Alyanna Marie Flores

With a dreamy, far-off look, and nose stuck in a book.

[karmicmarie]

"At kung magkagayon, kung patuloy pa ring manaig ang asimptota sa ating kapalaran... asahan mo na kung hindi man ngayong panahon magdugtong ang ating linya, kung hindi man ngayong panahon magwakas ng masaya ang kwento nating dalawa... ipinapangako ko sa iyo na patuloy kung nanaisin na mabuhay ng paulit-ulit upang muling makita at makapiling ka"

[karmicmarie]

How long does a feeling last?

[karmicmarie]

Holy Sonnet IV

John Donne Oh my black soul! now art thou summoned By sickness, death's herald, and champion; Thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done Treason, and durst not turn to whence he is fled; Or like a thief, which till death's doom be read, Wisheth himself delivered from prison, But damned and haled to execution, Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned. Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack; But who shall give thee that grace to begin? Oh make thy self with holy mourning black, And red with blushing, as thou art with sin; Or wash thee in Christ's blood, which hath this might That being red, it dyes red souls to white.

[karmicmarie]

“Tonight I can write”

Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, “The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.”

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me and sometimes I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before. Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.

[karmicmarie]

"The Secret Language"

Luisa Igloria I have learned your speech, Fair stranger; for you I have oiled my hair And coiled it tight Into a braid as thick And beautiful as the serpent In your story of Eden. For you, I have covered My breasts and hidden, Among the folds of my surrendered Inheritance, the beads I have worn since girlhood. It is fifty years now Since the day my father Took me to the school in Bua, A headman's terrified Peace-gift.  In the doorway, The teacher stood, her hair The bleached color of corn, Watching with bird-eyes. Now, I am Christina. I am told I can make lace Fine enough to lay upon the altar Of a cathedral in Europe. But this is a place That I will never see. I cook for tourists at an inn; They praise my lemon pie And my English, which they say Is faultless.  I smile And look past the window, Imagining father's and grandfather's cattle Grazing by the smoke trees. But it is evening, and these Are ghosts. In the night, When I am alone at last, I lie uncorseted Upon the iron bed, Composing my lost beads Over my chest, dreaming back Each flecked and opalescent Color, crooning the names, Along with mine: Binaay, Binaay.

[karmicmarie]

From Elegies

Simonides of Ceos Simonides of Ceos ( c. 556–468 BC) was a Greek lyric poet, born at Ioulis on Ceos. The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of the nine lyric poets esteemed by them as worthy of critical study. Poem 1 "Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, That here obedient to their laws we lie." Poem 2 Of those who at Thermopylae were slain, Glorious the doom and beautiful the lot Their tomb an altar: men from tears refrain, To honor them, and praise, but mourn them not. Such sepulcher, nor drear decay, Nor all-destroying time shall waste; this right have they. Within their grave the homebred glory Of Greece was laid: this witness gives Leonidas the Spartan, in whose story A wreath of famous of virtue ever lives. Poem 3 Long, long and dreary is the night That waits us in the silent grave; Few and of rapid flight The years from death we save. Short - ah! how short - that fleeting space; And when man's little race Is run, and death's grim portal's o'er him close, How lasting his repose!

[karmicmarie]

Order for Masks

Virginia R. Moreno To this harlequinade I wear black tight and fool’s cap Billiken, make me three bright masks For the three tasks in my life. Three faces to wear One after the other For the three men in my life. When my Brother comes  make me one opposite If he is a devil, a saint With a staff to his fork And for his horns, a crown. I hope for my contrast To make nil Our old resemblance to each other  and my twin will walk me out Without a frown Pretending I am another. When my Father comes Make me one so like His child once eating his white bread in trance Philomela before she was raped.  I hope by likeness To make him believe this is the same kind The chaste face he made, And my blind Lear will walk me out Without a word Fearing to peer behind. If my lover comes, Yes, when Seducer comes Make for me the face That will in color race The carnival stars And change in shape Under his grasping hands. Make it bloody When he needs it white Make it wicked in the dark Let him find no old mark Make it stone to his suave touch This magician will walk me out Newly loved. Not knowing why my tantalizing face Is strangely like the mangled parts of a face He once wiped out. Make me three masks.

