As Dali Puts It

I've been aching to write this art-inspired poetry after being charmed by the Spanish painter Salvador Dali's surrealist painting called The Persistence of Memory. This painting has been haunting me for years like an obsessed ghost. - Suri Nahunte


As Dali Puts It

a still life of

jell-o - like clocks

spread

randomly

against a

psychedelic landscape.

It blows your mind --


like Prozac and poetry


on canvas;


like the lost love, which


Time cannot find;


like a bitterness, which


tears cannot wash away;


like this indelible


Memory of Memories, which


as Dali puts it, is




Persistent.





[Author's Note: Well, this is just about the best way I could verbalize Dali's work here. I'm not sure, though, if "like Prozac and poetry on canvas" works here as a metaphor...or simile. What do you think, blogfellows?]

To Achilles, in the Afterlife

This allusion to Achilles is inspired by two poems: Louise Gluck's The Triumph of Achilles and William Carlos Williams' To Mark Antony, in Heaven. But while Gluck's poetic thesis focuses on the human or carnal side of Achilles, mine is on his ultimate defeat brought about by his inevitable and absolute separation from Patroclus, who has drunk from the river of forgetfulness, the river Lethe. - H.P. Atilano

To Achilles, in the Afterlife

"You can keep your wrath while your countrymen go down in ruin, I cannot.
Give me your armour. If they think I am you... We might yet drive back the
enemy." - Patroclus to Achilles, The Iliad by Homer


By the River Lethe you must have passed and wept --
Wept long and hard over those footprints on the banks;
Remembering the friend you loved, your mortal half;
Remembering how he smelt of the Aegean Sea when he sweats;
Remembering how many times he cheated death
As if he, like you, is blest by Styx.

But immortal he was not; foolhardy was he --
By donning your armour, to Hades he fled.

And here you come, Achilles -- a lifetime too late!
So by the River Lethe you must have passed and wept.

Jailbird

here's a poem i wrote one night when i could no longer ignore the cramped chicken coops sitting right beside our jeepney terminal. i've since chosen to ride jeepneys on another terminal, far away from all the unsettling sights such coops held inside their bars.

- vincent pido

Jailbird

Once again, like every other cold night,
she peeps through the rusty steel bars
hoping to escape the now barren fright
within her old heart that has seen much too many wars.

She feels that her time is drawing near,
and is saddened that she has not been free.
Almost all her life she was a captive in fear
while the rest of the world was blind to her plea.

Her instincts tell her of a distant memory
that beckons her to run, flap her wings and fly,
pursue the life she was born to live, flee
from the lustful hands of those who watch her nearby.

Wrongfully sentenced to a cruel imprisonment
for a crime that was never thought, never done,
her days crawl on, but she never forgets she is innocent
although those before her, she knew, found death in this unjust condemnation.

As the night grew darker and her inner stirrings deeper,
a loud conversation of sorts is overheard, a negotiation.
The gates to the crowded cell is opened to the buyer,
that he may select the one to suffer execution.

It was her, she was not wrong.
She struggled and clucked and cackled and pecked,
until she found her way back into the safety of the throng
only to be once more seen and grabbed by her feathery neck.

If only they understood her worry.
If only they understood her cries
that told the horrible story
of a chicken that was soon to be fried.

parlor

-kimee

As early as the mothers sun their
month-old babies in the day, beauty
parlors in the barangay
at the foot of the dumpsite
are open. All five of these can
anytime replace the cracked crow of
cocks in the neighborhood.
The cocks, cooped, shrivelled, puny and
no longer the phallic legends that
they were, are ill from yesterday's derby.
The gay parloristas, though, don't seem
to be at all weary despite
their nightly cockfights.
Why be?
Everyday is a good commerce
of snips, slashes, bobs and shrill
uranist cackles about the town
prostitute's genuflections in dark
damp corners.

This is juicy breakfast fare
masterfully served by the transvestite with
his utensils of pusher and nipper clearing, cleaning and scraping off
shavings of nail, dust, relics of the weeks scavenging;


tribulations
accumulating into
a heap on a spoon not even today's
rice can fill.

