O what the hey, just one last post before I move.

Fucking movie made me cry.

Still thinking about a new blog name.

(link will turn live SOON. soon enough, eh?)

Hope is mandatory.

soon.

(cross-posting from luis batchoy a.k.a. inang magenta's blog)

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR PATUBAS 2 – LITERARY ANTHOLOGY

Ten years after the release of Patubas – An Anthology of West Visayan Literature, published by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and edited by Palanca Hall of Famer Dr. Leoncio Deriada, the Capiz Council for Culture and the Arts (CCCA) headed by Bryan Mari Argos, through its literary division, Yanggaw Capiz Writers’ Group (YCWG) headed by Marcel Milliam will again take the initiative of instrumentalizing the publication of Patubas 2.

Responding to the growth of the literary corpus in the region, Patubas 2, which will still be edited by Dr. Leoncio Deriada, will feature works from budding and established regional writers from the period of 1990 to the present. The project coordinators hope to include in this volume a good sampling of pieces representative of the robust condition of literature in Region VI.

The CCCA along with the YCWG invites all writers from Western Visayas, whether residing in the region or residing outside the region but are originally from Western Visayas to submit pieces in any language. The pieces may be poetry, short fiction, non-fiction, drama (preferably one-act), excerpts from longer works like novels and full-length plays and screenplays, and should include translations for non-English or Filipino pieces.

Each writer is encouraged to submit 3-5 short pieces or 1-2 longer pieces (excluding translations for non-English/Filipino pieces) to allow the editor as well as the project coordinators to decide which pieces to include in the anthology. Submissions should also be accompanied by a 150 to 200-word narrative description of the author as well as a picture. All submissions should be in .doc or .rtf format and should be sent as an email attachment to patubas2@gmail.com not later than July 15, 2009. Only submissions sent through email will be entertained.

The project, which will be entered as a proposal for the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) competitive grants program will hopefully see publication in 2010.

For more information, please contact Bryan Mari Argos through cell phone number (0920) 9499622 or Marcel Milliam through cell phone number (0918) 9248460, or write to the email address indicated above.

barbara jane reyes

i'm listening to her today. wowowee! some moments, by no means exhaustive of how she grooves:

"angel of corrugated metal shacks" (now i'm thinking of changing that line in hair myths. or is it inevitable, to echo what you haven't heard given the same place of origin?)

"a child's third eye opens with a diamond bullet" (happening!)

"i'm making a child cry, sorry" (hahaha)

have a look-see!

http://barbarajanereyes.com/poetry.html

Hair Myths


I

Truncated lives of hair. In a year you will make enough to stuff pincushions. Consider it valid
when the mantra runs through your fingertips, the pouncing, filing away of disturbances.
Believe in this like little else, the composure of a floor when you are alone. Pick off or sweep
each instance of shedding into a quiet corner, a point where everything that comes, stays.
Or, the back pages of a notebook, the way you did it before. April comes and you need
a new page.



II

A tree is generative of: smoke, peace, fodder for worms. In some species, a leaf is easily
generative of another leaf, a branch removed and left in the ground grows another tree.
In this way tourists can stay in the shade just as Gautama did, when he was yet to answer
to multitude forms of blindness following him. The problem being everyone, but whoever
chooses not to remain will be saved. To return is to where he had passed on long ago.
Given enough time and continental drift, it won’t be in the same place, nothing ever is.



III

On his last day, the Buddha left his disciples and started walking.



IV

When he reached the far edge of the great water, he had left it behind, one strand at a time.
It fell all day. This is why rain never stays atop the bronzen Buddha in Kamakura. The sun
dimmed and rose again and he kept on walking. That same day was his first time in the sea.



V

Descend into a Lie. Observe the protuberances on his head when they first cast him as metal,
as stone. That bald head belongs to another time.

The number is specific, therefore meaningful. Might be curls of hair or snails on his head,
the original's lost to us. You have little use for this.

Suppose this is the first time you must hear about the Kalpavriksha, the wish-fulfilling tree.
By the sea it grows. It doesn’t come from here.


VI

The trees in the plaza facing the cathedral were cut down. This happened by mistake.
They were bound for some other place. Maybe in twenty years we will come back and exclaim,
how youthful and low. If you look closely you will see how the rings farthest from the pith have
grown so.

We who have been crowding into the present, the past seems to be teeming with wide spaces.
We who dreamt of bounties the winds would bring.

The last time the scene gaped like this, liberators surrounded it from all sides, shelled and
gunned it down with tanks and bazookas. 100,000 and more left to become ash, pulp to the
rubble, bloating in tunnels, dungeons, sewers; on, under, by heaps of corrugated metal.
The last time you read about it, not all would be saved.



VIII

Come alive, you said. It is green and the parakeets are cheery. It is light and the courtyard is
speckled gold or yellow. Firetrees in full bloom inside the walled city.



IX

When you tie your hair in a bun you become more real to me. You are by no means there yet
but your face sings of possibilities. You have a good name. Start walking.



X

In a corner of an island where the mountains step down to the sea, she knots her hair.
She uncoils and clouds drift in. Then at terrifying speed. The bells peal but the friar was
nowhere to be seen. The noose for her neck sways, she escapes. A storm in summer, and with
her scarf of many-colored squares, wide as her two palms, she flies back to her mountain hut.
Her grandchildren have left for other islands and those who can remember sing of her on
drunken nights.





***
In another story, it is written that he knew the best way to die. Parallel to the ground, his right
hand a nest for his head, he waits for it to fade away. What of the world is known only through
whispers.



----------
Dedicated to a summer in a happier place, and to everyone who made this possible.
Ok. Stanza 1: 'goes' or 'runs' through your fingertips?

How do you read?

(as fragments)

There’s the matter of the room: intentional evasions. She could be right for

all we know, or perhaps it depends on the time of day, or the quality of light, resistance. Whether it was by lamp-glow or the afternoon that seems to go on

and on. A cry that slips out of elementary darknesses. Still, there is the right

to remain and sing. Breaking moments, or maybe it was the burden to cohere

when to cohere was not where the sirens wanted to bring you. What was the

course you ended up taking, and when did you start begging to be dropped

off?

(as intent)

The notes will be assembled in the usual fashion.
There will be attempts to describe the country.
Preferably, in terms of something that has escaped notice so far.
Digressions are acceptable and expected.
In some cases, arrival must be made appropriately for a loud finish. Soft.
In some cases, arrival must be made parallel to the blue notes, So.
When the blue notes lift the entity to unbearable heights of plurality.
What in hindsight is inevitable.
How else to move, when in moving you followed the signs.

(as rejoiner)

In some cases there are other signs, a stranger's sofa and defibrillators.

(as echoes)

o god who is it this time?

(as echo)

o god who is it this time?
you were asking for the time?
it had to come from somewhere.
it meant to enter the plausible.
stop. that thing you’re doing.
you’re breaking out.
your line’s getting choppy.

(as parody)

Soft and slow.

Soft and slow?

Soft and slow.


--------
I'm still looking for an interlude to go between the echoes.