Thursday, October 10, 2002

Hallucinate

You were vaguely poisonous
As I remember
Part of the wrong crowd
A person to forget.
I tend to hallucinate
About you madly
Counting your fingers
Circling your palms.

You were never there
As I remember
Slipping quietly away
Before daylight.
I tend to hallucinate
About you badly
Your loser's charms
Pushing me down.

You were far too careful
As I remember
A wrong word too few
No comma unplaced.
I tend to hallucinate
About you gladly
A pale face at dawn
Drunk on cheap wine.

You were never obvious
As I remember
Unassuming except
In honest conversation.
I tend to hallucinate
About you sadly
Never mind love
Never mind, love.

------sept 10, 2002 blog entry, http://www.whereveryouare.org/weblog/

Wednesday, June 26, 2002

"I'm not comfortable with words. I love images ,and I love sounds, and I love feelings. I like the idea of intuition. I think a lot of things in life are understood that way. But you internalize these things; they don't really pop out. Certain things are built inside - little areas of understanding. I feel that I live in darkness and confusion, and I'm trying, like we all are, to make some sort of sense of it."

"There's a thing about film that's a lot like music. It can be abstract in places or anchored to reality. Some things are beautifully and economically said in words, and words are like instruments in an orchestra. They have to be a certain way, like a clarinet solo. If you play it too fast, or its not warm enough, it doesn't work as well. But it's talking to you. Film is a different language. And I'm happy in that language. But in words I have a big problem."

"I don't like the word ironic. I like the word absurdity, and I don't really understand the word 'irony' too much. The irony comes when you try to verbalize the absurd. When irony happens without words, it's much more exalted."

-----David Lynch

Friday, June 21, 2002

It's a Friday afternoon, the 21st of June 2002.
Officially, it is the start of summer here.
I’ve been thinking a lot. These days.
Yes, I know.
I’m leaving France.
For good.
Yes, I mean that even if I will come back, it might never be as long as this time.
A year.
Or, almost.
I cannot believe it.
Where have the days gone?
I miss my friends.
But I want to go home too.
Home …

I’m leaving on the 30th of June for Hungary. Although, I am still waiting for my letter so I can get the visa. I sent one bag home yesterday. Finally, one worry gone. My sister is leaving on the 18th of July with my Dad to the US. They’re planning to live there for good. I’ll miss them so. My mom will wait for me until I get home before she leaves. I am happy that she will be there, at least for a while.

I don’t know. Things are going to be different when I get home. We’ll see. I miss my old life. But I’m happy too.
I’ll be travelling to Hungary, and possibly Romania and Bulgaria. I might be home late August or early July.

I feel glad I’m finally leaving Thourotte. It’s amazing really. I’ll write again.

Wednesday, June 12, 2002

"I left the party venue super-sweaty (so hot inside, literally and figuratively) but full of naughty joy. It was like the feeling when you first lost your virginity. You enjoyed, and you felt weird but you knew you'd do it again."

-----Jun. 11, 2002 edition of "Yaparazzi", Tim Yap

Tuesday, June 11, 2002

June 11, 2002

For a friend:
Sometimes we know that by all standards this is how Life should be. This is the right way and this is what we are all striving for, but then.. But then we realise it just isn't so. There is more, there are other things, there are curve balls, surprises and crooked lines and that is the right way after all. Life is not about connecting the dots - it is a continual discovery and renewal.

I like to think we are all striving to do The Right Thing. Sometimes the Right Thing hurts other people - even people we care deeply about and never intend to hurt. Peace to you, my love. I know it is easier said than done, but I hope you'll soon realise that you are not a bad person. You are human, you are real and that is all that matters. And you matter to me.

-----June 11, 2002 blog entry, http://distantsun.blogspot.com/

Monday, June 10, 2002

Snapshot:
Young Trendy Guy to Young Trendy Woman:
"I want to learn Ancient Greek, so I can read the Old Testament in its original language without having to resort to translations. I believe that true meaning can only be detected if you study a text in its original language. Like, if you want to study Heidegger or Husserl, you really need to learn German. I am thinking about going to Berlin once I complete my course in Ancient Greek to study at the same school as Heidegger.."

Me Wearing an Old Tattered Tee, Greasy Glasses and Obviously Reading Tolkien's The Two Towers (and no longer being able to keep silent):
"Marburg. You'll want to study at Marburg, then."


