10

 

Pamela Rose Toyugan

 

 

Photo courtesy of frankleeannoyed.blogspot.com

 

It was simpler then.

 

I liked you and you liked me.

That was all that mattered.

I showed you how I felt.

I was not very quick in saying things.

I haven’t changed. 

My tongue still refuses to weave the words my head has spun.

 

You told me how you felt.

You spoke in metaphors, but my heart understood.

You said it like it was the only true thing in the world,

Like everyone was listening.

You said it with a smile.

Then you blushed.

 

It is a little different now.

 

I liked you and you liked me.

We were ten then.

That doesn’t matter now.

I tell the world how I feel now,

But I am still not very quick in saying things.

My hand writes the words that my tongue still refuses to say.

 

You told her how you felt.

You didn’t speak in metaphors.  It was clear.

You said it because it was true even if nobody else was listening.

You said it with a tear,

A promise that you will be hers until the end of your days.

She blushed.

 

That’s what matters now.

That is what’s true.

 

It has been too long.

 

You probably don’t remember.

And I refuse to forget.

Those words are special

And words don’t lose their meanings.

Let me hold on to those words.

And when metaphors seize my heart again,

I will forget.

 

I will forget.

Drowned Dry

Marciano Brin Cadalin

 

Marciano describes himself as a crappy scribbler. His choice of words is triggered by hummingbirds. His write ups are sporadically melancholic, and may appear playful at times.

 

Marciano, has never been tamed in the expression of literary attempts, in fact he secluded his manuscripts in a tiny private finger-locked vault. The first time he will try to write outside his pen's premises - today.

Marciano's first attempt:

This poem gives the painful meaning of the irony of being wet amidst dry land and feeling dry as you're submerged under a freezing plasma. This is as my expression of my innermost struggle. Frustrating as it may seem, it's killing yourself for something you're not willing to fight for.

Watching the river flow, it floods my shadow.
It reaches my door and drips through my window.
 
As I catch my breath it intensifies my confusion.
Here I see myself floating, drenching in emotion.
 
I am seeing random thoughts flying like humming bees.
Sound stings my heart that brought me to my knees.
 
I want to stand strong on this crossroad of flooded fate.
Wet and still chilling I am reaching now through that gate.
 
Saving my purpose and doubting if it could ever happen.
I've let the river flow then flood me and failed to get it dampened.
 
Questions of worth collide and scratch my back of doubt.
Answers of those questions I've never dared to shout out.
 
Catching another breath to fill my lungs by sudden gasp.
My brain demands beyond the thoughts I could ever grasp.
 
Confusion and despair filled my bloodstream of thought.
I am drowning dry, and losing the fight I've never fought.
 

Caravaggio

Pipes Clavano

Pipes is a lover expletives, sarcasm, and eye- candies. He’s insatiable when it comes to vanilla ice cream, dark chocolate, pizza, and fries. He's not a fan of reptiles. And he loves Brown- outs.
The poem below was written for a man he was with during a time in his life when he allowed people to undermine his principles in exchange for acceptance. He was also into Caravaggio’s paintings during this period.

Michelangelo Caravaggio, “San Giovanni Battista”, 1603-04 ca., Olio su tela, 94 x 131 cm, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica a Palazzo Corsini, Roma (http://caravaggismo.wordpress.com)

You swept me on my knees
Had my mouth drooling for
Peach
In your dark room was a lamp
Which glows neon
Once the fairies start to dance
I don’t move unless
You shake me
I don’t drink unless
It’s your poison

You dip me into the wine
Tangy like your blood
Take off your shirt
Untie your faith
Paint my wall with sin and
A little more of what girls cannot offer
When you raise your brush
My insides scream
“Let it be as dark as cream!”

And, yes, chiaroscuro
Bends itself for you
It bends so well I am afraid
I might want to bend
That way too
Do your feet truly fit my shoes
Or do you just pretend so I’d remain
Stashed in your drawer with brushes and pens?

