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Yes, a year and a half of what we like to call “planning” and this is all we’ve got to show for it. This, the 3rd issue of Bomba!, is filled with everything you need for kicking off a meaningful and prosperous life of self-actualization in 2011 and beyond – literature with the potential to move you to tears, fusing oh-so-beautifully with heavy mental art capable of challenging all you know about reality – every single piece, for now, uncharted territory to yours truly, as the lazy asses behind this venture have not, as of the moment, given me as much as a preview of where this supposed “foreword” I’m fabricating will eventually fit into. Nope, I personally don’t even know what literary farts I’ve contributed to this run-down self-proclaimed “publication”. Srsly. Aside from a few generous contributors who diligently took time out to send in their work via emails (and even hard copies), everything in these pages was pieced together from Facebook notes and various posts across the interwebs – some with expressed written consent; others with vague permission, at most, from the authors. Well now, I suppose that’s something the whole family can enjoy! (Legality, of course, is highly questionable.) -Dirty Sex
TEXTS AND IMAGES ARE NOT RELATED..THIS IS NOT A CHILDREN’S BOOK! THIS IS OUR FIRST TIME CURATING AN UNDERGROUND ZINE! ENJOY.FOR MORE ART RELATED SHIT CHECK OUR ON-LINE PUBLICATION. www.streetkonect.com
“GENESIS” by Krayon Jello Skunk (skunkwashere.multiply.com) Bek (ubec-bek.blogspot.com) “Nailed” by Juju (thejujubag.wordpress.com) boyagimat (boyagimat.multiply.com) “Street Reform” by Blic (bliconstreets.blogspot.com) “God Save the King” by Odoy Giant (http://www.odoygiant.com/) “In Life We Swim” by xpositivex “the junks” by Buritomachine (http://buritomachine.multiply.com/) Flai-Me! (meflai.wordpress.com) Zero Signal by !NODORO ( www.inodoro-design.com) Nemo Aguila (cantfindnemo.weebly.com) “The Wall” by Deform (deformindustry.blogspot.com) crisisystem and dobolyonilever by koloWn (kolown.net) “tabis sa kadudahan” by soi soi depektoy Eleven “HK Girls” by Bart (bartbombscebu.multiply.com) “In The Name of Suffering” by Sampipebomb (sampipebomb.multiply.com) curated by streetkonect (www.streetkonect.com)
Minimal Horror by Per Da Ma for Pietro Nikolas Bouffard
I Night Ill (a 70-word univocalic story) Diding’s inkling fits right with this thing. It’s nihilistic. It’s swift - inching nigh. It’s spritzing vivid crippling milk. It hits his right shin. “Christ!” Diding writs, “I think it is wild.” Diding pricks it in its gills. “Killing it is illicit!” his kid’s whining. “It isn’t. It’s licit. I’m finishing it!” Diding snips it in its midriff. It’s writhing. It’s twitching its fins. “This night ill is finis,” Diding glibs.
O Dolor (a 70-word univocalic story) Doctor Wong looks sort of off, forlorn. Poop:
Probots loot homo-mood. Probots concoct world doom. Probots do pogrom tomorrow.
Wong’s proton rococo of robots opt to form mobs to prompt gloom on homo bosoms. “Good Lord!” Wong hoots, lost for words. NOW. No jot of plot to stop Wong’s wrong for good. No tools to confront Wong’s probots. No God to proctor Wong’s rood of dolor. No comfort. No protocols. . . . .
(Y) Myth (this is not a 70-word univocalic story) Rhythm hymn’s my ply. Try fly by sly, spry sylph. Why shy? Pry, spy nymph. Dry gypsy myrrh, pygmy gym sty. Cysts fry, synch dry: thy pyx, thy styx. My, thy tryst! Psych my gyp, my myth!
E Melee (a 70-word univocalic story) The serpent enters then perverts Rene’s sleep. Rene sees the serpent. The serpent leers, fetters Rene. “Help!” he spews, enfeebled. “Never eschew me,” the serpent sneers. “Nepenthe’s here, Rene.” “Nepenthe?” Rene tells the serpent. “Yes,” the serpent sneers. “Men meet me whenever they expect the sheer end. Men see me ere the trek.” “The trek’s where?” Rene tells Nepenthe. “Hell,” Nepenthe sneers. Rene seems effete. “There, there,” the serpent sneers.
A Fall (a 70-word univocalic story) Blatant lads play Satan and start wars and amass lands and harm mammals and plants and mar facts and plan bacchanals and ransack art and harass and nab and hang mahatmas and bards and avatars and lazars. “Damn pawns,” brags man. “What lambs!” Man: a madcap, a rascal, a vandal, a scandal. Atlas can’t grasp man’s grand ball, at last. Atlas pants and lays hands, and all man fall.