(silence)


Young Trendy Woman (awkwardly):
"Oh. Well, anyway. Martin, I have always wanted to study Russian, but I have been told that the grammar is so complicated.."


I looked out at the window remembering what it was like to be a young University student feeling the sky was the limit and desperately needing to impress everybody with my knowledge, skills and interests. As the two students kept discussing Impossible and Esoteric Languages, I stopped myself from correcting them. Sometimes I feel like an old, weary and over-educated woman.

-----June 10, 2002 blog entry, http://distantsun.blogspot.com/

Thursday, June 06, 2002

"...a journey must always transform you; that the person who returns must not be the same person as the one who left (or else the journey would have been useless). This is the wisdom of fairy tales, ancient fables, and ancient myths, from the young prince who returns to his father's kingdom ready to rule, to Odysseus who returns to Ithaca only after twenty life-changing years of war and wandering..."

-----email from Francisco V. Navarro V, a dear friend
Ain't no angel gonna greet me
It's just you and I my friend
And my clothes don't fit me no more
I walked a thousand miles just to slip this skin

The night has fallen, I'm lyin' awake
I can feel myself fading away
So receive me brother with your faithless kiss
Or will we leave each other alone like this
On the streets of Philadelphia

-----"Streets Of Philadelphia", Bruce Springsteen from the movie soundtrack of Philadelphia

Saturday, June 01, 2002

"... you can see how little movements and gestures are part of a shared physical history."

-----film review of Late Marriage, by Roger Ebert

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

"No big differences these days,
Just the same old walkaways,
And someday
I'm gonna stay,
But not today."

The album concludes with a short and bittersweet little melody called Walkaways. It's too short, as often goodbyes are...

-----"Walkaways", Counting Crows from the album Recovering The Satellites
"Oh she says, you're changing/But we're always changing/It does not bother me to say this isn't love/Because if you don't want to talk about it then it isn't love"

"When kindness falls like rain it washes me away/And anna begins to change my mind/Every time she sneezes I believe it's love/And oh lord I'm not ready for this sort of thing"

-----"Anna Begins", Counting Crows from the album August And Everything After

About jpoet112
3/23/01 12:18:40 AM Night time. Late march. Hotel room in an away city on some high up floor. Always betrays me back to some she from years ago. Or last week. Or yesterday. Its all the same. Late March, early June, October. Kicking the leaves on a bright blue fall day. Crisp like her lips. Whoever she was. Always coming back to this place. This feeling inside. Desiring. Caught up with longing for the past. But the past wasn’t always good. So maybe I’m caught up with longing for a girl from the past. A warm body and some human touch. We’re all like semi circles. We’ve got heat and energy escaping from our ends. So we’re out there searching for someone to close the circle. Make it whole. And then our energy, our warmth will flow through one another. Alone at night, I think of she. And wonder why I’m so damn emotionally needy. Wonder why it’s a physical tightness in my chest, stomach. Wonder why I have to live from sunny day to sunny day, dying in between, and always hoping to meet someone like she / you / her. Hoping just to hold someone today. Hoping to love someone today. Just longing to share something safe and warm with someone else who needs. I am a child. I’ve spent my life in search of tommorow. Constant expansion of the world. From one city to the next, one highway to another. But in the end, I’m always looking for the safe and warm. Always trying to find my way back to the womb. Find my way back to that dark hotel room with a girl who is holding me in her arms, sustaining me with her warmth, as a mother sustains the child growing within her. Holding me like a mother holds a boy, telling him its ok to cry, that he can cry, and so he cries, having not yet been raped by society’s definition of manhood. Please let me cry. And kiss away the violent tears with the tenderness of lovers. Conjoined bodies, exude heat, melt the flest, sear the lips, blind the soul. Draw the blinds. In the darkness, simply hold. Hold me you we. There is no world that exists outside of the world which we have created in this moment. Hold. In darkness, I see only your eyes you see only my eyes we lay bare. Having stripped away all masks, locked out the world. Now only eyes. Kiss. Kiss and hold. In the morning, if you’re gone, I will not fault you. In the morning, if you’re gone, I will still want you. But you have lives to live and bills to pay and the world kept moving through the night, having not given into such tender sleep as you and I. Night roundes always towards another day. Would you laugh if I were to tell you that I remember you much like a fairly tale? Much as a child pretending that she is Cinderella in a far off land. Alas, the bell for whom it tolls, has struck. And things must be as were before. Yet there remains a memory. Tomorrow’s drink is mixed of pain and hope and yesterday. And if perchance we’d chance to meet in Rome some day, we might speak briefly about the weather, and if time allows, remember some feeling that you / me / we left behind in some hotel room.

