Saturday, July 25, 2015
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Friday, July 3, 2015
" Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.
Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates.
For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."
Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates.
For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."
-Ernest Hemingway, 1954 Nobel Acceptance Speech
Monday, June 22, 2015
So You Want To Be A Writer
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
- Charles Bukowski
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
" But love- not of Feuerbachian man, not of Moleschott's metabolisms, not of the proletariat, but love of one's darling, namely you- makes a man into a man again. In fact there are many women in the world, and some of them are beautiful. But where can I find another face in which every trait, even every wrinkle, brings back the greatest and sweetest memories of my life? Even my infinite sorrows, my irreplaceable losses I can read on your sweet countenance and I kiss my sorrows away when I kiss your sweet face. 'Buried in your arms, awoken by your kisses'- that is, in your arms and by your kisses, and the Brahmins and Pythagoreans can keep their doctrine of reincarnation and Christianity its doctrine of resurrection."
* Karl Marx to his wife,
-KARL MARX; Interviews and recollection, ed. David McLellan
* Karl Marx to his wife,
-KARL MARX; Interviews and recollection, ed. David McLellan
Señora
II.
She dreams of giant vines crawling
over her body & onto her face,
as though to squeeze off
her quantum reservoir of air...
Then the cats would turn
into huge tigers of night fire,
growling into her gray eyes
like she were a cruel zookeeper
& sudden interloper...
O what madness visits old age?
Is it the lamented youth
coming alive & bringing back
destruction of passion in its wake?
Everything resists her mind's command
where it used to be putty on her heart's palm!
Yes, times are fast & merciless,
The demons are still prancing out there,
devouring the children like they did
once upon a time in her own time
- Edel Garcellano
She dreams of giant vines crawling
over her body & onto her face,
as though to squeeze off
her quantum reservoir of air...
Then the cats would turn
into huge tigers of night fire,
growling into her gray eyes
like she were a cruel zookeeper
& sudden interloper...
O what madness visits old age?
Is it the lamented youth
coming alive & bringing back
destruction of passion in its wake?
Everything resists her mind's command
where it used to be putty on her heart's palm!
Yes, times are fast & merciless,
The demons are still prancing out there,
devouring the children like they did
once upon a time in her own time
- Edel Garcellano
Sunday, May 31, 2015
The Saddest Poem
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.
What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.
Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.
What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.
- Pablo Neruda
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Pandesal
The sky was crystal orange while I’m walking through the silent streets of Tondo, Manila.It is already six in the morning and I know that It’s gonna be a tough day for me.My mother ask me to buy some pandesal and cheese for breakfast.The number of people buying in the bakery keeps increasing and increasing which makes me a bit nervous.I always feel nervous when there a large number of unfamiliar faces that surrounds me.It makes me feel different, Not because I’m not sociable but because I’m really a shy type of person.I never start a conversation and I always keep silence at class.Because I’m more comfortable in thinking and analyzing them in my mind and my mother always said that If you have nothing good to say, you better keep your mouth shut.
As I walk going home, I notice a beggar sitting in the dirty side of the road.He is an old man with a beard that is long enough to cover his chest.The shirt that he wear has a picture of a man who run for congressman in our city with a quotation that said, Poverty No More! I don’t know If I will laugh or cry in what I just read.It makes me think how absurd life is.I didn’t do any of them neither because the man is staring at me looking eagerly on my plastic bag.Even if he is not talking, I can see through his shameless eyes how hungry and miserable he is.But the fact that he is a stranger and mother will get mad if she notice that the number of pandesal that I will give to her is not enough, there is something inside me that encourages me to help this old man.Perhaps a conscience? I don’t know.
The only thing that I know at that point is I am not different to him.
I remember the days when we don’t eat food all day because mother have no customer.She is a manicurist, while father is a man full of skills and talent.His job depends on what our neighbors need.If Mang Andoy’s roof is so old and he wants it to be replace, father becomes a carpenter.If Kuya Joel’s hair is too long and need to be cut, father becomes a barber.And many many more! That is my father, a man of many faces.Our suffering came when father was diagnose with lung cancer.In that time, I was too young to understand what is happening.At the age of 4, my innocence conquered me with questions that I can’t answer.Why mother always cry ceaselessly staring at the dark sky? Where is father? How long did I last eat bread and butter? Why it is always salt and water? Questions that have been answered as I grew.But the memory of the past still hunts me like a dove that always come back to its cage.
