documentiv
TRANSCRIPT
1
IV.
pedantic pedestrians
2014
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3
To Silence
Jennifer Patricia Cariño
Because my fingers are stained, and weary;
because the day has had its hour of hard sun;
because in the quiet of a passage, read from
the middle of a book, I find you. There are
songs
I wish to sing – fragile threads hanging from
the broken bough, like an invitation from some
long forgotten hymn. Look to the left. There is
a sunrise brushing the earth with its calloused
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palms. There is a page half-buried in the mouth
of a river. Here the words are eddied, and
muddied
in the ebb and flow. What more can one wish
for?
Here. In the confines of a single heart. In velvet
casings, waiting for swift feathers of sound.
All we hold up to the light. A siren cutting
into the black, black night. A prayer, lifted
from the leaves of trees. There is a young child
standing at the mouth of a river. The river is
a word. A long black branch. Foliage, brushing
against bare skin. I am the branch, falling
to the sodden earth. I am chameleon – ever
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changing,
skin glistening under the light of day. We
are the vessels that carry our history. We are
the rocks
waiting only for wave to crash upon our
furrowed brows.
And when we hold up our hands to the light,
what wonder strokes our eyes?
What golden limned sighs
merely perish,
like falling snow?
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for what it's worth
Vincent Dioquino
ॐ
allow the sparrow to circle an empty sky,
leave the snake in a bottomless pit.
procure direction from wind, sun
and shadow. let length point to discovery,
locate risk in depth. set sail
to an endless ocean east of where
home is. retrieve the possible:
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all sorrow believes in is rain,
moss draping crevices, shattering stone
into soil. how hollow is sound?
bone conducting rhythm, tensile breath.
undo posture, toil the earth and bend
until breaking becomes a gesture
of color. place cataract, incite vision
II.
unless thriving begins by giving up,
the city will throb until night
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turns to dawn, again believes in
attempts to recover luminosity
III.
cobwebs straddle a thatched roof, the ceiling
unaware
of a gecko snug between bamboo splits. the
occasional
hum: rusty air-conditioning unit, a dog barking
hoarse syllables into this sundered night.
rumbles
low and deft, 110cc tricycle engine almost
spent. from boundary to boundary a relapse,
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causeways and roads flooding with specks of
light,
mosquitoes sipping into other seconds.
somewhere
a door hinge creaks, the knob
trapped in hesitation. then a click. bottles clink
& brandy pours into glass, this, as
ice relents to liquid, understands melt.
as in grass, as in ashes. this, because
the neighbors are coughing and I am leaning on
this wall
to listen. nothing but the hard earth
stagnant in a pose. bones, pebbles, fishing rods
sitting inconspicuously beside the rocking chair
now moving with wind, now placing into calm
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IV.
bait is about persistence, never mere weight.
the hook
is there to alert of a still-possible
catch. sinkers, or otherwise a line bent to earth,
right beneath water. surfaces, and a ripple
creasing into rupture. for example, a trout:
you observe its exactitudes in relation to depth,
but you’ve to reel it in. outside mere calculation
is risk, heart passing into failure, closing in
V.
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to attempt to describe feeling
is to surround the transitory
with wonder. eye commits sound,
the entirety of a breadth
two hands cannot hold.
something strange about voice:
think it beautiful how word
becomes body without organ,
immaterial between throb and bone
VI.
skyline looming, some cityscape. rockstones
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& unmixed gravel, dirt roads, endless trees.
how vision conflates meaning: photocopy
stalls and engine failures. the horizon
an arrest. this is exchange: loam
against concrete pavements, night skies
without beginnings. structure upon structure
wound between lines, between countless
revolutions of some wheel. how to outlast,
persist: the struggle still there despite
the field being an infinite void, an infinite void
being field.
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disregard myopia & the fluttering laser disc,
ceramic undertones to a battered shoe—
tower upon tower of communication lines
& signals disrupting somewhere, the location
punctured between light as in a sign, an exit,
or perhaps a proposition
VII.
truth unfolds, reveals. the expanse of a
mountain
precluding sky. cornerless city blocks, machines
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whose faults Epimetheus cannot troubleshoot.
stems of a rootless terrain. salt spoken for
what else permeates canopy, undoes breeze.
next to water is tree. also frogs. and frogs. frogs
whose throats croak, mouths reveling, revering
reveries
whose edges foam into electric prayers along
railways
fraught with fiber optic cables, hallucinations
of an uncharted region east of there
this polluted riverbed whose noise
reaches farther and farther
into nameless horizons
VIII.