-----http://www.epinions.com/

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

So lately, been wondering
Who will be there to take my place
When I'm gone you'll need love to light the shadows on your face
If a great wave shall fall and fall upon us all
Then between the sand and stone, could you make it on your own

If I could, then I would,
I'll go wherever you will go
Way up high or down low, I'll go wherever you will go

-----"Wherever You Will Go", The Calling

Wednesday, May 15, 2002

"...I am a work in progress
dressed in the fabric
of a world unfolding,
offering me intricate patterns
of questions,
rhythms that never come clean,
and strengths that you still
haven't seen..."

-----"The Slant", Ani DiFranco
You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in fields of gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in fields of gold

-----"Fields of Gold", Sting

Tuesday, May 07, 2002

On one occasion Aung San Suu Kyi said she did not at all like politics and preferred to be a writer. "But once I had committed myself, then there cannot be any half measures," she said.

-----Aung San Suu Kyi, democray fighter in Burma.

Wednesday, April 17, 2002

Moon River

Moon river, wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style some day
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way
Two drifters, off to see the world
There's such a lot of world to see
We're after the same rainbow's end, waitin' 'round the bend
My huckleberry friend, Moon River, and me

-----"Moon River", Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

-----"When You Are Old", W.B. Yeats

Monday, April 15, 2002

Como puede ese olvidar

Last night I dreamt of San Pedro
Just like I'd never gone, I knew the song
A young girl with eyes like the desert
It all seems like yesterday, not far away

Tropical the island breeze
All of nature wild and free
This is where I long to be
La isla bonita
And when the samba played
The sun would set so high
Ring through my ears and sting my eyes
Your Spanish lullaby

I fell in love with San Pedro
Warm wind carried on the sea, he called to me
Te dijo te amo
I prayed that the days would last
They went so fast

Tropical the island breeze
All of nature wild and free
This is where I long to be
La isla bonita
And when the samba played
The sun would set so high
Ring through my ears and sting my eyes
Your Spanish lullaby

I want to be where the sun warms the sky
When it's time for siesta you can watch them go by
Beautiful faces, no cares in this world
Where a girl loves a boy, and a boy loves a girl

Last night I dreamt of San Pedro
It all seems like yesterday, not far away

Tropical the island breeze
All of nature wild and free
This is where I long to be
La isla bonita
And when the samba played
The sun would set so high
Ring through my ears and sting my eyes
Your Spanish lullaby

Tropical the island breeze
All of nature wild and free
This is where I long to be
La isla bonita
And when the samba played
The sun would set so high
Ring through my ears and sting my eyes
Your Spanish lullaby

La la la la la la la
Te dijo te amo
La la la la la la la
El dijo que te ama

-----"La Isla Bonita", Madonna

I heard the song recently and it reminded me of summer, of old loves, of the sea and the sun.. and yes, it seems like yesterday, not far away...

Friday, April 12, 2002

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

-----"somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond", E. E. Cummings
"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky."

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

-----"As I Walked Out One Evening", W. H. Auden
"I know someday you'll have a beautiful life,
I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky
But why, why, why can't it be mine?"

-----"Black", Peal Jam from the album Ten and Live on Two Legs

Wednesday, April 03, 2002

This world to her was but a tragic play.
She came, saw, dislik'd, and passed away.

-----Inscription on a girl's tomb, Southwark Cathedral, London

Tuesday, April 02, 2002

"Can one desire too much of a good thing?"

----- (Act IV, Scene I) "As You Like It", William Shakespeare

"All the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts."

----- (Act II, Scene VII) "As You Like It", William Shakespeare
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

----- (Act II, Scene II) "Romeo and Juliet", William Shakespeare

"For you and I are past our dancing days"

----- (Act I, Scene V) "Romeo and Juliet", William Shakespeare
"Come, night! come, Romeo! come, thou day in night!
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night,
Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.
Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun."

