blowholes

sound and fury

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 01:48:00 +0000

If you have ever doubted the measured madness of a true artist, alluding hits and masterpieces to some stroke of luck, then you haven’t truly listened to an Eminem song.

Listen ear-to-speaker close and witness Eminem rock all your established notions of the rules of language and music.

History has seen a great number of brilliant poets and lyricists, word warriors who have equally amazed and inspired us. However, very few are like Eminem - able to simultaneously and musically indulge rage, sorrow, pain, shame, guilt, regret, genius, sin, sympathy and tender compassion without equivocation and ambiguity.

And to do so within a tight rhyme scheme would make even the Bard tremble.

Eminem is a lyrical sniper armed with a semi-automatic. He shells us with poetry and expresses in a few minutes of rap what many fail to do in a hundred pages.

He personifies the neurotic artist who cares about each syllable and the exact beat of its delivery. With flawless cadence, he welds syllable to beat like they were joined at birth.

Listen to Eminem’s sound and fury and you will understand the furious discipline that took him out of the trailer park into celestial flight.

Apple.

No other fruit has caused greater discord and sin. No other brand provokes as much commotion and desire.

At Apple's core, slightly off center, stands a man in a black shirt and white sneakers whose youthfulness and reticence seem better placed in an upstart. The contrast is striking. Nevertheless, Jonathan Ive holds his own against the man in Levis jeans and cashmere turtlenecks who eats spotlights for breakfast.

Ive, like his patron, resonates through his designs.

What makes Ive so amazing is his stubborn faithfulness to a philosophy of design. His design is so organic that factories rise and fall in its wake. It is so perfectly and gracefully executed that it recedes and becomes the gate to a dimension of pure experience.

Like a true Apple masterpiece, the architect stands quiet and inconspicuous behind the performance. Muted elegance inhabits Ive’s character as much as his craft.

“Design is how it works.”

- Steve Jobs

Through design and rhythm, Eminem and Ive attend to our senses with indulgent, almost violent intentions. Their forms reflect a consuming obsession with details meant to elevate the moment.

Eminem and Ive are furious disciples of design and delivery. Eminem with poetry and beat, Ive with symmetry and lines.

Brothers in the scholarship of cool.

Stars so consumed by the science of their spark.

(a chapter from an unpublished, ghostwritten book, april 2009)

on drifter's wings

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:31:00 +0000

with pinions prone to the sky...

   remember the seagull
and how apart it stood from the flock.

a solitary flight
into the yonder of sightless horizons.

to fly without losing height...

stalls and stalls. stalling over again.

   yet in secret aspirations,
   has claimed the wind.

paper cut

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 02:20:00 +0000

Writing has always been a dreaded pursuit.

It is in my case, and i dare say, for most of us.

Most of that dread stems from the fear that what we scribe on that page can never fully capture the depth of our thoughts and emotions.

The words that stare back are not quite what we wanted to say; worse, not quite reflect the person we thought we were.

We measure ourselves through ink and letters and often find ourselves insufficient. Weightless.

So we avoid facing the unwritten. Because there, kept hidden in our minds, our myths remain safe from rejection and ridicule. Unchallenged and inert.

Every word is a cut.

Despair. Fear. Anxiety. Rage. Pain. A sense of deficiency.
All of that we bring into the blank page where they bleed, oh so slowly, through the narrow aperture of our pen.

All those emotions are there for a reason.
We tremble at the thought of fall, but more so with flight.

Stephen King once wrote that we should never come lightly to that blank page.

It is a battlefield. Come gagged with flailing arms, come with clenched jaws and white-knuckled fists, come doubtful and irreverent, come timid. come in misery, come in fear, come in tears.

Come with the best of intentions. Come with the slightest of dreams.

Come to it any way but gently. Come to it flawed and alive...

So go ahead.

