Guinsaugon

Several weeks ago, I was nursing a beer and a cigarette on my fire escape when I heard the antiquated radio on top of the book case crackle to life in its stained wooden shell. A familiar voice from back home stuttered between electrical pops and hisses, speaking of a province befallen by tragedy, of lives and souls lost, and then slowly faded out. The same damned province that suffered the same damned tragedy several years back. I stared out of the window at East Random Road and watched the fog roll in. The chill in the breeze did little to settle the sickening warmth I felt in the pit of my gut. This tragedy, as well as the first, I believe, was avoidable, preventable by just an ounce of conscience and foresight. If only those that relentlessly stripped this place of its forests had the ability to look beyond the cash they eagerly pocketed, maybe so many short lives would have turned out different. Instead, we find one more community buried in a landslide of mud, lies and excuses.

These few words I offer to this unfortunate village, a hapless victim that just happened to be in the path of the wrath of a wounded mountain. May these words act as one of the few voices that speak for you.


Guinsaugon

Dama hanggang langit
Ang lungkot at pighati
Nang pinaibabawan ng putik
Itong bayang munti
Biktima ng pagkakataon
At ng dumayong kasakiman
Patibay sa paglapastangan
Sa buhay na luntiang kanlungan

Gaya ng dati
Ang mga taksil na nakinabang
Sa pagkatay sa buto’t laman ng mundo
Ay tumakas ng pagkapang
Habang umiyak ang langit
At ang sugat ng silanga’y dumugo
Ang mga walang sala’ng nadaganan
Nang ang bundok ay gumuho

Patawad, Guinsaugon
At abalang lubusan
Ang babuyan nating pamunuan
Sa paglamon at bangayan
Patawad, at ang mga tanod
Ng kapakanan ng kalikasan
Ang siyang gumahasa’t nagpayaman
Sa susi ng iyong kaligtasan

Paalam, Guinsaugon
Yakapin ka nawa ni Bathala
Hagkan nawa niya
Ang sawi mong kaluluwa
Paalam, at makarinig sana
Ang mga bingi-bingihang tainga
At sana’y di mabaon sa limot
Ang mga sigaw ng nabaon sa lupa

-penn042006

Translation:

Sadness and grief reached to the heavens when mire covered this little village, a victim of circumstance and visiting greed, a testament to the defilement of this living green cradle. Just like before, the traitors that profited from the slaughter of the flesh and bones of the earth escaped crawling while the innocent were crushed when the mountain came crashing down.

Forgive us, Guinsaugon, for our pigsty of a government is far too busy gorging and bickering. Forgive us, because those that stood as guardians to the welfare of nature were the same ones who ravaged and profited from the key to your survival. Farewell, Guinsaugon. May the creator take you into his arms. May he kiss your ill-fated soul. Farewell… May those feigning deaf ears find their hearing and may the screams of those buried in dirt never be buried in disregard.

The Merchant Of Venice

I recently purchased the movie, The Merchant Of Venice, on DVD out of sheer curiosity. I was intrigued. I could not grasp the concept of seeing Al Pacino in a work by William Shakespeare, portraying Shylock, a jewish moneylender in 15th century Venice. So, I bought it. I watched it. I recommend it. Al Pacino's performance alone would be enough of a reason to seek this film out. On the whole, it is a masterpiece in tribute to a masterpiece. I have to say, It was one of the best films I have ever seen. But, if you watch it, I urge, watch it more than once and watch it in the quietest place. Otherwise, as you let slip, prose after prose, you will be lost. This one needs to be savored, in a way, like an unfamiliar but great vintage. Sensitivity to what is said, as well as to what is left unsaid, is the key. Enjoy.

Longing For Tranquility

I'm being drawn
To certain things
The soothing serenade
The seashell sings
That cradling comfort
As the hammock swings
I'm longing for the tranquility
The seashore brings - Penn2005

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There are times when the confines and trappings of civilization and society become burdensome. There are times when the weight of these titles, trinkets, and trimmings press done on this old soul and I long for some escape. To run to a sanctuary, a haven, where I can paint, print and ponder to my hearts content. One of these days... I swear, one of these days, we'll open the back patio doors on East Random Road and stare out into miles and miles of sand, distant shady trees, and the great blue mother ocean. Then, we'll be home.

We'll be home.