U Nuts (a 70-word univocalic story) Dumb Ruth runs but Numb Hunk bucks, tugs Ruth, slugs Ruth’s gut. “Fuck!” Hunk grunts. Ruth plunks. “Bunkum!” “Fun fun fun!” Hunk just huffs. Hunk pulls up Ruth’s muu-muu. Ruth puffs. “Bunkum!” “Shut up,” Hunk bumps Ruth’s lumps. Hunk lulls Ruth, lugs Ruth. Hunk hums, hugs, fucks Ruth’s cunt. Push pull push pull push pull. Pump pump pump pump. Hunk grubs, plucks club, clubs Ruth’s skull. Hunk gulps, struts, turns, runs.
Where The Birds Sleep At Night e francisco
I always wonder where they go when the yellow lights become the sun when darkness fills the sky the moon behind the clouds when buses are filled with tired homesick souls impatient waves of color reflecting on the windows as the smokey dark clouds slowly eat the time
the streets are empty now the trees are quiet the sky is dead wings have become dreams of the past flight is out of sight and I wonder where that place is where the birds sleep at night
Songstress of The Bones: For Diane e francisco
the lights turned red as you came out embracing your guitar as if it was your soul as if it was your life i could see fear in your lips making a smile as fragile as the clouds and you started strumming familiar strums i used to hear in solitude so soft so sincere so mundane your voice came out like ashes ashes from your bones crushed and burned by emptiness
by nothingness but you didn’t care you sang like the wind to the dead tress caressing every branch every root every dead leaf hoping to find ghosts your ghosts our ghosts my ghosts trying to find their way out of their emptiness of nothingness
and then the lights turned blue and i saw your eyes widened with relief and sadness i could hear your brittle bones crack as you walked away so timid yet gracious and it was beautiful
ROSE OF THE REPIS by Maria Spada
Persecution begins at roll call when your last name is Echegaray. My first name is Susan, but no one remembers that. People don’t let you forget that you share a name with someone famous- or in my case, infamous. I am no way related to this infamous rapist. We only share a last name. Outside of the criticism, that’s all it is to me: a name. Echegaray. Rapist. Probably burning in hell right now. I would rather much be called a fat, self-proclaimed artist than a rapist. It’s easier to laugh at and the accusation wouldn’t be taken seriously outside the classroom. Unfortunately, that’s what I had become in high school. A rapist. As soon as anyone got word of my last name, the ridicule would start. 1st year: ‘Echegaray? Really?! You’re name’s Echegaray?’ Commence laughing. Launch public humiliation. Boom. The fact that they didn’t care whether I was a girl or not made me hate the world. Boom. 2nd year: ‘Baby (Perez), better not sit next to Echegaray!’ 3rd year: ‘Miss Ann, Echegaray cheated! Leee-thal in-jec-tion! Lee-thal in-jec-tion! Lee-thal in-jec-tion!’ 4th year: Exit Susan Echegaray. End social contact. ‘HIGH SCHOOL LIFE’S THE BEST’, my ass. So I sit here minutes from the start of another four years of education. I don’t know if can take any more insults. How I wish my last name was Bugtai. Mautganon. Cugmo. Qalabera. I can’t imagine myself graduating again with every motherfucking clown in the class making ‘rapist’ jokes about me. One night after an exhausting field trip back in high school, my father found me crying in front of the TV. I told him everything about the ‘rapist’ shit. Everything. ‘Are you?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then there’s no basis for an accusation, is there?’ ‘Pa, you don’t know how it feels.’ ‘Susan,’ he said calmly, tapping my back, ‘It’s only high school. Sooner or later it’s over.’ No. Even now, they’re still 6-year-old brained 18-year-olds. I don’t think they’ll ever grow up. When I was on year 1, no one had any major issues with anyone until a fat jock screamed ‘Leonarda Echegaray’ inside the classroom. Since then, I became the object of ridicule. The only person who didn’t laugh - the only true friend I had back then - was a boy named Dindo. He never laughed at me. But he didn’t defend me either. Nevertheless, it was better than nothing. We became friends on year 2. He wrote poetry and prose and introduced me to Philosophy. If you ignore pain, you can transcend it. Bullshit. He knew that at fourteen years old with only one friend in the world, I could ache, and so I could write. He used me. So fucking what. So we read poems together down the empty basketball court every lunch break, ignoring the group of tormentors who kept on shouting ‘RAPIST! RAPIST!’ at me as they laugh and clutch their stomachs. Hell, if I was only a pretty kid and belonged to the cheerleading team, they’d probably want to get raped by me. Even Dindo. But I was not, so I kept on. ‘I have a friend named Ferdinand Marcos.’ Dindo told me. ‘We call him Din-Din. He isn’t
