To write is to put yourself in war against a blank page, against your own self, adjacent to your belief, your orgasm fantasies, your being a man or a woman. When you write, you lose your sexuality and rediscover yourself. It is of losing what is not there. You lose the emptiness in you and you put in words not necessarily to form poetry or memoir. You write without necessarily knowing what you are writing and what writing is really all about. The process will let you know what writing is; who is the persona in you writing it; who you are and where your writing would bring you.

I chose Poetry because I thought it was the easiest genre. It can be short, but it can’t be easy at all. There was no easy way or short way or right way. There is only try. You tried to incorporate your life experiences together with your imagination into the lines of poetry.

Poetry needed to be born. You needed to be pregnant with words. You have to have sex with your mind. You have to have sex with yourself. You have to have sex with words. You craved for Sylvia Plath and Kate Choppin in the middle of the night. And when you had them inside your mouth, you feed them to the hungry little poetry inside your womb, inside your mind, in-side of you. You have eaten too much of them. You vomit; it’s not called morning sickness because you are not really pregnant. You just hoped you are. You just imagined being pregnant. You vomit everything on top of the paper. “Its not poetry”, your critic said. It’s still not poetry. Nothing was left in your stomach; remember that you vomited Sylvia Plath and Kate Choppin. Nothing was left inside your stomach; remember that there was really nothing in it. Nothing creative. Nothing poetic. But you kept on vomiting words. Words on the paper. Words on your table, on your floor. Words like these. Words like these.

What really is Poetry? “Poetry gud, kanang nay rhyme-rhyme, poetry na”, being exposed to elementary and high school publication, we have had pseudo poems published by proud pseudo writers. These poems spoke of young love all the time, being drunk with too much emotion, forgetting and failing home works. That was poetry. Not until I read Poetics in CL 121. By then I knew that there should be a certain distance between the work of art. We called it aesthetic distance. Poetry is not always all about strong emotions on top of the paper. It is not always all about unrequited love or juvenile shit. It can be about a cup of coffee, a cigarette butt, a fly buzzing around you. What is important is how the fluidity of your language transcends into a startling insight. Catharsis must be there, but catharsis can only be achieved if we see something that is both recognizable and distant. And for that, I hated to talk about poetry. I hated to write what I thought was poetry. And for that, I failed de Ungria’s Poetry 2. Writing this preface is having is too much courage to defend a thesis of poetry without retaking a failed poetry class. Not knowing what lies ahead.

I wanted to abort poetry ideas in my mind. If only cortal tablets can abort the desire to write poetry, I would probably overdose myself. Part of my journey in writing is the intimidation to write. I was intimidated by my own writing, and so, as always, I would end up abandoning what I thought was poetry. Words may have failed me, but I still had them. As with any emotion that feels unspeakable, I turned to poetry.

Friday, July 17, 2009

I. NOBLE SENTIMENT

I became a familiar stranger to myself since you came.
who is being cocooned in the house
being enslaved by another , absorbed.

Who is immersed by your smell, your feedings, your needs
and I remembered my life before you came
as if it were a dream
as if it belonged to some other person
I knew only vaguely.

I lost myself within the tiny coil,
the perfect comma,
of your body.
Posted by at No comments:

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

La Mère Dans Moi

Je suis Jermafe Kae Angelo. Je prends l'Écriture Créatrice dans l'Université du Philippines. Mes camarades de classe et amis m'appellent Kaeos, parce qu'ils ont cru que je suis chaotique. Ils m'appellent par ce nom peut-être parce que je suis loquace. J'ai deux tatouages déjà. J'ai commencé à fumer quand j'avais 15 ans.
J'aime écrire des poèmes de l'avortement, la mort et la dépression. Mais maintenant que je suis sur le point de donner naissance à mon enfant, je veux écrire des histoires pour les enfants. Je ne suis pas bon en forme écrite et je suis toujours déprimé quand mon critique d'enseignant mes travaux. Mais maintenant que je suis loin de l'école et loin de mes enseignants et camarades de classe, je peux dire qu'il est mieux d'être critiqué qu'être considéré comme allant de soi.
Je connais maintenant beaucoup de changements dans moi. Je suis forcé à quitter le tabagisme à cause de la grossesse. Auparavant, je pensais juste à moi et m'amusais. Maintenant, ma conviction d'être une mère est renforcée. Je ferai tout pour mon enfant. Et je suis disposé à sacrifier tous juste pour lui.

C'est tout de moi, étant un étudiant et une future maman.