-----"Romeo and Juliet", William Shakespeare

Thursday, March 28, 2002

We're only watching the skies
Hoping for the best
But expecting the worst
Are you going to drop the bomb on us?
Let us stay young or let us stay forever
Don't want the powers
But we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit,
Life is a short trip
The music's for the sad men
Can you imagine when we face this world?
As we turn our faces into the sun
Praising our leaders,
We're getting in tune
The music's played by the madmen
Forever young, I wanna be forever young
Do you really want to live forever
Forever - and ever

Some are like water,
Some are like the heat
Some are like melodies and some are the beat
Sooner or later they all will be gone
They don't stay young
It's so hard to get old without a cause
I don't want to perish like a faded rose
Youth's like diamonds in the sand
And diamonds are forever
So many advantage could have happened today
So many songs we were gonna play
So many dreams when you're out in the cold
Living forever

Forever young...

Spoken:
Didn't I not tell you
That you shouldn't ever push your luck?
No, I'm very sorry, there is no pity now

-----"Forever Young", Alphaville
"I Hope You Dance"
(Lee Ann Womack)

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,
May you never take one single breath for granted,
GOD forbid love ever leave you empty handed,
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance....I hope you dance.

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin',
Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin',
Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter,
When you come close to sellin' out reconsider,
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance....I hope you dance.
I hope you dance....I hope you dance.
(Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along,
Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone.)

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

Dance....I hope you dance.
I hope you dance....I hope you dance.
I hope you dance....I hope you dance..
(Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along
Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone)




Thursday, March 21, 2002

Is It Rain Is


Is it rain is
The mountaintop
Dissolved or at last
Tired of us of our
Aspirations as unsteady
As the sandy rain
Now it's summer

Is it the last
Onset of outcome
So certain it needs
Only the sunlight
In a dark tree
Any shelter at all
Only a while

-----"Is It Rain Is" from Donald Revell's Arcady

Saturday, March 16, 2002

Transformations

A lad changed to a shrub in spring,
the shrub into a shepherd boy,
A fine hair to a lyre string,
snow into snow on hair piled high.

And words turn into question signs,
wisdom and fame to old-age lines,
and strings revert to finest hair,
the boy's transformed into a poet
the poet is transformed once more,
becomes the shrub my which he slept
when he loved beauty till he wept.

Whoever falls in love with beauty
will love it to his dying day,
stagger toward it aimlessly,
beauty has feet of charm and grace
in sandals delicate as lace.

And in this metamorphosis
a spell binds him to woman's love,
a single second is enough
like steam in a retort to hiss
obedient to the alchemist
and drops dead as a hunted dove.

Without a stick old age is lame,
the stick turns into anything
in this ceaseless, fantastic game,
perhaps into an angel's wings
now spreading wide for soaring flight
bodyless, painless, feather light


Excerpt from The Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert

Monday, March 04, 2002

Ultimatum

I'm wearied of wearying love, my friend,
Of worry and strain and doubt;
Before we begin, let us view the end,
And maybe I'll do without.
There's never the pang that was worth the tear,
And toss in the night I won't-
So either you do or you don't, my dear,
Either you do or you don't!

The table is ready, so lay your cards
And if they should augur pain,
I'll tender you ever my kind regards
And run for the fastest train.
I haven't the will to be spent and sad;
My heart's to be gay and true-
Then either you don't or you do, my lad,
Either you don't or you do!

-----"Ultimatum" from the collection Death and Taxes, Dorothy Parker

Friday, March 01, 2002

Celebration ... is self-restraint, is attentiveness, is questioning, is meditating, is awaiting, is the step over into the more wakeful glimpse of the wonder -- the wonder that a world is worlding around us at all, that there are beings rather than nothing, that things are and we ourselves are in their midst, that we ourselves are and yet barely know who we are, and barely know that we do not know this."
-----Martin Heidegger

Wednesday, February 27, 2002

we are, are different. All the stars
are out tonight, and I am spilling
salt, watching its crystals fall
into the patterns of stars, into
beautiful sadnesses.Vega, Sirius,
Alpha Centauri: I am wishing
on them until I run out of names.

-----"Triage" from the book The World's Last Night, Margot Schilpp
Statues
Kathleen Raine

They more than we are what we are:
Serenity and joy
We lost or never found,
The forms of heart's desire,
We gave them what we could not keep;
We made them what we cannot be.

Their kingdom is our dream, but who can say
If they or we
Are dream or dreamer, signet or clay?
If the most perfect be most true,
These faces pure,
these bodies poised in thought
Are substance of our form
And we the confused shadows cast.

Growing toward their prime they take our years away,
And from our deaths they rise
Immortal in the life we lose.
The gods consume us, but restore
More than we were:
We love, that they may be,
They are, that we may know.