related to the dictator. Like you, he’s been mistreated and ridiculed. But you know what, he ignored them [bollocks]. He’s a happy boy.’ Somehow, it made me feel better. Not that it inspired me to ignore those immature classmates of ours. I felt better because my name isn’t as horrible as his friend’s. If my name was Ferdinand Marcos, I’d slit my throat. Leo Echegaray raped his own daughter, but Ferdinand Marcos raped the entire country. How nice. At year 4 Dindo started dating a beautiful girl with a ‘less-offensive’ name from the lower section, and the times we had spent together reading poems were, of course, discounted. I wished I was the beautiful girl with the less-offensive name. I’d be the happiest. One Thursday night after our graduation day, he talked to me over the phone. Write. The most inspirational verb. Never let anyone bring you down. They don’t know you. The most wonderful command ever given by my secret crush. He hung up then. That was the last time we talked. I heard he went off to Manila to study at De La Salle University. Now. Echegaray is only a name. Just because I share the name of someone horrible doesn’t make me horrible. &@*$^. He’s burning in hell now for ruining my adolescence. %&*#&. God, give me the confidence. *** Persecution begins at roll call when your last name is Echegaray. Joan Abella. Here. I want to change (it) (them) (me). Marichuy Asnar. Present. I don’t want to go through any more name-calling, Evelynda Cortez. Here! insults, Rowena Dabon. Ma’am. ridicule, Maricar Dejan. Present. pain, Anna Marie Delantar. Yes, ma’am. nothing. I want them to see me for who I am, what I am. Lyka Eborde. Yes. It’s hard to see how that can be done with a name like.. Susan.... Eche...garay? But I’m here, and I know who I am. More importantly, I know what I’m not. One day, everyone else will too.
....
by Maria Spada
send whatever - honey, candy, chocolate words you can to my deafen me. i promise i can hear the taste. i promise i can still function (like a robot ENK-ENK-ENK)even though the maelstrom in my mind has torn me into shreds scattered on the flo or. teach me how to love creat ion,although - i must confess i sail into a holocaust of opinions i was taught were precarious from bir th. feed me a slice of your bread even though you know i can never take what i can’t give back. send whatever mildew words you can; i promise i can hear the taste. i promise.
Galatea
by Nique de la Paz
‘Hey, doll. I got a special needs guy for you on line two. He says his name is Ariel and he wants you to pretend that you’re in love.’ ‘Oh, sweet Jesus.’ ‘Tell me about it. We get all the weirdos this time of night. What ever happened to good old BDSM?’ ‘Some people are so lonely. It’s tragic.’ ‘No kidding. Alright, hun. I’m gonna put him through.’ --‘Hello.’ ‘Hello, lover.’ ‘Oh, Lola. You have a beautiful voice.’ ‘Thank you, darling. You have a very sexy voice yourself. So, what do you wanna do?’ ‘I want to make love to you.’ Whoever this Ariel guy was, he didn’t sound like the type that used phone sex services too often. But then again he didn’t seem like a rookie either. Dolores could tell now, in much the same way a whore could, if a man was experienced in that sort of endeavor or not, but Ariel was difficult to place. He spoke calmly to her, confidently. He was in charge. But at the same time he was full of euphemisms and romantic doodads, shied away from the vulgar, harsh words that her other customers immersed themselves in. ‘I run my fingers through the soft down between your legs and dip my head to kiss the pulse under the velvet skin of your throat.’ ‘Oh, baby. You’re making my pussy so wet.’ ‘Please don’t say it like that. I can feel how moist you are, your netherlips are slick with it. ‘Yes, lover. My netherlips are dripping.’ Perhaps it was a kink he had. Maybe he got off on romance novels. Never one to disappoint, Dolores—Lola-gave him the most lavish, florid descriptions of sex she’d ever given a customer. He enjoyed it so much that by the time he was done, he didn’t want to hang up. He wanted to “spoon”. ‘Tell me that you love me.’ ‘I love you.’ ‘I’m imagining what you look like.’ ‘I have sandy blonde hair and blue green eyes, the color of deep waters. Creamy white skin with a tint of gold at the edges--’ ‘I bet it got that way because of the beach. I bet you grew up by the sea. I can tell. It’s in your voice.’ Dolores paused, a little unnerved. ‘Yes... I grew up by the sea, you’re right. In fact my eyes turned this color because I stared out at it too much and too often, until the wind softened the brown of them and the ocean kissed into them its colors. I sat there, on the shore so much because I was waiting for my true love. I sat there and sang and combed my hair, waiting for a ship to port that had him. I sat and sang and combed all day: that’s why my eyes are this color, that’s why my hair is so long.’ Ariel paused this time. ‘Singing and combing. Like a Pre-Raphaelite siren. Lola, that’s beautiful.’ Later, Dolores dug up her notes on Greek mythology. She’d written about sirens when she was still in college, studying English lit. Sirens were mythological women who lived on an island and lured sailors to their deaths on its rocky shores—or else ate them up. They had the most beautiful voices, but they were hideous—or at least according to most mythmakers, who were men and “naturally afraid of the castrating effects of female sexuality.” As for the Pre-Raphaelites, Dolores did not know much about them, with the exception of Dante Rossetti who, after burying his poems with his wife (Elizabeth Siddal?) and vowing to write no more, had her exhumed years later to retrieve them. The person he hired to do the deed reported (Rossetti was too squeamish to see it done) that the corpse had not decomposed and, indeed, her hair had grown and filled the casket—but Dolores didn’t buy into all that bullshit. ‘Why are you suddenly talking about all this morbid crap?’ Ruth, aka Brandy Bardot, complained. They were sitting outside a coffee place, Dolores and she, with a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge. ‘I’ve always been interested in morbid crap. I was an English major.’ ‘Well, quit it!’ Ruth had the sultry voice of an Old Hollywood actress and a sweet Southern accent—the kind that brought money in like magic. Especially when she said things like ‘It gives me the heebie-jeebies,
