LiterarX

Beauty

2014-10-20T00:29:00.000+08:00

image courtesy of chibi-oneechan.deviantart.com

Beauty is

warm sheets

and soft pillows,

shared hopes,

and better tomorrows.

It is the pop

and the fizzle

of an ice-cold

soda bottle.

It is the shared hopes

and dreams

over frappes

topped with whipped cream.

It is a favorite memory,

told and retold

It is the music

with the beat

that makes you move

your feet.

It is home-cooked

spaghetti.

It is a shower of colorful

confetti.

But beauty

is also found

in a shirt worn

too many times

now frayed,

its color faded

to an anemic maroon.

It is in an old book

dog-eared

with jaundiced pages.

It is in a jagged scar

resting on your hip,

a testament

of a restless youth.

Beauty is in the years

hidden in the crinkle

at the corner of your eyes,

and the creases on your forehead

when you smile.

It is found in the music played ,

in a funeral parade.

It is in the bitter medicine.

It is in the dark clouds

that brings thunder and lightning.

It is the rage of the storm,

the sorrow of a loss,

and the ache that comes with love.

It is in the uncertainty of the everyday,

in all the forgotten things,

and all the things yet to come.

Beauty is life.

Life is beauty.

A Love letter of a hopeless romantic converted realist but failed to be a real realist

2012-01-16T21:12:00.008+08:00

Dearest,

I saw you yesterday

And I still hear the voice of your look telling me what you want to be.

I look at you, and see the things in me that I never could.

Nothing unobtainable

Nothing unreal

And not all good.
Oh my, now don’t get me wrong,

I do not want to gaff at my reflection on your eyes and get lost.

My attraction to you rises from my knowledge that

You are AWESOME because of all the things I know about you and the ones I hope to discover.

So, I bathe in your conviction that you think I am awesome too.

Turning towards tomorrow I hope and pray

That I will not find high heels, body parts or you in the closet,

But if the last one turned out to be true I might not care

I want to say shit like “My desire for you is greater than the sum of our souls” to you, because I know you’d let me get away with that.

I wanne be your cherry bomb

I wanne be your candle in the dark

I wanne be the little angle

and devil on your shoulders

I wanna be your silver lining

The last coin in your pocket

The raft when you’re adrift

The swiss knife once you get to shore

Because you are the moon light that sends me good dreams,

my abyss of creative bliss.

You are an uncontaminated facet of

perfect imperfection in the wilderness of evil.

OK ok enough

I know that you are definitely no Saint

But you are the good kind of bad

So I invite you to be with me

I invite you to be yourself with me

So let’s to be ourselves together

Love,

Your failed realist, waiting for perfect imperfection...

By Lael L. Aka Gloria

Note to an ex-boyfriend of six months turned stalker for eight years

2011-04-19T13:05:00.007+08:00

*Performed at The Really Bad Poets April Session 2011 at Outpost Cebu. This piece belongs to the genre of performance poetry, a poem meant to be delivered not read.

Do you still recall your 3 AM drive-bys, throwing stones and empty bottles at my house?
Do you still recall the classical dead rat you sent me in an orchid box?
Do you still recall the shattered windows and key marks on my car?
Do you still recall the letter you sent me, calling my mother a whore,
Who spreads her legs to a white man and me the product of an attempt to escape poverty?

Mind you, former lover and friend that a sharp tongue
Does not mean that you posses intelligence.
What did birth into privilege give you?

Your mama was so busy making money she left you lying on your back
‘till you head was as flat as a Frisbee.
So look in the fucking mirror, how can you love nature, when it did that to you?

Hey, I do still remember when your dick was not yet curly
It was around the same time I did not know that you were lying,
Every time your made a sound.
I do not think you following me around is creepy,
But what’s my opinion compared to that of dozens of other people?

Back then, I liked you.
Even though people said I’ve got no taste, I liked you.
Sometimes we should listen to people, they can be soo right.

I congratulate you.
You started out with nothing, and you still have most of it left.

