Sensitivity and Strength: poems of Delores Gauntlett
Posted: August 8, 2016 Filed under: Delores Gauntlett, English, English: Jamaican Patois Comments Off on Sensitivity and Strength: poems of Delores Gauntlett
Delores Gauntlett
A Sense of Time
.
I drive past my father’s grave
and past the place where I began.
That swing-bridge to my childhood games
is now a town to which I seldom return.
There the headstones wear familiar names,
and there I turned the page
at five to my first big word,
repeating it until it blurred.
.
The church grew smaller in the rear
-view mirror; my face awash in the wind,
I approached the curves I knew by heart,
then drove the silent miles to Flat Bridge.
The sun going down behind the hill
hauled its net of shadow as it fell.
. . .
On Growing Tired of Her Complaints
“One pound of fretting can’t repay one ounce of debt.”
(Jamaican proverb)
.
As far away as you are now from childhood
is the gap between ideas and reality,
the air tensed with what you took pleasure in,
doodling in complaints, not knowing what to do ––
not knowing what accidental turn you took,
that blew everything entirely out of whack
though the worst of the rain has come and gone.
Surrounded by whatever else you happened on,
numbed by repetition, eyes clenched,
you cannot catch the rhythm of the wind,
indecipherable; you move from room to room.
.
I knew you when a day made a difference,
when you’d look out of the window and gaze
at anything: a bee, the dew drop from a leaf
in the spot by the still pond under the trees.
Now you linger by the bridge where what’s unlived
is not available, where even a mild occurrence
shapes a stronghold of might-have-been, of this and that;
and nothing I say today
will be any more convincing than the last.
Meantime the rest of the world unfurls, shading
the retreating back of history, and what happens, happens.
. . .
Love Changes Everything
.
At the window where our two reflections
meet, pulled as to a magnet to the rhythm
of Zamfir’s panflute whistling its seduction
Love, love changes everything…
Sometimes the body needs to set itself on fire,
to consume the dry leaves and twigs as if swept
by a magic wind to a new view of desire,
barefoot, heart racing from the outset,
flayed like an upheld palm in the rain.
Then work defers to moments that assume
good reason to be here and love, not live in vain,
gauging time like an echo in a vacant room.
We, once strangers on the eve of first sight,
blush through blue August, whispering goodnight.
. . .
Another Mystery of Love
.
He loved her, but he used his love like a rope:
frayed from their tug-of-war of the heart,
stretched taut across his frightening temper
till he fell flat on his back to win.
Meanwhile she slipped away with something heartrending
caught in her eye,
diverting her attention by making bread,
kneading until the sun burned out,
slapping the dough with the heel of her hand
to revenge herself
against the familiar words which quailed her
into thinking everything she did was wrong.
Then he, looking as though it had never happened,
and she, never looking at another man,
stared out of the window, wondering at the bird
clinging to a swaying stalk in silence,
waiting
like a patient thought.
. . .
Love Letters
.
At first it was your slick quips
that quickened me to sit down and take notice ––
when to my one-sentence reply you said
I reminded you of Lord Wavell,
the British general in World War II
who, the more adulation he received,
the more taciturn he became,
that brevity, brevity was his forte,
that his strength lay in silence.
.
That was the hook that lifted my attention,
and when it seemed you guessed what I was wearing
the first intensity warmed the air to now.
You wound me a path along windswept beaches
to a place unmarked on any map
where we resumed our secret walk with words
guardedly wrapped around ourselves,
though between each line the meaning was implied.
.
And when I wrote to you my reason
why I couldn’t meet you face to face, I lied.
I wanted instead to lean into your hands
away from the tangibles of daily life,
wearing the countenance that each word bears
where nothing is well founded; yet
when you invited me to sit down, and I did,
I understood more and less at the same time.
. . .
Writing a Poem in Metre
.
Takes rain, the racket
in a madman’s head
and strains it
into sonata.
(Wayne Brown: ‘Critic’)
.
Nothing on the page made sense.
I was on the brink of giving up
fretting in pentameter,
feeling like a fish pulled from the sea
into the fierce sunlight,
when your no-fooling-around approach
and a direct heart sent me to work.
That each line should slip under the skin,
as in the blood, fleshed out from the nuance
of sound on sound, as in the beat of a heart!
I pushed off into the swell,
swimming across the bay of iambics:
three, four, five beats underwater,
pulling, pulling against the tension,
taking a turn on my back,
watching the water scatter from my hands,
splash, splash, each slow spondee
stretching my thought beyond recollection.
.
Call it the music in the traffic-hiss,
entertaining an early morning thought,
or the climb uphill to the first clearing
to move around in when a foot doesn’t fit.
To one who asks
“What’s the good of all that?”
