The poems below are two, among four pieces, that were first published in Caracoa 19 (July 1988), published by the Philippine Literary Arts Council.
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'Canine Reproduction' by davidlh

To a Repressed Bacchante

Dare we do
As those dogs on the street
Our eyes are glued to?
Let's just sit and drink our coffee.

But you gasp as one mounts
The other -- what flesh
Imaginings make you flush?
Your furtive glances --
Could they imply more
Than parlor intimacies?

Your eyes can't keep casing
The window and, how you chatter.
Ah! You're no bacchante
You'd have me believe.
Okay, pour me a cup instead.
"Oh, that is hot."

Oh, if only we had a season
Just for jointures.
Oh, if only our love
Would settle in the groin.

But why blush again
Why draw the curtains?
Are we stuck
In a rut?


Image is davidlh's "Canine reproduction," posted in WikiMedia under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 license.
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The Wine Glass, by Jan Vermeer van Delft
Party Blues

(for Nancy)


Not like in Prufrock you say
Where the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo
You stop seething patiently
On your chair you say
Here's where you're different
You let your glass drop
To the floor you pick the shards
Smiling at the silent chair you say
Sorry not to the women
(Who think you're different)
Coming and going talking
Of who? and who? you don't ask
Or the men (who don't think you're any
Different from the women) with
Their godawful cigars and politics
I like your game you say
Only to yourself and pace
The room round and round and
Round among your guests
Look sit down you make me dizzy
You say here's another glass cry
Have a throe or would you rather
I'll tell you another lie


Image is Jan Vermeer van Delft's "The Wine Glass," posted in WikiMedia under public domain.
 
 
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Book cover of An Maupay ha Mga Waray
An Maupay ha mga Waray ug iba pa nga mga Siday
Voltaire Q. Oyzon
NCCA and UPV Tacloban Creative Writing Program
Manila, 2008

The good thing about the Waray is that they do not give up. Or, as Voltaire puts it: "Kun hinuhobsan inin akon dughan / sugad hiton medyahan / dayon ko ini inaalgan / didto kanda Mana Semang / (Mana Semang, ilista la anay)" [When the heart dries up / like this half-gallon jug / quickly I rush to Mana Semang's / to fill it up / (just put it in my bill, Mana Semang)].

This wry sensibility characterizes how the Waray copes with the tough life dealt to most. As long as there is tuba to go with life's vicissitudes the heart will still beat and "mangayat hin away" [spoil for a fight].

Perhaps that is why so many siday or poem in Waray deal with social issues. Tongues loosened by the tart taste of tuba, poets can spew the bitter in dribbles of sweetened lines some may consider as harmless nonsense.

In the poem "Lagung" [Fly], for instance, Voltaire draws a picture of a fly that can only look on and drool at the food it cannot taste because the glass walls of fastfood joints, while providing an enticing gastronomic view, prohibit its entrance to "undesirable creatures."

Like the fly and, by extension, street urchins who peer through the glass and "tutok / simhot / ... ha Jollibee, Dunkin' / di ngani Cindy's [popular fastfood joints in Tacloban] / ... hamot / laway" [stare / sniff / ... at Jollibee, Dunkin' / or Cindy's / ... smell / drool] at scrumptious meals patrons eat but which they can only look at or beg for until the service crew shoos them away.

It is Voltaire's deft use of such images and situations that such harmless nonsense can contain scathing truths. In his "Kan Toytoy Pag-asoy han Agsob nga Karantahay ha Ira Balay" [Toytoy Tells About the Singing at Home], Voltaire shows how aesthetics and social commentary can go together in a poem about domestic violence.

The poem describes how when the drunken father arrives home "naglulubay-lubay, / nagkikinanta han Inday, Inday [a popular Waray folk song] / diretso ini hiya ha kusina / manngungukab, / babagtingan an kardero, / mapakarakatak han mga plato" [swaying / singing Inday, Inday / heads straight for the kitchen / rummaging, / clanking pots, / jangling plates].