Come on, can’t you see that I’m not your type since
I do not stare at you, gaping and inflatable?
I can tell you what you are in my life.
You are the broccoli-flavored gum under my shoe,
The moldy yogurt in my empty fridge,
The padded cell without a door,
The handful of sand in the dessert,
Drunk driving at rush hour,
Another plastic bag floating in the ocean,
The tick on my forehead,
Or the bill in my mailbox.

Get lost!
It’s time for you to become a missing person.
Oh right, that is impossible for you since you need to be missed.
But you should know that you do grow on people, just like cancer does.
Wait! Is it time for my medication or yours?
So how many times do I have to flush before you go away?
Hey, shit, cancer with a curly dick.
Don’t bother me. I’m living a crazy-free ever after.
Oh, don’t say I’m a bitch like it’s a bad thing,
And do not thank me for insulting you;
It is always a pleasure.

The Puppet

2010-08-10T16:37:00.025+08:00

My mind
silent
hears
my heart’s palpitations
distant
a clock
ticking
in another room.

The air
thick and heavy
bears down on
cold
soft
bones
free
detached
a discarded puppet
in a corner
watching
others

move

love

age.

I
stay
still
as
My mind
silent
hears
the air
enter
a hollow
shell.

Mildred’s Jump

2010-01-24T15:15:00.009+08:00

Just as expected many came to the wake, but then many came to every wake that served good food, beer, and good conversation. The expected somehow managed to sneak up on her and became ultimately the unexpected. On his last night, he stirred as he did almost every night ever since his body began to give out. A few hours after, he stopped moving, breathing. Mildred nabbed Reynaldo, and the moment she realized what had happened, thirty years seemed to drop off her being. Half a lifetime reduced to a day or less. How odd, she thought remembering that day, sitting on the balcony wearing a double extra large white satin dress. It fit her just right, and the little black pin over her heart did nothing to make her look slimmer.

People saw her face and recognized that of a wife in mourning, little did they know that it was guilt that caused the little space between her eyebrows to curl up. The feeling was still there. The same feeling of lightness she felt the day he died. ‘Nay! Tita Irma and Tito Cho are here!’

Cynthia’s melodic voice burst her thoughts and the noises of reality reentered her bubble. There were the visitors chatting, the TV was announcing weather forecasts, the dirty and clean dishes were clamoring in the hands of the help, and the dogs now and then would greet the new arrivals. Before she was able to make her way down the staircase, Mildred was greeted by timidly smiling faces.

Irma was a good friend, they had known each other since elementary. They lost contact for years when Mildred left for manila to pursue an education degree. It took her quite a while to finish college since she took every other semester off or was under loaded to be able to dabble in diverse business endeavors since money was always short. Being the second eldest of eight, financially supporting herself and her family was a cross she could not escape. But she enjoyed it the freedom, the independence, and the voice money gave her. Wholesale in sea shells, polished coconut shells, and pineapple fibers was quiet lucrative. Every month Mildred and her younger sister Maria would rent a jeep to collect more or less ten sacks of shells and bundles of pineapple fabric which the would be transported by boat to Mandaue city to sell to manufacturers who made products for export.

It was 1969 and three thousand pesos for ten sacks of shells was a good price. Mildred after four years had only completed her third year requirements for college. “She is studying to become a priest or a doctor! That is why it is taking her so long to finish,” their father would joke every time neighbors or relatives were inquiring about what she was doing. A year later he died. Three years before his death, their eldest Cynthia had dropped out of her final year in dentistry school and married. Two kids, a boy and a girl, were fruits of her choice, and a husband who was incapable to putting a roof over their heads. Now with two brothers and the youngest sister still in school, it was up to Mildred and Maria to keep things afloat.

