f l o r i l e g i a PAROLE
U P
P O R T I A
2016
S O R O R I T Y
f o r e w o r d History tells us that in Medieval times, florilegia was a compilation of plant and flower paintings, done by botanical illustrators. They were created not only to portray collections of rare and exotic plants from within a particular garden or place, but may also contain information about plant properties that can be used for medicinal purposes. Eventually it has come to mean a collection of poetry, essays, paintings, and musical compositions – a vehicle of transmission for art. Art, much like nature, never stops giving. It provides just as much healing as it gives enjoyment. This year, we put together this issue in celebration of the art that keeps the human spirit going. There are many things that can be lost as a consequence of life: from fires, to drought, to long, cold nights. But it is through these adversities that the soul experiences a kind of rekindling – the kind that acknowledges that while there can be loss, there is always renewal. While there is destruction, there is creation. Despite (and even because of) difficulties, there is always a chance to flourish. Each of us holds for safekeeping our own type of blossoming, and we are more than thrilled to share with you a gathering of the many pieces that have emerged from different people both in and out of the College of Law. These works are an embodiment of new life, of bright wonder, of beauty that comes with healing. We hope it leads you to a kind of metamorphosis that ushers in a promise of hope, and a significantly sweeter spring.
a b o u t
P a r o l e
The UP Portia Sorority has always been an advocate of the arts. The Sorority releases the annual literary folio, Parole, during the Poetic Sojourn, a literary event which is part of its week-long founding anniversary celebration. Parole was introduced in 2004 under the able leadership of Lady President Azela Guerrero Arumpac, and has since become a Portian tradition.
c o n t e n t s LITERARY WORKS 1.16699016 × 10-8 hertz - Michaela Camitan (Untitled) - Mary Ruth Punzalan [not] to the nines - Maria Bluebook (Isang Pamamaalam) - Therese Buergo Condo Living - Mina Deocreza Apologia - Franco Regalado The Wildest Sea - Lesly Bries Paglimian - Roberto Miguel Rañeses Scent - Monching Damasing Small Tears - Karla Bernardo Thoughts of a Bystander at a Break-Up - Avril Bries Resolutions - Mina Deocreza Hopelessly Hopeful - Ligaya Estrella N - Rafa The Slow Burn - Samantha King Sonnet of a Bitch - Mina Deocreza (Untitled) - Rafa House Custodian - Maria Ink Polaroid on Picasso’s “Woman Contemplating a Sleeping Minotaur” - Karla Bernardo Black - Michaela Camitan just like that - Therese Buergo Queue - Maria The Sun Must Set - Jose Maria Marella The End is Coming - Mina Deocreza PHOTOS and ART by Erica Manuel Phillip Luis Erika Potian Chad Osorio Sarah Buyco Lesly Bries Danie Son Gonzalvo Rafa
1.16699016 × 10-8 hertz M I C H A E L A C A M I TA N
I’m lucky to have met you In this life, at this time Not sooner, when we were different people Not later, when we’d once again change But now, now, now Because after several moons of lonely And sunsets of bittersweet Exactly when we crossed paths We were meant to meet (I was meant to find you; You were meant for me)
photo by Erica Manuel
photo by Phillip Luis
Ang ibig sabihin, ibulong sa hangin Lahat ng lihim mananatili nakakandili sa dilim Ang ibig sabihin, iguhit sa buhangin Paanurin sa lalim Lunurin sa ilalim Ikubli sa buhawi ang tagong pilit Dahil sa ugong ang bulong ay di mananaig Ipain sa daluyong, sa along nangangalit Hayaang ang katha at totoo ay magsalit Tatangayin sa malayo at di na matatanaw At ang ibig sabihin, tuluyang maliligaw Di na haharapin, tatanungin o sasagutin Walang ibig sabihin ang walang ibig sabihin
MARY RUTH S. PUNZALAN
[not] to the nines MARIA
Dear Nine Years, At what point did you think you were going to win this? Where do you get off deciding this was how it’s going to be for me? You saw me. You know the things I’m capable of: I am fearless in front of them. I make them change their ways. I make them listen. I sway them. I smile so they would, too. I am strong for them. I chuckle. I dance. I tolerate and endure. For them. Always for them. Because I have so much to give.
