April 2012
50 posts
6 tags
Absinthe
At this point, I’ve learned to accept the fact
that people like to point and judge.
My hair is unkempt and my eyes are glazed
like unpolished crystals, or fogged windows.
I’m still reeling from the heady drought
of accidentally running into you, tripping
over my own steps and tiptoeing over
the hallucinations of lively dialogue.
The aftertaste fluctuates
from saccharine to sulfur,
knowing...
3 tags
Loosening Up
When I started this blog, I told myself that I wouldn’t post any overly personal things here. That, whatever prose or poetry found itself on this tumblr would be something I’d consider putting in a resume. But then I figured filtering my thoughts and my writing to that extent would just defeat the purpose of owning a blog. So starting now, newbabylon is an avenue for rants, tirades, vague...
5 tags
Katipunan Foot Traffic
In the lit room of a condominium’s tenth floor,
two silhouettes timidly bleed into each other
before drawing the binders and collapsing.
Near the gas station, an eccentric vagrant
tediously picks at his head with tweezers
and saves the spoils in a jar. A mugger blends
into the shadows of the overpass, weapons concealed
and heart unburdened by the routine
of his transgressions. It occurs to me
that...
Anonymous asked: do you listen to indie music?
6 tags
During a Math Class, Reviewing Probabilities
A study which revolves around chance.
A systematic method of predicting how high
the chaotic waves of circumstance could rise and crash
onto the shore, the tidal forces which define
how I ebb, how you flow. I’m not saying
the psychic sensations of our silences –
our clumsy attempts at telepathy –
are more reliable, let alone the potency
of my shotglass assumptions, the burn of wishful...
Anonymous asked: Favorite heavy metal sub-genre/s?
Anonymous asked: Top five (or maybe ten) favorite metal bands?
Anonymous asked: mooore. lol sorry for bugging you crush
5 tags
Now is Not the Right Time
And neither is it the right place
to think of such things,
like the lofty promises of forever,
set so high it would burn the eyes
of the reckless onlooker,
or suffocate the ambitious climber.
Case in point, I see you in the dawn
when it shyly rustles its way out from
the blanket of nights I spent dreaming of you,
and I see you in the mountains
when my feet bleed and my bones creak.
I can’t reach...
Anonymous asked: are you bored? check out your most recent followers and tell us what you think about their blogs
Anonymous asked: How about naming some of your real friends from outside of Ateneo? Maybe some of the people you miss because you don't get to see them anymore? It's nice to remember once in a while.
Anonymous asked: top 5 crushes in tumblr.
Anonymous asked: links to 10-15 of the best writers you know on tumblr
Anonymous asked: You don't seem to be fond of writing romanticism. Why do you think that gives you an edge as a writer?
Anonymous asked: Top 5 crushes in the guidon.
5 tags
#writerproblems
I can’t write explicitly what I feel about you
or specifically what events transpired between us
to make me feel this way, on the off-chance
that you’d see it.
So I disguise it with figures of speech,
banking on the theatric intrigue
and bipolar tendencies of a malleable simulacrum,
the corners of its mouth and eyes pulled
by the strings of the stories it wishes it could tell.
I’m sitting in a...
likelyunlikely asked: Jam, so much love for your poetry. ;_;
4 tags
Much of What I Know About You
I find in the little things.
The same way morning dew refracts
the near infinite spectrum of light
even before I stir myself from sleep.
The same way the record skips
and the deepest silence digs itself
between small scratches. I feel you
cloaked in the vague, invisible forces
of what is possible, sitting next to me
on the veranda, waiting for the sunrise.
I’m not even sure if we’re facing the...
therioraptor asked: You have a twitter? :)) Tell me what it is. I'll follow you. Nah, I was surfing through tags and a poem of yours came up. Looked cool so I followed it to the source. It was your tumblr pala :))
therioraptor asked: Pssst. Guess who I stumbled on while surfing tumblr? :)) Can't believe I found your tumblr so easily :))
Anonymous asked: Tell her?
5 tags
Light is Constant. Shadows are Malleable.