The old man is no stranger to me.I gave him my share in the pandesal and cheese and left some for mother.Never mind her anger, I will just said that I already got hungry and eat the food while walking.What a nice ally by! Or maybe I’ll just say the truth? I think mother will understand because she always respect my decision.When I said that I will not stop in studying and I will support myself in order to achieve my dreams, she never argue with me.I was eleven years old that time when I start to work as a car wash boy, the time for enjoying my youth always come to my mind when my classmates start discussing about their toys, cartoons that they watch, etc. But at that time, The only thing that matters to me is my dreams.Dreams that is merely imaginable from my actual state.
Who said that dreams have limitations?
I waved goodbye to the old man with a happy and comforted look to say that I need to go not only because mother is waiting but also I have to go to work and I have class in the afternoon.Even if he was busy chewing, he manage to smile at me. Smile that I have never seen before.I saw the blank spaces in his teeth but what attract me the most was his eyes, His eyes has changed now and it was bright as
the sun appearing gracefully to us.As if his suffering had vanish at least in this wonderful moment.Words are not enough to describe what I feel in that precious time.
The only thing that I know at that point is I am not different to him.
As I walk going home, I notice a beggar sitting in the dirty side of the road.He is an old man with a beard that is long enough to cover his chest.The shirt that he wear has a picture of a man who run for congressman in our city with a quotation that said, Poverty No More! I don’t know If I will laugh or cry in what I just read.It makes me think how absurd life is.I didn’t do any of them neither because the man is staring at me looking eagerly on my plastic bag.Even if he is not talking, I can see through his shameless eyes how hungry and miserable he is.But the fact that he is a stranger and mother will get mad if she notice that the number of pandesal that I will give to her is not enough, there is something inside me that encourages me to help this old man.Perhaps a conscience? I don’t know.
The only thing that I know at that point is I am not different to him.
I remember the days when we don’t eat food all day because mother have no customer.She is a manicurist, while father is a man full of skills and talent.His job depends on what our neighbors need.If Mang Andoy’s roof is so old and he wants it to be replace, father becomes a carpenter.If Kuya Joel’s hair is too long and need to be cut, father becomes a barber.And many many more! That is my father, a man of many faces.Our suffering came when father was diagnose with lung cancer.In that time, I was too young to understand what is happening.At the age of 4, my innocence conquered me with questions that I can’t answer.Why mother always cry ceaselessly staring at the dark sky? Where is father? How long did I last eat bread and butter? Why it is always salt and water? Questions that have been answered as I grew.But the memory of the past still hunts me like a dove that always come back to its cage.
The old man is no stranger to me.I gave him my share in the pandesal and cheese and left some for mother.Never mind her anger, I will just said that I already got hungry and eat the food while walking.What a nice ally by! Or maybe I’ll just say the truth? I think mother will understand because she always respect my decision.When I said that I will not stop in studying and I will support myself in order to achieve my dreams, she never argue with me.I was eleven years old that time when I start to work as a car wash boy, the time for enjoying my youth always come to my mind when my classmates start discussing about their toys, cartoons that they watch, etc. But at that time, The only thing that matters to me is my dreams.Dreams that is merely imaginable from my actual state.
Who said that dreams have limitations?
I waved goodbye to the old man with a happy and comforted look to say that I need to go not only because mother is waiting but also I have to go to work and I have class in the afternoon.Even if he was busy chewing, he manage to smile at me. Smile that I have never seen before.I saw the blank spaces in his teeth but what attract me the most was his eyes, His eyes has changed now and it was bright as
the sun appearing gracefully to us.As if his suffering had vanish at least in this wonderful moment.Words are not enough to describe what I feel in that precious time.
The only thing that I know at that point is I am not different to him.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)