Maria was so very different than her partner and sister, Mildred. Maria was severe in her attitudes, unwavering in her religious rituals, and fearful of the wrath of God and men alike. Men to her were snakes hiding behind every corner waiting to be given the opportunity for seduction and folly. She had no use for them, not yet anyway. Maria was thrifty, practical and depressingly realistic and decided to go to beauty school. She also earned a certification in tailoring. She had always resented her sister for reading romantic novels instead of helping with any kind of chores. Romantic novels were Mildred’s fabric of life, a getaway from the toil, traffic, the heat of the scorching sun, the paying of never ending bills, and the sibling demands waiting to be dealt with. Maria blamed her Mildred's romantic delusions for her sister’s first pregnancy and of course her vile recklessness and hunger to live life to the fullest at any given moment, but Mildred had no time to think about Maria’s objections, she had other things to think of.

Mildred was the one with the neck for business and after eight years of having graced the diverse universities in Manila, she finished her studies and felt free having fulfilled her obligation to obtain a degree in education or such. Three years later the second lovechild directed the fate of the sisters to return home. Since their mother was already helping looking after Cynthia’s children, what would two more matter?

The ground floor of their family home was converted into a grocery store and the guest bedroom on the front became Maria’s parlor. Lovechild number one, Grace, lived her childhood unaware of her fatherlessness, spending her afternoons hiding with her cousins who all had fathers from homework in the Store’s labyrinth of rice sacks flour sacks, feeds, stacked margarine cans, piles or repacked sugar, corned beef and soap. It was wonderland and the shelves were magic trees that bore chocolate curly tops, and white rabbit fruits ready for the picking. Her little brother Marius, love child number two, was an annoying gnome in search for her and her fruits. Her mother Mildred was the gatekeeper of wonderland and its mystic treasure which was locked away in the center drawer of the table counter and was only opened when transactions were made or the daily cash counting occurred at the end of the day. The gatekeeper guarded the treasure and the shelves ferociously. Everyday was a new challenge on finding ways to get to the sweets.

Tita Maria was the queen of ferries, with her magic wand she made everyone who came to her beautiful, and she would give grace and the others peanut bars and jelly candy after they had accomplished their homework, which was so much better than the glass of milk the gatekeeper made them drink every morning. Ola Marie was the Queen of the forest. She knew so many fantastic stories and everyone in the kingdom listened to her. She was also very gracious to the neighboring kingdoms and lent them rice, utensils, flour and sugar, which upset the Gatekeeper and the Queen of fairyland every time, but there was nothing they could do. “Let me be! I am doing this for you. One day you will understand”

Time passed and Grace turned four-teen. The store to her now was nothing but a store an a prison sometimes, since she was asked to help out once in a while. The store had grown so had the work her brother was still a gnome only bigger now and her mother had become the reason for her shame she had to bear. A brother from another man and the daughter of a man she never met. How could her mother have done that to them? And there she was, her mother living her life as if nothing was wrong.

People talked she never was aware but it was whatever the it was, was there. Grace never truly felt the absence of a father. Aside from their mother they had their uncles, Lola Marie, and Tia Maria who cared and loved them very much but she could never ignored the fact that everyone else lived by sets, meaning a man, a woman, and their children. Her train of thought and the afternoon heat idly led Grace to stroll into the upstairs sala. Aunt Maria was hanging fresh curtains standing on a wooden stole not looking around as she entered while her mother Mildred was sitting looking flushed on the sofa with her back as straight as a ruler as if posing for a photograph. Tita Cynthia sitting to the left leaning back. She was wearing an empty look as if having walked a hundred miles not willing to go any further. It was dead quiet; no one had cared to turn the radio on. Grace was overcome by discomfort. It was the sort that could not be described but seemed close enough to fear.

“How could have allowed this to happen? Have you not learned anything? I thought we had plans? At this rate we will end up with a house full of children to burden Nanay and me! When will you think before you go out into the night and give yourself to who knows who? “Tita Maria said all of this without once turning around, her voice loud but quivering.