Grip the blade.
And stain that page with guts.

homoestasis

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:42:00 +0000

this is me, silent.
listen...

this is me, centered
in my gravity.

for nothingprofound: granted.

fin de siècle

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:05:00 +0000

i know this place. i have been here many times before.

this is my ~~second~~, alright, nth attempt at a personal blog. if you can see my panel, you would be nauseated at all the blogs i have in comatose, recumbent and handicapped of substance.

i truly admire writers and bloggers with focus. they know their craft and they hone it with surgical precision.

mine is just all over the place and schizophrenic. i am supposed to know better, right?
wrong. because i don't.

***

or maybe... i do...
because i tend to run away from safety.
because i tend to list when sailing calm waters.

i am sorry if i tend to disappoint. those who see me as a vessel of promise, but never fulfilled. those who impose the emptiness on me.

i carry your expectations as my anchor, but they will not define my mileage. they will not weigh me down.

instead they shall be the wind on my back and take me to sanctuaries by myself i cannot.

the off-roads, the pavements, the bends...
you may think i seem to travel with a limp, but the path is rarely straight
and i choose to walk on the edge.

***

for those i have lost because of my absence, know that i was never gone.
i was just out paving some sidewalks with castles of golden sand.

cherry blossom season

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:20:00 +0000

i had planned to launch an entirely new blog dedicated to japanese poetry. however, given my inclination to lose momentum to ~~laziness~~, err, inertia, it may be a better idea to just introduce a new segment here in blowholes.

for many months now i have been carrying with me a book on haikus, rengas, haibuns, and other types of japanese poetry. i held on to this slim volume like a respirator. i breathed through its pages as i was caught in the undertow of my own blustery thoughts.

fencing them within poetry was the only way for my restlessness to stand still. like some magnetic pole, the pieces would align and find direction and keep north.

i find that japanese poetry purifies and pacifies me. pressing my thoughts through the fine sieve of rhythm and measure, i am able to navigate through the effluence and dead weight of life and find my density, my truth.

a harvest of poetry.

here i cultivate the seed.
here i hope for blooms.

stars stray this way

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:06:00 +0000

inside my blog are more drafts than there are posts.
much of my stories have remained intentions; unpublished but kept.
but you will not be among them.

***

you were the only one who survived from a litter of five. your mother, a cat we have never seen, could not have chosen a more dangerous place to give birth. we had a beloved and aging dog who was terribly suspicious of strangers, more so of trespassers. she mercilessly tore at your brood, but left you unscathed.

the violence of nature is never without design.

we took you in and tootsie passed on quietly in the night a few days after that. you, on the other hand, were anything but quiet. oh how you cried. anyone who heard you could not have doubted that you were meant to be here.

i nursed you. at first you can only manage to suckle my shirt, but then you found the perfect spot on my hands: from pinky to the index, stopping short of my thumb. that's how i measured you growing up. as an adult, the habit never left you. up until our last days, you would tenderly nurse on my fingers, your way of taking my hand. we spent many nights falling asleep this way. you on the crook of my arm, lulling me to sleep with a purr that promised dreams of warm snow.

you found the lump that i was too young to have. when i first came out of the hospital, you waited on our bed with a quiet understanding that some things have been lost.

you were gentle and kind. every stray kitten you would take as your own. magically, you would express milk even when all laws of nature said you should not. in your desire to care for a stranger, you willed yourself to give what you did not have. only kindness can conjure such miracles.

you were a contradiction to your kind. you were regal and graceful but you possessed none of the predatory instincts that so defines your species. you never chased rats. oh how you would watch them, take on that stalking pose that you have mastered so well, tremble your limbs, raise your derriere ready for the pounce, and then stop to lick yourself. you paused short of delivering the death blow.

you were a defiance to your nature.
you ate fish but choked on the fish bones. you climbed on high places but needed to be carried down.

the lump you found on me, i found in you. you seemed fine after the operation. but i knew... i noticed your tremors even as you hid them from me. on that day, the seizures were sapping your strength. i stayed by your side. but you held on until all of us were home to say goodbye. you did not want me to be alone when you go. with every labored breath you were breathing for me.

looking back it all makes sense... you had to go because you knew it was time for me to leave.

i miss you, especially on rainy days which we so loved.

and i return to you and to all of me that you have kept safe.

the northern star of my singular horizon.