This Bittersweet Night

I appreciate you keeping me company while I fix up and straighten up this place. I know, it’s taking forever, isn’t it? But when is anything really finished in this life? I mean, like really finished. A wise man once said: The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself. That, my friend, is something worth remembering when fate throws you a nasty screwball that sends you flipping butt over brains in to a new and unsettling seat on a wild, unfamiliar ride through a territory far, far from your own. Change… It’s a part of life’s frustrations, I guess. But, more importantly, it’s part of life’s fun.

I see you’ve stumbled unto a piece of paper under my paperbacks. Oh, that’s just something I scribbled shortly after I got back from my vacation in my hometown. I hadn’t been back there for more than two years. I left a lot of people behind and I expected to see a lot of changes when I got back. But, I guess some changes still throw you for a loop even if you thought you’ve prepared yourself for everything. A fateful screwball, it was, when I left. I never thought I’d come back to a vicious emotional boomerang. It just goes to show you that “closure” is still only a door with neither lock nor key. Just like that old blue door across the room that leads out to East Random Road.

Well, read on, if you wish. I’ll get back to rearranging some stuff. I’ll bring back some cold drinks from the kitchen just as soon as I get these books up on the shelf.

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This Bittersweet Night

That night, I constantly wondered why I still dwell on my past. Why do I always turn my head to the very direction that I’m running away from? It’s an exercise in futility, if I may be permitted to use a phrase so overused. My homecoming was bittersweet because of it. Yet I savored it. Exquisite in its subtle flavor of pain-laced sadness, I drank it down, consumed it along with the bottles of beer and the countless sticks of menthol-lights. I sipped each glass of Moments Passed like perfectly chilled ale, closing my eyes as I felt the warmth that was both inviting in its passion and unnerving in its strength. Stupid, stupid, stupid, I told myself. This might not have been a good idea.

I stared into the eyes of my forlorn memory and smiled my ragged-run smile. Deafening though the music seemed at times, I heard the lost part of my soul loud and clear. I too was calling out. A useless expense of my heart’s fading voice. Yet I called out, silent in my screaming, weeping the dry hidden tears of a withered old self hidden beneath layers of toughened, leathery, canvases and pages of distance and dilution. I am no stone door, not by far. Cut me and maybe I’ll bleed. Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed too long. Maybe I shouldn’t have stared so much. But I came… I stayed… and I stared into the face that made up my world for the shortest eternity of my life. It lasted too long yet the journey was so short. Who will comprehend such longing? Will anyone understand such contradictions in these “What Is’s” and in these “What Might Have Beens”? …these “What Should Have Beens”…?

I’ve learned to be strong in my solitude. But, as I faced the utter blatant reality that my past has borne fruit without me, a quiet feeling of loss effortlessly clawed at the fortitude that I had built so diligently. Still, I came. I stayed. I stared. I drove through so much familiarity on my way home that night it was like an inescapable tide, a brutal undertow of images I both reminisced and wished forgotten.

No, I didn’t cry. My heart screamed in my chest for some form of release, but I didn’t weep. I couldn’t weep. Bittersweet though this evening was, if I was given the chance, I’d willingly experienced it all over again. Strangely, for a past I’m moving on from, I would come. I would stay. I would raise a glass of ale to the past and future, take a cigarette to my lips …and smile my ragged-run smile. -penn05162005

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I think I might have had a little bit too much toma when I wrote this. Sentimentality certainly flows more freely with the right chemical combination. What do you think? Did you imagine me all blubbery with tears and snot, wallowing in a drunken daze? Dream on, then. Hah! Do me a favor, will you? Polish off that bottle of brew for me. Then join me outside on the rooftop for a smoke. I think there’s a full moon tonight. Even if there isn’t… What the hell, we’ll howl anyway.

The Check

Recently, I had the glorious opportunity to handle a check for ten hundred dollars. That’s right. TEN hundred dollars! Ten HUNDRED dollars! Ten huuunnnnndreeeeddddd DOLLARS…! Yes, my jaded little grasshoppers, my mind did rebel. No matter where and how I place the emphasis, no matter how many times I said it, it sounded and read like a fragment of complete and utter …incomprehension. No wonder the English look down their noses on us (they droyv on the wrong soyd of th’ bloody road, they mispronounce tommah-toe and shehjool, and they think ten hundred is an actual bloody number! And, it’s Queue up! Not fall in loyn! Queue Up!!!). Now, if you just snorted a bit of whatever you’re munching on up and out your nostrils, that’s not my fault. Blame the guy that wrote a check for ten hundred dollars. This was not the first time either. I once handled a check for a whole lot more. THIRTY hundred dollars! Damn! That’s a lot of money. I politely informed the man that there is no such number and he incredulously replied: Why not?! There is thirty hundred! There is twenty eight hundred, twenty nine hundred, and then, THIRTY hundred! Dingdingdingding! Well…? Tell me, people, how do you argue with that? In its own loopy way, it did make sense, right? If you grab both ends of a zero and twist it once, do you not get an eight? Well, don’t you…?