I can only speak for me,
that it discovers what I have to say,
takes my hand and leads me down a lane
from which I can take my time returning.
. . .
That Sunday Morning
.
She was not begging for forgiveness when she knelt
facing the wall, her head flung back
as if preparing to hold a flashlight to the eyes of Jesus.
Full of argument, raw with energy,
something shouting in her breast flashed clear again
to the August afternoon when the death winds came
to the broken sidewalk that narrows to a lane,
when, after the bullet wrapped itself in silence,
it took the colour from the photo in her purse.
.
She looked in vain for answers
to what nags her sleep, night after night,
remembering the hour when the sun went down burning
over the yard of scratching chickens, digging
for the words that would tell her all would be well
while the clock ticked to the wrong time.
Talking to Him as if to a next door neighbour
she stood, knowing her anger was not a bluff,
and, with the world still coming to an end,
danced her way up to a victory hallelujah!––
a pitch this poem cannot put into 20 lines.
. . .
The Reckoning
A nuh di same day leaf drop in a water it rotten.
(Jamaican proverb)
.
Years later, he walks beside the shadow
of the past, to the beat of the grim consequences
he brought upon himself in surprising ways.
In middle-age he might have been content,
had he foreseen that as time went by
his antics would lead to where love pulled away
to be as far from him as possible
when his expression betrayed no signs of change.
Blinded to the cause of his predicament,
he walks, with nothing open for discussion,
not knowing he’s been struck by his own hand.
. . .
In Limbo
Yuh cyan sow corn and expec’ fi reap peas.
(Jamaican proverb)
.
Unable in the end to separate what’s done from what
should have been done, the truth
undid what you so earnestly embodied.
.
There’s nothing for it:
your life requires a harder pardon.
Cry all you want,
.
but for a miracle: your promises have gone
like smoke
on a stray breeze up into a cloud,
.
grey from overuse,
.
a cloud from which the night fills in
the disquiet of the past,
and what was hidden is rising
.
to the surface, like a dank mist after rain.
. . .
From a Cove in St. Ann
.
From under the noonday shadow of a rock
I stare long and hard into the blue
sea, breaking one thought to ponder through
to the heart of a concern, taking stock
of a home where shocking news is the norm.
It’s hard to put a finger on the lessons
to be learned; as when a tense bow misses
a shifting target, each moment ends in doubt.
On a day like this, besieged between ‘forlorn’
and a place riddled with brutalities, I
distract myself with the waves rushing to shore,
and the blessings one must create to know the sea’s.
I lift my hope over the open water
with its flush of foam which alters in the sand,
filtering its sound to the hill as if to find
an echo far from the turbulent deep. Dusk
drops over the trees where some unknown soul
stumbled once, with one hand breaking his fall.
. . .
Chances Are
.
Coming in from the streets that mock delight
I’m caught between two streams of thought:
old news, and the need to shift my mind to write.
A melting candle moves tobacco from the flat,
and, short of throwing both hands up in the air,
solutioned-out in a world where all’s been said.
I plan never to compare today
but do what I have to, pushing ahead,
fishing around these potential days
in a land spinning on the edge of nerves
where someone’s always leaving, and someone else is busy.
Rights are taken further away from those they serve.
Chances are the prime minister will not come to see
me or my friends. He’s busy. So are we.
. . .
The above poems are from the 2005 collection The Watertank Revisited
published by Peepal Tree Press, and are © Delores Gauntlett.
Delores Gauntlett was born in St. Ann, Jamaica, in 1949. Her first poetry collection, Freeing Her Hands to Clap, was published in 2001. She was recipient of the David Hough Literary Award from The Caribbean Writer in 1999, and poems by Gauntlett have won prizes in the annual literary-arts competitions of The Observer.
. . . . .
Palaver International Literary Festival in Wasaga Beach, Ontario!
Posted: August 6, 2016 Filed under: English, IMAGES Comments Off on Palaver International Literary Festival in Wasaga Beach, Ontario!
Founded by writer and journalist Michael S. L. Jarrett – and now in its second year – Palaver International Literary Festival brings Caribbean literature, music and good food to Wasaga Beach, Ontario. An “open mic.” stage for poetry and song, as well as Ol’ Time Stories told throughout the day. This evening (Saturday the 6th) there is the Palaver Awards Dinner (“A Birthday Toast to Jamaica”) featuring The Heritage Singers and Orville Hammond, jazz pianist. On Sunday the 7th: “open mic.” for poetry and song again; “Feast on the Beach”: brunch with master-chef Selwyn Richards; the Palaver Writers’ Workshop with Horane Smith; and poets and novelists will meet and greet with festival attendees –– and sign books :-) Writers in attendance at Palaver 2016 include: Owen ‘Blakka’ Ellis, Dwayne Morgan, Owen Everard James, Cynthia Reyes, and Lorna Goodison.