(french 11 removal hahaha)
Posted by at 2 comments:

Monday, March 30, 2009

Bitter

Her skin is the shore of your oceanic eyes
her hair, the silk on your bed
her kiss is the fire and roses falling over your soul
her eyes, your universe
her lips, her smile- your eternal sky
another you, she is owned by another you
but you are still hers
and never will be mine while
I am, floating
again and again
on the endless sea and far
faraway love.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Monday, March 16, 2009

Vagina, vagina

I spread these legs and the kissing lips mourn,
as if they are on a face,
as if both ends reaches the ears.
You know no woman’s lower body with ears, right?
Now that’s awkward. Now that’s tasteless.
And so let’s put thighs rather than ears.
Undressed lips stretched through my thighs.
The stretch feels like a virgin. It’s scrumptiously painful.
(A non-virgin forcedly abstained to be virgin.)
Now that’s appropriate. The vagina is now dignified.

My vagina isn’t a mouth,
but it chokes.
My clitoris isn’t a lip,
but it swells after a hungry summer’s kiss.
My vagina can’t talk,
but a man understands if its thirsty or cold.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Sunday, March 1, 2009

after visiting a lord's blog

...you were a falling star who once caressed my night sky

when this line was on my mind about a minute ago, i remembered a college close friend (super close jud dorm-mate-batch-mate-tribal-outfit-mate) and decided to post an entry for her instead.

mind you, this is not an attempt to a pseudodrama entry (as I have been used to).

going on, she was a demure girl (a virgin of course). we were open to exs, as in ex-crushes, ex-lovers, xxx. i had the sorority first, the smoking and drinking sessions with some bullshit persons roaming inside the campus, plus the sexES.. I would assume that these fucktors separate us. I was into the self-exile (after singing praises to the lord in some shitstreets of the city) when i noticed that my friend was turning into my fucktors (except for the sex, i guess).

that was two or so years ago... i will be having a son now, and i heard lots of things about her. lots.of.things. lets put a sad smile thereafter.

i just need to talk with her. she has no ym no friendster no facebook, no cyberlife. i lost the chance to communicate with her. p.s if you know her, tell her to reach me.

*praying to lord ydel after posting it.
Posted by at 4 comments:

Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Irony of Baking Thoughts



While waiting for my son’s arrival, I attended a commercial cooking short term course in my family’s school for more than two months now.

Just this morning, while I was making a meringue for the heart cakes, an unknown intrusion passes through my mind...

The baking pan seemed to be battling with the spatula and the noise was a shotgun to my ears. The sound coming from the electric mixer was grinding my teeth. If it’s not for my desire to bake my first cake, I would definitely leave the kitchen room.
But since I have so much interest with different colors of sugars and sweets, I go with the noise’s flow and wait until a toothpick became clear enough signaling that my cakes were done.

I never imagined myself wearing a chef’s uniform neither holding a cooking pan in front of the gas range. Two months were gone and I have learned the essential element of having a kitchen (which will be part of my new role, being a mother). *char

The irony behind all this is that the water inside my womb is more than half of that of my son’s, and so, my ob restricted me from eating sweets. Too much sugar can poison my son. Even fruits are not allowed to be part of my meal. My carbohydrate intake was trimmed down to ¾ cup per meal. I could only eat unflavored crackers for my merienda. One more reason why I was given a strict diet is that my son is too big to pass through my cervix diagnosing to a positive cesarean operation.

All my butterscotch, brownies, tarts, cakes and durian candies seemed to be so far away even they were just right in front of me.

When things seemed to be so unfair in my part, I just look at my son’s ultrasound photos and I can taste the sweetest thing called motherly sacrifice.
Posted by at 2 comments:

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

I Miss Being Naked

I am left out. Bored. And have nothing to do but plant a chin on my palm the whole day while thinking of what lies ahead. I don't have any photocopied stories from a literature class now. I don’t have papers lined to be submitted the following morning. I don’t have to stay up late reading the assigned notes from Pop Literature. I don’t have to squeeze my brain to come up with story ideas or wait for a divine intervention. I don’t have my kind of body clock and mind setting. What I only have is a bulgy stomach and a child breathing inside of it. I am 53 kilos now. And that is 11 kilos heavier before I filed a Leave of Absence. I cannot even recognize myself in the mirror. What I see in front of me is a fat woman with big nose, sagging breasts, dark underarms and stretch marks. Well in physical consolation, my hair grows now--- shoulder length, that’s from a one-inch cut. I may sound pathetic but I don’t intend to project this way. I just want my previous body. My previous body. The body which I can show to anyone, even it’s not a Deviance Day. I miss being naked in front of somebody without having the shame of ugliness.
Posted by at 5 comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

My Blog List