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padayon must mean there, not merely
onward. this, because vision proclaims
a vastness not its own. deserts are real,
before wind, before cities collapse
in the given. every morning a blessing
from within, an ocean bursting beneath
waves, shadows. each dawn a struggle
to contain a while, become limitless light
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Kung paano magsulat ng tula ang
musikerong nabuhay sa New York
noong 1950s
Janine Go Dimaranan
“Tumipa ang daliri niyang mas mataas ng isang
nota,” ay! “Pero idiniin niya ito kahit alanganin,
pinanindigan, na parang anak sa puta at naku,
nabuo.” Ang sarap! “Ang mga kalabit sa
nagtatambukang kwerda, tinapos sa loob ng
limang hininga.”
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Lakad Lang
Ma. Angelica Ramos
Bumabagal ang pag-ikot sa malamig na
kanlungan
Tanging pinapasan ang bigat na nasa isipan
Kung pano, bakit, sino at nasaan
Hindi naman pinaghihintay ang pagbagsak
Sa bisig na kaya ang kahit anong bigat
Kahit ang mga bagay na nagkalamat
Uupo na lang at hahayaang kumalat
Gumaan man ang tingin sa ilaw
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Wala namang mapa na nakakaligaw
Tanging mga kahapon na puno ng mga bulyaw
Mga huni, awit at sakit ng sigaw
Kung ang bawat pagragasa ay kinaya
Dahil sa pagiging malaya
Kahit kailan walang pinilit
Kahit magbago man ang ihip
Bumibilis na ang pagdaan ng hantungan
Nasa yapak na ang patutunguhan
Mapigil man ng salita ang katapusan
Di na magbabago, di na malilimutan
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Love Song to Hera
Gio Chao
Twirling, your earth –
Your hair’s spinning
Glowworm (whose shine)
Seize the comets
That shimmer in
Your night sky outside
The unfolding of your curtain
Now
A tub of sweat
Rolls me under
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Sheet after sheet
As whirlpools go
The infinite
Leaves, lay burning
Bleach, the magic
Of check-out
As sheer angels
Dance their orange blest
Disrobing
Of gem-like
Jupiter,
When all dots shrink
From memory
Like bloodstains, blood-
Stains,
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Know this,
The blinds won’t help us
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C
Kervin Calabias
I
The city’s dirty streets have plotted its lines
of loss and indiscretion at the back of your
hands. A desired spot somewhere between
fast food and pedestrian I would find you,
over-sized shirt and tousled hair and all the
lines of your hands, patiently waiting. This
city grows upon expansion, size upon size,
extension, transit lines like outstretched
arms connecting all possibilities of bodily
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convergence. Sometimes hands hold on in
the speed of things. Among the tussled
hustle and bustle of people indifferent to
pickpockets and occasional bumps, I find
you, I stretch my arms and hands and I am
here. This captures a stranger’s location
among feelings of fleeting people who
knew all too well this space. I am here
because you are here. And your over-sized
shirt, tousled hair and hands are all worth
the strangeness for a stranger. I wanted to
kiss you and tell your tongue this city is my
city too. Curved, interlocking, wet, strange,
passionate, rough and above all things,
standing higher than all these buildings,
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stranger than all these spaces, is a love I
carried with me. Meeting you with much
haste like the gush of people coming out of
the train, blood from an open wound. All
too much and all too willing. Wanting to be
held.
II
I am afraid of you. But all the fear dribbled
down my neck like sweat as I still waited
for you. Burnt cigarettes lay dead like
bodies on the ashtray. And I imagine all
discourses end in smoke. In my head I
battle through the smoke, hopefully to find
all the reason why. You arrived half past my
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yuppie coffee. I took this chance to go
teetering into life’s possibilities hidden like
secret alleys in the city. After all, this city is
a place to get lost and willingly suspend
our certainties. All maps and moral
compasses are useless. I let your fluent
language of the city guide me. Your voice is
good to listen too. But you love listening
and hate talking. I slowly undressed all my
truth in layers around the space of your
listening only to find out that you have as
many truths as there are many streets that
connect each and every secret in the
metro. Truth travels through each and
every conversation we had. As we walk
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through it your thoughts branched out into
two streets, you stopped, took a coin from
your pocket and asked me “Where would
you want heads to go? Left or right?” A side
of you is fated into tossing luck into coins.