Dogeaters

here's a poem i wrote a few years back during a planning seminar and workshop while i was still with the spectrum. while on a short break we were asked to write a poem (or at least try to), and i wrote this as quickly as i could, a poem based on an idea floating around in my head at the time. i don't know why i had that idea there, but i wrote it down anyway. i haven't had the initiative (or the courage) to polish it since then, although it's been published in the 2006 edition of the scribe.
- vincent pido

Dog eaters

Bantay,
my best friend,
wags his tail
and licks my face
as we run through the fields
in a playful race.

Bantay,
my best friend,
barks in obedience
as I call him
for us to go back home
before the day ends.

Bantay,
my best friend,
ends his meager meal
of day-old left-overs contentedly
and sits on his haunches
leaning beside me.

Tatay,
my worst enemy,
and his other drunkard friends
are outside,
laughing,
and drinking,
and eating.

Tatay,
my worst enemy,
brings out the knife,
the chopping board,
the frying pan,
and the spices.

Tatay,
My worst enemy,
shouts at me,
shoves me away,
and pulls Bantay
by his wagging tail.

Bantay,
my best friend,
wags his tail
innocently
as he meets his bloody end.

Three Little Pigs

i'm not much of a poet (i never was and don't really think of becoming one), but here's a poem i found myself jotting down in panic after watching a documentary on how pigs are slaughtered where i come from. i wrote it in less than fifteen minutes in feverish haste, i reckon, as the words simply poured out of me. i guess most of my better poems are born that way: effortlessly.
- vincent pido


Three Little Pigs

Three little pigs
are playing in the pen,
running,
and jumping
all around the den.

Three little pigs
are cuddling to the sow
suckling,
and huddling
safe at least for now.

Three little pigs
are loaded in the truck,
farewell
to the mother
bathing in the muck.

Three little pigs
are in the slaughterhouse,
filthy,
and scary
all around dead cows.

Three little pigs
are pounded on the head
electrocuted,
stabbed,
soon they’ll be dead.

Three little pigs
are down on the floor,
bleeding,
and screaming,
and bleeding some more.

Three little pigs
are pounded on the head,
disoriented
and in pain
of course they’ll be dead.

Three little pigs
are down on the floor,
happiness,
happiness,
There’ll be pork chop in the stores!

Helplessly Charmed

I was once impressionistic…and I guess I still am, even with love. But lessons are learned and lessons come like soft knocks of opportunities. You may not fathom what I ought to say, but here is what I felt one drizzly evening…and my felt tip started to doodle…

O tempt me not to drink from your spring of false immortality;

Enchant me not with your lulling voice

and show yourself not in full splendor,

so I may better

taste,

hear, and

see

Reality beyond the fantasies that blind me.

Counting Shadows

One,
Two,
Three.

I'm better.

You lazy brat!
Stop day-dreaming
and start learning with us.

What are you looking at the ceiling for?
There are no shows up there,
only darkness
and traps.

You'll strain your neck
Bothering with such nonsense.

You, fool.
Wear your silver anklets,
Adorn yourself with our fathers' bracelets
And precious necklaces.
They're too heavy you can't move around,
But you're not supposed to move anyway!

What? Say it again?
Who bewitched you?
What shadows are you talking about?

Oh.. nonsense!

How dare you say you've glimpsed
Some glaring light
when for fifty years I've known nothing else
but these flames?

Oh! Go ahead!
Throw your life away trying
to find the color blue
When all that exist
are black, red and yellow!

on moon river

moon river is a song which i consider as an excellent inter-textual poetry which meaning could not be fully grasped unless a listener has found the reason for having huckleberry mentioned in it. - robert vladimir

for those who does know this oldies song, here is a copy for you:

Moon River, wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
wherever you're going I'm going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world to see.
We're after the same rainbow's end--
waiting 'round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.

when i was a lot younger, i payed no attention to the song "moon river" and the name huckleberry contained in it. for as a young boy, i was not certain of any word i hear from the song. later though, i realized that "moon river" is a song mark twain would be delighted to hear about. its allusion to "the adventures of huckleberry finn" makes it a song of definite literary value. so allow me to quote some lines from the song as i go on with my interpretation.