Dolly.’ ‘Hola Lola. Have I got a surprise for you. It’s that Ariel guy again.’ ‘Wow. Really?’ ‘Mhm. Looks like you’ve got yourself another regular. Said no one else would do, can you imagine that?’ ‘I’m just that good. Put him through, babe.’ --‘Hello again, Lola.’ “Hello to you too, lover. Nice to hear from you again.’ ‘How could I resist your siren song?’ ‘You can’t. You know what this means, don’t you?’ ‘Tell me.’ ‘I’m going to have to eat you up.’ This time he obsessed over her clothes, making her build them up in his imagination so that he could rip them apart. Deconstruct them. Again he stayed after he came, after that cathartic bellow – the one Dolores had heard so many times from so many different men. He was panting. ‘Oh, God. My Aphrodite.’ Boticelli painted her, a plump, pink oyster on the half shell. On the computer monitor, Dolores looked and looked at the painting of Aphrodite, the sea foam lapping up at her feet, her sandy blond hair. Dolores laughed to think what Ariel would think if she shattered his dreams of a blond goddess with aquamarine eyes, and what Ariel actually looked like. He was probably a short, balding man in his late forties, old enough to be her father. As for Dolores, she was really a very young woman at twenty-six, but perhaps a bit older than she made herself out to be. Her hair was long and curly, but a deep shade of brown, not sandy blond. And she was prone to fat, was in a constant battle with it. Her skin was a yellow ocher, an effect of her childhood days by the sea. Those were real, except for the combing and the singing and the waiting. Back home, on Bantayan island, she collected clams and oysters, some to cook and others to torture until they turned stiff and she could not open their mouths. Often—more often these days—Dolores was transported with happy accidents like snatches of notes that seemed to suggest old songs and familiar images, back to that airy old house by the sea. It was an ancestral home, Spanish colonial, with large capiz shell shuttered windows and cool, overpolished wooden floors that she and her sisters “ice skated” on in their socks. She thought of their parents, who she was sure would go absolutely berserk if they knew what she did for a living. ‘I didn’t send you to America to be a pam-pam!’ her mother would shriek, no matter how hard Dolores would argue that, aside from making men ejaculate, phone sex operators have nothing in common with prostitutes. Besides, it’s a new world, a new age, everything is about prick teasing, etc etc etc. But it wouldn’t come to that (no pun intended); her parents believed that she was working as a receptionist for some insurance company. Partly true, because that’s what she’d been doing when she got this gig. She was squeamish at first, but she got the hang of it pretty soon, even started enjoying it. ‘You’re going to hell,’ she could hear her mother’s voice telling her. ‘unless you repent. Repent. Pray to Santa Maria.’ ‘You’re a real Jezebel, aren’t you?’ More of a statement than a question, and a rather vehement one at that. She’d done it again, made Ariel come harder than he meant to, and he was playing victim. ‘That depends on what you mean by Jezebel.’ ‘Jezebel. In Biblical terms: hussy, loose woman, slattern. In popular culture, with the advent of Theda Bara and Edith Piaf: femme fatale, incubus, vamp, bleeding my bank account dry.’ ‘In the historical sense: shrewd politician.’ ‘I definitely don’t mean it in that sense. Jezebel.’ ‘And here I thought you loved me.’ ‘My love’s not blind.’ ‘Deaf’, she corrected. Dolores, troubled, dug through her closet, searching for a journal of poetry she kept in college. She could remember—vaguely--writing a poem about Jezebel, about how Ezekiel was a bully, how he was afraid of female power and sexuality. And it suddenly struck her that Ariel was probably afraid of it too, could handle it only in small doses—perhaps not at all—and needed to have the experience filtered through words, and
if he ever knew (Biblical sense) it in the raw, without that mist of words in between him and the Female Body, he would implode with its weight. It made sense. Ariel was probably one of those brittle-as-glass men with stringy limbs and hair, all white flesh and poking bones. She didn’t have much trouble putting that soft, breathy voice, like the rushed whisperings of low tide, to a kite of a man. And his name, Ariel, probably a fake, he had chosen that because Ariel, in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, was a spirit of the air: light, insubstantial, fleeting. If she told him her theories about who he really was, what would he say? Dolores thought she could hear him chuckling. ‘Lola,’ he would tease, ‘you’ve been thinking about me, haven’t you? Darling. Tell me what you’re wearing.’ ‘Hello?’ ‘Ma, it’s me.’ ‘Dolores? It’s eleven o’clock! Is there something wrong?’ ‘Sorry. Forgot about the time difference.’ ‘Okay ra. Are you alright, ija? You sound tired.’ ‘I’m fine, ma. How are you and pa?’ ‘Oh, you know. Same as usual. His rheuma is acting up and both our blood pressures are through the roof, what with this whole business with your sister and that married man from Mandaue. Personally I don’t mind that he’s old enough to be her father twice over. He’s rich and generous and generally nice, but that wife of his is a real bruja. They’re separated and still she’s chasing him around--’ ‘Well, he is her husband. What would you do if dad did that to you?’ ‘What would I do? I’d let him fuck all he pleases. I’d be very happy if I didn’t have to worry about his dick anymore.’ ‘Mama!’ ‘What? Oh, I’m only joking, ija. Madre Dios, my Americanized daughter upset over a tiny green joke.’ ‘Yes, very funny. Listen, ma. I need you to do something for me. Do you remember that little leather journal I kept back in college?’ ‘The one you were always scribbling in? Yes. Why?’ ‘I need you to look for it and mail it to me, if you find it. Please. Send it by special post—I’ll send you money to pay for the expenses.’ ‘Sure, ija. If I find it I’ll send it to you. Oh and, could you add a little extra money? To pay for your dad’s medicine.’ ‘Sure ma.’ ‘Thank you. We love you! Miss you! Big hugs! MWAH!’ ‘Hey there, sweetheart. I’ve got a special needs caller for you on line one.’ ‘Is it that Ariel guy again?’ ‘Nah, some guy named Ryan. Wants to play teacher.’ ‘Put him through.’ --‘Hey, Ryan.’ ‘Hi. What are you wearing? God, you have a sexy voice. My dick’s hard already.’ Two weeks and no word from Ariel after the Jezebel incident. Maybe she bored him. Maybe she was too good an actress and scared him away. Maybe she shouldn’t have been too authentic. Maybe something happened to him. Maybe he was dead. Maybe he’d fallen in love. ‘Oh, honey. Look at you. You look like you were run over by a couple of trucks. Are you on drugs?’ ‘You’ve always been very frank, Ruth. Lucky that you’re pretty too.’ Ruth laughed and flipped her newly glossed hair back. It was a brighter shade of brown now, almost red, all curly and crinkled up in a crisp way that reminded Dolores of autumn leaves. She wanted to reach out and touch it, to see if it made that crackling sound. She, Ruth, was a picture of overdone perfection, all made up like a gaudy window mannequin, designed to attract attention. They were at a bar, celebrating with some other friends, because Ruth just a day ago got engaged to her boyfriend of three years. She was going to quit
the biz and start a little shop of ceramic figurines, and the idea of that made Ruth bloom in a very natural way despite the artificial junk she piled on her person. Dolores was an abject gray lump beside her, green at the edges with envy. The journal arrived from Bantayan with a few pictures. They had built a new room for Dolores’ sister’s baby. She was heavy with it, beaming next to an older man with salt and pepper hair and a trim waist. Not at all unattractive. Dolores put the pictures aside and started flicking through her old journal. She’d written ambitiously on a whole slew of subjects ranging from art to myth to sex and death, with the occasional invocation of the Cthulu mythos, which struck her as bizarre as she could not recall enjoying—or reading, for that matter—the works of Lovecraft. The Jezebel poem was very near the end pages of the book, which were still blank, and it was very strange. As it turned out, young Dolores had gotten it into her head that Jezebel and Elijah the Prophet were in love. If you are Elijah, I am Jezebel, Woman of my Lord. Look: My mouth is as cruel as scripture, My neck is a temple pillar, proud. My skin is smooth as tongues of sin. Touch me, Elijah, you big bully. ‘Hun, it’s that Ariel guy again.’ ‘Oh. Put him on.’ --‘Lola, dearest.’ ‘Hello, sailor.’ ‘I heard your song, my siren. Did you miss me?’ ‘Terribly.’ ‘Good. Now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna turn the tables on you.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘This time, I’m going to feast.’ It was his turn. Dolores couldn’t help how wet she was getting, couldn’t quit chaffing the heel of her hand against the crotch of her panties, couldn’t quell the sharp, almost painful tingle and throb of her clit, could not stop the deliciously maddening wave of orgasm from sweeping through her body. She was panting. ‘Oh, Lola. That was real.’ Dolores didn’t recognize herself in the mirror. She expected to see a sandy-haired goddess every time she looked. She expected sea-green eyes and milky, honey tinged skin. Somehow she’d started believing the lie and couldn’t be Dolores anymore. ‘Hey, sweetie. It’s that Ariel guy again.’ ‘Put him on.’ --‘Hello again, Lola. How are you?’ ‘I love you.’ ‘I love you too.’ ‘I mean it. It’s real. My name is Dolores Espiritu and I’m from Bantayan, a tiny island in the Philippines, which means I have brunette hair, not sandy blond. My eyes are shit brown, not sea green. I’m twenty-six, not twenty-three, and that is the truth. And the whole truth is that I love you.’ There was a long pause, and Dolores forgot to breathe. She was so still and silent that she could hear Ariel’s mind ticking, as if it was the clock on her desk. And then, ‘I’m sorry, Lola. Dolores. I didn’t mean for this to happen.’
