paprikan paradise

Dear God: Charlie

2006-09-11T16:59:00.000+08:00

Dear God:
I pray to my angels that I get more TV time ‘cause I don’t want to be left out at class discussions on what’s going on with the world. My classmates talk so much about the angels and I think they’re cool saving the people from harm. If you grant me my wish, I promise to confess that I chew gum at class. And stick it under my seatmate’s table. Also, to tell the priest that I envy him drinking wine during mass.

Yours truly,
Maria

Old Road

2006-09-11T15:20:00.000+08:00

[MANILA c.1930]. I was told that, young at 3, I walked the streets alone before my memory kicked in. Good or bad, it set the pace of my life. There was something about asphalt touching my soles like prediction does with life’s probabilities. Walking is remedy, discovery rather than escape, knowing territory more than just visiting it.

My country I got to know by the alleys I discovered; by the dusty roadside, on a sweltering day. There was discipline on the surface. Jaywalking was a crime. Junctions had umpires, also dictators. The road was traveled by horse-drawn carriages among jeepneys: folk and modern, traveling side by side. Grass as fuel, the calesa had its rightful share of the avenue. I took my calesa journeys as a young child for there was no amount of hurry in life. No hell, no rush hour. Not too industrial, just in-between.

I call it Home. This was my country as I walked it, only to discover that things are not always what they seem to be.

Harold R

2006-09-10T18:37:00.000+08:00

NEVER LOVE A STRANGER. A book my cousin owned said exactly that. I was 10 years old and I picked it up. It was the first adult novel I got my hands on. I was proud. And little did I know. I brought it to school and my classmates freaked out. I thought they got disturbed with my choice of newfound literature. And little did I know. I brought it everywhere and my cousin just let me. With a silly grin, he allowed me to have it. I got curious why people were shocked by it. It was a simple piece of paperback simply telling me a story. I just wanted to know why Harold Robbins named his book that.

It was a story about a young American guy in New York, trying to invent a life, same way Harold was inventing him as I strum along the pages. The guy met an Afro American hooker. And that’s all about it that I could remember, since that page about the encounter said nothing but ‘tits’, ‘black nipples', ‘clit'. That’s it: interracial saucy sex, as black and white as 70s boobtube entertainment. I finally realized why everyone was curious how I would react. To them it was piece of smut. But to me it took only a few pages to be that and I wanted to know what the “moral lesson” was.

Well, Moral Lesson No. 1: Never carry a Harold Robbins book around when you’re underaged. Moral Lesson No.2: The dictionary is not always a good reference of words. No.3: Think twice before falling in love in New York’s Hell Kitchen.

I finished the novel in no time and moved on to another bestseller of Harold’s. This time it told of a lesbian affair, war, etc. It was made into a movie and I was relieved. He was a choiced writer, afterall. And I felt less of a victim in my literary misadventure.

Never love a stranger.

Little did I really know why I shouldn’t. It took many years more for me to come face to face with Harold’s characters among the strangers I met.

Love is strange. People, stranger. That, we all know.

Friggin' B

2006-09-08T01:28:00.000+08:00

THE GRADUATE. If you read about Mr. A and Mrs. B, you’d know who Billy is. He was having a steady grip of his pants until the day his parents came, however. They heard about Lulu and told Billy to stop seeing her for good. They had dreams of him migrating to the US after becoming a lawyer. Billy was heartbroken and got a tight grip of beer bottles instead.

Mrs. C, our immediate neighbor started to flirt with Billy. She noticed Billy getting drunk and I thought she found it sexy. Mrs. C is married to a Spanish man who lived in Catalan who would come to visit their daughter, Sandra, once a year. Sandra was mostly by herself and her dog, Pancho. One time, Pancho bit Billy which got him so angry. Fuming, he approached Mrs. C and said he will file a case against her for being an irresponsible pet owner. It occurred to me that Mrs. C found Billy sexier than she could ever imagine. Billy was only 23 but fighting for his right and knowing the law seemed to have turned him into a man. Mrs. C told Billy: “So, sue me.” I kept laughing when I heard about her reply but Billy didn’t find it amusing. I had this image of Mrs. C wearing black negligee when she uttered those words.