Light is constant. Shadows are malleable. Your silhouette manifests against the backdrop of one of a thousand possible futures. I’m doing my best to work within the constraints of plans. I’m trying to cooperate with uncertainty and the suspense it begets.
Light is constant. Shadows are malleable. Every passing zephyr is a backhanded strike against the flame, flickering at the wick. For every...
3 tags
Disabled
You are a staircase.
My mouth is a wheelchair.
It doesn’t help that you make my knees weaker than they already are.
6 tags
Acrophobia
I find myself at the foot of a mountain called Waiting.
Armed to the teeth and prepared
to brave the worn and craggy face
of an old adversary, I wonder
how many excrescences it can hold,
when a wrinkle ends and a crack begins,
how the smoldering bark of a log distinguishes
between light and ashes, how to keep warm
the higher I get. More often than not,
there came a change of heart. I could never...
Anonymous asked: Who's in your heart?
Anonymous asked: Why is thy love unrequited
5 tags
To the Map of Manila Thumbtacked to the Corkboard...
You are ugly. You have let yourself become
compromised by bold-labeled rivers.
They stab through your plans and grids,
your housing projects and developments,
as if you had resigned to the fresh, filtered,
distilled, long arm of the vast unknown,
letting it interfere with what you can control.
I can only imagine the vengeful ghosts
of old friars and galleons traipsing those rapids.
History cuts...
5 tags
3 tags
Space
I know you asked for it.
But listen.
I’m not even half the man I want to be.
There is room for you.
6 tags
Spider’s Habitat II
Let me tell you something about wishing.
To wish implies to ignore action.
To do nothing. Meaning, if
I wished you the best, and you crossed
an unsuspected turn in the path
you chose to take – the path less like a fork
and more like a web – I have no responsibility
to protect you from the desperate hunger pangs
of other unsuspecting fruit flies caught
in the throes of their carelessness and
the...
9 tags
I Forgot Everything I Thought I Knew About...
Note: This poem follows today’s prompt of writing a sonnet! This poem was extra challenging to write because 1) Romanticism (as sonnets are most usually inclined to) is not my strong suit and 2) I’m not used to working with rhyme schemes and fixed meters. But here it is. I’m not as proud of it as I am with my other works, but these prompts make for good challenges.
Behold, a...
7 tags
4 tags
Me Attempting to Explain to my Friend the Logic...
Jam: No no no, I think I found the logic behind it. o_o
Kara: Go!
Me: I haven't organized my thoughts well enough into comprehensive sentences. =)) BUT I have something. :))
Kara: GOOO :))
Jam: Okay okay I'll try
Jam: uhm
Jam: Imagine, the girl I like is in a comic book store. I am a comic book, and the rest of the male populace is lining the shelves, rows upon rows of prospects. She shuffles through the selection and comes across me. I'm a pretty cool comic book. I'm limited edition. I'm deluxe. If I'm not the only one of my kind, I'm the best of my kind. She brings me to the cash register, purchases me, takes me home, and I'm inside the back just waiting to be read.
Jam: But instead she doesn't read me. She doesn't take me out of my plastic wrapping. She puts me in a glass case. I'm a collector's item, after all. I'm not meant to be read. She won't read me, but she'll read different stories with different content in shittier, dilapidated, secondhand, non-deluxe, cheap-ass copies. Kasi sayang if she reads me. She respects me too much for it. She'll just get someone like me. A copy.
Kara: OH WOW WHAT A METAPHOR
Jam: RIGHT?!
Jam: I AM SO MEANT FOR MY COURSE
Jam: But do you see the connection? Can you imagine, if I was read
Jam: I'd have the glossiest pages
Jam: and the best printing quality
Jam: and Idk, deluxe coupons at the end of the story and stuff
Jam: if she just...
Jam: opened me up.
Jam: ;_________;
Jam: HAHAHAHA
Kara: oh god oh god
Kara: OMG
5 tags
City Spaces
In which the tourist finds herself
dodging traffic, jaywalking, leaving
footprints in wet cement patches.
In which renovation is ongoing.
In which demolition is ongoing.
There are nets attached to the edges
of unfinished structures, ready
to catch precariously positioned,
incomplete fragments of what should be
a skyscraper. I swear, if you look closely,
when the sun hits the stones just...