Right. I wasn’t sure. Until now, I will never
know all your directions, truths and many
layered meanings. I am still afraid of you. I
might have taken a direction towards you
that I might lose myself.
III
I finish writing about you at around 3am. I
imagine lights are still alive at your side of
the city. The trains haven’t stopped
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connecting. People are still rushing to get
by and get in. Bus rides still have their
philosophies and streets still stretch
endlessly to places I can never go. We are
not trying to be complicated but we’re just
too mundane. This is a perfect time to end
all words that might lead to you, end all the
travelling and deciding. I end all of you into
a space between time’s contradiction
sometimes where the sun and the moon
would agree. I only hope to see you soon.
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This is how
Petersen Vargas
1. This is how you will fall out of love with me:
slowly. Like a final circus act gone wrong, where
the lion eats his master, and the trapeze artist
holds on to a single strip of rope, his fingers
unable to carry the weight of his fear. This is
how you will fall out of love with me: in the
summer smell of days when sweat becomes
skin, and desire looms as if springing out from
the trail of our very shadows.
2. We wanted to play games, so we did, ended
up playing hide and seek, only to end up looking
only for ourselves.
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3. I bought deluxe bus tickets to Baguio, a pair
of them, and safely tucked them in the inside
pocket of my backpack. The conductor asked if
we were to wait for the ticket holder whose seat
was to occupy the one next to mine. "He's not
coming," I said, as if I held the ignorance of a
tiny insect, until the shape of his absence
almost became apparent in myeyes, taking the
form of a colourless shadow.
4. I tried to plant you a whole garden of love
letters, only to find out that paper do not grow
from these seeds.
5. While I listened to my physics professor's
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lecture on Newton's laws of motion, I sent you a
text, saying, "We're nothing but pure potential
energy." I imagined the furrows in your brows,
the silence that we'd share afterwards, and me
saying, "I wanted anything but inertia, but here
you are -- I mean here we are, exact as inertia
would be."
6. I told you once that my tears have finally
made their own sea. You laughed as if it were a
silly joke, only to find out later you'd end up
drowning in our collective sadness.
7. Just because you left did not mean I were to
also leave you. So I stayed behind the door with
all my things packed in suitcases, waiting for the
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leaving to be over.
8. You likened me to a map once, and I smiled
at the thought of all the places that reminded
you when you saw each part of me--my face,
you said, consisting of countries, and my skin,
the vast ocean, and my fingers, drifting
continents.
9. Remember the stench of that room, and taste
the milkshake-memory of 50s Diner on your
tongue. Remember that it had to rain, of all
moments, and it had to be in this freezing city, of
all places, and it had to be with you, of all
people. Remember the bloodshed of a war that
is, after all, only a thunderstorm, and the blood,
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after all, only raindrops scattered on bare skin.
Remember the night you had to sleep cramped
up on a living room chair, and now I remember,
dreaming of you slow-dancing with me, only to
find out months later that you'd waltz your way
further away from me.
10. All memories lead back to you.
11. This is how you will fall out of love with me,
how you will trip on your way the day you said
you had to stay, how you will gather the dust
collecting on the shelf where all those novels
talking about love found and eventually lost are
lined up, looking like young students in a
morning assembly. This is how you will fall out
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of love with me, how the shorelines will remain
still and dry, of that singular space where
memory tells of sunset walks, our footsteps still
burrowed onto that seaside floor, as if
permanently engraved, as if to say, here our
togetherness exists, and watch the entrance of
a weak wave suddenly wash it all away.
12. We walked around fog-covered Burnham
Park with the intention to capture a portrait of
each other. I looked through my camera,
already obscured by mist on the glass of its
lens, and still took your photograph anyway
here was how your disappearance would look
like: all shadow, all obscurity.
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13. Looking back, it was that trip to Baguio
where I both found and lost you, where the
promise of cold demanded nothing but your
promise of warmth, and how I remained cold,
the coldest I've ever been, even when your frail
arms tried to cover the entire length of my skin.
14. This is how you will fall out of love with me.
This is how you will fall, as if it was never
enough for you to fall further away, as if diving
head-straight towards a body of water from the
peak of a cliff, as if there was nothing for you to
hold on to anymore -- how you will fall, fall, fall
not only out but away, too, away from and out of
love with me, as if it was your plan all along.
