Below the Stars

Walking, on my way home, I notice how exceptionally bright the sky was tonight. Clear, sky blue blended in navy, dashed with purple magenta shades and sprinkled with a million stars. Decorated, accented by the heavenly object smiling sideways in the dark.

Walking, my head adjacent to the sky, my eyes wander in amazement. I haven't walked this long during the night for a while. So i dazed along, holding on to every second. I don’t want to lose this feeling of awe. And how simple things such as these indulge me in a trance, forgetting all my worries. So i walked along further. Mesmerized.

As i reached home, i sat by the balcony and looked up straight again. And stared. Many thoughts raced in my head. I knew i had failed in many things. It usually shuns my world. But somehow, today, this time, it's different.

There is this invisible magical aura behind me. Like a cushion that is patiently guiding, awaiting my fall, blocking the abyss of an endless pit. I've fallen too many times before. Struggled, crawled my way to get out, but always ended up falling again. Now i feel a "harang", a hindrance, a hedge.

And in my head, i hear a soft whisper, the line that seems to perfectly mends it all...
"Stand up, hold my hand, and float with me."

Then i stood up from my seat, releasing a big long sigh. An atomic exploding, velvet-softness sigh. A sigh I’ve been waiting so long to get out of me. I opened the door. I went inside the house with a faint smile and twinkling bright eyes. I now, can see clearly.

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note: I always tend to hide meanings in between the lines.

Deep One Perfect Morning

Well, almost every morning seems to be Perfect nowadays... but today, the "velvet anxiety syndrome" seems to be overshadowing me. Better get my head off things and place plastic covers to my recently bought books. Unread, half-read or soon to be read or not, I still would like to preserve the existing damages, little rips (especially from the second-hand ones) and wouldn't like to add more. Besides, I just love the smell of plastic cover and aged book pages... a little dusty and yet, a crisp smell of brownish yellowish paper. hmm... I'm really not into newly printed books, but it would also depend on the writer anyway.

So, here is my list of my new brain candies (in order of aquirement) and a short glimpse of their stories.

"Lighthouse" - Eugenia Price © 1971
A novel of a man and a dream. The main character was originally chronicled in the author's novel New Moon Rising. His dream was to leave the cold New England and make a life for himself in the magnificent, untamed South. In his persuit, he encounters exotic people and places and a beautiful and strong-willed young girl who comes to share the dream and the life he has chosen.

"Tales of Mystery and Terror" - Edgar Allan Poe © 1990
Thirteen stories of suspense and the supernatural. A chilling enthralling collection from the Master, need I say more? Includes The Pit and the Pendulum, The Black Cat, The Sphinx, the Oblong Box and more.

"My Bloody Valentine - Couples Whose Sick Crimes Shocked the World" - Patrick Blackden © 2002
A sinister catalogue of notorious couples. From desperados Starkweather and Fugate, whom the film Natural Born Killers is based, to world famous cases and also lesser-known but equally shocking crimes. Cool title with an interesting theme. Haha... *Velvet now reflects the faint light through a sharp knife held in her right hand with eyes wide open...

"Casanova in love" - Andrew Miller © 1961
A seductive and witty rendering of history's most famous lover. In 1763, Casanova arrives in England seeking rest from his endless amours. But before long, the lure of a pretty face proves too hard to resist and he reverts to his old ways. But is he the hunter or the hunted? hmm... a good read for real Stalkers and stalkers-wannabe.

"The Metamorphoses" - Ovid © 1958
To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.
Far other dreams my erring soul employ,
Far other raptures of unholy joy.

Ovid, banished in 8 AD, accused of corrupting the youth. Unlike Virgil and Homer, he was interested in women and love. He sometimes treated his immortal subjects irreverently, but he added to their dilemmas the warmth of human understanding. And yes, he influenced Chauser and Shakespheare.