Delores Gauntlett (born 1949, St. Ann, Jamaica)
Introduction to Poetry
(for Mervyn Morris)
.
“I wish you’d write some foolishness sometimes,”
you said in that workshop off South Camp Road,
and it took some years to uncover what you meant:
To bring out what I’d seen, or wished I’d seen,
in a simple line
and state outright that this is it;
to find my way out of the cul-de-sac,
when trying too hard, wide of the mark,
the words coming but not the sense;
to balance each line and not feel the weight;
to watch day break across a familiar land,
freeing the verse as on a passing wind;
to walk all night under a changing moon.
To convert the outrage into song, the poem coming,
not as from the space between
a sleepwalker’s outstretched arms,
but as in a hand held still against rushing water,
then lifted clear, the drops from the dripping
fingertips settling in the poem’s room.
. . . . .
Una Marson: poems of a Jamaican literary pioneer
Posted: August 6, 2016 Filed under: English, English: Jamaican Patois, Una Marson Comments Off on Una Marson: poems of a Jamaican literary pioneer
Una Marson (1905-1965)
JAMAICA
.
J ust a lovely little jewel floating on fair Carib’s breast,
A ll a-glittering in her verdue ‘neath a blazing tropic sky.
M ust have been part of Eden, it’s so full of peace and rest,
A nd the flowers in their splendour make you feel it’s good to die
I n a spot that’s so near heaven where one never feels depressed,
‘Cause Dame Nature makes you lazy and Dame Fortune lingers nigh,
A nd you feel just like a fledgling in your mother’s cosy nest.
. . .
I Cannot Tell
.
I cannot tell why I who once was gay
And never knew the burden of a sigh
Now sit and pass the weary hours away,
And never have a care for what goes by.
.
I cannot tell why oft the teardrops rise
And my sad heart lies leaden in my breast,
And in my mind these anxious thoughts arise
For no more am I happy with the rest.
.
I cannot tell why life is not the same
And my heart answers not to music’s plea,
Or why I start whene’er I hear your name
And in my dreams no other face I see:
.
I cannot tell why I should wish to die,
Now that the time has come to say goodbye.
.
(1930)
.
. . .
Love’s Lament
.
I cannot let you hold me in your arms
And listen while you talk of trivial things;
It pains my heart thus to resist your charms
And see the longings of my soul take wings.
.
I cannot feel the pressure of your hands
Without the wish to hold them to my lips,
I have no strength to face life’s big demands
While daily from my heart your image slips,
.
I cannot bear the thought of losing you.
Yet still your presence brings me bitter pain.
The happy days gone by we will not rue ––
Their tender mem’ries still to us remain;
.
But oh my heart, I cannot bid you stay,
Though as you go you take my life away.
.
(1930)
.
. . .
The Peanut Boy
.
Lord, look upon this peanut boy,
He’s rough and coarse and rude;
He has been selling all the day,
His words are very crude.
.
But, Lord, he’s worn and weary now,
See how he stands asleep;
His head is resting on the post,
The basket at his feet.
.
Dear Lord, he has not sold them all,
But he has done his best:
And, while he stands and sleeps awhile,
With sweet dreams make him blest.
.
And, Lord, when I shall fall asleep
With my tasks incomplete,
Remember I was weary, Lord,
And give me peaceful sleep.
. . .
Another Mould
.
You can talk about your babies
With blue eyes and hair of gold,
But I’ll tell you ’bout an angel
That’s cast in another mould.
.
She is brown just like a biscuit
And she has the blackest eyes
That don’t for once remind you
Of the blue of tropic skies.
.
And her hair is black and shiny
And her little teeth are pearls,
She’s just a year, I’ll tell you,
But the best of baby girls.
.
O, she’s sweeter than the sweetest
Of all babies ‘neath the sun,
And I feel that I could eat her,
Thinking she’s a sugar bun.
.
O, little ivory babies
Are as sweet as they can be,
But give me my brown skin cherub
Still a-dangling on my knee.
.
(1931)
. . .
Education
.
In South Africa £25 per head per annum is spent on educating the white child. The government gives a subsidy of £2 3s. 7d. per head to the missionary bodies who have undertaken the education of 300,000 black children of the 1,100,000 who should be educated. (W. G. Ballinger at W.I.L. Conference.)
.
It must be by oppression; and, for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at them,
But for my countrymen. They would be learned: ––
How that might change their nature, there’s the question,
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking. Teach him? –– that; ––
And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
The abuse of learning is when it is given
To subject races: And, to speak truth of Negroes,
I have known when they have turned to serve us
Once they are taught. But ’tis a common proof
That lowliness is young ambitious ladder
Whereto the climber upward turns his face:
But when he once attains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend: So Negroes may:
Then, lest they may, prevent. And, since the quarrel
Will bear no colour for the thing they are,
Fashion it thus; that what they are, when learned
Would run to these and these extremities:
And therefore, think them as the serpents
Which, hatch’d, would as their kind grow mischievous;
And keep them ignorant.