‘Yes.’ ‘Goodbye.’ And his voice was so infinitely tender and distant that for a moment she believed that he was speaking from the bottom of the ocean. * Eight or nine miles away, Ariel McKinney, an aspiring writer, pored over the notes for his newest attempt at a novel. It was going to be about a prostitute who meets and falls in love with a writer, like him, who then turns her into a poet and an honest woman. The working title was “Galatea”. On the very first page of his notebook was written in a sloppy hand, as if in a rush: ‘I grew up by the sea. In fact my eyes turned sea green because I stared at the ocean too much and too often, until the wind softened the brown of them and the ocean kissed into them its colors.’ Ariel took a blue marker and scribbled the word ‘shit brown’ into the margin, smiling.
“
{
ON THE TYRANNY OF SLEEP AND excerpt) WAKING...” (an by Francis Maria
PART I: RUNNING COLORS, LOSING SLEEP
“I’m not paying attention to any of the words you’re saying; not a single sentence, line or syllable. Caught
{in the stillness of the moment, all I have ahead of me is the shade of the color you breathe; floating off into
the sunset and drowning itself in the very heart of these amber city streets. (It’s the taste of you, love- I miss it.) Hours have since gotten longer and the sun, she shines no brighter for me; merely ringing as sweet as you once were on the tip of my tongue. All I can hear is the taste of the color you breathe; the romance of falling in love amidst the noise of our compounded dissonance, the tender feeling of your warmth on my frayed senses. Don’t get me wrong, love. Please don’t get me wrong. It’s not the drugs I’ve been taking. I’m as sober as I could possibly be. All I’m high on is the scarcity of time and presence; choking from the lack thereof. Solely with the notion of space in abundance, only the tiniest part of your being remains in me; in this I let her speak, she speaks to me in depth. Whispered like a choir of muted angels, I still couldn’t hear a thing you’re saying. All I hear is the color you breathe; the tiniest part of you. It’s the part of you I miss.”
- Dearest September “...and pieces of my heart fall in the wake of every step I take; our vessels set sail in dreaming.” We’ve said it time and again, we’ll live and love in dead trajectory; bending over backwards in the vastness of our individual phenomenologies, drifting endlessly in the spaces we leave behind. In all our hearts’ restlessness, I have never been at ease as I have been, nurturing the memory of how your hands opened up to meet mine; all those months ago, miles away from where we stand now. My heart has never skipped a beat. It was in small hands that I sought serenity that was mine to uncover and yours to endure; shifting with the swelling tide, only to be buried beneath the full weight of the waves that were to envelop us. Adrift in the wash of the oceans of distance and tears, these subtle heartbeats sound the same; roaring with the burden of the day’s looming overcast. Drowned out and tear-soaked, however; my heartbeats sound the same. They yearn for you in loss and they shun you in their pain. With the healthiest part of a wounded heart, the wayfarer in me sets sail; past the threshold of sleep and dreaming to every waking part of consciousness. Today, your colors run.
PART II: TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR Love... she gently falls outside my window in drops and in seas; my bare windowsill serving as both a wet rag and a proverbial coastline to take in the fullness of the salt of her tears. She paints the earth a dirtier shade of white that way, sweeping the streets clean in her wake; cold, unforgiving and knee-deep in the hydrologic cycle of sleep and waking. Alone, I sit within the confines of my room’s six sides and eight corners; watching from a distance and sitting still whilst the flickering streetlights of neighborhood below me cut through the haze of the slow building downpour. “The whole earth looks so small from here, we’re all so distant.”, I think to myself. The rain just falls in the background, growing stronger by the minute. Sleepless in an all encompassing void, I am bound by neither the restraints of Darwinian sociobiology nor the probabilistic expanses of spatial situation. With my heart rooted deeply in the moment, this moment is mine to own. Sinking into the ambience, the rain dies down a little just to listen; she too runs sleepless. In this moment, rather this series of moments; the whole world spilt forth from each fragmented piece of movement and memory, expanding infinitely into the very depths of solipsism where the most ardent streaks of rationality fear to tread. Standing outside my window, the earth below becomes but an angry sea; soaked in heavenly tears and permeated by equal parts incidentality and bad faith. I take the plunge and awaken in a cold sweat. “I’ve been sleeping way too long...”
SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE BEATEN TO DEATH by Nique dela Paz The 77 pesos I kept for Jollibee’s hot fudge sundae -- nineteen 5 peso coins plus 7 pesos extra so I could get home minus 22 pesos for ice cream -and two 70 peso books in my hand. The choice: ignore the caramel smell of paper and satisfy the craving for ice cream that weeks of fruitless(ful, fruit) dieting has wrought upon my sugar-craving, fat-hankering, calorie-yearning body or substituting one act of gluttony for another, buy one book and slip the other into my school bag’s hungry mouth. I can do it, easy as peach mango pie. The guy at the cash register’s staring at FHM’s center piece and I don’t think he gives a shit about these books: nobody else is here and nobody sees me except for the caveman glowering from the poster that threatens--SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE BEATEN TO DEATH which I knew was an empty threat as two crimes don’t make a right, besides I’ve done this a few times before and no ape with a murderous streak’s caught me yet. I slide the book into my bag’s bowels and zip its mouth shut. For the moment I’m sated.
Do You Believe in Reincarnation? by Derwin Dexter Sy
She held me with one hand. On the other, she held a gun. We’re sitting by the edge of the rooftop of our 5-story dormitory building. When she found out I was going to off myself, she couldn’t comprehend why, but being who she is, and this no doubt was one of the factors that made me fall in love in the first place, she never freaked out. She asked if I was depressed and if there was any way she could help me through it. I laughed and assured her that I wasn’t. “Do you believe in reincarnation?” I asked her. She said she kinda did. “I don’t really buy the whole idea,” I told her. “But with the all good karma I’ve been having lately, I figured it’s worth a shot.” I didn’t realize then that suicide tends to turn karma topsy-turvy, canceling out everything good you’d done in your life so far. In hindsight, I should have read into the whole philosophy a little more. Her smile assured me that she understood completely. So there we were on the rooftop of our 5-story dormitory building. She held a gun in one hand and my hand in the other. I hadn’t quite decided how I’d go – but I had come up with two options, inspired by Hunter S. Thompson’s fantasy suicide – jumping off a building and falling straight into a fountain in the middle of the driveway of a plush hotel – and his actual exit – a classic gunshot. “Surprise me,” I told her. It was something I routinely asked her to do whenever we played the little mind games we were so fond of. She nodded and let my hand go. I slip quietly off the edge of the building. In the cliche slow-motion fall, I try to think happy thoughts before my head hits the pavement. All I come up with is, “That life-ender sex was epic.” Based (quite loosely) on Blur’s “Beetlebum”.
My Textmate Yolanda by Eric Goden Lomocso
(and other misadventures in love) It’s Roy’s last day in his third year of studying psychology at a university in Cebu City. His friends, now graduating in political science, invite him to a drinking party at a boardinghouse. There he meets the mysterious Yolanda and gets a crush on her. They become textmates in an unlikely way. His feelings for her becomes more obsessive, adding more to his sexual anxieties as a virgin. He sees her as a way out of his own repression, and the door into the mysterious realm of sex. One day during the Holy Week, he gets a surprise message from Yolanda to spend the weekend with her in Bantayan Island, getting him very excited of a possible first time “experience.” But he goes back to his southern hometown, instead, after he gets a message from his mother that someone he hasn’t seen for years is back. Another layer of anxiety looms as he nervously goes to make amends with the past. He may have reconciled with it, but he is unprepared of the things laying ahead that will take him to emotional extremes. His love’s sudden abandonment, and the seemingly calm episodes that draws new storms of passion leaves him easily overwhelmed in coping up with the real world. His journey in finding security, love, and self-discovery becomes full of deep recollections, hallucinations induced by the summer heat or depressing rain, alcohol and substance he is naive about, and by his own dilemma. A personal growth as unstable as our national situation. June 25 2010 http://orpheuscult75.wordpress.com/
taslak sa akong damgo adunay gagmayng lungag: mga tipak sa buak ug hubo nga kamatuoran nga misulay og budlay sa akong kaaliwasa. mga ilagang pawot sa samkon nga kahadlok.
precious perlas kadto iyahang mga mata ug dyamanti kining kasingkasing. iyahang mga ngipon bulawan.
