Portrait of My Father

When I was growing up, my father was a hardass. He was strict, he always acted like he knew best, he always tried to tell my brothers and I what to do and the right way to do it. I resented it then; heck, what punk kid doesn't?

But time changes perspective. I see my father now, retired, his children all grown up... and I know that he never wanted to be a pain in our ass. He smiles now, he laughs with all his heart. He just wanted his kids to turn out right. He didn't want his kids to fuck up.

Today was my uncle's funeral. My father's kid brother died rather suddenly last week, and what killed me was watching the pain on his face as he said goodbye. When I was a kid, he couldn't be just an ordinary man, he had to be a father, an immovable pillar of morality for his children to strive for. Today, he was just a man, in pain, just like everyone else.

Mahal kita, Tatay.


Portrait of My Father, July 28, 2008

I knew you as a mountain of a man
in younger years - yieldless, unforgiving.
You steered with timeless, steady hands
our creasing blood. And yet the stone was living -
Your laughter shook the earth, your anger stilled;
We quaked and heeded, we rallied and we grew.
You raised us to succeed you. We fulfilled,
and from your mountaintop, your children flew.

Today, I watched your quiet agony
as mother, father, wife and brother, each
you kissed with fingers, blessed their ever-sleep;
Your whispered words abroad, an empty reach.
I knew it then, that even mountains weep.
And in that moment, you, at last, were free.

What Kind of Life

Man, I'm getting dumped on at work, which is ironic, since it doesn't really qualify as work as I don't get paid, and I'm not "at" work at all, since I work from home. How great would it be if everything were properly organized? Probably not all that great.


What Kind of Life

Life imitates art, so they say
But when? When does all the content
settle into lines of measure, stable rhymes,
easy quatrains, a turn halfway through?
To be so lucky! Know each meeting
Ended in fourteen lines,
Hear a couplet and know the relationship
Is over.
Everything done in one hundred
and forty syllables, so neat, so orderly,
Wishful thinking, I suppose. But what kind of
Life - to know the patterns, to see it coming,
To know that at your funeral
two rhyming lines, together, follow you into the ground?

(A man's gotta break from form at some point. It's hard work, all this syllabic intricacy.)

The Rise of Ace

Hee. I've always been a fan of narrative poetry. I like storytelling, but it lends itself more to a balladic form rather than a sonnet. So I thought to myself... well, why not hybridize? Since ballads are usually in alternating tetrameter and trimiter, I just wrote this one in septameter to give it that rollicking ballad feel.


The Rise of Ace

Ace was feeling low one day; he turned to Deuce and said,
"We never count for anything; we're filler for the deck.
Woe to us! Our faces bare, we're barely worth the check,
Our pips are few, I wish we were the King and Queen instead."
Deuce looked at Ace, his pips ablaze, he spoke a seedy scheme.
"Why, Ace," he said, "It seems to me that this is not your lot.
You should be King - no, higher, for the King's a lowly slot!
Those face cards, why, they're nothing! You're the first in my esteem."
Ace listened well to Deuce's words, he told King of his plans.
The King, he shrugged. "Do what you like, fulfill all your desires.
I've got my Queen beneath me; I don't care what else transpires."
And thusly, Ace assumed his seat as sovereign of the land.
Conniving Deuce then raised his voice! "I'm twice the card of you!"
Ace shook his head. "I'm sorry, Deuce. You're just a lowly two."

Five's The Count

This one's a little weird. I was thinking about what goes through my head when I'm writing sonnets, and just sort of idly tapping out lines when this one started to form itself. Don't think of it as an instructional... it's more of a stream-of-consciousness thing. Anyone who engages in any sort of creative activity - think about what's running through your head when you're in the thick of it. Maybe you'll understand what I mean.


Five's The Count

Five's the count (each count's a foot), and measure.
What's been said - then think what follows next.
What steers the thought? Now, steady. Guide the text.
Careful. Easy. Let each line be leisure.
Entwine the lines, but let not lines be vexed
for lining's sake. Remember. Free the thought.
Let it breathe, let it be shaped and wrought.
Forge it. An idea. See it flexed
against itself. Keep the meaning taut.
Make it tight. Guide it, unperplexed.
Keep it honest. Let the lines be pleasure.
Steady-hand it home. The flowered thought
will breathe and bloom. Ideas steer the text,
but five's the count. Count it well, and measure.

Drunk

Title says it all, bitches. I had something else I was totally going to work on for this week, but the rhyme scheme was driving me nuts. It'll be up next week, I'm sure. Also, I've been drinking Bloody Marys all damn day. So suck it up. And enjoy sucking it up. Suckers.


Drunk

Whaddya want? Fuck, I'm drunk, you bitches
want a sonnet? It's Tuesday, yeah, I said
I'd keep a schedule. But right now, my head
feels like a foot. Each synapse twitches,
fails, and every thought - it fucking itches
just like herpes. I wish that I were dead
asleep right now. But you, for you, instead
I spin my lines, these blasted lines that fall
so easy from these tattered fingertips;
these words that never leave these tired lips,
they clatter from my hands. Are you enthralled
by this? Because Lord knows I'm in stitches.
Drunk as I am, foot-headed I may be,
but I can write this sonnet just for thee.


I love you all. Fuckers.

(sorry about the increased amount of cursing in the last few weeks.)