadows, to hit from his joint and to join him catch morning fireflies for his delight.

tests of faith

 

Tests of Faith

I

A Korean boy goes up to smoking Darna and asks her if she believes in Jesus.

“Of course, I do,” exclaims Darna with big clouds of nicotine. “I also believe in flowers, the birds, the bees, the sun, the clouds, the pokemons and all of the stars in the heaven.”

The Korean stares at her with open mouth and what seem to be open eyes.

The Korean offers her a pamphlet of a handsome Jesus in blue and white robe. But Darna just raises her left eyebrow and laughs.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha.” And she left him with his open mouth.

II

Burt tells the small group of senior citizens that every time a balloon flies, a turtle out in the ocean dies.

Mrs. dela Cerna taps him on the shoulder and says to him, in front of the group, that it’s not funny to tell those kinds of jokes.

Mr. Bernard asks anyway why.

He said, “When a balloon reaches the atmospheric layer where the pressure is too high, it bursts. The most possible area for the deflated balloon to fall is the vast ocean. With its rubbery and gelatinous appearance, a turtle will mistake it for a jellyfish. The poor animal eats it and dies.”

Mr. Bernard claps his hands. He says that it’s been a long time since he met an intelligent kid.

Mrs. dela Cerna disappeared into a corner and chanted her silent prayers.

Burt reads from her lips that she’s praying for the souls of poor dead turtles and for a demonic being retelling their sad fates to the world.

III

Young Fred sits rigid in a multicab. He holds his breath in small spaces and twitches his nose with close contacts with other people.

In front of him, just a hair thin away from his knees, a couple locks up each other in embraces.

Fred squirms as the man circles his arm around the woman’s shoulders, smelling her hair. She looks at the window but her hand grips on his other arm.

As they pass the Redemptorist’s Church, the couple unlocks their arms and did sign of the cross.

In the name of the Father. Fingers on the forehead.

And of the Son. On the stomach.

And of the Holy Spirit. On each shoulder.

Amen. And they kiss.

Fred glares and slaps the woman’s leg.

“That’s my father, you bitch!”

IV

Marie picks up a cigarette butt on a gutter outside San Pedro Cathedral. Another piece for my collection, she thought.

It’s only five o’clock and the show in Rizal Park won’t start until six. Knowing the organizers, it won’t really start until seven thirty. She goes inside the Cathedral and wait.

She sits at the back of the church, few columns away from the center aisle. It’s been a long time since she entered that building. The hallow noise, birds twittering, the scent of burning candles, the holiness of each flap of fans and the divine light that shines the naked body of Jesus at the main altar. All these are almost forgotten in Marie’s busy life.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

The mass is about to start. She struggles with the idea of getting out but where will she go? At the park? She hates standing and waiting. It’s better to sit and wait.

She decides to stay and listens to the mass.

Minutes pass as people stand, sit, stand and kneel. Her eyes brighten as she sees them start a queue. These people will gather in lines until the last of their breath for that small piece of white bread, a morsel of heaven in their mouths.

As the line nearest to her grows thin, she stands and goes to it.

“Body of Christ.” The old man in white robe asks rather than offering.

“Amen.” And he places the bread on her tongue.

Hmmm. She almost forgot that ephemeral sweetness of hostia, that soft crust that crumbles in saliva like dust.

Going back to her seat, she goes directly to the exit. At Rizal Park, people are still adjusting the audio system. She takes out her dry hostia from her mouth and places it in her wallet together with the cigarette butt.

Re-starting an old hobby, she thought.

v-day

 

V-DAY

Valentine’s Day and Eddie feels the rustiness in the air. There is red everywhere: red shirts, red roses, red balloons, red lips and red faces.

Gordon asks if people really fuss over Valentine’s like this. “It’s too corny. Like, look at those kids over there. They could have done it any other day but why only now?”

Of course Gordon wouldn’t know, thinks Eddie. He’s just from the farm. He wouldn’t care for these trivial things.

