Although You'd Never Know

(to all who broke Shagami's heart)

To all of you
Who have brushed me aside
Neglected, turned their backs, ignored me.
Although you'd never know

For not returning any calls
For not replying every note
For not smiling back
For not being there

Felt the cold shoulders
The unwarmth in the rubs
Seen true lies, fake smiles
Although you'd never know

Each day I write a poem for you
And burn it in the air
Everyday I pen the saddest lines
Because you barely read a phrase

That is like rubbing salt
And squeezing lemons on my wounds
Stepping on my soul
Although you'd never know.

Pablo writes the saddest lines tonight
And I do mourn with my meter
The letters liberate my fate
Let no one put asunder

I may forgive, I may forget
Let the good things beget
I miss ur smiles, the calls, and all your might
I'm setting aside the fight
Although you'd never know.

When such solitude becomes

Shades of red are nowhere
Flowers bloom after a hundred century
Smiles are scarce and fright abounds.

Yellow sunny morning
Butterflies, cardinals and squirrels
Are not in sight, even in periphery.

Excitement, glee, fondness, bliss
Are replaced by winter-cold fear
The whole sky is enveloped in darkness.

Abundant humid desert and barren wasteland
Are playgrounds for ragged kids,
Whose laughters are taboo.

Pristine dark abodes jail the most
Soul-less faces, who were marked for death
Leaving nothing, anything to boast.

Sans a single hope to rise
Without chances to cope
Just the suchness of solitude.

Another blank verse for a blank afternoon

Ringing, I wish my phone is

Out there I wait what lies ahead

Mingling with the remaining memories

Understanding where I stood

Leaves me with nothing but the truth

Outraged I am on the steps I took

Incessant still my destiny moves.

Awry, flurry and fury mixed within me

Mistakes have been done before

Insistent still I am to once more be there and

Sadness ruins me, leaving me in solitary

Torn and tortured by the things I chose

Although love is living in me

Dying I am with everything I am to see

Just as the Sun shines on me

Rains have inundated my insanity.

The Cory Poem

(based 100% on quotes of Cory Aquino)

I just do whatever it is that I believe I should do,
Regardless of the risks to my life.
I would rather die a meaningful death
Than to live a meaningless life.

Faith is not simply a patience
That passively suffers until the storm is past.
Rather, it is a spirit that bears things
With blazing, serene hope.

It is true you cannot eat freedom
And you cannot power machinery with democracy.
But then neither can political prisoners turn on
The light in the cells of a dictatorship.

The nation was awakened by that deafening shot
They came out in the millions
All the world wondered as they witnessed...
A people lift themselves from humiliation.

Reconciliation should be accompanied by justice,
Otherwise it will not last.
While we all hope for peace
It should peace based on principle, on justice.

My tribute to the Democracy Icon

Corazon Cojuangco Aquino (January 25, 1933 – August 1, 2009) Housewife, Philippine President, Democracy Icon, Mother, Prayer Warrior.

My first minutes of the morning of first day of August wasn't so good. President Cory, the President that I remembered so well way back in my childhood, has joined her Creator in Eternity. He also reunites with her husband, the National Hero Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino.

Facebook kept me awake until 11 in the evening local time here in KSA. And so I as surf my FB there were status from Filipino friends that the President has indeed breathe her last 3:18 in the morning Philippine time.

Well I do not have so close encounters with the former President way back in the Philippines, but I indeed have two vivid memories of her to reckon with. I saw her in Edsa 2 in 2001. She was upstage delivering her message to the throngs who were there in support of overthrowing another president, Joseph Estrada. Aquino, FVR, GMA, Cardinal Sin and almost all high people in government were there.

But really there was no radiance like how Cory have it. I am Cory follower I didn't imagine a woman leading the nation and steered clear out of authoritarian rule from that of Ferdinand Marcos. The Philippines was all in chaos, anarchy and civil unrest, but Cory, the housewife helped the country resuscitate its dying democracy. I was only five way back then but I later on realized that the Housewife made the World looked up on the Philippines as it made history.

The second time I saw her was when she heard mass in Edsa Shrine near Mercury Durg in Robinsons Galleria. She was wearing black and shortly followed by daughter and actress Kris Aquino. That was so sudden, they were passing just three feet away from where I stand and the goose bumps that her presence gave me was so unique and patently hers that I felt that I was so lucky. She smiled and waved in my direction and I really felt so in luck. I was having my Slurpee.

