Thursday, July 19, 2007
Kraftwerk Zahl Ein
Syntax
Is the thing you first learn, twisting text,
Scrabbling words: A B.A.
Language and Literature
Student with a sure hand turning
The world quickly over, over
That semester I was inspecting the fallen
Cracked face and all
The while insisting on order
On the page.
Later you are in a cold room
Watching, world-wary sophomore,
Your country’s history dismantling on TV,
A documentary, how it was arranged
Into tricky poetry: Aguinaldo is not the hero
We were made to believe and keep
In our pockets, the precious face on five-peso bills
And they were not
Benevolent, only themselves: an empire
Expanding, but surely noble in trying
To glue back the world together
How they wanted.
At the turn of the last century,
An assembly of twenty houses.
Kafagway was discovered on a mountain
To be ten degrees cooler, igniting
In the heat-hating settlers’ heads
An idea: smooth the slopes with systems of streets,
Train trees to grow in grids, carve a city
On the mountain’s plain face, build a lake.
Commemorate the drowned. Name the creation
After the old village word for moss:
Begyiw. Open its arms to benefactors
And later, to summer
Vacationers who would take it, slowly
Apart again, like so many bachelors
Of arts. Later you leave,
Graduate, the room, mountain.
Later you are looking at the structures
Across an office window and the random
Punctuations of trees in between
So that the city is rambling on and on and on and on and on and
I still do not get it. You are ordering
The words. Be still.
Relax. What you are doing is usually starting: sorting your life through
The page. Later you will let yourself out and in
The world. For now, write
History. Make it
Scrambled and twisted like your country's. Feel free.
Only now there is a kid tearing open
A book way after classes and dreaming.
He might be yours in the future,
Which should be good. But this is getting ahead
Of yourself.
(Thanks to Sir Joel, Waps and Arkaye)
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4 comments:
ah, syntax it is! (sorry, kung mahaba masyado dear ha..)
i noticed the rhythm, and the deliberate lack of transitional terms. this work is different. i'd say the voice is a lot stronger in your previous work. but i like this too, it's more subtle.
i seriously like this catalogue -->
"In the heat-hating settlers’ heads, an idea:
Smooth the slopes with systems of streets,
Train trees to grow in grids, carve a city
On the mountain’s plain face, build a lake.
Commemorate the drowned."
definitely got that idea of disarray followed by arrangement. i think you did not have to mention the exact setting, i already imagine the highlands unfold before me as i read this poem. the terms, kafagway and begyiw actually give it away. (assuming of course, the reader would be curious and will try to research on that) but really, it gives it away.
and i also liked the image of trees as punctuations. :)
i read this twice, and at first i got the impression that the poem was about history and how it rearranges through time, along with landscapes, the country and what not. i read it again, and the last few lines made me think that it's about writing, and how these things mentioned in the poem can be written. (ewan sorry ^^;, basta something about writing.)
and the last line "But this is getting ahead/ of yourself" i think is good. it works for me because this idea contrasts well with the past or with History.
would surely wanna say more, but this is getting too long. favor, please erase this comment once you've read it. haha.
miss ya mudra..ΓΌ
konnichiwa, cor-san! =)
yay, arigato gozai masu for reading the poem, dear hina. =)
can't imagine writing without your help. without you, period.
btw, "terminal" keeps on passing through my head, like a haunting ghost train. i like. =)
gomenasai if it was uber long. ^^;
thanks, nice to know you liked terminal. i edited it a bit, will let you read it soon. :)
oh man, in the same manner, i cannot imagine writing without you. you were there when i was starting, i hope to have you around till my lungs expire. wahahaha. emo shet.
kwak-kiss-kwak-kiss mudra. :)
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