***

astray... always i have felt.
but the wind has more than once blew stars my way.
and each one i have kept in my sky.

connecting the dots, i shall be happy adrift in the drafts of life.

horizontal climb

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:35:00 +0000

i am a sucker for second chancers.
(which explains why i was so rooting for mickey rourke at the oscars. well that, and his love for animals draws me to him.)

there is something about the comeback kid defying the odds and the naysayers that is triumphant all in itself. there is something about shattering expectations that is always hopeful and exhilirating. something about defiance defies defeat.

never mind if the rise is not as spectacular as the fall.
never mind if the climb happens to be just a few feet off the ground.

a few feet up is enough for a change of view.
a few feet up is still higher ground.
up is a few feet closer to the sky.
feet
few
a

midway through the steep, we can see how far up we've come and how far up we can still go.

so i am taking my time, climbing this mountain of mine.
up, standing
falling down.
taking piggyback rides at all my second winds.

===

this post was supposed to be made just prior to the oscars.
let's just say i am giving it another wing.

pedestrian stand

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 04:28:00 +0000

it happened to me twice.

the first was a few years back while i was applying for my license to teach. the gatekeepers of the PRC stopped me because i was wearing slippers. they said it was "unprofessional".

they will, however, allow you to get inside if you wear socks with your tsinelas.
good thing they were easy to find: socks at 10 pesos a pair for sale along the many stalls that lined the sidewalks of morayta. i chose the most colorful pair that i could find.

i felt certain that i looked a bit more, um, "professional" without the loud socks on. but i would rather not debate the fashion. i have made my point. the guard stared at my garish feet in a moment of hesitation, then sheepishly let me in.

second time was a week ago at the DFA. i thought i was just going to be among the slippered and sandaled masses waiting in line at the back for their passports. turns out, my business required me to enter the front gate, along with the well-heeled bureaucrats.

i was wearing slippers of course and the guards were requiring (gasp!) closed shoes. i cannot sock my way in this time. but after traveling three hours under sun and smog to get here, i was not about to be scorned having come so far.

i feared i might not make it on time. only two hours remained before the offices closed. fortunately there was an an ukay-ukay (vintage) store just around the corner. i took time to carefully scan through their shoe rack. desperation is not an excuse to be undiscerning. i found a pair of moccasins i liked and wore them without socks or pretense. i hurried to the DFA where the guard smiled and gladly let me through.

i felt triumphant crossing those lines.
often i may wear the wrong kind of footwear, but i do have what it takes to earn my pass.

i guess what i'm saying is that we cannot always flipflop our way through life.

some times we have to muffle our steps and tiptoe around in socks.
other times we have to announce our tracks with heels and pumps.

either way we cannot make halfway prints in the sand.
we may hop or skip, but always press our feet as we land.

barefoot or otherwise, we have to make this trip with brio and panache.
so swagger and stand. walk like you own the ground.

: darkspark :

iron will

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:53:00 +0000

silverstein went to wash the shadows
and i have to iron the days.

them's been full of wrinkles and bristles,
that sunshiny colors seem so misplaced.

so if you've been looking for me
and keep unfinding me there,

i must have been stuck in one of ‘em puddles.

i've been looking for an iron
to smoothen the days

so finally happyness
can see its own face.

faith of the fallen

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:10:00 +0000

   on firefly nights
   with kaleidoscope eyes
   we seek for life
   between the lines

fading to legend
the silent shall sing
of rainbow-colored shadows
that cold summers bring

adrift on dreams
of paper plane wings
we write our names
across the sky

fall into grace
time to exit the stage
then i shall be seeing you
polishing the stars

warriors fall but never fail
andiamstillstanding

prayer

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:14:00 +0000

that though strife leaves thee aimless,
thou can never be made worthless.