.
(With apologies to Shakespeare)
.
(1935)
. . .
The Stranger
.
You liked talking to people like me
You said, with a wistful smile
That enchanted me, so the pause
That came before I spoke
Must have seemed strange to you,
And when I returned the compliment
So sweetly made, I still thought
Of the wistfulness of your smile.
.
So you like talking to people like me,
Friend with the wistful smile,
To foreign girls who are brown of skin
And have black kinky hair
And have strange black eyes.
.
You like to hear the tales I tell
Of a tropic Paradise,
Of sunkissed woods and mountains high
Of skies that are bluer than ever
Skies are blue in your nordic clime:
Of magic sunsets and marvellous seas,
Of waterfalls clattering down,
Stars so near, and the moon so large,
And fireflies, stars of the earth.
.
I like to listen to you,
Friend with the wistful smile.
It’s not to hear of your great country
And tales of your marvellous land,
But to watch the wistful smile
That plays around your mouth,
The strange look in your eyes
And hear the calm sweet tone of your voice.
. . .
Home Thoughts
.
June is drawing near
And in my sun-kissed isle
The Poinciana with its flaming blossom
Casts its spell o’er all the land.
These mighty trees in regal robes
Now call the land to worship,
And the bees, hungry for hidden honey,
Swarm among its blossoms and buzz and buzz,
And the blossoms laugh and yield
Shedding their sweet perfume;
They make a crown of golden dust
To beautify the honeybee.
.
There on the hillside, ‘mid a tuft
Of dark green trees, towers the Poinciana
Stretching its branches eagerly
To watch the children passing by.
I see a tree I used to love
Whose red and golden glory
Has thrilled my soul with wonder;
O, I remember that glad June,
So long ago it seems,
‘Twas Harvest in the Village Church
And the merry school children
Cut great branches of Poinciana
And made a radiant glory of the Church.
.
June comes again and Poinciana trees
Now blossom in my sunkissed isle
And I am here in London, and the flowers
Of dainty shades and delicate perfumes
Stir my heart and wake my love,
But it is the flaming glory
Of Poinciana trees in fair Jamaica
That my lone heart is homing.
I might sing of fragrant Myrtle blossoms
Whiter than snow and sweeter than honey,
Of pink and white June roses,
Of Jessamines, Hibiscus, Begonias,
Of Bougainvillea and Cassia,
But the Flaming Poinciana
Calls to me across the distance
Calling, calling me home.
.
O pride and glory of our tropic Isle,
As thy red and golden petals
Drip blood drops on the sod
That thou mayst bring forth
Mighty pods of fertile seed,
So children of your tropic land
With broken hearts that bleed
In foreign lands afar
Strain every nerve to bring forth
Fruit that may enrich the race
And are anew inspired
With hope and loyal longing ––
Hope that thy red and golden banners
Now unfurled through all the land
May call men’s hearts
To bow at Beauty’s shrine ––
And loyal longing that awakes
And claims the best thy sons and daughters give.
.
O Fair Jamaica! my thoughts go home to you,
In love and loyalty I shall for aye be true.
. . .
Nightfall
.
How tender the heart grows
At the twilight hour,
More sweet seems the perfume
Of the sunless flower.
.
Come quickly, wings of night,
The twilight hurts too deep;
Let darkness wrap the world around,
My pain will go to sleep.
. . .
My Philosophy
(as expounded by a Market Woman)
.
(Market woman walking quickly ahead of her friend. She carries a huge basket on her head. She swings both hands violently as she addresses the friend close behind her without turning):
.
“You can tan up talk wid him,
If you and him is companion
Me and him is no companion.”
.
(Second market woman following quickly at her heels):
.
“Me and him is companion, yes,
Me and him is companion
Me and all de wide worl’ is companion
For dere is nobody better dan me
And I is not better dan nobody.”
.
(1937)
.
The Test
.
The test of true culture
Is the ability
To move among men,
East or West,
North of South,
With ease and confidence,
Radiating the pure light
Of a kindly humanity.
. . .
Politeness
.
They tell us
That our skin is black
But our hearts are white.
.
We tell them
That their skin is white
But their hearts are black.
. . .
Frozen
(Winter 1941)
.
Europe is frozen.
It is too cold for birds to sing,
For children to make snowmen,
For rivers to splash and sparkle,
For lovers to loiter in the snowlight.
.
The heart of humanity is frozen.