Billy filed the case and it became opportunity for him and Mrs. C to meet on regular basis. Billy stopped drinking and seemed to have changed as the days went. He wasn’t anymore angry about anything. Not even at Mrs. C. Or Pancho. He agreed to amicably settle the issue with Mrs. C. I still catch Lulu sometimes by the road. She looked lonely and tired. Sometimes I deliberately stare at Billy when he shaved his chin. He would catch me and ask what I was up to, and I gave him an impish grin everytime. I never dared get interested if he was gripping his life good and tight enough or what. Not a friggin' bitch would actually care.

Mr and Mrs B

2006-09-04T20:47:00.000+08:00

Near us lived an old couple, Mr. and Mrs. B. I’ve known them ever since I’ve come out to the world and gained consciousness. Mr. B was a lawyer and gave up practice when partial blindness struck him. He struck me as someone totally lost of eyesight. Mrs. B was a stay-home woman and I frequently brought them food my mother cooked. It was quite a long walk to their house but I enjoyed climbing the stairs carved from adobe that led to their gate. They had an old clucking turkey for a pet that chased me everytime. I never liked the idea of their pet since it gave me phobia. They have a pretty daughter named Lulu who knitted me a beautiful chemise when I was 3. I pitied Lulu sometimes because she seemed too alone to take care of old parents. I never saw her with a boyfriend nor talk about romance.

Mr. B had heart disease and would call my mom occasionally and sought favor for a home visit. My mom was a health worker and she would dutifully attend to Mr. B at no cost. Sometimes Mr. B would call my mother in the wee hours of the morning and complain about his heart which left my father silently cross. One time, my mother shared an incident where Mr. B almost sat on her lap since he was visionally challenged. I laughed myself out hearing about the story but my father didn’t find it funny. One time my father got drunk and blurted his theory of an ongoing affair between Mr. B and my mother. I had a hard time stopping myself from laughing but my mother didn’t find it funny at all.

One summer, my male cousin stayed with us. He fell madly in love with Lulu at the instance he caught sight of her. My cousin Billy is cute and fair, to me, they make for a conservative attractive pair. I was happy watching romance unfold before my eyes. I was 8 years old then. I was chaperone to Billy at the early part of his visits to Lulu. It was a good chance for me as well to observe Mr. B and see if he really had a crush on my mother. Eventually, it seemed to me that he actually did. I pitied Mrs. B because it felt like everyone in the room was smitten with somebody except for her. She was a devoted wife to Mr. B and a very busy pet owner of a very noisy animal.

A year passed and Mr. B got sicker and he didn't call my mother as he used to. My mom and I, though, would visit him sometimes and give comfort to Mrs. B. Time drifted more and I heard less of the old couple. One day, it just occured to me that they no longer existed in our lives. Maybe I've grown older and had my attention on other things. Mr. and Mrs. B, surely, have grown older too. Even Lulu. My mother and father. And the noisy turkey. I kind of missed climbing their adobe stairs lined with green moss and baby ferns. I missed the long walk towards their door as I evade the spirited turkey. In my trips to Mr. and Mrs. B, I learned about devotion and love. Even jealousy. I learned that human beings fight each day searching for love in their lives, trying to own it, feed it until it grows and grows. Love is blind. And Mr. B must have known it too.

Joseph

2006-09-03T23:53:00.000+08:00

I was 8, he was 14. I met Joseph at the May Feast of Flowers held every year at our community. I was 7 years old then. I knew nothing about Joseph but several years have passed and I still remember him. He was dark and good-looking, a pensive loner and didn’t talk much. Actually, I don’t have memory of his voice. I never knew where he lived but I kinda sensed our parents knew each other vaguely. I was ever since a timid girl, not talking much to anyone and didn’t have many friends outside an academic environment. I was on my second grade, a fresh June it was. And like the past years, the school bus picked me up a few meters away from my house at 7:15am. Joseph would be there ahead of me; at the same spot every morning for five days in a week. It never occurred to me if he ever went to school himself.

Every morning for one whole academic year he stood beside me, except when it rained. We never looked at each other; never said anything while we waited for the bus. Sometimes it made me uneasy; but at most times, I didn’t give damn much about it. It was routine. And one fact about me is that I don’t think.