You, on the other hand, had the PRIVILEGE of seeing me raw. I made you see my vulnerable self - the side of me I never dared show anyone else. Emphasis is supplied on PRIVILEGE. Because that’s what it was. You did not have that as a right. But, you see, you were so much better than me back then:
You made me believe you feared losing me. You made me change my ways. You made me listen to your lies. You swayed me. You smiled and I thought I could, too. You appeared to be strong. You chuckled and dismissed my concerns. You danced around them. You tolerated and endured. But not for me. Never for me. You never gave.
You were so caught up with yourself that you started to forget: I had already gone through hell before. Countless times before. I always came out the victor. Every single time. We both know you can’t say the same for yourself. Not when the mere thought of blood makes your skin crawl. Not when mediocrity is your whole sense of security. So now I’ll give you a piece of my mind.
I hope you understand this simple fact: Your totality will never compare to mine. Not a chance. Not by a long shot. Nine years. That’s all you’ll ever be--the farthest you’ll ever go.
Bluebook
(Isang Pamamaalam) THERESE ANJELICA BUERGO Isa-isa Pinilas ko isa-isa Bawat pahinang naglalaman ng mga patlang Naghahayag ng pag-aming Oo, hindi ko hawak ang sagot Sa’yong mga katanungan. Pinakinggan kong mabuti ang himig Ng pinupunit na papel, At marahang dinama sa aking mga daliri Ang magaspang nitong hangganang Tahasang pahiwatig na kailanma’y Di mo na masasabi sa akin Na hanggang dito nalang. Matapos kong mailimbag sa aking isip ang mga hinanakit na tumagas na parang dugo mula sa sugat ng aking panulat ay Sinambit ko ang isang taimtim na paalam Sa aking mga pagkakamali, Sa bawat pagkukulang, Sa bawat pulang markang siyang marahas mong paghusga sa mga ito Mga markang tila pinilit isulat muli ang aking talambuhay. Minasdan kong mabuti Bawat lukot, bawat bura, Bawat anino ng patak ng luha Bago ko sila ikinubli sa sunud-sunod na tupi. Isang eroplanong papel Ang pinalaya ko sa himpapawid at hinayaang tangayin ng aking huling buntong-hininga, Pasan ang mga pakahulugang Sa aki’y di na muling mag-aangkin.
Condo Living MINA DEOCAREZA
This unit is the most accurate depiction of the mess our lives have become. Torn between too many options, we try different things at once. We don’t even have much time to consider what others have in mind After all, we only live once and this life is too short to fight one battle at a time. So we stop caring about organization: books and notebooks on the countertop smartphones and tablets on our unmade bed remote control inside the wooden closet empty beer bottles, soda cans on the floor laptop and charging cables under the table loose changes in the bathroom sink used utensils under uncovered pillows. Sometimes we ask ourselves, Why, how, we have ended up like this. But then again, we can always Take advantage of home cleaning services and have more time for our passions, try to achieve many things, all at once until we start to wonder, once more, about the mess our lives have become.
Apologia
FRANCO ANTONIO REGALADO
Sadness is a wave and a particle And a ripple and a tide May we never run out Of things to talk about Small talk becomes mosquitoes I want to crush your wings under my fingers May we never run out Of things to talk about Asking what happened today is a curse Today blended into yesterday last week May we never run out Of things to talk about Night is an unrelenting sun Blessing the world with insomnia and hallucinations May we never run out Of things to talk about The sheer incomprehensibility Of the dread of tomorrow May we never run out Of things to talk about Words are an obligation To keep a hundred trains running May we never run out Of things to talk about I wrote a poem Because my insides are screaming May we never run out Of things to talk about
T h e Wi l d e s t S e a L E S LY B R I E S
It was the Saturday night drive when the night, heavy velvet in your hands, studded silver, spread a cloak of silence over our hands. I don’t feel it anymore. And these things, they hurt because of the goneness of them, the no-moreness of them, how memories built on concrete castles, those soft-focus afternoons when you tickled my cheek with a mango leaf, pressed the cold scoop of berries-and-cream to my lips and covered my stomach with kisses, when it was enough to hear no answer even as my words wrenched my heart, salt and bare. It was enough. Our lips trace lines out of habit but not need. When I dipped my mouth into the crook of your neck and drank from a secret well, found the Big Dipper on your back. It was belonging. Am I to be the fear beneath your blankets, the ghost in the bed? Take me back to before-expectation, during-desire, after-all, I feel it slipping, I feel my fingers inadequate.