Grace frozen looking at the three of them, her face like a question mark that had two huge eyes. Maria had stepped form the stool and was gathering the dirty curtains from the floor and she spoke again, this time her voice did not quiver at all. “So since you are pregnant why don’t you lie back and read one of your Novels in which passion pays off and the couple lives happily ever after in a mansion?” Maria and the muted Cynthia took their exit almost being overpowered by the heavy drapery; Maria stamped her feet like a beer-bellied old man. Mildred was smiling, holding out her hand to Grace who reluctantly approached her, took a seat beside her. “How do you feel about a new little brother or sister?” She did not reply and was asking herself what this would mean. She recognized though that this was the perfect opportunity to ask her mother the question she never got an answer too before. “Nanay, why did you not merry my father?” Mildred as if expecting the question decided to answer it for the first time. “Because I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do.” It was as simple as that, not having the heart to tell Grace that on top of that she never really was in love with him.

Noon turned to night. The remnants of dinner were fed to the dogs and the dishes piled up in the kitchen. Maria was sitting at the dining table with chin in left hand tapping the surface with the fingers of her right hand. The dining room was located behind the store adjoining the kitchen. Here tortured trance was interrupted by shouts coming from outside fast approaching the house. The echo of her sisters name resounding in her ear said by a so very familiar voice caused her heart to skip. “He knows”, she thought. The door sprang open; in it was Marcel red with anger. He was the second youngest who became a police officer with a family of his own. He was Maria’s favorite kind-natured and patient, but not tonight. “Miiiildreed!” he shouted once again, walking towards the stairs he was anxiously greeted by Maria, pleading him to calm down. His answer: “Where is she? Miiildred! I know you are there!” Tracing the stairs with his eyes, he caught site of his mother’s nightgown descending the stair. His mind racing feeling his sister’s delicate hands around his left arm, he searched for the cork he could pull to deflate his rage, but there was no cork.

He learned about Mildred’s pregnancy from Grace who excited began to riddle him with question if finally Nanay would get married so Marius and her finally would have a father of to call their own. The chunk of pork in his mouth lost its taste. He immediately knew who the man was. He had seen them together at the plaza, exchanging niceties after Mass. Reynaldo had been a widower for three years now. He worked at the town’s city hall and had shiny Elvis hair. “She will not be able to get out of this one.” he thought.

Mildred was in her bedroom reading when she heard the havoc. Marius was lying beside her, fast asleep. She sensed that Marcel would not be appeased by words alone an a shudder overcame her. She grabbed her slippers and snuck out of the room. I just talked to Reynaldo! He is a decent respectable member in this Town and he likes you! This is your chance to make a respectable woman out of yourself! Take his offer say yes or by God ate, I shall punch some sense into you, and don’t think I wouldn’t! Come down here right now I say! Do not make me come get you!” By now Maria dragged along like a limp leaf stuck to her brother’s arm was unable to keep him from climbing the stairs had broken into tears and pleading.

It was a clear full moon night, the kind as were described in the romance novels Mildred loved so dearly. It was the kind of moon under which lovers would meet secretly along a lake or a beach to make love and promises. It was the kind of night the protagonists and heroes would lie awake and pine over the other. But what was she doing on such a night? Leaning out of the open toilet window looking out into the yard estimating if she could make the jump into the heap of hey without breaking her legs or landing on the unsuspecting goat. There was no midnight rendezvous, no beach, no time to pine. There was only the promise of a beating she would for sure get for sure. It was a promise that was shouting, stamping clumsily up the first floor. No time to waste, she was not going to submit and marry Reynaldo. She was still waiting for the one who could make her feel that certain something or at least someone who was making more money than she did.

Mildred took the leap and made it. With her slippers in hand she ran around the house and made for the open road leading to the next town of Alang-Alang two miles away. The road light up under the light of night and she could feel Marcel not far behind. There he was running behind her maybe two-hundred meter down. She did not stop, feeling her heart pounding under the strain. Why did she run for the open road? She could have gone to Benedict’s house and asked for his help. Marcel quickly grew tired when he realized that he was not able to breach the gap between them and locked around to see how far he already was from town. He perceived a small girl like figure running towards him shouting. He could not hear what it was saying, continuing down his path he ran slower to tired to pick up pace, but as he could see so was Mildred. He finally decided to abort the chase, waved Mildred off who was obse4rving him from a distance and walked back to town. The little figure now resembling his niece Grace ran past him as if he did not exist. He could tell she was scared of him and decided to let the matter rest. So there they were, two scared people and one angry one, all at distance under a full moon on an open road. What would happen tomorrow?