that if pain leaves thee helpless,
thou shall never be heartless.

that if dogma leaves thee churchless,
thou shall never be faithless.

and grant verily, thou beseech

that though life leaves thee empty...

thy vessel shall ever be full
of the longing to be filled.

the dark arts

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 08:15:00 +0000

when i started this blog, i have no idea of what it will be about.

i still have no idea...

and maybe that is what this is all about... a journey to find out.
a surrender to the dark.

black magic.
casting prayers in the shadows in the hopes that someone hears them and throws them back to me as echoes of my own wholeness. i speak in tongues not to confuse the mob but to find amongst strangers, a kinship. to call those who speak the same code. then i shall find my own magic through the spell that it casts; through those who divine truth by seeking for it.

i shall find them. they shall be drawn here through spells woven in words.

maybe that is how it works...

magic finds its own wizards.
spells reveal the believers. magic shall be known by its enchantments. by those it holds in thrall, by those whose faith it keeps.

fireflies flying seemingly without purpose, but casting sparks in the dark. they fly not for those who seek to trap them and demystify their luminescence, but for those who believe that they are one of life's many such secret, wonderful things.

so if you find magic, you alone can keep it safe.

that is how sorcery works.

spellbound.
if you keep looking for miracles, you claim it and keep it alive.
then you become the magic that you have been looking for.

fracture

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:44:00 +0000

i collided with your grace

paralyzed
by the gravity of your space

my dislocated soul
shifted
into place

high crimes

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:37:00 +0000

rarely do we ever get to see history take place right before our eyes. most of the time it passes us by as we look the other way or as we blink and pretend to be blind.
this is the first inauguration of a US president that i have witnessed in my lifetime. and it is in so many ways a momentous occasion. the significance is not lost on me.
along with the rest of the citizens of the world, i was glued to the TV set watching a man rise to the podium of history to face head-on the challenges that his country, and the world entire has imposed upon him.
his promise of greatness lies in the greatness of the task before him.
and with the poetry with which he maps his intentions.
Obama had the right to tremble.
but he did so with the poise and elegance of a man in righteous defiance.
all hope converged on that moment. daring to be hope once again.
Obama is a leader every country hopes to claim as their own. while many giants have straddled our world, he stands upon a much smaller stage where his stance casts longer shadows and his voice carries with greater resonance.
in an era where all lines are wantonly crossed and systems abused in arrogance, Obama is set to redefine an age.
but he refuses to do so alone. he can not do so alone.
by the end of a resounding speech, his message is simple and clear:
no one shall stand as witness or jury. we must all stand accused in the court of history.
all hands must be dirty and guilty as charged.
all must be accessory to the crime.

i really don't know how much damage i can do. but i am not taking the fifth this time.
here, i incriminate myself.

shadow boxing

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 03:22:00 +0000

everyday i walk
along blind alleys

twisted corridors
of door bolts and window blinds

i watch them go by...

lives
full of holes
they cast no shadows

i rage against the black and the white

and keep the colors
alive
here
in my own darkness

my fiction

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:30:00 +0000

with apologies to lightning catcher, i post today, wednesday, januray 14, 2008.

today i have been a survivor for twelve years. that’s 4,383 days. for almost half my life i have been walking around with a genetic sense of mutilation, so deep and true that i can no longer draw the line between my scars and my self.

in the operating theater many things are resected, not just malignancies and maladies. the surgical, unsentimental incision of youth leaves a gaping hole that cannot close.

i know that void. the chasm that stares back in sad violation. longing to be filled.

my recollection of those years involves a vast, dust-filled desert from which rare memories appear like isolated trees... not panoramic vistas but out of focus snapshots of worlds other than mine: the sword of truth, dragonheart, ally mcbeal, suikoden. i passed through thousands of days breathing from one story to the next. the desolate land i chartered in episodes and chapters of books and films and series and role playing games. i kept myself waiting, thus have kept myself alive.

now you know why i love fantasies and fairy tales. because they keep safe the dream that my own fiction, while still a long way from finding itself, shall one day be revealed.

i have yet no tall tale to tell. i will keep writing until i find my story.

every word, every coherent sentence is a hard-won page against that void, that isolation.

so i stand here at the precipice of the blank. in unyielding faith that this vacuum in me that has no form, no name, no hope, will one day soon become, a story that held. a story worth keeping.

this is my fiction. one day to be made whole.
to be called by name. to be claimed as mine.