“Maybe in another time, when we look at each other, it won’t be from the other side of the tracks.” Japan, 2011 by Sarah Buyco
Paglimian
ROBERTO MIGUEL O. RAÑESES
halina, kaibigan, ika’y huminto’t magpahinga, kay rami na ang iyong naranasan, narinig, nakita. huwag alalahanin ang malayo-layong tatahakin, bigyan munang pansin ang isipa’t damdamin.
before fixing thy gaze upon that which may be, fret not and turn thy eyes to what was and shall never be. the road yet taken is long and uncertain, yes, but the path thy feet have treaded was not any less.
batid ko ang pagod at pagkayamot sa iyo, kaibigan, batid ko ang sakit, pagkabigo, at panimdim na pinagdaanan. batid ko ang bigat ng mga pagkakamali’t pag-aalinlangan. batid ko ang bigat na dinadalang nakaraan. kaibigan, ang bigat ng ito ay hindi dapat mapahinto, ang iyong mga yapak na magdadala saan ka man patungo, lumingon at tingnan ang nakaraan ngunit huwag hayaang magapos, sapagkat ika’y maaaring hindi na muling makabangong lubos.
the weight of regret does bear heavily upon my mind, upon us all, so ponderous, so ungainly is that which may be our pitfall. but for it to be our downfall? prithee, perish the thought, we have not come this far to fall prey to what had been wrought!
oras na, kaibigan, upang ika’y muling maglayag at maglakbay, dala ang nakaraan at mga nagawa ng iyong mga kamay. ngunit, matapos ng iyong pamamahinga, sana’y huwag kalimutan, na ang nakaraang hindi maibabalik ay hindi maitutumbas sa kinabukasang winaglit.
Scent
MONCHING DAMASING
“In a field I am the absence of field.” - Mark Strand, “Keeping Things Whole” At some point, you couldn’t reach the countertop. Then your flesh grows Into that intermediate space You have leased For a hundred years Max. Once upon a time, My hands cupped the runt of my cat’s litter Into a lamplight. Two days later, under a bush. I asked my hands if they knew Where it hid Or grew in me, This fear, The decay a blossoming scent Neither created nor destroyed. If change were the case, then maybe For a billionth of a second Or less, we were all at once Together, almost infinite Light and heat, Inexistent, dead, and alive At the same and different times, you The cloud, the red giant, you The falling sheet of paper A schoolchild fashions into a plane Thrown into the morning Which you also are. Imagine the blindfolded darkness of a surprise Birthday party. There mercy was in its eyes, As a fly. Death says My, you’ve grown With a cold, limp handshake. But my hands never talked back. My body kept trying to keep the cat out Of my lungs.
Floral Awakening by Lesly Bries
S m a l l Te a r s
KARLA BERNARDO
i have often wondered if there was a place where small kinds of sadness come to die, where faint shades of grey dissolve back to white, where tiny sighs can be heard. i often think that days aren’t exactly seamless, that they are held together by little silences that speak louder than our words. those tender moments, those glances at the clock realizing we are late, or the quiet panic as we remember we forgot something, the uneasy glimpses at the hospital ceiling as they put you to sleep before opening your womb; they are not heavy like paperweights dangling on your chest. they are blisters on your feet when you try to walk with new shoes. they are small tears you never try to wipe, those you leave on your cheek to dry.