The most lasting memory she has given our generation and my kids as well is really her tough fight against dictatorship, her rising up to seven coup d'etat, her unselfish service to the country and her unmatched belief in democracy. She is the Icon of Democracy not only for the Philippines to look up to, but for the World to treasure and cherish. She may have succumbed to her illness, but that didn't busted her radiance. For me and maybe for millions of Filipinos around the world, what she has left in this world is something for all the people to remember and would not forget. We owe Cory our freedom, the democracy that the we enjoy to the is the product of her love for Filipinos. And she deserved to be honored, remembered and beloved just like her husband the national hero Ninoy

Jessica Zafra's short piece tells:

President Corazon Aquino is dead, and with her dies the last shreds of civility in our public life. She was a good person. Say what you will about her administration, the illusions dashed and opportunities missed, but she was decent to us. She never mocked us, made fun of our hopes, or knowingly insulted our intelligence. Born to privilege, she never acted the spoiled brat. She was a lady, a rarity in this day and age and especially in this political system. She tried. We miss her like a limb. In mourning for Tita Cory we’re really mourning for ourselves and what could’ve been.

From my dashboard, Tonyo Cruz' blogs what the Filipinos worldwide Tweets and blogs for the late President. UP mentor Nico Ravanilla wrote something so unique and heart-warming, personifying the President and mother that was Cory. It is a first hand experience. Barrio Siete's bloggers have also published their pieces online and every media outfit in the Internet local and international, have carried banners for Cory's death.

It is a time of mourning for the Philippines and for Filipinos who are also in abroad. We mourn the lost of a torch, a light that is very much needed in these trying time under a crooked regime. Nevertheless, her light, her beacon stays with us. The accolades and state ceremonies (the Aquino family refused a State Funeral) maybe fitting and proper, but we will fail her if we do not live what she fought for during her reign. We will be lost in state if we would surrender the democracy she has fought for and died for. Let us not fail her. Thank you very much Madam President Cory.

More of Cory Aquino here the Essential Cory Aquino.

Elipsis and unfinished blogs . . .

I have been here and there about what to write . . .

> > > > Checks my email. Reads a message from my sister telling me she has asthma attack again. Replies that she should stop eating too much and please don’t make love with the jeepney mufflers and all.

Well there really are a thousand, even million, things to write about. I was thinking of going to Netherlands and visiting the Dutch and ask them about their tulips and how they manage to keep-up and maintain their Red-light district, the never-ending wanting for beer, proliferation of booze, Jane and all, and still become one of the . . .

> > > > Boss calls if there are new messages for him, new applicants for the yet to be vacated manager positions and if the newspapers have been delivered to his house. Says he might not make it to the office today because it's weekends (good for me).

One of the what? I stopped and tried hard what’s next. Netherland is a good place I want to be with one day either be with myself or just my shadow. And then I really wanted to have a harvest (ala Farmville and Farmtown in Facebook) experience with tulips. I mean don’t you just love their colors, the way they appear and I am not just sure how they smell but oh I’m sure they’re as good as heaven and angels. And Netherlands is . . .

> > > > The Office Manager buzzes me up and tells me he needs me at his office now. I replied “Khamsa dagiga” (five minutes). I went to the bathroom, wore my shoes and drink a glass of water from the bottle and brushed my way up his office, only to find out that he just want me to reach down for the Establishment stationery because his arthritis and back pain is not affording him to reach below. Well can we just hire a caregiver here? I mean the Mudir (manager) is 62, smoking non-stop and has his share of memory gaps and judgment lapses. Hello you know the word retirement? I am attempting for the umpteenth time to write a blog.

So where am I? Oh yes I am still in the middle of the desert and was trying to wander out in Netherlands and their tulips. Lost in my thoughts, I turned to something different.

> > > > Browses My Facebook and writes - Rael Felizco is struggling to blog.. a blogger’s block.

Now I really am lost about Netherlands and tulips. Next time write something about things that you really know and then try not to fantasize things that really are of complete strangeness to you.

> > > > My mobile rings and an Arab asks me “Kif Halak”. What who got a sipon or ubo? No he was really asking me how am I, same thing as “Kumusta Ka” in Filipino. So I answered back “Taiyib” (better) and that’s better because you have ruined my blogging. Then the conversation drags on for 5 minutes of asking and answering about Exit and Vacation visa and Iqama renewals of some employees. Well good thing I read my to-do list (yes I have one now, one that is functional and somehow brilliant) and answered him back satisfactorily. He hangs up but told me that he’s paying a visit to the office later to pick up some things. Aiwa, mafi mushkila (yes, no problem. finished, khalas.)

Then I saw a blink on my Facebook update and saw that Lucien has some reactions over my status, then comes Leah, a college acquaintance, and old-friend Brian telling them their pieces. Lotis buzzes me up for the latest in the UP School of Econ, with her thesis cramming and Grendell’s (yes she doesn't have Facebook or Friendster, but she has an email) new hair dye. Cris is pouting about his finances and the lengthy DepEd requirements for new teachers. And then realizing and sinking all of these I reckoned that I am lost with my thoughts about Netherlands and tulips.