This is how you will fall out of love with me, and
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I will always pretend I was never made to
understand it.
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[Untitled]
Chad de Guzman
it is august, and the cold is just starting to crawl
under my nail beds and into my skin. the air is
wet and it’s leaving icy kisses beneath the
hairline of my nape. the bustle of a highway
could be heard from far away, my heavy-lidded
eyes plastered to where engines are whirring in
the distance.
“hey”, he speaks, snapping fingers in front of my
face. my head snaps back and i feel my eyes
lag for myself before they land on him. his fist is
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still within reachable distance of my face and i
just wanted to extend my hand out and feel the
fine hairs on his wrist, but i have a feeling he
might jerk away.
so i settle with another sip and choke out a,
“yeah?”
he reclines on his chair. his chair cradles his
weight, and he feels so much lighter now that
he sighs and pushes his shades up the bridge
of his nose. i could follow the trail of smoke that
pours out of his nostrils and i’m sure they’d lead
to the trees, somehow.
“nothing.” the word rolls off casually in his
tongue, like he’s all too familiar with it. “it’s just,
never mind.”
and then he just stares, and i know that his face
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isn’t exactly unreadable but part of me might’ve
opted to just ignore that fact. i’m not exactly
looking at him—i only take time memorizing
how his upper jaw stretches his cheeks
whenever he huffs out smoke.
his jaw snaps shut, again. “you’re reading me
again.”
i chuckle. i don’t know why, but i do, and he
finds it strange. his pasty arms are now folded
against his stomach, and i’m telling myself: this
person is just so difficult to unfold sometimes—
“well,” i croak out, my throat scalded by tea and
ash, “it’s not exactly a waste of time,” and i
chase the words before they completely escape
me and add, “if you know what i mean.”
for some reason gears unwind in my head, the
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cold’s now a little bit icier, the warmth of the tea
kissing the rim of my lips when i take another
sip, because my eyes don’t really go anywhere
except to his. and a few minutes pass and his
eyes don’t go anywhere either, like we’re
machines left ungreased and time’s just
expecting us to malfunction any time soon
because, well, that’s what happens.
but what happens is his cheeky smirk, and then
the highway is loud in my ears.
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Waves may break, but the salt lingers
Arkon Dia
A man sits on top of the sea wall. His legs
dangle over the edge, and his hands rest
behind him. There is a smile on his face, a
haunted one; and a sadness in his eyes as
deep as the waters below. He wears a light
yellow jacket, with silver lining on the sides that
have faded. His cargo pants are grey, with tears
at the cuffs on the bottom. His shoes are old,
the black fading to white. Everything about him
has seen better days.
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A couple sees him, feels the sadness in his
gaze; and approaches. The man with a Mohawk
asks him.
“You ok man?”
The man in the Yellow Jacket turns his head
with a start.
“Huh? Yeah...”
He trails off, voice low and resigned a voice of
someone who is reliving a great loss with a
weight that crushes the chest. A ghost of a
tragedy, whispers of sadness.
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Mohawk prods.
“You seem kinda... lost...”
Yellow Jacket smiles, the same haunted smile.
“Haha, I just terribly miss someone...”
“Who?”
“My girlfriend.”
Mohawk is curious.
“When have you guys last gone out?”
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“Two years ago.”
“Whoa, why that long ago?”
“She's dead, today's our anniversary; which is
part of the reason I'm out here.”
The girl next to Mohawk has been quiet all the
while, but upon hearing Yellow Jacket’s reason
she gasps; and grabs onto Mohawk’s shoulder.
“No! Don't ask! Don’t be insensi—“
Mohawk cuts her off.
“Sorry man. What happened?”
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Yellow Jacket lets out a sigh, a sigh that has
been pent up for years. An exhale of an
old memory, lost in turbulent thoughts, like how
waves lose their form after they are alive with
motion; how they roll back into the sea only to
rise and break again.
“Some maniac, drugs or whatever, pushed her
off this very wall. She fell down like a rag doll,
hit the stones below like a rag doll too. Nothing
graceful about her death,no peace. She went
down screaming, all violence... then suddenly
quiet. That's why I hang out here, and sit. I can
feel her. When it rains, the raindrops feel like
her kisses on my skin. And when there's a
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storm, I hear her voice in the wind calling out for
me, in anguish. Not anguish that is born from
hate, but from loneliness, her sudden loneliness
and our distance. She's in the waves too. When
it smashes against the sea wall, that's her.