Thoughts of a Bystander a t a B r e a k-U P AV R I L B R I E S
It was on my way to Chemistry, before my mind was lost in violet sediments and amino acids. “It’s over!” he said, his voice carrying in the near-empty building, one day during summer school. And she replied, “Thank God, because I never loved you anyway.” Yesterday I remembered seeing them, cooing, kissing all teeth and hunger, savage romantics melding together, flesh and bones in clothed copulation expressed only in hands and arms, in twining arms—a language of limbs, The language of love: now silent under the screaming that sunlit morning. Maybe there were other mouths, other names their bodies were learning to speak. Maybe love was a home they’d left with no breadcrumb trail to lead them back. Who knows? There now the sound of heels clicking across the floor, his fist slamming into the wall as she walked away. I wondered how their story would end. Would they turn, frantic with regret, embrace? Or then, allow themselves to melt into the faceless crowds of jaded campus babies, and continue down University Road passing the other, without seeing? Without feeling? Yet I was certain that somehow they eventually would meet, for UP is too small for lovers to be swallowed into loss, in spite of this city-like expanse of greenery and monoliths.
I had always equated love with anger. Violence took passion, and meant that they still believed in each other, still cared enough for it to matter. They were only children, innocent of how love burned, then turned into ennui. Their bodies still sought their destinies in touch, while mine had frozen, its fate only to lie (both it, and to myself) sleepless in bed that night. I would not fall, only chart the affections of other couplings. I suspected tomorrow I would encounter those two again, holding hands as though nothing had taken place, though thinking that it was not, would not be, the same; yet they would move on, love crippled, perhaps, but still reaching for all the precious memories, the beautiful incandescence of human affection.
Resolutions
MINA DEOCAREZA
In the beginning of each year, we transform, into politicians of our own, making promises and platforms that we write on sheets of papers: read more books, write more lines, meet the deadlines. And we recite them with conviction as we campaign for change and hope for the circumstances to give us their votes. Then, We aspire. We wait. We try.
to act
until we get tired and concede. I t ’ s o k a y. We know, we can always run.
photo by Erika Potian
Hopelessly hopeful L I G AYA E S T R E L L A
when will one’s soliloquy end unanswered prayers remain stale air of agonizing loneliness fill whatever space there is in one’s shattered heart a cry that no one would like to heed a battle eternally being fought that one has long been defeated yet still hopelessly hopeful of a fairytale ending as one sleeps in an empty bed waiting
photo by Chad Osorio photo by Erika Potian
photo by Erika Potian
photo by Phillip Luis Perpetual, Quezon by Danie Son Gonzalvo
N loved the sea. On summer breaks, we would head back to her hometown so she could surf and I could enjoy the beach. Whenever she would surf, I’d bring my trusty waterproof camera and I’d walk toward her so I could take a picture. The waves were so strong that every time they hit, I would either be swept off my feet or be left struggling for balance. I would panic, but then waves would retreat and the world would go from chaotic to calming to absolutely beautiful. But then just as I’ve regained footing, the waves would come barreling through and I am once again lying flat on my back, struggling to stand. N, it’s fitting how you love the waves because that is exactly what you are. Please just let me get back up again. R A FA
The Slow Burn
SAMANTHA KING
November 23, 2009 It was five ‘o clock in the afternoon when the lady of the house, Reynafe Momay, had just come back from work. She was a mother of two, and a nurse at the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Hospital. Reynafe had just worked the overnight shift and was fervently anticipating the comforts of home, though she still had a couple more hours to clock in. She’d make up for it some other time. Right now, all she wanted was a good movie, her two boys, and a light meal. At thirty-seven years old, Reynafe felt she had made her peace with the world. Her parents had separated when she was barely a year old, and as the eldest of five half-siblings, Reynafe had to fill in both their shoes. Her delicate mother and oft-absent father meant she had to put herself through school, and because of this, she grew up quickly. Though she was of less than average height and slightly plump, Reynafe cut a strong figure. It was the gait of her walk, the set of her jaw, and the calm, almost steely look in her brown eyes. Above all a realist, she took pride in the fact that very little could faze her.
was home alone. The weariness of the day was getting to her. She could feel it deep down in her bones. Her youngest, RJ, had slept badly the night before. He had called her at work, telling her about a dream where he was travelling on a motorbike with his lolo. Half of lolo’s face was gone, shared the eleven year old. But I wasn’t afraid, it was lolo anyway. I wanted him to drive faster, he was so slow. He said he wanted to spend more time with me because it would be our last time to talk. Her son had been getting into fights in school, and Reynafe worried it was seeping into his dreams, which were disturbing as of late. She had been so busy at work; she promised this day to watch a movie and spend some quality time with her son. That was why she decided to come home early. While peeling the onions, her hand slipped and the knife clattered to the floor. A sign I need to sleep, Reynafe thought. Then, in the deep silence of the house, the phone rang. She let it ring once, twice, thrice.