Just then Raiza enters the hallway wearing her hair down. She walks her soft skirt that curls at the edge like her hair.

“Hi.” She smiles to Eddie.

She disappears into one of the rooms, leaving her scent behind.

“Just what was that?” nudges Gordon.

Should he tell Gordon about Raiza and her vanilla-smelling skin? How about the mole on her left shoulder, the roundness of her body, the taste of cherry on her lips and the fireworks that he sees in her eyes when he holds her tight.

Eddie snaps off from his reverie as he sees Kat walking down the hallway.

“This is for you,” Eddie offers.

“Oh, Kisses,” Kat squeals. “Thanks.”

And she gives Eddie a kiss that smears red on his cheek.

trash

TRASH

Diane phoned in Jimmy to go to her room and find her exam slip. She said look for it in her bin. She might had thrown it.
Jimmy went to her room and found it disarrayed. Her medical books scattered everywhere, white pants spread on the floor and medicine foils glistened over her bed.

Under her study table, he reached for a red plastic bin. The scent of rotting fruits invaded his senses. He dug his hand into her trash and felt strands of her hair entwined with her dusts. He saw Cookie’s naughty fur caught sticking with his smelly can of tuna. More medicine foils.

Jimmy dug dipper and found a white sando bag. He untied it and grossed out as he discovered a puddle of puke. Her sickness must have worsened. Maybe from her finals, he thought. He re-tied the bag and put it beside the bin.

Among her other trash – an empty bottle of energy drink, empty bookstore cellophanes, empty bottles of cough syrup, more foils of medicines, cut-out pictures from magazines, strips of colored papers, rolls of discarded Scotch tape, an empty canister of film, curled up cigarette butts, burnt matchsticks, biscuit wrappers, paper bags with bread crumbs, another empty can of tuna, an empty can of corned beef, an empty can of cola, mango peels, banana peels, their oily condom still smelling of orange, watermelon seeds, empty sachets of shampoos, a plastic seal from an alcohol bottle, four triple A batteries, a three-month old pack of sanitary napkin, and lots and lots of tissue, tissues with lipstick, tissues with mascara and tissues with dry snots – he found what he’s looking for. Diane had used her exam slip to wrap a strip of plastic.

Cookie entered the room, purring and just in time to see Jimmy threw up in the bin. Cookie licked Jimmy’s morsel near the two blue lines in Diane’s strip of pregnancy kit.

nice boys

We Nice Boys
(after Gwendolyn Brooks)

We nice boys. We
make noise. We

say crass. We
stash grass. We

slit wrist. We
throw fist. We

booze beer. We
go queer. We

love bed. We
play dead.

imitation of life

Imitation of Life

 

The boy’s name was Renato and he hated it. He was the fourth and the last Renato in the line of the Tamayo hacienderos that moved to the South during the 1950’s. Renato knew that his name possessed a curse that his grandfather had carried with him from his birthplace.

When his grandfather, Renato Tamayo, Jr. was on a cargo ship, stowing away from Iloilo, he suffered pneumonia. His instincts didn’t serve him well on a large island branded as the Land of Promise. His only luck stuck when he met Blesida and sired a son. He inherited the boy his only noble possession: he named the boy Renato. The old Renato promised to himself that he would give his son the guidance that he needed but didn’t get when he was a young man. But he soon died and Blesida was left to raise their Renato alone.

Renato III grew up lacking the image of a father in his life. He sought refuge on who he considered friends. They spat, they drank, they pricked and they flew. When he met his Blesida, it was not luck. He rather loved her but he loved flying more. They sired a son, also naming him Renato. Renato III promised to himself that he would give his son the father’s love he needed but didn’t get when he was growing up. But he soared higher into the sky and only return to earth to fuel up his flight.

***

The last Renato was a second year student and his class finished early that day. He had been selling cigarettes and candies for an hour now, in a stall where his mother and grandmother had used to sell banana and camote cues near a gasoline station. It was a sweltering day, the concrete on Ponciano Street sweated in disgust with the sun. The heat did not bother Renato, only it bored him to the extent of yawning and tearing.