Reaching out for me and I reach out my hand in
turn. I like hanging out here, lonely as it seems
but I'm not. Far from it. I'm... happy...sad but
happy.”
Mohawk’s eyes widen.
“Man, you are one step from suicide.”
A flicker of life bursts in Yellow Jacket’s eyes.
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“Haha, am I? or have I died long ago? I felt it, I
felt the impact more than she did. I felt her body
hit the rocks below, I heard it break. I felt the
agony she didn't suffer, her pain lived through
me. Every bone that broke, broke inside me...
She's alive in a way... and it's not just in the
sea... She's in my loneliness, her hurt survives.
Waves may break, but the salt lingers; and I
taste that salt every single day, it is a welcome
bitterness.”
Disconcerted, and not wanting to push Yellow
Jacket over the edge; Mohawk backs away.
“Shit, uhhh... well man we gotta go, sorry.”
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A confused expression spreads across Yellow
Jacket’s face, as if just recently realizing how
much time he has lost. He stands up, brushes
dirt of his trousers and faces the couple.
“Yeah, yeah, I need to go too, it’s late. I should
have been home long ago.”
He takes one last look at the sea, one last look
at her face;
and he leaps.
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50
StopJohn Levi Masuli
Somehow I wanted to invoke some dark urban symbols into the following linessomething about rats and canals and sharpened scissorsglinting in the moonlight; glinting teeth of prostitutesunder shades of sad briefly disappearingin flashes of drunken carssomething like thatsomething that invokes fear and sad and sad againand cars and of course, myself,meditating on these pictures that I and a multitude of others have made their own.Something somehow stops me from doing so,instead, I chose to simply to look at the path,check for holes and the occasional shit, go homein the same way as a stop stops a stop.
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Two Variants on/of Friday the 13thIvan Emil Labayne
Self-conscious FridayIt is Friday the 13th and who else to remember but youYes you, eye-tied, tongue-wagging readerWho languishes in your bed on an early morning chilly sauceThe calendar says 13 and it’s Friday and naknangputsa‘di ako lalabas ngayong araw!(Pero actually, nakalabas na ako ngayong araw)Ngunit paano kung ang kahulugan ng kalendaryo ay pagsilang?For instance: potentials for poetry like the sound of Lupang SinilanganOr: potentials for heroism a la Diego SilangMaybe cringe in your chocolate crinkles breakfastAnd your chocolate-flavored cigarette and caramel coffee
While all the people go about the sexy
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day.
It’s Friday the 13th and I remember you pretty-faced readerAnd you don’t believe those words because you arenot flattered and you keep reading, suspending disbelief
It’s Friday the 13th and I remember you and you are readingthis and the world outside your world is a worldwho fancies with luscious lips that this Fridayis just another day.
So get up, get up, and don’t fall for that One Direction songMaybe remember The Cure’s song with a Friday I’m in love.Or leave this page now.
Sleepless Friday
It is Friday the 13th and who else to remember
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but you,Yes you, blue-fingernailed, ensaymada cheekboned,loneliness assassin.
Can we repeat the lyrics of The Doors?When I stare at your thinking and you dandruff, I wish there were no doors.And we are locked in a turtle-paced universe thatwill abruptly give up and stop moving.And 2014 won’t come and you won’ turn 21.
It is Friday the 13th and as a halt plunges on us,Let the books of Carter and the phrases of Audenembody themselves in us:Embraces will be annihilations.Sleepless will be fucks.
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Paper BoatDumay Solinggay
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[walang pamagat]
Janine Go Dimaranan
May tunog ng tren sa kanan
May patak ng ulan sa kaliwa
May sumisigaw na lalaki sa likuran
May tahimik na liwanag sa harapan
Sa mga bahagyaan ay kung anu-anong
pangako
At pakong pinupukpok sa palad ng
antisipayon at gunita,
Lahat naririnig, upang sumayaw ang
talampakan.
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Ang IV ang pang-apat ng literary folio
ng pedantic pedestrians.
Maaring kontakin ang grupo mula sa
kanilang facebook page sa
facebook.com/pedanticpedestrians o
sundan sa twitter @pedpedestrians.
Hindi maaring ibenta and anumang
bahagi ng foliong ito nang walang
pahintulot ng grupo, pero puwede mo
ito idownload at ipa-download sa iba.
Puwede mo ring i-print pang tiktik ng
kawali.
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