Tuesday, February 26, 2002

Hayyy.. nakakainis si Neil. I just called him (again) to ask him why he is not texting nor emailing. It has been days and not a word. But again, he has a reason. Naubusan daw siya ng load and he has no time to mail. hayyy... but it does feel good to hear his voice and to know that he's okay. I have been worried. Nakakainis talaga arrghh. I hate it that i feel happy to hear his voice. i do miss the guy.
Love is always different. Love is always the same.

Monday, February 25, 2002

"And when you thought it fit, the next moment you realize that you have stolen time from her, and that she isn't meant for you. That from the start she belonged to someone else. Her soul remains her own always, but her heart will never be hers alone. She loves for herself and lives for that love. Take it one day at a time. Make it happen today because something else was meant for tomorrow. And even if it didn't fit correctly, it must have felt like it did. At that moment you felt the perfection of your touch, then it must've been right. If only for a few hours, minutes, seconds, moments-- there was something right, then hold it in your memory and whatever happens next will never destroy the goodness of your brief episode of closeness. In the morning when you wake up, you will feel that she feels there was nothing, but there will always be something. The most casual of encounters can create the most romantic of experiences. It takes a few seconds to instantly like someone but it takes the length of an enternity to be truly in love."

Friday, February 22, 2002

Somewhere Not Here

I remember when you came,
I can just recall that day,
Unexpected, undetected,
If I had known I still would have done it,

So little time, so long to wait,
A paradise, within your eyes,
All the things I could tell you,
All the things I could show you,

You're my waking fault,
You're the smile on my lips,
I dream I see your face,
I see and dream of you,

You were safe and warm,
I was in your hands,
We were moved in time,
To another space,

Somewhere, not here,
Somewhere, not here,
So, little time
So, little time

You were safe and warm,
I was in your hands,
We removed in time,
To another space,

A thousand miles away,
I'd like to fly to you,

I mess myself
I dream, I see your face,
I see, I dream of you,
If you were here we'd watch,
If you were here we'd see,

You're my waking fault,
You're the smile on my lips,

You were safe and warm,
I was in your hands,
We were moved in time,
To another space,

Somewhere, not here,
I know you are somewhere, not here,
You're my waking fault,
You're the smile on my lips,
Are you thinking of me
Do I invade your sleep
A paradise, a paradise,
Within your eyes.

I remember when you came,
I can just recall that day,
Somewhere not here,
Somewhere not here,
Somewhere.

-----Alpha, "Somewhere Not Here"
"Love is so short," Pablo Neruda once wrote, "forgetting is so long." Though sometimes, I still worry that a memory might leave me, that the image of her face would eventually blur, even fade. Without those memories, my life would be colorless. I would be standing on the shores of Boracay watching the fireworks, amazed simply by the superficial display of light rather than awed by the depth of emotions these displays evoke.

-----"Living With Memories", By Etienne Lebrun Wednesday, January 09, 2002 Getasia.com.ph
"Wherever you go, there you are."

Thursday, February 21, 2002

When you're on a golden sea
You don't need no memory
Just a place to call your own
As we drift into the zone

On an island in the sun
We'll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can't control my brain

We'll run away together
We'll spend some time forever
We'll never feel bad anymore

-----"Islands in the Sun", Weezer

Thursday, February 14, 2002

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways


How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath.
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

-----"How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways", Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Thank you Ma'am Arni for the story. Happy Hearts Day :)

Saturday, February 09, 2002

Unravel

While you are away
My heart comes undone
Slowly unravels
In a ball of yarn
The devil collects it
With a grin
Our love
In a ball of yarn

He'll never return it

So when you come back
We'll have to make new love

-----"Unravel", Bjork

Sunday, February 03, 2002

"His love of the princess would take on for him the expression of an eternal love, would acquire a religious character, be transfigured into a love of the eternal being which, although it denied fulfillment, still reconciled him once more in the eternal consciousness of his love's validity in an eternal form that no reality can take from him."

-----"Fear and Trembling (1843)", Søren Kierkegaard

Sunday, January 13, 2002

It was such a great night. I was able to see so many of my friends and I felt really happy. Katuwa, I had dinner with Eric and he was really nice. Then Archie called and I was really shocked. whew. It is just amazing how people just pop out of nowhere. We were in Sibil in Libis, then Malate afterwards. I met so many people and got introduced to some new ones. It is really good to be home.