I wanted to start and, of course, finish a blog in order to keep sanity and whatever left of it in my brain. It is only in blogging, writing and reading that I get to hold, use and exercise precious, not exactly perfect, English. The loneliness and ineptitude of available time there is in me is really asylum-headed. I need to wrack whatever there is left of my brain. I cannot even speak straight English because it is seldom used here. It’s either I hear of Filipino, Arabic or Bisaya. And if you speak straight, good English here, the thing is you’ll lose the conversation with Arabs. I don’t know about their oil reserves, but their English reserves are really all-time low. I remember Development Economics, whatever is abundant in one place, there sure is lacking of it in some; reminds me of initial endowments, human capital, comparative advantage and other statistically significant details of my abated Graduate School journey.

> > > > Mobile rings again a Filipino cook on the other line inquiring about the status of his request for a plane ticket to the Philippines on December. Believe me as early as June I have requested flight booking for that guy and one month and a week has passed the flight is yet to be booked. All flights to Manila on December are closed, waiting list is on a meager 30% probability.

Back to my keyboard.

> > > > Then I was interrupted again. Phone 2 rings and someone is asking for a fax tone, 10 seconds later Phone 1 rings and one of the driver inquires when to pick-up some of the moving and transferring fellow from one branch to the other. These drivers are nuts. They only listen for me for these sorts of things but are half-ears when I tell them that they should follow whatever I say or else earn the ire of the Amo. I mean I have encountered all kinds of drivers and I would say that they have one general thing in common: They hate it when they are assigned to drive. Not that I have something against drivers, my father used to drive a jeep, when I was young he drove a tricycle, when he was in Saudi (as I do now) he met an accident by driving a motorcycle and was also, at one point, a truck driver. His driving fed me and sent to school together with my siblings. But these drivers that I have, even when I was in the Philippines, are all patama (they like to waste time so that there would be little left for them to do other things.

Wondering what to write anew? My blog.docx has been holding on for some seven (7) unfinished things, scattered ideas and unscrupulous innuendoes that my feeble mind has thought of once in a while. All of them unfinished, wanting and without any signs of affection, maybe a sign for my young yet devastated soul.

Then the clock ticks 2PM and it’s time for my break. Another unfinished blog which makes my seven rubbish eight. Please give me not only the time to write but also the spirit to write. Sometimes the souls is really willing but the flesh is really weak.

Ciao!

postcripts

I was interrupted three times while I was editing this blog. Mudir inquires for the flight bookings, the moving and transferring of people and then asks me again to get some stationery. A Filipino calls me to ask about the driver. The driver inquires about the Filipino. Where do these people come from?

post postscript

I was also interrupted by Facebook, I remember that I have to harvest in Farmtown and Farmville too, I am also flying planes in Airline Manager.

Some randomness

After surfing the net and hoping to find some nice people to talk to, I just decided to scribble something just to ease some tensions on my mind.

Been days of mind-boggling and brain-whacking thoughts. I feel like shooing away all things, dismissing them all the same. I wanted to be in solitaire in an attempt to get things clear. Problems are abundant and omnipresent, left and right, top and bottom, north, east west and south. And it seems to be no scarcity of such.

As I leave my troubled room, where I temporarily leave the doubts, aversions and fears, I welcome more complications and bigger fears. Out of the comfort zone, inside the jail-like zone. And now comes more rubs for career and endless demands. I need to dispatch them in a flash. I need to rid of these lucid randomness.

And it seems there's no halting them. They become undeterred unsubmissive and ever winning whatever the war they are waging against.

They fire from my back like dragons from its chains, a heart attack to an old man, stroke for the hags and like a thief in the night. There seems to be endless like fires in hell, deep water in the well. And as I search for refuge, nothing comes my way. Everything seems to be in rage, war-mongering and ever hungry for revenge.

I’ve been wanting to take a break from the traffic that consumes me everyday. But there seems to be no escaping the fate that I chose to be with. This is supposed to be the better destiny, the best option, the benefit-maximizing alternative. If only Superman (or Supergirl) would come to rescue me out of the fire, then there would be peace. At the least maybe.

I would lie on the bed like a fallen leaf and would let the wind carry me in his arms to everywhere where there is less of grief, suffering and horror. Less anger, more peace. A paradise for solitaire. A place to retreat, where surrender and dying becomes a sweet pleasurable pick.

But then, just minutes away from the real world, the truth would come flashing again. Torturing and haunting me. Inescapable, I succumb in defeat knowing there is nothing for me to do to heal the wounds that severs pain.

Then with the last straw of strength, I rise and look up the sky, and attempts a Superman fly. Or will I be overwhelmed by the Kryptonite again?