It is too cold for Poets to sing.
. . .
Una Marson, of Santa Cruz, Saint Elizabeth parish, was the youngest of six children born to Rev. Solomon Isaac, a Baptist parson, and Ada Marson.
In 1928 she launched her own magazine in Kingston, Jamaica – The Cosmopolitan – which dealt with local, proto-feminist, and workers’ rights issues. Her first book of poems she self-published in 1930: Tropic Reveries. It was followed by Heights and Depths in 1931, and a play, At What a Price, performed at the Ward Theatre in Kingston. In 1937 she published The Moth and The Star. Marson spent time in London, England, from 1932-36, and again from 1938-45 (the duration of WWII); it was during the war years that her work with the BBC lead to the creation of the Caribbean Voices programme. In her later years she divided her time between Jamaica and Washington, D.C., and it is now known that she suffered from clinical depression. She died of a heart attack in 1965.
.
We are grateful to Alison Donnell (Una Marson: Selected Poems, Peepal Tree Press, 2011) for providing biographical details and a description of the social and political context for Una Marson’s life and work.
. . . . .
KULTURA Filipino Arts Festival, August 5th to 7th, in Toronto!
Posted: August 5, 2016 Filed under: Bienvenido C. Gonzalez, Edwin A. Lozada, Eileen R. Tabios, English, H. Francisco V. Peñones, Ilocano, Jon Pineda, Patrick Rosal, Rhodora V. Peñaranda, Spanish, Tagalog / Filipino, Victor P. Gendrano Comments Off on KULTURA Filipino Arts Festival, August 5th to 7th, in Toronto!
. . .
2016 marks the 11th year for Kultura, which emerged from the youth-led Kapisanan Phillippine Centre for Arts & Culture – a small yet ambitious initiative based out of a store-front on Augusta Avenue in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighbourhood.
The Kultura festival now celebrates the vibrant, contemporary creative expression of Filipino-Canadians. This is an important event for dialogue within the community, as well as for sharing a deeper understanding of Filipino culture and experience with the broader communities of Toronto – beyond the limiting clichés of “cultural costumes and food”. Kultura features multiple art disciplines, including culinary and fashion. Kultura aims to discuss the Filipino diaspora in Canada and to elevate Filipino-Canadian culture from the perception that it is flat and static to one that is multi-dimensional and active.
.
Kultura is the brainchild of the Kapisanan Centre, a charitable community organization with strong youth leadership. Kapisanan has created a safe space for Filipino-Canadian youth, both second generation and newcomers, to overcome multiple barriers that keep them from meaningful engagement in society. To explore identity, to foster pride and self-confidence – that’s Kapisanan!
. . .
Some contemporary Filipino-in-diaspora poetry…
Victor P. Gendrano (California)
Japanese Haiku
. . .
ospital silid hintayan
ang plastik na mga bulaklak
palaging bukad
.
waiting room
the plastic flowers
always in bloom
. . .
pinagbiling bahay
puno ng halakhak
ng maga bata
.
sold house
children’s laughter echoes
from its bare walls
.
(2005)
. . .
Japanese Tanka
. . .
chopping onions
enough excuse
to shed my tears
as I cook for myself
this New Year’s eve
.
di lang sibuyas
sanhi ng pagluha
kundi sa pangungulila
pagluluto sa sarili
ngayong bagong taon
. . .
scent of jasmine wafts
through her open door
this sultry evening
she calls him to say
don’t be late coming
.
the torn jacket
and worn-out cane
lie near a trash bin
his chuckle still echoes
from the empty bed
.
(2007)
. . .
Aloneness (a Korean Sijo)
.
the visiting son laments
his loss of their backyard tree
.
where as a teen he carved a heart
to express his very first love
.
his widower dad explains
twice there I tried to hang myself
. . .
Alheizmer Disease
.
as I brush mom’s golden hair
she keeps talking to unseen friends
.
she accepts me now as a friend
in the hospice where she lives
.
sometimes I wonder if she knows
I am her least-liked daughter
.
(2007)
. . .
Victor P. Gendrano is a retired librarian from the Los Angeles County Public Library. He completed his Bsc in the Phillippines and his Msc at Syracuse University in New York state. From 1987 to 1999 he edited Heritage Magazine, an English-language quarterly. His website, Haiku and Tanka Harvest, focuses on his poetry in a variety of structured forms and styles, as well as free verse in English and Tagalog. Mr. Gendrano is the author of Rustle of Bamboo Leaves: selected haiku and other poems, published in 2005.
. . .
H. Francisco V. Peñones, Jr.
Homage to Frida
(On the Centennial of her Birth)
.