It was March of the following year: school was soon ending, summer vacation about to start. It was exam week and I came home earlier than usual. No one was home. My grandmother, who lived with us in the past years, moved in with my uncle. I went around the house planning to enter our kitchen door which was 12 steps up the wooden stairs. A silent Joseph greeted me, sitting on the fourth step. For the first time in that whole academic year, I got a full view of his face with a conscious effort to do so. He smiled and said “Hi.” His eyes were blood-shot red. He looked confused, out of himself. Yet he carried a certain knowing that I would come and this meeting will transpire. I put my schoolbag down where the grassy walkpath was just an inch to meet the cement steps. I stood up and found my face just rightly aligned to his. I never knew who he was but we shared something, somehow. Silence was one of them.

That moment was long. And as I said before, I don’t think, so that left me not really intending to say anything: not even, “Please let me pass through.” I caught myself staring at him. I was motionless like a sphinx. And he looked back at me like a black jaguar that has taken territory. He was suddenly confident and sure of himself as he stood up; walk passed by me, said nothing more and left. I walked up to the kitchen door, entered the house, and locked up. I forgot all about it as I changed clothes. I never saw him ever since.

8 Reizar

2006-09-03T21:50:00.000+08:00

I grew up along Reizar Street, in a two-storey house situated on a corner lot. We are a few blocks away from a major avenue which we see from our dining room’s wide-view window. We see most of everything from this vantage point which gave me a feeling that I lived in a housetower all through my childhood days.

To our left was a quaint toy factory owned and run by a Chinese entrepreneur. What divided our lot and the toy factory was an old rustic picket fence, which I remember was once painted white. Given a few years, it broke little by little. One day I saw it as a toothless smile of a toy king tempting me to cross its toothy borders. Near the picket fence is my sandbox filled not of sand but of eggshells which my mother would pound every week from the eggs we ate. I get pricked when I attempt to play and go wild in the box, so I gave it up. We had eight different fruit-bearing trees in our backyard, all giving fruit all year round. We had wild herbs and most abound was the chili shrubs that grew almost everywhere.

On weekends I would pretend to play in the sandbox but in truth, I was observing how frequent the guard rounds were near the picket fence. Just a few yards away from where I sat was a small hill of toys junked for good. I call them “bad toys” who never got to the packaging department. Every now and then the factory crew would burn the plastic junk leaving black smelly smoke to flow through our mini forest. I thought of the day that I reach the toy pyre and save some of the rejected plastic beings. It was my mission at 7 years old. It consumed me week after week, just thinking if I can make it through those evil teeth.

It was almost 6am when I left my bed. It was a summer’s day Sunday and every family member was lazy except me. I headed down the kitchen stairs, still in my pajamas. Today is mission day, I said to myself. I didn’t really care about having some toys. I just wanted to know how it feels like to be inside a toy factory and its dumpyard. My thin body made it through the picket fence. Sundays before, I was tugging at one rotting piece of that fence until it broke loose. Now things seem to be easy, but not until I saw rusty barbwires in front of me. I yanked at them, attempting to open a gap wide enough for me to crawl through. The thick wire I gripped was sturdy even if it was only bunched up and not tied to anything. A spike tore at my pajamas and by this time, my feet have become sweaty. I saw our kitchen lights went on, as if an eye blinked open to greet sunrise. I looked up to see the sky changing color and I got tired all of a sudden. My mom is now awake, preparing breakfast. Obviously, she had no idea at all what I was up to that morning.

I went back to the house, went around it four times in between contemplation and fear. I needed to sneak myself in and it got me tired just thinking about it. I went to the kitchen door, thinking that I just stand behind my mother and make a joke about it. So I walked in, stood behind her like a solid statue that never lacked sleep. She was busy shifting pans, gliding from stove to sink, sink to stove. She was sniffling as I looked on. She seemed to be lost in deep thought, oblivious to the fact that we both existed in the same room. She looked more like a vamp readying breakfast for a lover who had stayed over on a Saturday night rather than for a family of four on a Sunday lull. She went inside the bathroom and I heard the toilet flush. I rushed to my room. I passed by the sala and noticed my mother has played one of her 45” vinyls. I was very tired and a sudden grogginess swooped over me. I crept under the blanket, forgetting about the toy factory. I heard my mom get out of the toilet. That morning I wondered so much about her.

