#lawrence ypil

[pagdalumat]

Salat

ni Lawrence Ypil salin ni J. Daryl Alcantara

“Una mang magsiklab, salat ang pandamang huling nauupos: matapos tayong ipagkanulo ng ating mga mata, ang ating mga kamay ay mananatiling nananalig sa daigdig.” -Frederick Sachs

Tiyak na batid ito ni Tomas noong nagpaalam siyang salatin ang Panginoon damhin ang lalim ng pinagpakuan ang sugat sa pinagsibatan

Batid niyang itong liwanag, itong sipat ng buhok, bibig, mata ang unang lilipas kasunod ng alaala ng Kaniyang mga salita

hanggang ang tanging manatili ay ang malumanay na pakiramdam ng kanyang daliri sa pílas ng lamáng muling lalang

Bagaman sa kanyang mga kasama’y hangal siya at lapastangan sa paghiling ng katunayan, naturan pa ngang mapag-alinlangan,

ang totoo ay siya lámang ang nakadadalumat sa lalim ng kahulugan ng paniniwala.

Mayroong mga daluyong ng liwanag na hindi niya mamamataan, mga ugong na hindi niya mauulinigan

At ang pananalig, batid niya’y, wala sa paniniwalang mababatid natin yaong hindi naririnig at nakikita ng ating mata at tainga.

Ang ating mga palad, batid nila kung paano manalig— ang kapitan ka pabalik ng iyong kapit.

[laurelfantauzzo]

Lawrence Ypil at the party, Iowa City, 2013

[fuckyeahfilipinopoets-blog]

The Discovery of Landscape, by Lawrence Ypil

When we saw the city, We believed again in time. Line of the tall spires and the bend Of a bright sky. We believed again in space. Light of the large looms and the roof of the great eye. We believed again in perfectibility (if not perfection), in the fresh (if not the new). We named it progress. The past was not warm, so we named it dead. We named everything we could not touch Passed. We believed Again in what was large. Might of the long road and The risk of the big wish. When we made the step back. Look. There. Clear measure Of the flock on the far tip, Of all the missed trips. When we saw the city—

[figuratives]

Esteban Abada Street

          Lawrence Ypil

Night sky with a full moon. Two dogs in a dark street. I'm part of a cliche although I don't know it. So I say to the thin paw that digs a new hole today, hello! And hello to the old stars! that carve the same eye in the sky even if the world turns and every glance here returned becomes evasion. And the shape of a man that disappears in the sharp corner of the night becomes a quick allegory of despair. Bone that we gnaw and a face, and the same constellations that chart the same old stories we tell: Night sky with a full moon. And the mouth snarls. Two dogs in a dark street. And the day frowns itself to bed. No real words are said out loud enough here except in the head.

[itineraries]

So I started with the edge of the wallpaper that was nearest my bed. The one I would see at night when I turned to the wall in my natural position to sleep. Orange petal whose edge was already beginning to peel on its own volition, whose own wish seemed to be to unfurl. Waiting for me to finish, to begin the task of this long, surreal withering. But I didn’t want to see the mess this rip would make. In a fit of tears I started to tear through the imagined foliage, but I couldn’t bear to see what lay behind it: the white wall, scarred where the paste had touched it, dirty and cold, impartial in its judgment of this room and whatever it was that held this house together. I could imagine the distress this disaster would make. My mother in a rage. My father baffled. Everyone wanting an explanation I did not want to make. I could not. To be a guest in one’s house is to have a new set of sheets everyday without ever having your name on it. To have a room of one’s own but only temporarily. You had a seat at the feast but only at its edge. Where from here, everything was crystal clear: you knew the rules of the game, because you had failed it. Its proper joys. Its strict and measured applauses. The world was not yours although you walked its streets, ran in them. Hands flailing, screaming. And although nothing here belongs to you in their proper names, you know them all too well: the red roof, its high beams, the door’s edges. The room at the corner where the sun at dawn hit its brightest. The house. This one. And the correct directions for your return. Because to be a guest in one’s house is to live in a room knowing you will lose it. To face a mirror that has memorized your shape enough to break it. To know the right time, the perfect time to leave it. — Lawrence Ypil, "Impermanent Residencies"

[thelawofgravity-blog]

the best thing about leaving

is the reading which I have forgotten in weeks or poetry writing in your house at the garage where the cats sleep or at the red sofa that sinks or perhaps, at the garden ah, yes! the garden where we hear the words your house speaks * this is my take on Larry's "Leaving Reading" post. i don't know how to write poetry as great as he does, but maybe, just maybe, i'll learn from reading the books he's leaving. * well, he has to go there to comeback. thank you, Larry! bon voyage! :)