Kahlo: kaluluwa: (n). Tagalog for soul ––
O Soul of my bleeding heart pigeon-
holed in tin retablos hung in antiseptic wards
unwind your bandaged flesh and let me in
your body its plains of crumbling rocks
and howling dust is no strange country
to me. Buko kanakong estranyo ‘di.
Back home, the land cracks and opens wide
throwing up the bodies dumped at night.
Its womb refusing now any stirring of seedling
despite so much marrows in its furrows.
O Nuestra Señora de Dolores y Tristezas*
wrap me in your leafy arms as you did
Diego Rivera or yourself in infants’ bodies
yet with your lusting faces in a kind of pietà,
in a loving moment caged in the canvas.
Arog ka kanakong banwaan, (like my country)
Natusok naman ako. (I am pierced too.)
Pero en sus autoretratos por ejemplo**,
.
I am not pricked by the thorns of the cactus
which thrusts up like a pen against the sky
and my brows are as high and thick and black
as your brushes and your gaze –– a doll’s,
set in place and silent in a corner yet forever.
. . .
*Our Lady of Sorrows and Sadness
**But in her self-portraits, for example
. . .
Self Portents from a Crystal Ball
.
Between the onyx equinox
and the Martian meridian
your Saturn son is on the ascendant
towards the power clique.
Rorschach stains
whirl nebulous as violet capes
worn in Salamanca:
Beware of men in ties,
they shake your hands while
coming out straight from the john.
Swirling lights tie up
the head and the tail, a circular
tale and mandala of survival and decency
you may well just be
heading for St. Francis Alley.
.
Acid rain dust leaks out
slimy green in brain drain canals:
invest in futures, better still
the dioroxine fuel yet to be found
and named.
.
Some silicone spilled semen
unearth Buddy Holly, a boozed
night out in Malate
and the apparition in the 7th Virgo
of one claiming paternity.
Raspy grains the pores of skin
up close your nose oooom
a hint of civet in heat:
go pick a lady in the primary
though you keep a red card
in your wallet for lemme see…
. . .
H. Francisco V. Peñones, Jr., has studied in the MFA Creative Writing program at San Jose State University, and is acknowledged as a pioneer in the renaissance of writing literature in the Bikol language of his native Phillippines. Peñones’ first poetry collection, entitled Ragang Rinaranga (Belovéd Land) was published in 2006.
. . .
Rhodora V. Peñaranda
Great Expectation
.
The light goes off in this town of rationed power.
Brief dark shadows up and down the road.
.
A village dog picks up her scent and begins to bark.
Out of the sky, a flood of darkness with invisible beasts
.
bounding over the street and wedging into the heart.
She comes home, and out of the steaming dark,
.
her little brother, the boy like a cat waiting all night
purring for a rubbing on his back, leaps to his feet,
.
begging her to stay. She flicks her fan to spread the coolness,
and he gropes for the arts of her comfort, the tucking
.
into the soft bed, rocking him to the wind’s mothering.
But she is hurrying. She does not feel the present under her feet.
.
She does not know the future. She does not have the past.
She passes through the rooms and gathers only tedium’s grief,
.
the unwashed growth of things crowded with details, details
accelerating with the pressure of wars around her, so she leaves
.
in the veiled cold of the room,
the soft gestures curled inside the glass of a burning lamp.
Leaves him instead the words that order him
.
to face it like a man leaving him alone on a night like this
where only the dead walk, to conjure the man he has yet to be.
.
(2007)
. . .
Rhodora V. Peñaranda lives in New York state. Two of her published volumes of poetry include Touchstone (2007) and Unmasking Medusa (2008).
. . .
Edwin A. Lozada
Kansion
(in the Ilocano language)
.
Agtaytayab
Purao
Nga kalapati
Ti rimwar
Diay nabanglo
Nga sabong
Purao ken kiaw
Kiay nakaturog
Nga kalachuchi
.
Agtaytayab
Purao
Nga kalapati
Diay puso na
Agliplipias
Ti kansion
Kolor ti rosas
Ken gumamela
Nga awan pay
Ti nakangeg
.
Papanam ngay
Billit
Nga naulimek,
Sika
Ti makapagtalna
Diay langit?
Sinno ngay
Ti makangeg
Dagita regalo
Nga rumrumwar
Diay pusum?
.
Nakadanon
Idiay karayan
Ket inungwanna
Idi kuan nagpukawen
.
Didiay karayan
Agkankanta
Napunpunno ti sampaga
Rosal, rosas
Ken gumamela
. . .
Canción
.
volando va
la paloma
blanca
que salió
de la flor
perfumada
alba y ámbar
de la plumeria
adormecida
.
va volando
la paloma
blanca
su corazón desbordado
derrama
canciones
color de rosas
e hibisco
que todavía no
se han oído
.
¿adónde vas
ave callada
y mansa
tú
que apaciguas
el cielo?