"Five Comedies of Aristophanes" © 1955
The Birds, The Frogs, The Clouds, The Wasps, and Lysistrata

Aristophanes, born 445 BC, is the greatest of the Greek comic poets. His comedies, for all their exuberant farce and creative fantasy, are always seriously concerned with the major political and moral issues of his time. A comedy of Aristophanes is a wild through highly intellectual farce and a dramatized debate in which the persons represent opposing principles. Makes me get in touch with my cerebral hunger.

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note: Call me in an hour? Well you better do it now! I have an interview tomorrow and I haven't slept yet. Imagining You*.* with Robert Smith's hair... show me show me show me!

*Velvet, the Strangest Angel

Floating with You in our Love

escape with books

I don't take rejections too lightly.
One more rejection... and I'm gonna go back to locking myself.

The problem with me whenever I'm out by myself (read: no one tagging along, no one telling me where to go and not to go to... woeha!) I always spend too much time in a bookstore. Be it second-hand thrift or new ones. Major bookstores, hard-to-find (err, expensive at that) stores, in supermalls, mini-malls, anywhere near my original destination. I even went down a bus a number of times (which was supposedly heading home, and the fare was already paid) just to drop by another bookstore (so to control myself sometimes, I ride the train). Mostly not having a paricular book in mind to buy, but I always carry along in my bag a list of my would-be books to add to my pile of would-be read.

Today, erm, march 15 actually, after going through with some interviews and job-hunt nuisance, my way to relax is go on a limitless book-hunt. Woah woah woah.. Powerbooks! And I was hearing my mobile phone ringing...(eh, probably my sister thinking I got lost somewhere) but I was so overwhelmed at the pool of wisdom waiting to be jumped into, that the ring remained faint in the background.

"Well, you could download that from the net" some stupid idiot murmured behind me as I was picking a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's Short Stories. Pff! I already have nincompoop! But hey, I wasn't even sure if he was refering to me, nonetheless, I still never let go of the book. And oh what a bargain ~ only Php180.

Erm, as for the sub-title above... nevermind. It's just one of those days when you feel that you are a hermit too long to actually blend in now with the crowd.. especially those of the "corporate world". And i still find myself a lost soul finding my solstice in books and dreams...

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note: this post has been sleeping in my draft for 3 days now... lol

Drunk with Pines

by Pablo Neruda

Drunk with pines and long kisses
Like summer I steer the first sail of the roses
But towards the death of the thin day,
Stock into my solid marine madness

Pale and lash into my ravenous water,
I cruise in the sour smell of the naked climate,
Still dressed in gray and bitter sounds
And a sad crest of abandoned spring.

Hardened by passion, I go mounted on my one wave,
Lunar, solar, burning and cold, all at once,
Be calmed in the throat of the fortunate isles
That are white and sweet as cool lips.

In the moist night my garment of kisses trembles
Changed to insanity with electric currents,
Heroically divided into dreams
And intoxicating roses practicing on me.

Upstream, in the midst of the outer waves,
Your parallel body yields to my arms
Like a fish infinitely fastened to my soul,
Quick and slow, in the energy under the sky.


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note: erm, need I say more? Strange how sometimes one comes across a poet not of his generation having the same thoughts and emotions.

"He was once referred as the Picasso of poetry, alluding to his protean ability to be always in the vanguard of change. And he himself has often alluded to his personal struggle with his own tradition, to his constant need to search for a new system in each book." (Rene de Costa in The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, 1979)

FLIGHT

by Sheryl Valencia

"My work is about man’s continuous flight. We want to achieve things. So then we travel, try different fields, and meet new people. For then we develop as a person and gain wisdom through experiences. Though we sacrifice things that we use to do or people that we use to be with with the new setting, it’s always inevitable yet often rewarding and we don’t exactly leave them in the first place-- everything has become part of us." -Sheryl Valencia

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note: Normally I post contributions and or borrowed works, (eh with or without permission.. lol) at the other side of my moon. But feeling this piece deep to my bones, I felt I had to put this here. Check out here for more drooling artwork.

i am an obsolete skill

You are 'Gregg shorthand'.