Reynafe tied the strings of her apron and set about making dinner. Her The voice on the other end was tense. children were still at school, and she
Nen, said her uncle. Did you hear about what just happened in Maguindanao? His voice rose, but he enunciated each word slowly, as if to keep the bubbling hysteria at bay. Where is your father?
her he would be at Looney dela Corte’s for a round of drinks. Bebot was mildmannered, convivial, a ladies’ man. It had taken him years to apologize to his daughter. But for all his lapses, Reynafe loved him fiercely. He said he would call her again soon.
The hair on Reynafe’s arms all stood on Reynafe spent the whole day in the end. conference room, unable to sleep despite the long wait. Finally, she was approached November 24, 2009 by one of the governors’ aides. The early morning light broke into the cramped conference room of the Isulan Ma’am, you should try Koronadal, South City Hall, where Reynafe, members of Cotabato. The rest of the corpses were her family, and a crowd of other people brought there. were sitting, waiting. She had spent the last night in a blur of activity; trying her *** father’s cellphone, making numerous phone calls to anyone who could give As a nurse, Reynafe thought she was her information, convening the Momay used to dead bodies; desensitized to clan in her house. She had gone without them, even. But anyone would have been sleep for almost twenty-four hours, defeated by the sight at the Koronadal and felt as if her every movement was funeral home. It was her cousin, Jing, who hampered by an invisible wall of air. first reacted; running outside to vomit. The Isulan governor was speaking The rest of her cousins started to cry, into the microphone, giving words of huddled by the door and unable to move encouragement and briefing the crowd any further. on how to go about claiming the bodies. Reynafe was barely listening. The bodies were all lined up in a row, their feet pointing towards the entrance. Her father, Bebot, was sixty-one years Starting from her right-hand side, old, a photojournalist for Mindanao’s Reynafe moved along the rows of more Midland Review. He was assigned to than twenty bodies, allowing her gaze cover the filing of candidacy papers of to travel slowly from the feet to the faces Ismael Mangudadatu, and was part of of each one. She did not last long. The the convoy of journalists and stench, like a hundred eggs left to rot, reporters. She had spoken to him on was sickly, cloying, and sweet. The spilled the phone not two days ago, when guts and open stomachs, blasted faces he inquired about her health and told and mutilated genitals, the arms and
legs horribly twisted…it was all too much. Reynafe had not even gone past the second corpse when she fell to her knees, fighting back the rising bile in her throat and the all-consuming urge to cry.
The face was mostly blown off, though the hair and height of the body seemed about right. The shape of the legs, too, were like Bebot’s; resembling candlesticks, thin and long.
Be strong, Nen! If you cry, you won’t be able to stop. Until you find Papa, you It’s Papa, Nen, her half-brother cried. will not cry! It’s Papa. Reynafe shook her head. Something was holding her back. Picking herself up, Reynafe continued the slow, painstaking search. The ache in her chest refused to go away. It was a clamp around her heart, She and her family gave up past clenching tighter and tighter. midnight of November 25. Please remove the dentures, Doc, November 26, 2009 she said to the head medic. If he has The previous day’s search had taken a dentures, that’s my father. more organized turn, with the Momay clan splitting up into four groups to follow The medic put on gloves and kneeled different leads—Tacurong City, General beside the head. Santos, Koronadal, and the massacre site itself. Reynafe herself ventured to the Ma’am, he said haltingly, his teeth… crime scene, where volunteers and army they’re intact. men continued the digging for bodies. There, in a funeral home, in Mindanao’s Today, however, the whole family had deepest twilight, a thirty-seven year old rendezvoused in Tacurong City. They woman started to cry. were gathered together in a funeral home following a call from one of Bebot’s media friends. One of the diggers recognized your father, the friend said. They were shown the corpse. Reynafe’s siblings all started to cry, hugging one another and piling around the body, holding out tentative fingers over the tight, leathery flesh. But Reynafe couldn’t bring herself to move.
photo by Phillip Luis
More than hope. by Sarah Buyco
Sonnet of a Bitch MINA DEOCAREZA
what? lost omg,
printing error?
got it!
wait will write one
best poem ever!
as well.