¿quién sino tú
oye
los obsequios
brotando
de tu corazón?
.
a la faz del río
llegó y se acercó
dejándole un beso
y entonces desapareció
.
el río
cantando
colmado de sampaguitas
gardenias, rosas
e hibiscos
. . .
Song
.
in the midst
of flight
a white dove
emerged
from the perfumed
amber and ivory
blossom
of the plumeria
lost in slumber
.
watch it fly
as white as the clouds
the dove
with a heart
overflowing
with song
colour of roses
and hibiscus
none yet
has heard
.
where do you go
bird
so quiet and meek
you who can
appease
the heavens?
who but you
can hear
the gifts
coming forth
from your heart?
.
towards the river
the dove drew near
kissed its water and then
disappeared
.
the river
singing and flowing
with gardenias
jazmine, roses
and hibiscus
. . .
Edwin A. Lozada is a poet and translator. He also edited the volume Field of Mirrors: an Anthology of Philippine American Writers, published in 2008 by Philippine American Writers & Artists, Inc.
. . .
Patrick Rosal / Aracelis Girmay
Lamento del Gallo
.
querida gallina caída
cuéntame la historia de una semilla
que contenía
todo el universo en una espina
que picó el ojo
de la noche
me das sed y seda
.
y no te vas
y no te vas
.
y si me enseñas
la ventana de tu boca
te sequiré
por las multitudes de mentirosos
que dicen
no iré
no iré
.
ay gallina
dime algo de tu vestida tan amable
y como robaste la voz de otra ave
.
animal tú eres
animal tú eres
tan bravona
.
se cree que las estrellas fueron hechas
por una sola clave
.
y me haces buscar
por las ruinas del corazón
robándolas de los dientes de esa tierra
.
y aún escucho las susurraciones p’arriba
y no te vas en seguida
.
y no te vas
no te vas
.
querida gallina caída
sueñas sin ignorar el frío
ni el agua ni cuchillo
los lobos aúllan los versos más secretos
no hay nombre que niegue ese sonido completo
.
rompe los cristales con tus lamentos
las torres de arena y de cemento
.
manda a los gobernadores que bajen
entre las alas y tu penúltimo viento
te prometen una bala o una canción
te las prometen
te prometen
.
y no te vas
. . .
Rooster’s Lament
by Aracelis Girmay and Patrick Rosal
(English translation)
.
beloved fallen hen
tell me the story of a seed
that held
the whole universe in a thorn
that pricked the eye
of evening
.
you give me thirst and silk
.
and you don’t go
and you don’t go
.
and if you show me
the window of your mouth
i’ll follow you
through the multitudes of liars
that say
i won’t go
i won’t go
.
oh hen
tell me something about your delightful costume
and how you robbed the voice of another bird
.
animal you are
animal you are
so brave
.
it’s believed that the stars were made
by a single key
.
and you make me search
through the ruins of the heart
robbing them of the teeth of that land
.
and still i listen to the whispers above
and you don’t go
.
lovely fallen hen
you dream without ignoring the cold
nor the water nor the knife
.
the wolves howl their most secret verses
there is no name that denies that complete sound
.
smash the mirrors with your laments
the towers of sand and of cement
order the governors to descend
among the wings and your penultimate wind
they promise you a bullet or a song
they promise them to you
they promise
.
and you don’t go
. . .
Patrick Rosal has authored My American Kundiman, and Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive, which won the Global Filipino Literary Award and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Members’ Choice Award – respectively.
.
Aracelis Girmay is of Eritrean, Puerto Rican, and African-American descent. A writer of poetry, essays, and fiction, she earned an MFA from New York University.
. . .
Eileen R. Tabios
Die We Do
.
Die
we do
as much as
.
we live. Then
we write: right
.
what
we lived
when we write.
. . .
Morir Hacemos
.
Morir,
lo hacemos
tanto como vivir.
.
Entonces,
nosotros escribimos:
corregimos aquello que
.
vivimos
cuando, así,
nosotros lo escribimos.
. . .
Tabios’ poem originally appeared in The Light Sang As It Left Your Eyes (Marsh Hawk Press, 2007).
Translation into Spanish / Traducción del inglés al español:
Rebeka Lembo
. . .
Jon Pineda
Matamis
.
One summer in Pensacola,
I held an orange this way,
flesh hiding beneath
the texture of the rind,
then slipped my thumbs
into its core & folded it
open, like a book.
.
When I held out the halves,
the juice seemed to trace
the veins in my arms
as it dripped down to my elbows
& darkened spots of sand.
We were sitting on the beach then,
the sun, spheres of light within each piece.
I remember thinking, in Tagalog,
the word matamis is sweet in English,
though I did not say it for fear
of mispronouncing the language.