truly, jim and huck (huckleberry) are "two drifters off to see the world" and as one of them is an unschooled negro and the other - a child, there is truly "such a lot of world to see" for them. and as they drifted along that Mississippi river, the speaker in this poem (or song) who i suppose is jim, realized that a body of water could be a "dream maker" and "heart breaker" at the same time. but since they are left with no other avenue of escape, the speaker chose to surrender to the current - "wherever you're going, i'm going your way." He believes that they are "after the same rainbow's end... my huckleberry friend, moon river and me." he considers both huck and the river his companion, and that they are together in this journey to freedom. however, for those who wonder why the speaker called it a moon river, it may be because jim marvels at the river's beauty only during the night when no authority can see him because he is, at that time, a wanted criminal for allegedly kidnapping huck.

this poetic song can be interpreted in a hundred more ways. that was mine. hope to read your comments.

suggestion: rita eriksen's rendition of this song is my favorite of all. you can find it on imeem.com.

train

this is one of my few, amateurish attempts in poetry. I've been fascinated with the metro train culture and found that the train's window could be quite an interesting image to play with. I plan to write some more for fine-tuning. --Kimee


You,

beating the drudgery

of conventional traffic

I, in my escapist tendencies of

living European--

the train, i feel, is a cosmopolitan tryst if not for

the clump of bodies in between us

a sorry shipment of commuters from some bucolic sty,

they with eyebrows seemingly incapable

of hoping beyond their gossip,

elbowing, nudging, bullying me away from you.

i settle for the train's glass window,

the same window through which

we see the same building and sky

the same dreams flashed on glazed billboards overlooking

the same church belltowers greyed and neutered

in spirit and duty.

we see the same trees precious in their intermittence.

We see each other

beholding the same longing and defeat--

the language of the flesh conceding to the language of glass:

Us, brittle reflections warped

by the chill of its infidelity,

how dare it give you an unjust remaking of my beauty,

deprive you with its thoughtless obligation of freezing the fire in my gaze.

the train speeds off

you beating traffic; I, living European.

we battle the same bodies in between us, we chase the same dreams.

but as parallel trains are fated never to meet and touch,

Here we are.

suffering the impotent symmetry of restraint.

counting on glass, lusting on glass,

waiting till we finally get off the same stop.

Poetry: My Catharsis

[ Catharsis - n. emotional and spiritual cleansing or purgation experienced by one who witnessed the rise and fall of a hero or heroine in a tragic play]

This poem is inspired by all the tragic heroes and heroines who have brought me face to face with my own hubris... - H.P. Atilano


My Catharsis


Because you owe me my catharsis, you,
Beautiful Ones, must die.
For as long as your inevitable fall
is an obligatory part of your story,
You will be my heroes: inherently good,
yet flawed.
My life-mentors, teach me empathy;
let hubris take its course
And teach me humility -- that even a god-
like beauty like you could fall.
My heroes, for you I will carve epitaphs
to immortalize you:

"Here lies Oedipus, King of Thebes, blind
'til the very end..."

"The Moor of Venice herein rests; Deceit and
Gullibility, his only friends..."

"Antigone, defender of the dead; devoted sister,
alone in death..."

...and I will save my tears for the epiphany,
for when Truth strikes its deadly blow;
...and I will shed those tears to wash off my
own hubris to give your death some worth.


Author's Note: Presumably, the persona here is addressing the tragic heroes in a sort of dramatic monologue and gives his/her definition of catharsis.

WELCOME BLOGFELLOWS!

Welcome to the club, literatis!

Quills and Parchment is meant to be a group blog created for a chosen few -- former students in my literature classes with exemplary passion for literature, fellow creative writers, and aspiring poets and fictionists. The aim of this blog is to encourage intellectual discourse among young aspiring writers and voracious readers on their own writing and reading experiences, as well as hone and nurture their craft by drawing inspiration from each other.

Officially created today, 12 April 2008, Quills and Parchment is more than just a group blog; it is a fellowship. Thus, the moment you are given full access to this blog, you officially become a blogfellow. More than the username and password, what would truly induct you into this exclusive on-line fellowship is your passion for writing and reading.

You get to publish your work (poetry, prose, proem...) on this blog, while the rest of the blogfellows are invited to post their comments and constructive objective criticisms. You may also share a published poem or work of fiction that you find truly inspiring and give your evaluation of the book or personal reading of the poem. We also get to discuss film adaptations of certain literary works.

Once again, welcome blogfellows.

Carpe diem!

h.