I blame this on you! All of you carbon-based uprights who say eleven hundred and twelve hundred and twenty nine hundred and sixty nine hundred, this is all your fault. You have spawned a grammatical anomaly that has mutated fifty hundred percent. My logic is forever changed by this and I fear I shall never recover from the trauma. Nope. Not in ninety hundred years. I demand compensation! Pay for what you’ve done! I expect eleventeen gazzillion hundred dollars by the second Thursday of this week. Yes, a check would be fine. Now, if you don’t mind, I will retire to the balcony and see if I can manage to teach my neighbor’s parrot to say ten hundred dollars. I heard this neighbor of mine is an English professor, you see. If you want to join me, help me find some crackers.

Tango Don Juan

I have recently watched a play entitled, Tango Don Juan, a romantic comedy written by Carlomagno Mapa, a friend and colleague. Done well and refreshingly simple, it was a play about love and relationships using tango as a metaphor. Carlo, himself a skilled tangero, believes that affairs of the heart and tango are mirror images. True. Novices in both fields would often start with missteps and mismatches. Mistakes, embarrassments and pain become familiar companions until through time, maturity, and learning finally leads to what each person strives for as individuals and as partners.

Though I, cursed by the eternal bashfulness of a typical cancerian, have never physically engaged in the intimate sensuality that is tango, I could totally relate to what Tango Don Juan effectively speaks of. Love and romance is, essentially, a dance. Partnerships can often go stumbling and fumbling awkwardly across the floor of life, tripping and stepping on toes while the embrace with either be suffocatingly tight or shamefully loose. Other times, it would seem effortless as kindred souls would find lessons learned in their past experiences that send them gliding gracefully to where they both want to be, their hold on each other, safe and reassuring. At last, when the initial thrill has subsided, what is left is something warm, lasting and sublime. At long last, one finds a treasure to be cherished.

As a fellow artist, I raise a shotglass to Tango Don Juan and its author. Well done, Carlo. You give us all hope.

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Tango Don Juan: August 26 & 27, 8:00PM @ Cellspace 2050 Bryant Street SF, CA 94110

Pasulong... Paahon...

Well, I'm glad that you could be here for this. Your company is always welcome 'round this ring of words and worlds. As the song goes; Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. You have the last shot. What say you up-end that glass to this night's beginning, eh? So, here it is. I toss this poem into the circle. Offered to your minds and hearts to be touched and tasted, to be scrutinized or savored at your leisure. Written in my own native language, it is tribute of a son to his father. I dedicate this to the two great people who brought me forth and to all the fathers and mothers who, like mine, believe that the richness of their origins and the fire of their heritage are legacies that must be passed on. This also goes out to all the sons and daughters who embrace these legacies. Huwag kayo’ng makakalimot. Huwag tayo’ng makakalimot.

At ang wika ng ama
Sa kanyang magaaral at anak
Huwag kang makakalimot
Sa gitna ng iyong galak
May marangal na kasaysayan
Ang lupang pinanggalingan
Inakda sa pawis at dugo
Sa gitna ng dagat-silangan

Kaya bago mo lunuking buo
Itong binasbasang buhay-banyaga
Saglit mong tikman
Ang tamis ng katutubong diwa
Bago mo makasanayan
Ang ginaw ng simoy-kanluran
Saglit mong sulyapan
Ang apoy na iyong sinilangan

‘Pagkat kukupas din ang aking hinabi
At pupurol din ang itak at gulok
Kung walang aangkin sa kinagisnan.
Lahat ay malalanta’t mabubulok
Kaya’t tamnan mo ng sinaunang isip
Ang pagbabago ng panahon
Paisa-isang hakbang, anak
Pasulong… Paahon…

Translation:

And, the father said to his student and son; do not forget this in all your happiness. There is a noble history to the land of your beginnings, authored in sweat and blood amidst the eastern sea.

So, before you swallow whole this “blessed” foreign life, Savor, for a moment, the sweetness of your native spirit. Before you grow accustomed to the chill of these western winds, glance, for a moment, at the fire that brought you forth.

For, in time, what I have woven will fade. In time, the hatchet and the sword will dull. If no one will claim these origins, everything will wither and rot. Thus, sow the old ways into these changing times. One step at a time, son. Onward… Upward…