MARQUIS DE KINTOLIMBO
TART I live in the daylight too like most of you. And like most of you thinking my job is dirty, I am dirty, yes. As early as the second sentence I already admit this. Not everybody can, of course. I find it funny how something as commonplace as dirt get a lot of attention. How people go to certain lengths to remove it. Dirt is from the ground. Imagine if dirt originally came from above? It would probably be called differently. And if you imagine that dirt came from above, it’s easy to envision the sky is down below. Dirt and sky switched places. We would be standing on the atmosphere and look up at soil, mud, earth. It will never happen, I know. I am a bit fond of imagining switching things. Like this one time I went to the bank to open an account because I keep spending the money I stashed inside a cookie tin in my boarding house. The bank teller who attended to me was a woman about 30-ish, so fair she looked almost white, crisp navy blue suit matched her cerulean blue eyeshadow, blue based red lipstick, delicately powdered nose, salmon pink cheeks, hair as straight and shiny as pins. She looked like someone who’d gone to college but I’m not certain if she’s from here. No matter how made she looked, like in a woman-of-the-world kind of way, I just can tell. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the way she moved- got to admit she was a little bit slow, not graceful slow, more like torpid slow, like life has tired her down or something. I don’t know if you have noticed but people who grew up or lived in the city most of their lives have this natural alertness around them that reminds me of a deer or a rat. And they don’t really stare. This woman teller looked at me not in a rude way but long enough to make me feel uncomfortable. Honestly, the bank aggravated my discomfort. What with all that steel and glass and marble everywhere making me feel like I’m in a stylized prison. She asked
me a few questions and instructed me to fill up a form. When all that was done, she took my money and stared at my money like it wasn’t money, like I just gave her a sandwich to deposit or something. She turned to me and asked without reluctance, “What do you do for a living?” By then, I bet all my money and sandwiches she isn’t from around here. Her lack of tact made me want to break her lovely made up face. I doubted her college education. “My father gave it to me”, I said. Funny, I thought because I never knew who mine was and it was nobody’s business, my life. By then, I realized that I had given her the opportunity to investigate further and I hated myself the more, regretting ever going to that cold hard stainless bank. Unlike most of you, I live much better at night. “Wait here a moment, please,” she smiled lazily, turned her swivel chair around, and walked away. I sighed in relief. I wouldn’t have known what else to say if she pressed further about that father. If I had one and if that wad of money the woman teller took with her as she walked into the other room was from a father, would I even be here? I sat there. I waited. I fantasized. The woman teller and I switched places. I’d gone to college, instructing people to fill up forms, ask questions, count money, my skin so fair, I’m wearing a crisp suit, black eyeliner, nude lipstick, champagne cheeks, my hair, straight and shiny as pins. I am the woman teller and well, she’s the one who got fucked by three men last night. - Shak Mancao
Life Support by Derwin Dexter Sy
I watch the crest and troughs oscillating on the LCD screen right next to my head. They’re slowing down by the minute. This hospital smell always bothered me; when I first caught a whiff of the putrid smell, I swore I would never find myself in a hospital again. I’d have much rather died unattended to in the comforts of my own bed. True, the uncertainty scares me, but I’ve embraced the inevitable weeks ago. I only wish I had finished school before this had to happen. I wish I had earned my architect’s license. I wish I didn’t break up with Ben just because he had a tendency to get piss drunk and pass out in my apartment; maybe if I did, my death certificate would have said I was “Married”. I wish they’d turn on the television so I wouldn’t be so bored in my final minutes. I wish I could speak up, then I’d proudly announce that there are atheists on the deathbed despite what they say. I wish they wouldn’t crowd around me like this; it makes me want to speak up even more. I hope they don’t block traffic with a silly “funeral walk” when they bury me. It’s been a month now since they brought me here. No one knows I’m conscious. I wish there was some way I could let them know. In a minute, they’ll turn off my life support. Based on Death Cab for Cutie’s “What Sarah Said”.
L<3VE “Well i might take a boat or i’ll take a plane I might hitch hike or jump a railroad train You’re kind of love drives a man insane?” - Richard Berry
have love, will travel. have cash, will dash. have sex, great spex. make love, great dove. get some, go crazy. squirt come, oh baby. have come, am here. stay low, they’ll hear. fat lady, sings blues. free jazz, pay dues. free agent, pay rent. crime pays, not much. make love, how much? no money, no touch. big breast, no rest.
BY MARQUIS DE KINTOLIMBO
wicked ways, double pays. gimme danger, little stranger. raise hell, won’t tell. ring bell, will tell. here today, gone tonight. mayday! slight oversight. hear today, night’s forecast: rainy monday, sky overcast. make hay, they say. true love won’t last. make hay, they say, true love don’t stay. love hurts, bad sports. love spurts, big squirts. big heart, bad lover. drink hard, bad liver. OOOOHH yous crazy. NOOoOOO yous crazy. maybe baby. slightly crazy.
night news blast killed. your views, glass filled. half empty, half full. play dirty, old school. don’t fight, no use. ladies love, daddy’s juice. dream big, major league. baby breathe, minor threat. have time, will travel. make moolah, rocknrolla.