Grace reached her mother who was leaning against a pine tree catching her breathe. “Ma, I am scared!” she cried embracing Mildred with all her might. They stayed like that for ages. The moon was at its highest point now shining even brighter. Mildred took her daughter by the shoulders,” let’s go home, Ola is waiting for us.” They slowly began to head back to. Mildred’s stair was empty. “What is going to happen when we get home?” Grace asked in a fearful voice. “You and Marius are going to get a father.” Mildred replied.

A winged life for eternity

2009-06-24T17:20:00.016+08:00

Crowds pushing through the isles,

Baskets bumping baskets

Containing the necessities of life:
Fudge bars, lollipops,
Tooth bleaching strips,
Microwave meals,
Instant Noodles and
Celebrity news mags
Pushing, bustling, overtaking,
Grabbing items
Comparing prizes,
Eyes ever searching
No one sees the other,
The other is lost among the others
Every soul imprisoned
In their box of thoughts
An open window, a gust of wind
A cardinal--a beauty of non-colors--in drunken flight,
Its tiny form dominating through its fragile being.
All eyes in a moment, for a moment
On the circled winged eye.
And we remember.

By Lael Lennox

Ode to a Brainless Goddess

2009-06-03T23:03:00.004+08:00

Oh goddess clear the fog

skewing your vision

you silly sullen bitch.

You are not blameless

nor faultless

you hypocritical snob.

Stomachs actually churn at the mere thought of you, fool.
Do not excuse your stupidity

with piety

you self-righteous parasite.

You mask your malice

with concern

you conniving coward.

You know it.

And we know it.

And soon others will.

Do not drag others into your misery.

Stick your own head into your own pile of muck.

You ignorant, pathetic piece of trash.

chuckchuckchuckie

chuckchuckchuckie!!!!!

Step down from your cloud, goddess.

It is only vapor after all.

Get a life, you poor thing.

[for those harboring delusions of personal grandeur... good luck!]

My Lovers

2007-11-12T16:24:00.007+08:00

To my lovers kissed
by God
that made their skin
like the fertile earth
and the shining sand,
I am
a stream of white
coldness, clear water
tasting like apples
and blueberries

– Undiscovered-Misunderstood.

To my lovers kissed
by God
that made their eyes
like the color of the sea
and the forest,
I am
a paper sparrow
from the east.

-Undiscovered-Misunderstood.

What are they to me?
Dots on the horizon?
Or enormous clouds
blocking my view?

Are they like
the glittering flash of light
one moment there
and then gone?
Or are they like
the tropic humid midnight air,
clinging, smothering my every pore?

Are they undiscovered

-misunderstood,
for simply being men?

Sep 2007 by Lael Lennox

Set Sail

2007-11-08T19:30:00.003+08:00

She stands on the deck listening:
to the snores of the ship
the hush of the ocean waves.

Illuminated by the full moon, the sea
folds
and unfolds:
crumpled
like the sheets of her bed
that he abandoned.

Tonight,
motion surrounds her.

The stars are chasing the clouds
the clouds are running away
from the islands.

Everything is slipping
sliding
from her
sight.

Eyes closed, she inhales
salty wind
bitter fumes,
pungent fish,
sweet molasses
and copra.

Her thoughts contain
the smell
of goodbyes.

She unties her long hair and feels
each strand
wave
dance
fly.

The Allegory of the Mountain

2007-11-06T20:17:00.002+08:00

"With no bird singing, the mountain is yet more still." ZEN SAYING

This boulder is a kind of a love:
I painfully push towards the summit.
This pain is a kind of a breathing, I hear
as I measure the distance.
This distance is a kind of a touch
that comforts my fear as I ascend this mountain.
This mountain I climb with a kind of a love
that measures no distance and recognizes no fear.
This fear is a kind of a boulder.
I roll it down the foot of the mountain.
I have nothing, I am nothing.
Only birds were gifted with wings.
Who am I to question the Gods?
On my descent I gain wisdom in emptiness.