[karmicmarie]

Jolography

Paolo Manalo O, how dead you child are, whose spoiled Sportedness is being fashion showed Beautifuling as we speak – in Cubao There is that same look: Your Crossing Ibabaw, Your Nepa Cute, Wednesdays Baclaran, “Please pass. Kindly ride on.” Tonight will be us tomorrowed- Lovers of the Happy Meal and its H, Who dream of the importedness of sex as long as it’s Pirated and under a hundred, who can smell A Pasig Raver in a dance club. O, the toilet Won’t flush, but we are moved, doing the gerby In a plastic bag; we want to feel the grooves Of the records, we want to hear some scratch- In a breakaway movement, we’re the shake To the motive of pockets, to the max.            The change is all in the first jeep Of the morning’s route. Rerouting This city and its heart attacks; one minute faster Than four o’clock, and the next Wave that stands out in the outdoor crowd hanging with a bunch of yo-yos- A face with an inverted cap on, wearing all Smiles the smell of foot stuck between the teeth.

[karmicmarie]

Lament for the Littlest Fellow

Edith L. Tiempo The littlest fellow was a marmoset. He held the bars and blinked his old man’s eyes. You said he knew us and took my arm and set My fingers around the bars with coaxing mimicries Of squeak and twitter. “Now he thinks you are Another marmoset in a cage.” A proud denial Set you to laughing, shutting back a question far Into my mind, something enormous and final. The question was unasked but there is an answer. Sometimes in your sleeping face upon the pillow, I would catch our own little truant unaware; He had fled from our pain and the dark room of our rage, But I would snatch him back from yesterday and tomorrow. You wake, and I bruise my hand on the living cage.

[karmicmarie]

Problem Is

Conchitina R. Cruz They say poor Filipinos multiply like rabbits since they have nothing to do but fuck. Living in houses with room only for the inevitable brush of the hand against the buttock in between chores, on the way to switch channels to the daily noontime show, no money and little space lead to nowhere but to coupling. We used to joke and call our selves typical Filipinos, broke and empty-handed, when all we did was touch, and for all the movies we missed, fancy dinners we didn’t have, books we borrowed but never owned, we compensated by making love. You told me not to worry, that someday the worst would end, just a couple of right moves and it would be over. Should I have told you then we’d never been better, should I have told you then to hold your tongue, but we had no room for such words. We were rabbits, Seeking the other side, bent on Crossing the pasture.

[karmicmarie]

Does it ever drive you crazy Just how fast the night changes?

2016 vs. 2021

[karmicmarie]

Moonlight on Manila Bay

Fernando M. Maramag

A light, serene, ethereal glory rests

Its beams effulgent on each crestling wave;

The silver touches of the moonlight wave

The deep bare bosom that the breeze molests;

While lingering whispers deepen as the wavy crests

Roll with weird rhythm, now gay, now gently grave;

And floods of lambent light appear the sea to pave-

All cast a spell that heeds not time‘s behests.

Not always such the scene; the din of fight

Has swelled the murmur of the peaceful air;

Here East and West have oft displayed their might;

Dark battle clouds have dimmed this scene so fair;

Here bold Olympia, one historic night,

Presaging freedom, claimed a people‘s care.

[karmicmarie]

“Day on the Farm”

Luis G. Dato ◦I've found you fruits of sweetest taste and found you Bunches of duhat growing by the hill, I've bound your arms and hair with vine and bound you With rare wildflowers but you are crying still. I've brought you all the forest ferns and brought you Wrapped in green leaves cicadas singing sweet, I've caught you in my arms an hour and taught you Love's secret where the mountain spirits meet. Your smiles have died and there is no replying To all endearment and my gifts are vain; Come with me, love, you are too old for crying, The church bells ring and I hear drops of rain.

[karmicmarie]

“I want to be defined by the things that I love. Not the things I hate, not the things I’m afraid of, the things that haunt me in the middle of the night. I just think that... you are what you love.”

- Taylor Swift

[karmicmarie]

The Sick Rose

William Blake O Rose thou art sick.  The invisible worm,  That flies in the night  In the howling storm:  Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

[karmicmarie]

Last Night in Nanjing

Virgilio Almario

All day it was raining

On the way back to Tian Gong

I gazed back

At the fading moon

Behind a branch of lu-tong

[karmicmarie]

Be Beautiful, Noble, Like The Antique Ant

Jose Garcia Villa Be beautiful, noble, like the antique ant Who bore the storms as he bore the sun, Wearing neither gown nor helmet, Though he was archbishop and soldier: Wore only his own flesh. Salute characters with gracious dignity: Though what these are is left to Your own terms. Exact: the universe is Not so small but these will be found Somewhere. Exact: they will be found. Speak with great moderation: but think With great fierceness, burning passion: Though what the ant thought No annals reveal, nor his descendants Break the seal. Trace the tracelessness of the ant, Every ant has reached this perfection. As he comes, so he goes, Flowing as water flows, Essential but secret like a rose.