But the traffic that mid-afternoon made him somehow glad. A long line of large grey boxes stringed the length of Ponciano. They were honking and moving in a pace fit for a snail race. A road accident up ahead must had packed the street. Above the thick sound of horns coming from the jeepneys, he could hear a faint cry of an ambulance. Or was it a fire truck? He searched the city skyline filled with wires and cables for a dark smoke, but only the thin smog was the dark cloud he saw. The air smelled dead with pollution, the stench of a rotting city.

The drivers were patients, the boy knew, unlike the constant rustles and shifts the passengers did. Renato observed with his young teary eyes a nursing student in an almost empty jeepney in front of his stall. She gathered her hair that sticks on her fat neck, wiped her thin brows with a white cotton handkerchief and adjusts her big, dark sunglasses. The driver of the jeepney called on to Renato and bought from him a bottle of cold water. He received the plastic bottle as he fanned himself with a dirty towel. A man in red cap, next to the driver, asked for menthol candy.

When he was about to pass the candy to the man, the man stuck out his head out of the jeepney. The driver crouched behind his windshield as if waiting for the change of traffic lights. The nursing student bended out her head, sweat rose from her fat upper lip. They were looking from where a commotion was coming. Renato, at first, was unaware until voices sprang up from the usual silent pedestrians.

A screech killed the voices and apolice mobile swerved out of the corner of Bonifacio intersection and stops in front of a building. Up in another building, a tiny dot was sitting at the edge of a smiling billboard. It was a man wearing only his underwear, swinging his legs. Everyone in Ponciano looked up to him. Renato could say that it was his father.

Renato left his stall, ran the remaining length of Ponciano, crossed the Bonifacio intersection, passed the mobile, the University of Mindanao building and stood few meters away from the gathered crowd. The boy’s feet throbbed in short sting pains where the rubber straps met his skin. He had run too fast and too abrupt. He heard his heart beat wildly just below his throat. He watched his father laughing at them. Or was he just laughing at him? He pointed his finger at the crowd. A guy in dark sunglasses and checkered polo carried a crackling megaphone started talking to his father.

“Dong, is your name Renato?” cracked the Mayor, saying the cursed name. “Let’s talk about this.”

“Putang ina nimo!” shouted his father back and resumed laughing. He kicked and swung his legs harder into the air. He scratched his crotch and talked to his invisible friend. Renato’s father was again stoned and needed flying.

Renato squeezed his hands until his fingernails burned his palms. He watched through his young teary eyes his father that now stood and wobbled as he searched for his balance. With his hands apart like an albatross, his father tried to place his fingers on his forehead and did what looked like a sign of cross.

Renato closed his eyes hard that orange spots began to flower on a black background behind his eyes. He held his right hand to his face to cover more of the image that illuminated through his closed eyes. Warm tears burst from his eyes and trickled between his fingers. His father was about to jump and fly for the last time. “Putang ina nimo, Renato!” he heard himself whispering.  And the cursed name echoed in his silence.

***

Renato grew up to be a fine man. He was then selling banana and camote cues on his stall where he used to sell cigarette and menthol candies. He never met his Blesida and never sired a son. He never passed on the cursed name. His eyes remained young forever.

A young man in red cap walked to his stall and bought ten sticks of banana cues. Renato covered the sticks in a strip of banana leaf and put them inside a red plastic bag. He gave it to the young man. The man smiled and said, “thank you, Regine.”

To Erika, Surrogate Mother of the Son of Christ

In nomine Matri, et Filia, et Espiritu Sancti

You came.
There he is.
What’s with the jar?
A biology project?
That looks real.
Oh!
Where did you get that?
Still looks fresh.
Poor creature.
You want him to bless its soul?
Here, take my candle.
The mass is almost finished.
Wait!
Is that blood on your skirt?

Amen.