p o e [T] r i e

(temporary pic)

There stood-

an assemblage of poles 

rising up to heaven with the worker’s

calloused feet atop of the stake   

         and their bodies taut with a tie with dreadful grit,

as to how the poles

were tightly gripped.

 They were there

 for quite sometime-

like ants hunting day and night

but these reedy brown  and rugged    

         silver poles held the grip for these ill-fated men.

How unfortunate they could be, unlike

Somnus * in his  consumed slumber. 

Their hands of masterpiece -

with irregularities of strokes

painted the edifice

with a color of hope.   

           But the arrogant and proud poles where they stood from

have loose ropes and untangled knots,

together, will surrender with the scream of the wind.  

The nodes were tied together

to brace the framework

in which they dangled.    

           But the drops of their sweat and tacky cream

freckled the young yet

lustrous shaft of the  moonbeam. 

*Somnus, in Roman mythology, god of sleep, the son of Night and the twin brother of Death. His home was in a dark cave in the far west, where the sun never shone and all things were wrapped in silence. Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, flowed near the cave, and poppies and other sleep-inducing plants grew close by. Somnus had power over both gods and mortals and is often represented as a sleeping youth carrying a poppy stalk.  

by Thomas Lord Vaux

I loathe that I did love, 
In youth that I thought sweet; 
 As time requires for my behove, 
Me thinks they are not meet. 
My lusts they do me leave, 
My fancies all be fled, 
And tract of time begins to weave 
Gray hairs upon my head. 
For age, with stealing steps, 
Hath clawed me with his crutch, 
 And lusty life away she leaps 
As there had been none such. 
My muse doth not delight 
Me as she did before, 
My hand and pen are not in plight 
As they have been of yore. 
For reason me denies 
This youthly idle rhyme, 
And day by day to me she cries, 
Leave off these toys in time. 
The wrinkles in my brow, 
The furrows in my face, 
Say limping age will hedge him now 
Where youth must give him place. 
The harbinger of death, 
To me I see him ride; 
The cough, the cold, the gasping breath, 
Doth bid me to provide 
A pickaxe and a spade, 
And eke a shrouding sheet; 
A house of clay for to be made 
For such a guest most meet. 
Me thinks I hear the clerk 
That knolls the careful knell, 
 And bids me leave my woeful work 
Ere nature me compel. 
My keepers knit the knot 
That youth did laugh to scorn, 
Of me that clean shall be forgot 
As I had not been born. 
 Thus must I youth give up, 
Whose badge I long did wear; 
To them I yield the wanton cup 
That better may it bear. 
Lo, here the bared skull 
By whose bald sign I know 
That stooping age away shall pull 
Which youthful years did sow. 
For beauty, with her band,

These crooked cares hath wrought,

And shipped me into the land 
From whence I first was brought.

And ye that bide behind, 
Have ye none other trust;

As ye of clay were cast by kind, 
So shall ye waste to dust. 
 ... continue reading this entry.

The weather was bad. All I could hear was the clouds’ boisterous cry and the piercing cry of the cicada. I could clearly hear the whispering complaint of the wind and the defeaning silence of the room. Nothing was there but just the mere presence of a lady- in pain of what poem to write.

lady:”unsa man jud akong isulat uie”

The other:” lisod kaayo mag-isip naa pa kay Mime na dapat isulat”

lady: “confused”
The other: ” about friends nalang, family, society, etc.”

lady: ” hala, ganahan ko sa weather- naga ulan tapos dulom,(Flasback: Best, ganahan ko ug spiders. Amazing sila na creature. Hmmm, unsa gani ang poison nga gina inject nila sa other animals na ma-trap sa ilang web? ) tama! Spider nalang diay akong long poem!”

The other: “speechless”

And that was the situation.

S-P-I-D-E-R, letters were typed into the monitor, the blinking cursor kept mocking the struggling lady.

lady: (in her mind: Web, insects trapped, spider, rain, wind, poison, silky) “wait lang, so what’s with the spider thing? Well, i’m just interested with the creature, why I opted to write about a Spider, I wanted to experience how is it to be a spider, what makes a spider spider, how capable are they in terms of food searching- an aspect of survival, do they enjoy being a spider?(urging her to write about it)

–pause– ( an interruption occured)

A knock on the door was heard, her classmate entered asking, where was she in her mini thesis. With the unexpected circumstance, ideas to be added with the poem were disturbed- fragmented. There wasn’t really taking down of notes happened. Ideas were clustered in the mind, sorting out what is related and those that are of abstraction but are still related to the idea. Since there was an unforeseen distraction, the process was slightly entangled. Nonetheless, due to strict concentration of the poem the process went on.

The intangible clustering of ideas was done- the association and connection of each and every word or image was drawn. However, during the said process it was very hard for her to construct and attach each of the words in relation to other words. Though she already had the idea it was at first hard for her to put these ideas into words, there was an abandoned beginning. However, the thought of it was scrutinized. What she did was to leave first the other unconstructed images and proceeded to what her mind suggested. As the challenge continued, new ideas arose and during this process nothing was left abandoned. The predicament she had prior to forming the preceding phrases or lines were eagerly constructed.

It wasn’t an easy task. Among the processes, the hardest was to fit in the words that are needed in a certain line. Wether the image of the line projects or whether it jibed with the writer’s intention, does this line suggest something or does it contain any purpose or is it just purposely written? There were series of revision of each line and there was even a consultation for the proper scientific terms to be used. It was like learning how to ride a bike. At first you will fall or stumble but with eagerness and practice,onewould surely have his first perfect ride with his bicycle. Just like how one writes a poem, series of revision is to be done, polishing the words for them to illuminate and radiate and attaining its worth as a crafted work of art.

lady: “tama naman siguro ni, I have done my very best for this entry.” (Reads the poem)

I prepared myself after the sun bequeathed
the stars to twinkle
i hid beneath the coconut leaf and
conditioned myself.
I flickered a smile and
anticipated the pouring of the rain
I sat upside down waiting,
Feeling a bit bored.
so I started to do my chore-
I stretched my reach and spun the silk thread
that was carried by the air current until it caught
the neighboring limb of the oak tree.
I patiently weaved my silk thread,
Finishing already ten spokes,
But when I was about to reach the
home run an unknown creature suspended my errand.
I couldn’t see its features
but I could smell the aroma of its flesh,
for another life giggling experience
awaits my dinner.
so I ran through the signal thread
that is attached to the hub and
bit the trapped prey and pierced it with chelicerae then
I injected the poison into the wound making him paralyzed.
while I wrapped him with
my unwearyingly made silk thread
I sucked out his juices
until it shriveled.
After a while I swallowed it
with a great pride
while I resumed weaving the final scaffolding and ran towards the free zone.
I fell into a deep slumber
expecting more preys to be captured
during which I rolled up the web
anddiscarded it as a tiny silk ball.

(smiles)