: darkspark :

chiaroscuro

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:17:00 +0000

this is a still of my night lamp.

i do not like proud lights.
i like mine tarnished. muted and soft, of humble edges where it has been diminished by the dark.

i would have preferred candles if only they were not so given to dance at the slightest of wind. flickering shadows on printed texts can be such an eyestrain.

i have done candlelit on few occasions though.

lord rahl and kahlan had me so enthralled, i risked burning our house amid a lashing storm.
i just could not put the book down.

preternatural night vision would not be lost on someone like me. i imagine a power that would allow me to see words in pitch black; written and spoken, secret and stolen. kaleidoscope eye. every word would sparkle and glow in the dark, and reveal their storied truths with undraped resonance.

illuminated, i would be blind to all else but their light.

in my world, words twinkle like stars.
a canvas of darkness streaked in brilliance.

: darkspark :

a case for the curious

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:22:00 +0000

lately, i have been bewildered by, of all things, buttons.

yes, buttons.

it would be fair to expect that with all the energy spent to design, measure, cut, and sew a piece of garment together, that it would then be fundamental to the process to stitch more loops of thread to reinforce the buttons and make them last, say about four to six wears, instead of falling off on first use.

how can one go so far only to falter with the finishing touches?

and what’s with that extra button? that precious piece to take the place of the one that gets lost. have you noticed how so firmly attached they are? these extra buttons are so well-fastened that it would take (gasp!) scissors and deliberate cutting to remove them.

it doesn’t make any sense that the spare ones are more secure than the original buttons they are meant to replace. if the extra buttons can be sewed firm and fast and with such craftsmanship, then why, to my utter incomprehension, can the real ones not be stitched with the same pride of craft?

‘tis to me a true perplexity.

buttons allow the opening and closing at seams. while zippers and velcro can pretty much do the same thing, they lack the seductive aesthetics of buttons. imagine a couple on the throes of passion tearing at each other's velcro-ed clothing, and you would know what i mean.

buttons are intimations of romantic restraint and control over self and circumstance. they cannot be optional upgrades in the production line. buttons keep things in proper place and, therefore, should be stronger than the patches that it holds together.

yes, buttons. they may just be the closure to these loopholes.
we had better start stitching them right.

: darkspark :

firecracker

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:00:00 +0000

there is in me
a scream
so loud
it shatters
everything
in silent sorrow

pescador de hombre

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 13:28:00 +0000

the salmon stand mighty in a world verdant with wondrous creations.

born on the headwaters of a river, the young salmon ride the currents downstream until, like the river, they find the open sea.

in the free waters, they fight to survive. every moment is a struggle against hunters, bestial and sentient alike. in the vast, ruthless ocean the salmon live for some years, until a basic, restless need drives them to return to the shallow waters of their birth.

called by a rhythm more precise than the seasons, the salmon gather at the mouth of the river to begin the pilgrimage of their lives. traveling upstream, they swim relentlessly against the currents.

against the rapids, against steep waterfalls and dams, against incessant predators, against poisoned waters, against all odds, they swim upriver with tireless focus and resolve.

the salmon never stop.

not to eat or to rest. they swim and jump and fight and triumph through all the things that keep them away from where they have to be. with relentless purpose and unambiguous sense of direction, they overcome the staggering odds to reach their birthplace: a journey of a thousand miles from and a thousand feet above the open sea. home, the salmon, weak and worn, gather the last of its strength: the male to find and dig a safe nesting place, and the female to lay her precious eggs.

