SOUTHERN TAGALOG

Paolo Manalo is a Filipino poet who teaches at the College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines. For a time he served as the literary editor of the Philippines Free Press. Jolography, his first book of poems, received the 1st prize in poetry from the 2002 Palanca Awards and the 2004 U.P. Gawad Chancellor Para sa Natatanging Likha ng Sining (Outstanding Literary Work).

                                                                                            

Jolography 

(By Paolo Manal)

O, how dead you child are, whose spoiled
Sportedness is being fashion showed

Beautifuling as we speak -- in Cubao
There is that same look: Your Crossing Ibabaw,

Your Nepa Cute, Wednesdays
Baclaran, "Please pass. Kindly ride on."

Tonight will be us tomorrowed-
Lovers of the Happy Meal and its H,

Who dream of the importedness of sex as long as it's
Pirated and under a hundred, who can smell

A Pasig Raver in a dance club. O, the toilet
Won't flush, but we are moved, doing the gerby

In a plastic bag; we want to feel the grooves
Of the records, we want to hear some scratch-

In a breakaway movement, we're the shake
To the motive of pockets, to the max.

The change is all in the first jeep
Of the morning's route. Rerouting

This city and its heart attacks; one minute faster
Than four o'clock, and the next

Wave that stands out in the outdoor crowd
hanging with a bunch of yo-yos-

A face with an inverted cap on, wearing all
Smiles the smell of foot stuck between the teeth.

Cirilo F. Bautista (born 1941) is a multi-awarded Filipino poet, fictionist, critic and writer of nonfiction. He received his basic education from Legarda Elementary School (1st Honorable Mention, 1954) and Mapa High School (Valedictorian, 1959). He received his degrees in AB Literature from the University of Santo Tomas (magna cum laude, 1963), MA Literature from St. Louis University, Baguio City (magna cum laude, 1968), and Doctor of Arts in Language and Literature from De La Salle University-Manila (1990). He received a fellowship to attend the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa (1968–1969) and was awarded an honorary degree—the only Filipino to have been so honored there.

The Sea Cannot Touch

               (By Cirilo F. Bautista)

 

The sea cannot touch me now
nor the sky
in this room whose arms are
your arms

They would spell the night
I took you for my wife
I do not think of candles in that church
Though they were there

the priest the words though they
were there
I think only of your sad
beautiful face following

the nothing there/the nothing
to construct our lives with/hoping
the singing birds would come
and house among its branches