The wife's pacifying and soft alto, "baga'n kanan aghoy taghoy" [like a forest spirit's whistle], soon sings second voice to the husband's gruff complaints. Then, "... may malagubo, / bati han bug-os nga baryo, / hi nanay - napalsito" [a thud, / and the whole barrio hears / my mother singing in falsetto].

But it is not only Voltaire's skillful presentation technique that shines through in the poem. The aural play of onomatopoeic Waray words, the use of rhyme, and the counterpointing of the husband's bass and the wife's alto/falsetto complement the poem's descriptive narration and the delayed ironic twist in the ending.

Merlie Alunan, who writes the book's "Introduction," is right indeed about Voltaire being at home in the Waray language: "He [understands] its nuances. Its tones and accents [echo] in his inner ear. He [is] at home with its rhythms. He can deal with its intricacies with the delicacy and finesse required by the poetic process" (9).

And several poems in the collection reflects Voltaire's love for the Waray tongue. Rather than take a more strident but definitely less effective tone, Voltaire displays the same subtlety and humor in the use of language and images when he tackles the language theme.

In "Nagbalyo-balyo Ako hin Nanay" [Changing Mothers], Voltaire effectively uses snippets of a Waray popular song to counterpoint the cultural effects of a colonial and/or linguistic hegemony. And parodying the Tagalog patriot, Marcelo H. del Pilar, who parodied "The Hail Mary" in "Ang Aba Guinoong Baria" [The Hail Money] to protest the greed of Spanish friars, Voltaire throws a gibe at the imperialism of the so-called national language in "Paghimaya" [Glory Be].

But even as Voltaire pays tribute to a heritage that is seemingly on the verge of extinction, his use of Waray is a testimony that the local tongue continues to flourish even as it confronts the onslaught of technological progress and the consequent homogenization of culture.

In "Para han mga Pulong ha Waray nga Pinamatay" [For the Murdered Words in Waray], he turns quasi-scientific as he likens seemingly lost words in Waray to the dew that covers the earth every morning. But he also turns wistful and hopeful as he writes: "Ano an angay ta basolan? / Ano an angay ikabido? / Ha kalibotan, waray butang, / waray butang nga naaanaw" [What's there to regret then? / What's to feel bad about? / In this world, nothing, / nothing's gone forever].

Voltaire's collection - with poems tackling themes from the domestic and particular to the more universal in their very particularity - is, to use a perhaps rather outdated New Critical term, well-wrought indeed. In his use of linguistic and literary elements - folkloric allusions or appropriations of earlier literary forms and/or themes - coupled with a truly homegrown humor, Voltaire Q. Oyzon is an original talent worthy to be the heir to the Leyte-Samar literary tradition.

Usa pa ka tagay [One more round].

(Note: Voltaire sent me a copy of his then newly-minted book and asked if I could do a review which he could send off to newspapers and magazines. It wasn't a chore doing the review since I had already written a short evaluation of the manuscript for the NCCA.)
 
Avocado Love 12/28/2009
 
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Avocado, photo by Dalibor Bosits (as posted in Wikimedia)
green my skin purples
as your hand clenches
my heart's bruised pit 
 
Poster poems 12/27/2009
 
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Bringing the Dolls, by Merlie Alunan
I saw this photo of a framed poster poem that brought back memories of my Dumaguete days. Back then, I was a graduate student in the Creative Writing Program of Silliman University. One of my teachers was Merlie Alunan, who wrote the poem "Bringing the Dolls." She also involved us in one of her projects for the provincial tourism office -- transforming poetry into posters.

The framed poster above now hangs in Merlie's daughter's restaurant, Ayo, in Tacloban City. That was also one of my happy memories -- dining at Merlie's house, and enjoying the company of her children. You can just imagine how great the food was as four out of Merlie's five children now own and run their individual restaurants.