the salmon will traverse the length of the river only twice in its lifetime; once with the river’s flow and once against. they will never again swim the salt waters of the sea. in the shallow brooks and streams of their birth, the salmon return to sire their young and then pass away. thus, the headwaters of their birth also become their hallowed graves: the brave salmon’s final resting place.

so goes the legend of the magical journey of the fish of the gods. a mythical tale of survival, triumph and unbreakable spirit. may their story open our eyes to the many magic and miracles of this world, and to glean from them valuable lessons to see us through our own singular journeys.
like the salmon, we all have an inherent sense of navigation. and that compass keeps, without ambivalence or fluctuation, our promised lands and destinations.

and if by chance we should stray and destiny fails to bring us home, take solace in the thought that at the end of life’s long and arduous journey, there is a promised place of peace. a haven for quiet bliss.

still bethlehem

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:00:00 +0000

home is a fortress impervious to happiness.

more so during Christmas. it is especially melancholy during Christmas.

the clement weather, the resonant carols, the dawn star, they render everything with a tender glow that does little to appease this endless longing for one meaningful night in a life spent running away from hopelessness.

i don't know why i even try.

year after year, i end up eating noche buena with choked tears. my home has lost the capacity for celebration and gladness, and i am heartbroken at the thought that i can no longer bring joy to this place.

there is very little that i can give here, not solace, not even reprieve. so i settle for a consolation, feeble as it may be. to be grateful for what i have, complete though broken, when so many others make do with photographs and fragments.

i used to know merry Christmases.

each of them threadbare memories tenaciously resisting the ravages of time. vestiges of moments gone too soon.

why do remembrances cause so much pain? because they remind us, not just of what we have lost,
but of all the things that we once had and have failed to keep.

i don't know why i keep trying... i just don't know how to give up on Christmas.

i came to an empty church to visit the Christ child, whose humble birth is the reason for all this pomp and pageant, even bacchanalian excess.

in whispered sobs, i said that i have been missing Christmas...
and in the silence, a gentle voice whispered back, to seek for Bethlehem instead.

: darkspark :

vincent's blindness

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 14:15:00 +0000

Vincent was a man who lived in shadows.
but through the blinding darkness, his heart only saw the sky.

i have always been drawn to Van Gogh. at first i only knew him from the song, but something about him called to me. at an age when i was too young to fully appreciate his story, i found in Vincent a kindred spirit.

his sadness spoke to the restless in mine, and i found solace in the works of his hand.

only later did I found out the truth about his tragic life. the judgment and rejection he suffered, the sense of failure he struggled with, the journey to the edge of sanity, the endless fall from grace, the death by his own hands.

Starry Night, Van Gogh's masterpiece, was painted from an unbearable depth of suffering. while imprisoned in an asylum, Van Gogh painted the night sky as he saw it through the bars of his prison window: a darkness awash with magnificent colors.

Van Gogh's Starry Night is hope captured. in his darkness, he kept the colors alive. his was the hope that overcomes the shadows. his was a spirit that shatters the dark. by his life we are reminded that through the many shadows that blind us with fear and despair, we can choose to hope for starlit skies.

may our lives be like the Starry Night.
that in our darkness, we can see life with a thousand light.

filling the blanks

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:10:00 +0000

i breathe in the infinite spaces of darkness
unechoed songs of a captive heart

i am of unrevealed shadows and secrets
of tender snow and quiet stars

i suffer the unguarded moments of remembrance
the constant sorrow of regret

i hear the secret lives of rain
here, in my silent, tearless pain

zion

noreply@blogger.com (darkspark) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:00:00 +0000

i have searched for you
among oceans of souls

it is so easy to be lost

are you adrift in seas of ravaged dreams?
will you never come, believing
that I have been found?

am I lost to you?

if in your heartbreak you are led astray
remember

that in all song and circumstance
i was meant to be lost

with you