Short Pledge for You

As long as I can feel pain and emptiness...
I am close to you.
Let my melancholy drag my life.
I'd gladly go with it.

I am not planning to go on.

I'll swim in this river for eternity.
My tears and my sadness are my only memory of you.
Every single water that I shed
Reminds me that once, I loved.

Thank you for leaving it with me.
Rather than living a life of numbness and a blackened heart.

Bangin at iba pa

Pag tumalon ka sa rumaragasang agos ng tubig, hindi mo na maikukuwento ang lahat ng nangyari pagkatapos.

Pag lumipad ka nang inaakala mong ikaw si Superman at wala ka palang pakpak, given the law of gravity, babagsak ka.

Naranasan mo na bang tumawa ng napakalakas, hanggang sa maubos ang hininga mo at biglang maluluha dahil alam mong pagkatapos nito haharapin mo ang mundo mag-isa?

Kanya kanya lang tayo. May iba't iba tayong pamamaraan upang maranasan ang extremes ng buhay. In the middle of all this, you'll realize that you have to be alone and that alone, you'll find what you need to find.

Maturity, achieving it. That's the greatest puzzle that I have to solve. how come na sa lahat ng mga pinagdaanan ko sa buhay, di ko pa rin ito nabubuo?

I need comfort. I don't know where to find it.

I want to go far. Far enough that the only person who will find my way back is myself.

Struggle. Contradiction. Kelan ko ba pinag-aralan na i-handle ito?

Poem Reversioning... It struck me in a different light

We are not Two People
(Inspired by Muriel Rukeyser's Effort at Speech between Two People)

by Myself

He will not speak to you. Your hand in midair
Hanging still. Purple-cold as blood grew tired
To flow. While he drools over the death of
A rabbit.
Laugh at the girl who went under a chair.
Unbelievably, she is turning three.
He is very happy.

Did you ever think of those white sails, sister?
Count the years back, until the day before
You walked the Earth, they were there, sky high.
No embracing arms, but your own woman.
He lives there, happy. His own man.

He will not speak to you. Your purple-cold
Hand chips off away. He stamped his feet
Went off and left: what should have happened when
You were nine. No auditory nerves on
A black painted sound producing woodwork.
Every hour, minute second clicks away.
They call it time. It does not stop for tears.

Love lamps in evening corners, they are light
Amidst fear in the lives of all. Like his.
Keep closed, reserved. Saves power to shine more:
A quiet poem, but speaks. You are the lamp.

Hello. This is me. Grow to know me.
I would be watching the sunset then if
I happened to be by the window, even;
I am not alert: I wanted to watch
That vision. Through your eyes, through your soul.
I will be unhappy, if upon leaping
The clouds, the light, the redness of the horizon
Grey, black, dark, under the ground
I would scramble to my feet:
            Grow to know me!
I loved. I wanted you to know me.

Sister, what are you now?
Searching for him in the crowded street?
He was surfing by the waves, like a child
Frolicking in the sands.
I was there, no ignition.
So everyone, silent, moving…
I took your purple-cold fingers from the ground.
I followed you. Here, take it.
I am here, in the mirror.
Speak to me.

Rainier Maria Rilke on Nothingness

Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes

Rainier Maria Rilke

 

That was the strange mine of souls.

As secret ores of silver they passed

like veins through its darkness. Between the roots

blood welled, flowing onwards to Mankind,

and it looked as hard as Porphyry in the darkness.

Otherwise nothing was red.

There were cliffs

and straggling woods. Bridges over voids,

and that great grey blind lake,

that hung above its distant floor

like a rain-filled sky above a landscape.

And between meadows, soft and full of patience,

one path, a pale strip, appeared,

passing by like a long bleached thing.

And down this path they came.

In front the slim man in the blue mantle,

mute and impatient, gazing before him.

His steps ate up the path in huge bites

without chewing: his hands hung,

clumsy and tight, from the falling folds,

and no longer aware of the weightless lyre,

grown into his left side,

like a rose-graft on an olive branch.

And his senses were as if divided:

while his sight ran ahead like a dog,

turned back, came and went again and again,

and waited at the next turn, positioned there –

his hearing was left behind like a scent.

Sometimes it seemed to him as if it reached

as far as the going of those other two,

who ought to be following this complete ascent.

Then once more it was only the repeated sound of his climb

and the breeze in his mantle behind him.

But he told himself that they were still coming:

said it aloud and heard it die away.

They were still coming, but they were two

fearfully light in their passage. If only he might

turn once more ( if looking back

were not the ruin of all his work,

that first had to be accomplished), then he must see them,

the quiet pair, mutely following him:

the god of errands and far messages,

the travelling-hood above his shining eyes,

the slender wand held out before his body,

the beating wings at his ankle joints;

and on his left hand, as entrusted: her.

The so-beloved, that out of one lyre

more grief came than from all grieving women:

so that a world of grief arose, in which

all things were there once more: forest and valley,

and road and village, field and stream and creature:

and that around this grief-world, just as

around the other earth, a sun

and a silent star-filled heaven turned,

a grief-heaven with distorted stars –

she was so-loved.

But she went at that god’s left hand,

her steps confined by the long grave-cloths,

uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.

She was in herself, like a woman near term,

and did not think of the man, going on ahead,

or the path, climbing upwards towards life.

She was in herself. And her being-dead

filled her with abundance.

As a fruit with sweetness and darkness,

so she was full with her vast death,

that was so new, she comprehended nothing.

She was in a new virginity

and untouchable: her sex was closed

like a young flower at twilight,

and her hands had been weaned so far

from marriage that even the slight god’s

endlessly gentle touch, as he led,

hurt her like too great an intimacy.

She was no longer that blonde woman,

sometimes touched on in the poet’s songs,

no longer the wide bed’s scent and island,

and that man’s possession no longer.

She was already loosened like long hair,

given out like fallen rain,

shared out like a hundredfold supply.

She was already root.

And when suddenly

the god stopped her and, with anguish in his cry,

uttered the words: ‘He has turned round’ –

she comprehended nothing and said softly: ‘Who?’

But far off, darkly before the bright exit,

stood someone or other, whose features

were unrecognisable. Who stood and saw

how on the strip of path between meadows,

with mournful look, the god of messages

turned, silently, to follow the figure

already walking back by that same path,

her steps confined by the long grave-cloths,

uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.

 

(I cant find a copy of a better translation.)

blank

Not wanting to talk to anyone; not finding a connection with anybody; not seeing anyone who can understand how you really feel.

Lahat ng bagay corny. Lahat ng tao ayaw mo makita.

All faces I can recognize, but I believe them to be still unfamiliar.

I am alone. So getting used to be alone, I ve grown to actually disdain any attempt to intrusion.

Enjoying the dryness of the room, and the indifference of his eyes, I urge myself to look away and force my mind to be blank.

Feeling the loss of a will to live.

Nothingness: my new way of life.

 

(Saw him today.)