Wall 1 / 1999
Introduction
This is a quite unfair "wall". Alternative is, after all, relative. What's alternative in a rock club might be regarded as hegemonic noise by a peer-pressured Celine Dion fan forced to get into that club. In which case for her Celine would be the feline alternative, at least while the night lasts. Therefore let's just say that the poems that are going to be displayed on this sky-blue pipe-patterned wall are pieces their young poets believe to have been once---at least---pressured by hegemonies of all types (highbrow or pop) to bring to alternative clubs or outlets like 4894. With the editors believing them.
Then there's the question of some (most?) of these poems' being regarded by those who think they're alternative as not alternative at all. With the editors caught in the crossfire.
And then, the question of where the alternative is in each. The content? The style? The invalidity/validity of its poem-being? The history of the poem's seeking publication? All? The problem here is that the editors simply can't go on explaining the alternativeness of each piece. Let it be said then, "the editors reserve the right to judge like judges (or to be gullible) on each poem's (not necessarily its poet's, even) claims to alternativism". Whoa!
Despite the above tensions, however, we can at least rest in the possible truth that a lot of us who think they're alternative can agree on one thing. That "literary hegemonies"---like rock music hegemonies, political hegemonies, etc.---do exist, in both the established editors' anthologies and the pop magazines. That the only way to escape this narrowness is to try to be wide as the sky; that the only way to escape the hegemony is to try to be a little more ambitious. Big. As big, we say, as an industrial, working-class cum big-business, phallic, macho, flashily feminine-colored, Roman Catholic-colored, Boracay Island-colored, Piscean, 4,894 cm.-in-diameter, etc., shagging pipe publicly visible on the wall.
The Editors
11 May 1999 - 26 February 2004
Martha Alone With Her Soup
THE tears fell
dripping into my boiling soup.
No, it was not the smoke
that stung my eyes.THE sweat fell
dripping into my boiling soup.
No, it was not the kindling
that made me warm..THE snot fell
dripping into my boiling soup.
No, it was not the garlic
that irritated me.MARY chose the right thing, Jesus said.
And yes, I chose to serve them
that thick and tasty soup.
Tight Jeans
tHE summer sky reminds me
of the pale color he wearstHE fabric caresses his legs
the glorious towers of my obsessionbEHIND him is a plump prayer
a dream to a lonesome momenta CURLED cradle in his front
my impossible anticipationmY yearning and refuge
inside his tight jeans
A Gum-Ball Machine By The Seashore
I EXHALE
my stale breath
into the cup of
my hand.
I dig
my big hand
not in the sand
but in the locket of
my pocket.
Then, my coins
jingle until
I find
a single.TO the busty rusty
gum-ball machine
I give
my money.
I turn
the dispenser-knob
and hear the squeaking
sea-gull sound.
Then, I lift
the cover with
a rifted thumb.TO my dismay,
I realize
that no gum
will ever lay
in that dispenser
for I see
on top of it
the empty face
of the glass case.
But my mouth
still munches on
the absent sweetness
of the seashore air.
---submitted May 1999
Nora Aunor Confronts Mayon Volcano
I LEFT my panties in the rain,
how come your clouds are laughing
at my naked knees? This is an ipis
and that is a tsinelas.
Will my husband's bones return
to my bulbulishious V?
I left my panties in the rain.
I Saw Che Guevarra Working
Behind The Counter At Tropical Hut
NOT with his usual beret
but with a chef's white hat --
a Santana song was running
through my head -- Oye como va
mi ritmo? -- Che and his lips
were moving to the song --
Oye como va mi ritmo? And
suddenly he looked up
from the grease, the heat,
the burger and he told me
to "chupa mi telefono."
I made person to person
calls up and down his shaft,
dialed direct to the ridge
behind the glans, listened
for the busy signals just
before he hung up. And
that's when he served me
my hamburger, with fries.
---submitted June 1999
The Woman Who Didn't Come To The Fields
TONIGHT I shall not let the dim room blow the
light out from my tired eyes;
you came out last night bathed in my blood
and I know they are watching, wanting a chance
to feast on a newly born child.
Oh, I am afraid that the Lomboy tree might take form
and snatch you from my arms,
its branch is now gently caressing our window,
and I am afraid that those tube-like snakes
might run down from the roof
and drink life out of you and leave me lifeless.
But your wailing is making me strong,
your restless feet and hands against the mosquito net,
telling me that they're all outside and we're safe.
I wish your father would come home soon from the
Fields,
probably bearing that strong odour from the
merrymaking
that keeps those half-bodied beings
hungry for flesh from devouring him
The Night Is Too Long
THE trail is narrow and dark.
The tall arches of the Madre de Cacao
Envelopes the sandy road,
Filtering the light into tiny freckles
Illuminating the moans and wailings
Of the bamboo and the coconut trees
Against the strong winds.
Walking this way is tormenting:
With the gloom, each step makes the path longer
And the night even more.
Home is this way, it's the only way---
Maria is waiting for her green mangoes,
Craving for it since yesterday
---submitted December 1999
Hazes
COULD it be
that the beauty I loved to see
existed then in the smile
you always gave me
when I wake you up in
the morning?
THE warmth of your presence,
Oh so comforting,
lifts me up gently
when I'm awake
and caresses me sofly
when I sleep:
MORNINGS blurred in a haze
of coffee and love lost and found
between each other underneath
the secret confines of white bedsheets.
These were sweet everyday
delicacies I spent with you.
THEY always replay themselves in my mind, you know.
AND now, even though my mornings
are nothing but coffee hazes
and JUST coffee hazes,
I still have the sweet taste
of your soul on my lips,
making me wonder when we will
wake up next to each other, and
spend another morning of
coffee hazes,
again.
French Kiss
DRAWN
into your cave,
plunging into
your velvety warmth---
caressing me as
we dive into
each other's depths.
COLLIDING,
as we pull back---
only to reach out again,
swordlike hands
seeking desperately
for each other's touch.
RELEASE.
I PULL back
from the dark recesses,
taking in a shuddery breath---
tiny white stars dancing
and obscening my eyes,
until all I see is you
hiding in the fog
that was earlier my sight.
UNTIL we meet again.
---submitted December 1999
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