... but how? ikr, there is nothing. lol. but there must be something gaze absence see presence
poetry? it must be.
She is the only consistent inconsistent in my life. She comes and goes as she pleases, and I let her, because if there is one thing I have learned, it is that you cannot keep the waves from leaving the shore just for your own comfort. The land loves best because it persists despite the distance of its beloved sun - its sun that is nowhere and everywhere at the same time, generous of its warmth but never of its touch. Do you see how many beautiful things grow out of that kind of love? words and art by R A FA
House Custodian MARIA
A mop. My eyes caught sight of a mop. A mop with a long yellow handle. It reminded me of all the hours I had spent cleaning your floor. I suddenly pictured myself bent over, trying to cover every inch: those tricky corners, the dusty panels under the heavy orange couch, the space covered by your LaZboy. I remembered all the sneezes I sneezed whenever I inhaled the dust that had accumulated. I allowed myself to recall the smell of the solution I loved to use to erase the stubborn stains you kept leaving on the floor: soy sauce/ketchup/shoe wax. I recalled how you would beam with pride each time I finished. I always did a good job. I always left the floor shiny/stain-free/smelling of fresh pine. You used to apologize for making me do it. I used to say it was all okay. I meant it. Back then, I really did not mind. A mop. That was all it took. A mop with a long yellow handle leaning against a dusty trash bin outside my favorite coffee shop. The sight of it shook me to my very core. It reminded me of that night. How I never questioned anything. How I sat there dumbfounded. Shaking internally- not wanting you to see yet somehow wishing you would. We were both slumped over. On the floor. The very same floor I kept shiny/stain-free/ smelling of pine. I didn’t question. You didn’t dare offer an explanation. We stared at each other. not saying anything. Because it was not easy. And at that point, it was not necessary. At that point, we both knew wewere no longer shiny/stain-free/smelling of fresh pine. All I said right then was, “I literally cleaned up your shit.” Yes. Aside from your floor, I cleaned up your shit, too. Literally and otherwise. Youknow that to be true. You even nodded your head.
Anyway. Yesterday when I saw that mop, everything came rushing back to me. The dust. The stains. The smell of fresh pine. The sneezes. You and I. on the floor. That same mop made me realize I have my own floor to sweep. I have my own little area which I need to keep shiny/stain-free/smelling of pine. No one could possibly imagine the amount of dust that has accumulated over the past ten years/the stains that have hardened so much they’re almost fossils/the smell of dead critters I swept under the rug. Yesterday when I saw that mop, I found my resolve. I will start cleaning my own floor: my own tricky corners/my own dusty panels/the space covered by my own couch. And if I ever sneeze in the process, I would smile knowing it was own dust that caused it. I will make my floor shiny/stain-free/smelling of pine in no time. I will sit in the middle and beam with pride.