Anonymous asked: Do you want to date someone older or younger than you are?
4 tags
Baby Steps
Note: Second stanza should be the middle. Third stanza and last line should be coming from the left side.
I waited for you
and shouted hello
from home.
I met you halfway
and said hello
from a distance.
Please understand,
mapmaking is a bit of a chore.
Here’s the Bermuda triangle.
nestled between the edges
of Florida and Puerto Rico.
Not that I’ve ever been there.
Though, I’d like to...
Anonymous asked: I read your tweets and I can tell you love art & poetry! Would you happen to be coursemates with Betina??
Anonymous asked: I've liked you ever since and it's been so long now... This isn't even a question but I feel like letting you know!
Anonymous asked: what's your type? either in a boy or girl.
8 tags
Everything is Going Downwards
Note: I know this wasn’t posted on Day 10 itself but I say it isn’t the next day until I sleep. Finished this a bit past midnight. Also, followed the prompt of Day 10: writing a poem whose first line was lifted from another poem. I took the first line of Leaning Into The Afternoons by Pablo Neruda.
Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
into the rolling waves of your brief...
Anonymous asked: Really? You don't have a girlfriend?
5 tags
Sympathy
Note: Followed today’s prompt. Tried to write a persona poem. Also, I think at this point, I’m already feeling the creative juices running out. Not really proud of this one, but I just didn’t want to miss a day.
I want to meet you halfway, here.
Not in a “lukewarm” halfway kind of way.
More like a, “You have all the time in the universe so just give me five minutes” halfway...
8 tags
9 tags
Have another Shitty Poem about the Sea
So this is what it’s like
to be a vessel. I guess
it’s not that bad, the intimate
space, the welcoming vacuum,
the accommodatingly dark
corners of a dead-air zone.
I don’t know much. You’re the one
with the oars and the emergency rations
and mastery over the sea
and astronomical eyes
and bravery. I was never one
to build houses on sand,
but you always had a sixth sense
for palm trees.
I’m...
5 tags
The Hippo
Note: Second post for today! This will count as my official poem for Day 6 since I started late.
Only recently did I find out (from a good friend whose poetry is wonderful) that the people behind Napowrimo were giving certain poetry prompts per day. Very helpful stuff. Why it did not occur to me earlier to actually check the NaPoWriMo site, I don’t know.
The prompt for Day 6 is to write about an...
5 tags
Bar Poem
Note: I started late with Napowrimo 2012, so I wrote my first poem on the second day. Today is Day 6, but this’ll count as the poem for Day 5. Second poem to be uploaded shortly after this.
Also, only recently did I find out (from a good friend whose poetry is wonderful) that the people behind Napowrimo were giving certain poetry prompts per day. Very helpful stuff. Why it did not occur to...
6 tags
Bombast
1
Theophrastus
I should have known better than to meddle in the affairs of metaphysics. Here was a study which claimed it could hold a tall candle to a dark realm beyond the five senses. Feel its way around through a secret language with clumsy gestures. My hands are arthritic. Melting wax brands itself into my skin.
2
Hohenheim
There is no method to a science that treats itself like magic. No...
6 tags
Reverse Engineer
I built you hanging gardens
next to ziggurats
and juggernauts
made of marble. You were
the reason behind this
progressive madness. I thought
I could have impressed you.
I suppose I should have built fortresses.
Or barricades. Or shield. Or god-killers.
Now our tongues speak different languages.
And I used to be so fluent
with the nuances of your body.
Now I’m trying to find
remnants in the...
6 tags
Gardener
These metaphors
– petrified –
branch out to a thousand skies,
tangling and intertwining
like the hazardous plasticity of power lines,
in an honest attempt
to catch one bird’s attention.
4 tags
The Dangers of Small Talk
My day would not make for a very talented short story. It lacks the strength of a proper plot and the dexterity of a smooth narrative. The craft of storytelling requires a sense of athleticism, a discipline I’m sure you’ve seen in many the alpha male. But my mouth is clumsy. My heart sneaks up behind its ankles and ties the laces of its words together so it trips after the first step.
To be...