Not for everybody, for the wide-mind only

Maselang Bagay Ang Sumuso Ng Burat


Maselang bagay ang sumuso ng burat
Baka hindi mo magustuhan kaagad,
Huwag kang basta-basta mandadakma sa dilim
Kung ayaw mong masubo sa alanganin.
Huwag rin naman sanang magsisinungaling
Sa sariling nakakaalam ng hilig,
Gumagamit ng sukatang panlipunan
Nang hindi iniisip ang pinagmulan.


Maselang bagay ang sumuso ng burat
Hindi parang kaning madaling iluwat.
Dapat tama ang pagkakahugis ng bibig
At walang tulis ng ngiping sumasabit
Bukas din dapat ang daang-lalamunan
Para kung sumagad ay di mabubulunan.
Pag hindi pa siya napaungol sa sarap,
Baka naman ang pinapaltos mo'y sapsap.
Maghanap na lang ng ibang maturingan
Hitik ng sirena ang ating lipunan.


Maselang bagay ang sumuso ng burat
Hindi dapat iniaalok sa lahat.
At di totoo ang mga sabi-sabi
Na darang ang pag-ibig ng lakambini.
Kung ang hamak na pastol na katulad ko
Ay nakatagpo ng guwapong binatilyo.
Habang naglalakad sa may tabing-ilog,
Kinudlit niya ang gulok ng aking libog.
Matapos ang mainit na espadahan
Nagsumpaang wagas sa lilim ng buwan.


Maselang bagay ang sumuso ng burat
At langit ang makahanap ng katapat.
Mag-iiwan sana ng munting habilin
Payo lang naman, huwag sanang dibdibin
Ang marubdob at itim na paninira
Gawa ng santo-santong paniniwala.
Sapagkat ang sukatan ng pagkatao
Wala sa dunong, kulay o astang pabo.
Nasa pagkabusilak, pagkadakila
Ng tunay na pagmamahal sa kapwa.


Maselang bagay ang sumuso ng burat
Iyan ang kailangang malaman ng lahat,
Walang dahilang itago't pandirihan
Bumangon sa dilim aking kaibigan!


(seen this in the internet, worth reposting, author unknown)

The Half-Blood Bookworm

I have to admit something. I am slow reader though I love reading so much. It amazes me on how some people get to finish a Tagalog pocketbook in one seating or less than an hour while I endure it for a week (yes those thin pocketbooks authored by the likes of Gilda Olvidado, Lualhati Bautista and others whose names I have lost in my memory). Worst is if I get hold of an English novel (Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steele [can’t withstand a chapter]).

I remember in my freshman in college. I borrowed John Grisham’s The Client and The Firm. I finished The Client after a month and The Firm, well I didn’t get to finish it after I reached second semester. Those books cost me frequent travels to the library and familiarized me with the Who’s Who is inside the then humid, dusty and ventilated Tobias Y. Enverga Memorial Library (which after four years was replaced by the highly sophisticated MSEUF Library Complex).

Reading and the habit of reading was embedded by my mother who happens to be a teacher. She used to make it a habit for me to read signs and billboards along highways while travelling back and forth Lucena from Manila. I know it was just a diversion to prevent me from vomiting during that 4-hour bus travel. I remember buses then were not air-conditioned yet and the smell of screeching tires makes my stomach churn and subsequently pukes everything what I have just ingested.

Finishing the Half-Blood Prince

It was of recent time, and yes I mean just this year that I escaped that dilemma of reading so slow-paced as if digesting every letter I meet. Truly J.K. Rowling has not stopped astonishing people with her storytelling. I have proven for a record of a week (for an English novel) that her books are one of those hard-to-put-downs. In between meals, laundry time, afternoon siestas that I can, indeed, finish the book.

Love. Apparate. Sectumsempra. New DA teacher and Magic Minister. Pensieve and recollected memories. More Magic. Treachery. Death. That would very well summarize this hard-to-put-down JK Rowling book. The sixth sequel saw the death of the Hogwarts Headmaster and the creeping victory of the Dark Lord and his minions the Death-Eaters. The novel has poured much of its pages on recollecting old memories in the pensieve and on the identity of the Half Blood Prince who happen to be the same wizard who would cast the Avada Kedavra spell on Dumbledore: Severus Snape. The same wizard Harry’s father has been not so friendly with. After reading it, I find it very interesting to pursue a copy of the Deathly Hollows, the last of Potter's adventure in magical world of Hogwarts.

The half-blood bookworm I maybe but with one of those Potter novels, I can never be a Mud blood no more (with my excuses to Ms Granger). Anyways add to that I have pursued the full volume of the Twilight Saga and the philosophy book Sophie’s World. So wish me luck as I accompany Sophie in her quest to know Socrates, Kierkegaard, Plato, and Sartre; and lovers vampire Edward Cullen and her muggle (hehehe) lover (what was her name again?).