№ 803. Villanelle

 

 

№ 781. Fear

 

Fear

№ 709. Do Not Love Half Lovers - Kahlil Gibran

Do Not Love Half Lovers - Kahlil Gibran

Do not love half lovers
Do not entertain half friends
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life and do not die a half death
If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished
Do not silence yourself to say something
And do not speak to be silent
If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it
for an ambiguous refusal
is but a weak acceptance
Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes
Half a drink will not quench your thirst
Half a meal will not satiate your hunger
Half the way will get you no where
Half an idea will bear you no results
Your other half is not the one you love
It is you in another time yet in the same space
It is you when you are not
Half a life is a life you didn't live,
A word you have not said
A smile you postponed
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know
To reach and not arrive
Work and not work
Attend only to be absent
What makes you a stranger to them closest to you
and they strangers to you
The half is a mere moment of inability
but you are able for you are not half a being
You are a whole that exists
to live a life not half a life.

№ 690. Kindness

 

№ 683. Pulubi - Rio Alma

Rio Alma

№ 667. The Map You Make Yourself

Medium

 

 

The Map You Make Yourself

By Jan Richardson

 

You have looked
at so many doors with longing,
wondering if your life lay on the other
side.

For today, choose the door that opens
to the inside.

Travel the most ancient way of all:
the path that leads you
to the center of your life.

№ 559. Perhaps the World Ends Here

by Joy Harjo

 

№ 527. Hope

 

Orange County Register

 

Life blooms. Hope claws up and out. 

From dark rotten things, 

both seek light and wait for rain.

 

№ 498. Sorrow into Sustenance

"I read tonight that certain moths drink the tears of sleeping birds, turning sorrow into sustenance." from Wanderer, by Luisa A Igloria.

Pinterest

№ 485. Sa Kasintahang Nilimot Na

Sa 

Kasintahang Nilimot Na
Benilda S. Santos

Ang totoo, ayaw na kitang makausap.
Nakakainis kasi ang tawa mo sa telepono.
Lahat ng bagay pinagtatawanan mo—
kahit hindi nakakatawa
nagiging biro sa ‘yo.

Ayaw ko nang ganito.
Pakiramdam ko kasi, maysakit ang tawa mo
at medyo takot akong mahawa pa
sa mikrobyong dala-dala mo.
Ayaw kong manghina pa
ang malusog-lusog nang
kaligayahan ko.

Ngunit alam ko:
makikipagkita pa rin ako sa iyo
alang-alang sa mga alaalang
nakapagpapabanal sa tao
at dahil alam kong
sa likod ng malalakas na halakhak
ang totoo,
hinihingan mo ako ng reseta
sa sakit mo.

Hindi mo alam,
wala na akong maibibigay
na anupamang gamot.
Ang umiibig pala nang tapat sa iba
nagiging maramot.

“Sa Kasintahang Nilimot Na.” Kwadro Numero Uno: Mga Tula. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. 2005. 80-81.

№ 459. The Guest House

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

---Rumi

№ 458. Manila Extract 2 (ECQ)

Gutenberg

You are rabid.
Fugitives spilled from lockdowns
streaming on my walls.

You are febrile.
A torrid kiss
left by the contagion on my lips

You are Manila.
A hunter kindled by plague
stirring rust in my blood.

№ 442. A Brave and Startling Truth

Understanding Humanism

A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH
Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

№ 439. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

BY T. S. ELIOT

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.*

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

№ 388. In Media Res

Poppies
Mary Oliver

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place
in this world that doesn’t

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it’s done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

№ 374. Retiro X

Chungking Express Art

She lip-reads her swift murders,
In urban-drenched neon monologues,
Fractured day dream sequences.

She sketches boarding passes on a tissue paper
Later thrown away, unread,
Melting in the midnight monsoon.

She sleepwalks in vindaloo alleys,
Concealed and armed by wigs and stilettos,
Tipsy with chaos, solitary and morbid deadlines.

Like the poisoned city she breathes,
She is livid, resigned and, cruel.

№ 362. Poetry Seeking Understanding

Villanelle

By George Higgins

(Steven Spielberg visited an inner city school in response to a class of black students who had laughed inappropriately at a showing his movie about the holocaust Schindler's List.)

When Steven Spielberg spoke at Oakland High 

A custodian swept up the shattered glass, 

replaced the broken clocks to satisfy 

the Governor, who was preoccupied 

with becoming President, with covering his ass. 

When Steven Spielberg spoke at Oakland High 

the District found diminishing supplies 

of disinfectant and toilet paper stashed 

away, so they replaced the clocks instead to satisfy 

the cameras and the press that they had rectified 

the deficiencies among the underclass. 

When Steven Spielberg spoke at Oakland High 

the students didn't seem dissatisfied 

about the cover up, just happy to be out of class. 

The custodian replaced the broken clocks to satisfy 

this need we have to falsify 

the truth in subservience to cash. 

When Steven Spielberg came to Oakland High 

the custodian replaced the broken clocks.

 

№ 340.Throwback Wednesday

I haven't seen this movie in ages. Still charming and funny. There's a poem by Auden too. What's not to like?

As I Walked Out One Evening

As I walked out one evening,
  Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
  Were fields of harvest wheat.

№ 316. Blurry-ed Lines

Yet how to kill
a ghost? The fog
of our outdoor talk—

№ 293. A Prayer for the Odd and Even Days

From Finding God in All Things: A Marquette Prayer Book
by Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ (1907-1991)

Sunday Mantra