:: mujer de las islas

2006-08-04T05:43:00.000+08:00

She’s a woman painted by the sun. Thoughtless days make her mumble towards a foggy dawn as she captures sunset skydust in her eyes. Naked and soft, she is bathed by the salted waters of the Hundred Islands. Caught in the middle, thrown to the edge, she hums songs that say she is like anybody else. She sings of days of better company. Better loneliness. Safe days of unknowingness, safer uncertainties. Safe people, safer realities of sharp edges. I cry with her and laugh with her. Bite the sky with her between dry wine and a cold night wind by the shore. She is empty and she is full. Almost herself; beautiful but not quite until seen.

I sit with her. Sleep with her. Dream without her. I am with her who I leave. She waits with impatience by her side; drags on a slim cigarette from where thin smoke rises. She runs off to where nobody finds her; off to where blind and deaf men go. Some somewhere where somewhere exists: between lie and truth. Within nothingness. Without poetry. Beyond words. Gone unto her and back, lifetimes pass turning her into a marvelous sin to this world. How can anything be wrong with time passing proof of understanding? What used to be wrong is now the new testament of this age. Islands drown and the earth rises even more. She sits at peace having forgiven what is false. And comes home guiltless by the pure perfection of her soul.

:: manila bay

2006-04-05T14:02:00.000+08:00

No, not today. Not this hour,
Nor this minute. Not yet.
I shall not leave you until the
Sun evades the bay. Not until
Moonshine loses itself to the alleys.

I see your waters still kiss the shore,
Gently with ease. As if to caress me
In deep repose.

Manila, I hear.
Even in this silence.

Lovers still find you sweet,
Amidst the rush of lust and luster.
Children laugh even in midnight,
As if to cast the evil that looms.

How can I ever leave you like this?
The maiden that you are, discontented
To have lost her lovers. Here to wait
As ships berth at your bosom.

You gave me my memory of sunset,
So beautiful and complete.
How can I ever forget?
And though I could. Not today,
Not this hour. Nor this minute.
Not yet.

~ Manila by the Bay ::Philippines. 2000

:: poetic proof

2006-04-03T15:22:00.000+08:00

I am a woman in these islands:
Embraced by fluid mirrors,
And of shining crystals
Made perfect by the sun.
Here I come to give justice
To comforting darkness,
To give testimony to the sensual
Mystery unfolding to the edge.

Here a stranger to the forgotten:
To skies that fall to the waters,
Of waters rushing to the earth.
The moon become a ripple and
One ocean. A tapestry of this
Wanderlust stirred by restless
Secrets in search of Home.

Thrones and rocks await me
As if to offer this misplaced nobility.
Sacred invitation or spell,
I turn to nature for emancipation
As I, the orgasmic universe gathered
Eternity in the moment,
Waiting patiently to be free.

This holy hour could be
My only conviction,
As time proclaims the
Eternal horizon as I enter
The dawn unbreakable.
I leave nothing
As I take to shore.
Her I arrive and return
A victim. No more.

~El Nido. ::Philippines. 2001

:: passionfruit

2006-03-23T17:58:00.000+08:00

I bear fruit on this nameless day
The hours are long and thus longer it takes
For more bearing and birth from this
Nectar of miracles and of dreams
Captured in imagination
Cast to the gods and muses.

Water will cleanse the filth
Not in my body but here in these
Streets which I walk for the meantime;
In these in-between days,
These remaining days along this thoroughfare
Of street children and the homeless.

Tomorrow the fruit is ripened more
Will it be sweet as that of Eden’s?
Perhaps. Made succulent by passion
Burning in the heart.
Sheltered in the soul.
It changes color every now and then
And hides itself in the magical eye
Casting visions never before seen.

I shall see you. You I shall see.
Until the passion fruit has ripened more
I walk still until the streets tremble;
Leaving no footprints,
But more of which that is nameless,
Which that finds Nothing
Which that finds Everything
Under a fruitful sky.

:: manila.fade out

2006-03-19T03:41:00.000+08:00

Here I fade only to remember more
More of this life spent
In search. In joy. In solitude.
In fear. In company.

In company of music dancing
To the heartbeat that fades in
And out to a world of celebration.

I may leave not knowing how I must return.
How I might even forget what I remember now.
Will I fade along with time?
Shall I leave their hearts?
Shall I come to that time
Where all I could remember
Is the day I was reborn.