Ink Polaroid on Picasso’s “ Wo m a n C o n t e m p l a t i n g a Sleeping Minotaur” KARLA BERNARDO
She – with her gaze, she of the long, wispy locks, the kind that twirled atop her head in a messy bun, with strands brushing her ears, her neck, much like him tickling her fear and fancy in a twisted, comforting way; she with the plump and heavy arms that pulled him out of the labyrinth, the maze that trapped his soul after having gone and lost to many wars, battles that let others find ardor but gave him only despair; she with her hands resting quietly on her knees, hands yearning for his, wanting very much to stroke the sea of skin that lay beside her, but knowing very well that she couldn’t, for waking him up meant soon only having a trace of his body on her bed; she with breasts that needed some answers, hiding softly behind her dress but wishing to ask things her mouth could not otherwise say, for she needed the certainty of a “yes” but he has no way with words, a creature like him never having need for them before finding her; she of the feet seemingly firm on the ground, but the lines between her toes all wrinkled and tired, as if eager to walk away but unable to do so, the weight of the rest of her body and her heart not allowing her to; she of the dark and heavy brush strokes, the ink flourishing on her cheeks, her neck, and her dress, lending her a kind of blush that affirms her affection, unfeigned and unyielding, unlike the vague, mysterious silhouette beside her, who was taught only to punish and never to love;
she, the woman beside his bed, watching him at his most hushed, most unlike his real self, her eyes fixed on him, with the sadness of knowing that she will never have him because she should never have him, thinking of how dangerous it is to intertwine her fingers with his, realizing how naïve it is to believe in a future with a creature like him, fearing what is to come when he wakes up and decides he will not stay, looking at him for the beast that he is but seeing him for the man that he could be – is calling him hers, at least for now, at least for the night, at least while he sleeps.
“Woman Contemplating a Minotaur” Pablo Picasso 13 May 1933 Etching; Platemark: 19.1 x 27 cm (7 1/2 x 10 5/8 in.) Sheet: 33.4 x 44.2 cm (13 1/8 x 17 3/8 in.)
Black
M I C H A E L A C A M I TA N
Before you, Mornings were glazed sunshine Muffled sighs of mediocrity Mixed with the heavy drone of ennui And subtle whispers of settling But you came You, a perfect shot of honesty Cloaked in sparks of extraordinary And I stand shocked, still Because I’ve missed out You stop me with your lightning eyes And your arms like home Touching every nerve with hints of stars Covering me in comfort and thrill And I give in, I surrender You open my eyes to life And my heart to you (I am yours)
photo by Phillip Luis
just like that
THERESE BUERGO
Just like that The days fell away like dead leaves From a tree that has never known autumn. I waited. And I waited.
Until every rising sun Taught me not to expect even a wisp of your shadow. Until the door swinging open meant Only the presence of strangers. Even when it swung That one time you finally, finally came.
Queue MARIA
The next one will lift a finger for me and not mind doing so He will not let me wait in vain Won’t make me sit in one corner hoping for the best Dreading for the worst No false pretenses. WaitNO. PRETENSES. False or otherwise. The next one will tell me he’d do this or that And mean it. Actually do it. Will follow through. No veil Between the respect he claims to have for me And that which he chooses to show Nothing entangled Nothing unkempt Nothing frizzy. YesNOTHING. VAGUE. The next one will be willing to see me through See me off Each time Everytime Even when it’s no longer convenient No longer seems practicable. It wouldn’t matter. Not to him. he would wait for me to return from wherever. Thinking of me in the interim. What will be there during the inception Will only become so much more. RightIT. WILL. NOT. WANE.
The Sun Must Set
JOSE MARIA L.MARELLA
The Sun must set and with it my trade catch or no catch perhaps tomorrow, I’ll try my luck catch or no catch the day rewards me with the wonderful walk home As I trudge upon the wharf’s wooden planks The Sun peeks over His watery blanket His rays far outstretched toward me as if in embrace; lending a gentle warmth a final time before the moon’s cold reign extending – not only to me, but as far up as heaven Oh if life’s length only stretched that far! I’d not mind sitting it out before this Sun’s splendid suspension between sea and sky But alas, the Sun must set.
Strangers, Rizal by Danie Son Gonzalvo
The End is Coming
MINA DEOCAREZA
“I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:3) i. we will soon perish. the world is ending and we have to believe the prophets that we do not have all the time in the world. we shall not end that way. life on earth is too good to be wasted. for worldliness, i believe it is nonsense. we should be clean and pure to be saved, to be worthy of salvation it is the only way. repent! again, we are warned. the end is coming.
ii. the end is coming. again, we are warned. “repent! it is the only way to be saved to be worthy of salvation we should be clean and pure.” i believe it is nonsense. for worldliness is too good to be wasted. life on earth shall not end that way. we have all the time in the world, we do not have to believe the prophets that the world is ending and we we will soon perish.
T h e L i t e r a r y F o l i o Te a m UP PORTIA SORORITY
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