(For G.Noyam and Warlito a.k.a. Simone and Jean Paul)

Infatuation

2007-10-27T00:06:00.007+08:00

Your eyes are like dark pools of endless depth, wherein primordial serpents swim hidden, waiting, waiting and all set to ensnare, who ever stares into your eyes, to be pulled down in a black liquid dream wherein the familiar world becomes a faint whisper against the pulsating beat of one’s heart, a beat, a drum beat which rallies warriors to a bloodlust, the beat which possesses dancers in a whirlwind wild trance, where time is lost, lost and replaced by a force which willed itself to existence when the first creature took its first breath, a force hiding like a jaguar under the cover of the night, waiting, waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting, to tear flesh and let what was for so long bound burst out in a moment's glance.

On Literature

2007-09-07T07:57:00.003+08:00

Whether it be religion’s Eden or science’s primordial soup, it is an acceptable postulation that humans come from a common origin. Similarities in certain aspects of otherwise geographically separated cultures, such as physical attributes and language patterns, tends to put a degree of accuracy to this theory.

Literature, in its capacity to transmit information about the human condition, seems to support this theory as well. In fact, what draws me most to literature is its ability to relate human emotions in so many different permutations, and yet evokes a common feeling of familiarity and kinship among readers. By means of refracting reality, literature moves us.

We applaud Clara (House of the Spirits) as she defiantly refuses to bend to her husband’s tyrannical will. We suffer along with Saleem Sinai (Midnight’s Children) as he struggles with his self-appointed position as savior of the nation. We sympathize with Ariel (The Little Mermaid) because we know how it is to need to have something said and yet be unable to say it. We take nocturnal strolls along the same streets with Stephen Dedalus (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) as he ponders Sin and Redemption. We grieve for Annabel Lee because we know how it is to have loved and lost.

Whether in voices ranging from sensuous to self-seeking to subversive, Literature still speaks of the same things: love, alienation, grief, passion, melancholia, redemption, triumph and pain. Emotions and conditions human beings eventually go through at certain stages in their existence.

While these universal human emotions are expressed in varying ways and degrees in literature, it still boils down to the basic truths about them all: that nothing is ever easy, whether we are experiencing the very heights of love or the aches of defeat. And perhaps, it is because of this that we are able to empathize with our fictional heroes and heroines: Misery loves company, so they say. And perhaps in this, the commonality of our human experiences, we can take a measure of comfort: We are not alone.

Although some may argue that Society is evil based on the argument that it is the progenitor of the term ‘outcast’ among other things, it is still undeniable that it emanates from our desire for community, a need to belong. While we cannot ignore boundaries and differences in ideals, there is still something that binds us to one another, despite everything: our ability to feel.

Literature, in whatever form or language or purpose can perhaps help us realize that and in the long run, assist us in understanding each other.

State of the Nation

2007-08-21T22:54:00.011+08:00

I look at your smile
Stretched forcefully on your face
As if strings were attached on the tips of your lips.
Your words?
They are bad lies
Only a politician on TV would dare use.
So I wonder as you lecture
On being a good mediator in these pressing times
When dangerous people,
Or to be politically correct,
Terrorists, are everywhere,
(Even in schools, teaching our children $h*t!)
Do not tell me that you understand the situation
Or that you know where I was coming from.
Though my words echo
a sentiment shared by
Loud students dressed in black,
Farmers refusing to eat,
Or women outraged because of prevalent pornography
My words are still mine
And definitely, not a product of our generation gap
Or a bias since I am not on your side.
Thus, I wonder, every time we have
These conversations, do you ever notice?
My head is tilting to the left,
My eyes are squinting,
My eyebrows are trying to meet with each other.
(I assure you there are no strings pulling them together.)
Because I've noticed, every time
I turn on the TV, and there I see a politician
With his mouth stretched from side to side
As if strings were attached on the tips of his lips
Saying, "It is my dream to fulfill the dreams of others."
I have the same look.

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2007-03-17T19:08:00.003+08:00