.
Instead, I finished the fruit & offered
nothing except my silence, & my father,
who pried apart another piece, breaking
the globe in two, offered me half.
Meaning everything.
. . .
Birthmark
.
After they make love, he slides down so his face rests near her waist.
The light by the bed casts its nets that turn into shadows. They both
fall asleep. When he wakes, he finds a small patch of birthmarks on
her thigh, runs his finger over each island, a spec of light brown
bundled with others to form an archipelago on her skin. For him, whose
father is from the Philippines, it is the place he has never been, filled
with hillsides of rice & fish, different dialects, a family he wants to
touch, though something about it all is untouchable, like love,
balanced between desire & longing, the way he reaches for her now, his
hand pressed near this place that seems so foreign, so much a part of
him that for a moment, he cannot help it, he feels whole.
. . .
The two poems above are from Jon Pineda’s 2004 collection Birthmark, winner of the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry.
. . .
Bienvenido C. Gonzalez
I Quit
.
BEAT A BAD
……………..HABIT
BY REDUCING
………………A BIT
DAILY EVERY
…………………BIT
TILL YOU RID OF
…………………..IT
. . .
PERSEVERANCE
.
IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T
SUCEEDE
SUCCEDE
SUCCEED
TRY, TRY AGAIN.
. . .
Bienvenido C. Gonzalez is a wordsmith!
He creates neo-words and logos as a hobby.
The poems above are from his PARA-PRAISES
– tributes to old and original sayings.
. . . . .
All the poems selected here are contained in the 2008 anthology Field of Mirrors, edited by Edwin A. Lozada, © Philippine American Writers & Artists, Inc.
. . . . .
Caribana is 49! An’ de lime wuz good!
Posted: July 31, 2016 Filed under: English, IMAGES Comments Off on Caribana is 49! An’ de lime wuz good!
Toronto Caribbean Carnival (“Caribana”):
A reveller awaits the masquerade judge’s decision after her mas’-crew’s display at the CNE on Lakeshore Boulevard in Toronto: July 30th, 2016.
Photo by Nakita Krucker / Toronto Star
And more photographs from the all-day fête (Grand Parade) courtesy
The Photagonist.ca Photography…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
All photographs (except the top image) are © The Photagonist.ca
John Ashbery: “Paradojas y Oxímorones”: un poema del inglés
Posted: July 30, 2016 Filed under: English, John Ashbery, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best Comments Off on John Ashbery: “Paradojas y Oxímorones”: un poema del inglés
John Ashbery (born 1927, Rochester, New York, U.S.A.)
Paradoxes and Oxymorons
.
This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you. You look out a window
Or pretend to fidget. You have it but you don’t have it.
You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other.
.
The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot.
What’s a plain level? It is that and other things,
Bringing a system of them into play. Play?
Well, actually, yes, but I consider play to be
.
A deeper outside thing, a dreamed role-pattern,
As in the division of grace these long August days
Without proof. Open-ended. And before you know
It gets lost in the steam and chatter of typewriters.
.
It has been played once more. I think you exist only
To tease me into doing it, on your level, and then you aren’t there
Or have adopted a different attitude. And the poem
Has set me softly down beside you. The poem is you.
.
(1981)
.
. . .
John Ashbery (nace 1927, Rochester, Nueva York, EE.UU.)
Paradojas y Oxímorones
.
Este poema trata del lenguaje – sobre un nivel muy puro.
Mira como este poema está platicando contigo.
Contemplas, desde una ventana,
O finges andar como pepita en comal.
Lo posees pues no lo tienes; lo faltas y ello te extraña;
Ustedes se extrañan – uno al otro.
.
Este poema está melancólico porque desea ser tuyo pero no puede.
¿Qué es, un nivel puro? Es eso – y otras cosas –
Poniendo en práctica – entrando en juego – un sistema de todo.
¿Entrando en juego? En hecho, sí.
Pero considero que el juego existir como
.
Una cosa más profunda y externa, como un patrón soñado de papeles,
Como hay en la división de la Gracia
Durante los días de la canícula en agosto
– sin prueba. Con final abierto. Y, antes de darte cuenta,
Ello se pierde en el vapor y en la cháchara de las máquinas de escribir.
.
Ha estado tocado, una vez más. Creo que vivas para
Provocarme hacerlo, en tu nivel; pues no estás allí
O has asumido una actitud distinta. Y el poema
Ha dejarme – tiernamente – al lado de ti.
El poema
Es tú.
. . . . .
Elizabeth Bishop: “Un Arte” / “One Art”
Posted: July 29, 2016 Filed under: Elizabeth Bishop, English, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best Comments Off on Elizabeth Bishop: “Un Arte” / “One Art”
Zócalo Poets 