When you dart your tip on my canvas
What does it say about colors?
Palettes, shades, tones, hues  
Do they make you cringe?
But you do dull so well
I cannot complain, so I shut my mouth
And let your ignorant colors stain

Lost

Juya Moreno

Photo from www.cigarettesdelights.blog.com

For all the untold stories,
Or the never ending rhymes.
For all the moans I gave,
And the kisses I broke,
And the hearts that were never mine.
For the one love that seems surreal,
And the one night that never lasted,
As much as I wanted.
For all the tears that I wept,
And the smiles I wasted,
Or the laughters I faked.
For all the good things in life,
Beer, sex, cigars,
And the bad things,
Friends, lovers, jobs.
For the guys I have met,
I have laid,
I have killed.
And to the bars,
That I stumbled,
And grappled young men.
For all what is now left within me,
And what keeps me alive.
The one love,
And the one night,
That never was forgotten,
Even the taste of his sweat,
Or the contours of his manly figure.
This is for the man I never told,
How much my soul yearned,
For the lost love,
And the passion we made,
On my old rickety bed.
For until this day,
And every midnight,
I wait,
Naked.

Forgive and Forget

Pamela Rose Toyugan

Pam was one of the founders of The United Literary Advocates (2004- 2005,) a group formed by Literature Majors at Holy Name University which unfortunately died almost as soon as it's founders graduated. She used to carry post its at school and had a tongue piercing which was not very common at that time. 

Below is Pam's first contribution to The Mamangahagay.

We've been through this.

Do you remember how hard it was?

We got hurt.

I thought it was over.

But every time I pick on the scars

They still bleed.

I try to heal.

Do you know how I do it?

Well, I try not to think about it.

Forget that it even happened.

I put it behind me.

That's where it should be.

I try to focus on what's good now.

Do you know why I try?

It is the only way I can hope.

I hope that we'll be closer.

I hope that we'll be better.

I hope that we'll be stronger.

But I won't deny that I still cry.

Do you know why I still do?

I cry because you are unhappy.

You got hurt and you don't have scars.

The wounds are still open.

They're still bleeding. They still hurt you.

I know why they still hurt you.

Do you want to know why?

I'll tell you even if you don't want me to.

It's because you allow them.

You let them consume all the goodness in you.

You let the past catch up.

But we've been through this.

Do you remember how hurt we were?

The pain changed us completely.

But it didn't change the fact 

That there is an invisible chain

Connecting us. Saving us.

We'll get through this.

Do you want to get through this?

I know I want to.

I want to do it with you.

We just have to get through this together.

Just forgive me, please.

June 17- July 16

Theme: Frustrations

Poetry and I

Davey Ross Musong

When I think of poetry, I think of a precious gem,
Teasing me from a place so high and too far for me to reach.
It's an uphill climb,
A foggy mountain top
Which chokes me as I raise a foot
And move towards it.
Veins in my eyes get visibly bold,
Glowing like neon lights in downtown whorehouses
And on otherwise dark alleys with dancing and flying candy wrappers,
Flattened cigarette butts,
Corners that reek of the smell of old and dried urine.
Places, I think, you'd cringe even at the thought of visiting alone.
And those veins, they're lights that grow bigger and bigger
And then burst.
Blood splatters
And flows like lava from the angry volcanoes
which are my eyes,
I'm blinded.
I can't see my paper
Nor feel the presence of my pen.

It's an uphill climb
Every word, seems to give more strength
To that hand that pulls me down
Tightens it's grip in every attempt to conceive
A line that contains both truth and beauty at the same time.
I haven't gone that far
'Cause I am being pulled down.
My own shadow, my past, pulling me down
As if preparing me to drown
And die from that quicksand below
Where my doubts, my feeling of hatred towards myself
Are calling me, asking me
Begging me to join them in their misery
After I buried them deep on the ground
Not too long ago.

Quicksand, tomb of my past.
It's filled with thumb- sucking, jack-stones, magazines under the bed, used rubbers,
Crucifixes hidden in the drawer, dusty, untouched rosaries, dried tears on my pillows
Forming dead shadows of that world that exists only in my dreams.

I am being pulled down, blinded and out of breath
My hands, shaking
My feet, groping the floor for the pen
And where it went, after it fell, I don't, anymore, know

So here I am together with the sound of the crickets
And spirits that watch me from afar
Making sounds that seem to celebrate my failure
Snickering at the thought that the art of poetry
Remains distant to me.
I give up.
I can't touch it.
It's a mountain I can't climb.