“Love comes to every man and woman, and blesses each one with the experience of one’s own deepest self — whatever that self be — which, also is the experience of each one’s humanity, and of all life itself and its values. We stress the word bless which, etymologically, means “to sprinkle with blood” as in a sacrifice, for above all things, love is — as Joseph Campbell puts it — the pain and rapture of being truly alive […]”
— Abad, Gemino. “Introduction: About Love, the chemistry of its weathers” from One Hundred Love Poems: Philippine Love Poetry Since 1905, xi.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Flood (Angelo Suarez)
We have become estranged, you and I,
as the stars no longer find the asphalt-gray
of streets, the somnolent moon your skin,
the sun the sibilance of speech. How we tremble
now at the slightest hint of touch, the latch
of our desires reopening like a wound.
Watch me now as I say: In September’s
resolute rains, you are water – fragments
descending as drops from Manila’s urban sky.
Thus, you are everywhere, dripping down walls
and crevice of soil. And on the rise of flood
floats the carcass of memory, taking
the muddied form of muck, filthy plastic bags,
venomous piss of rat. In this metropolitan marsh
where nothing is left but a squalid sight of swamps,
soggy lampposts, the third-world remnants
of a storm, I dip my hands and dream of fish.
To The Man I Married (Angela Manalang- Gloria)
I cannot love you with a love
That outcompares the boundless sea,
For that were false, as no such love
And no such ocean can ever be
But I can love you with a love
As finite as the wave that dies
And dying holds from crest to crest
The blue of everlasting skies.
Ikaw Ay Isa, Ikaw Ay Dalawa (Krisdel Muñoz)
Ikaw ay isang ideya…
Ikay ay isang ideyang…
Nagsakatawang tao
Minahal kita noong
Ikaw ay una,
Nang pangalawa’y
‘Di na sigurado
Pwedeng hindi
Maaaring oo.
Paano mapaghihiwalay
Ang dalawa?
Paano mapaghihiwalay
Ang iisa?
Ikaw ay ideya
Ikaw ay tao
Ikaw ay huni
Ikaw ay anino
Ikaw ay layunin
Ikaw ay laman at dugo
Ikaw nga ba ay ano?
Kanino ba akong saydang pumapanig?
Ako ay nililito mong tunay!
Kanino nga ba akong
Lubusang nahulog?
Regla (Elynia Mabanglo)
Daming beses na ipinagdamdam ko
ang iyong pagdating
Ikaw –
dumadalaw nang ‘di inaanyayahan
nagguguhit ng kirot
sa aking sinapupunan,
naglalatay ng init sa aking pagitan,
hanggang maiwang nagkakagulang
ang isip ko’t laman.
Daming beses ngang ipinagdamdam ko
ang iyong pagparito –
ikaw na walang hudyat kung dumalaw
ngunit hinihintay sa pagdating
natatakot na sa pagmaliw
may mamuong luhang
iuulan, isang araw
tulad ng luhang itinanim
ng isang nagmahal sa akin.
(ay, kung ang lipunan nga lama’y
walang ipinagbabawal
at di nalilibak ang babaing
nag-aanak sa labas ng kasalan,
maano kung ako’y datnan mo’t panawan,
maano kung magmaliw ka nang tuluyan,
may layang umahon
sa aking sinapupunan
ang supling na sa iyo’y
uuyam.)
A Prayer Or Great Expectations (Fanny Haydee Llego)
There’s no doubt about it I need to get hitched:
I need someone to scratch me whenever I itch
Or give me a backrub whenever I want it
(Who’ll pout only a little when someone else does it);
Someone on whom I can vent my frustrations
& who is supportive in trying situations;
Who’ll extol all my virtues, forget all my faults
& would always submit to my sexual assaults;
Who’ll bring up my children the way they should be
Yet still entirely be devoted to me;
Who’ll always obey me, my word being law,
My logic perfect, my thinking without flaw,
My sexy cheerleader, housekeeper, accountant,
Secretary, nursemaid, unflagging assistant;
Brought up & moulded to think that success
Is found in the home: nothing more, nowhere else.
O, Mother Goddess, I need in my life
A man willing to be the perfect little wife!
*note: title of a poem by Luis Francia
anglesinasphere 