Originally designed to enable people to write faster, it is also very useful for writing things which one does not want other people to read, inasmuch as almost no one knows shorthand any more.

You know how important it is to do things efficiently and on time. You also value your privacy, and (unlike some people) you do not pretend to be friends with just everyone; that would be ridiculous. When you do make friends, you take them seriously, and faithfully keep what they confide in you to yourself.

Unfortunately, the work which you do (which is very important, of course) sometimes keeps you away from social activities, and you are often lonely. Your problem is that Gregg shorthand
has been obsolete for a long time.

What obsolete skill are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

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note: I really luv these quizzes.. lol....

Today, the world celebrates...

International Women's Day!


Herstory of International Women's Day
herstory in the philippines
Asian crisis
International Women's Day News from Around the World
To All Women, Please Read: Republic Act 9262

And the world should know:

"Since U.S. troops reentered the Philippines in February under the auspices of the so-called U.S. war on terrorism, more than 5,000 Filipinas have been trafficked into the southern Philippines and South Korea to provide sexual services to the troops stationed there. More than two dozen Filipino men, women and children, member Gabriella Philippines and the progressive Bayan Muna political party, have since been killed by paramilitary forces without any reproach... Even now, U.S. troops are to return to the Philippines to stablish a military base in the southern island of Zabwoanga and to secure and expropriate oil reserves recently discovered in the sea touching Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines." - Vivian Gupta, Gabriella Network

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note: "Be very careful if you make a woman cry because God counts her tears. The woman came out of a man's rib, not from his feet to be walked on. Not from his head to be superior of, but from his side to be equal with. Under the arm to be protected for and next to the heart to be loved."

I don't care if that statement wouldn't apply to everybody's belief or whether it applies to the current occassion. I just wanted to say that! ha! And all I wanted to say is.... the gloomy girl is gone.

SUNRISE . . .

...A New Beginning


I always say... "Let Fate do its Job". Early evening last night, a sudden shift, a change of events, swept through my non-existent life. Like a thunder-bolt waiting for the rain. The end of something is the beginning of another. All things has reasons, all things has plans. There is no accident. There is no chance. Others may object to my beliefs... but hey, to quote someone close to my heart, we make our own truths!

I need not explain in detail what really happened. Nor do i need a vivid elucidation to what may take place after today. Let's just say it's something ive been waiting for in a long time and hopefully this time it will never cease, and go back to where it started.

I'm stepping down from a phony pedestal that i was mocking myself to believe for so many years. And it took a snowy wind to blew me off my position. There are no accidents. It was meant to be. And how much I value now the meaning of freedom, the feeling of being free.

Anticipating a long journey tho, it may be a sruggle, yes. But I won't rely on luck. We make our own decisions. We make our own future.

philosophy of soulmates?

Someone told me Symposium is for fags!

well, i beg to differ... having similar thoughts with the philosopher Phaedrus* (for which i based my post last Feb. 27) and taking to context Aristophanes' speech in this Dialogue of Plato stating that humans originally have three sexes. A male, female and androgynous. Wherein the third kind are ones having double the number of body part - two pairs of legs, arms, et.al. and two faces on a cylindrical neck with one head. The gods in anger split them in half and "love" according to the playwright, is the passionate search of two natural halves to find each other again. And these maybe any of the following: lovers of women, and many adulterers have been to this genus; and in turn, all who are women of this genus prove to be lovers of men and adulteresses. And all women sliced off from women hardly pay attention to men but rather turned towards women, and lesbians arrive from this genus. As likely as male slices persue male.

So, the statement 'Symposium is for fags' is not entirely true as for his term used, 'fags', do not remain to be the center of the speeches stated herein, condoning the other genuses i have earlier mentioned.

my lesson tho, its hard to discuss ideas pertaining to Greek philosophy, be that i am but only a half of an androgynous, nothing but a curious chimerical creature.

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note: originally posted as a comment on "Everybody looks but nobody tells what he thinks"

looking outside the window with you 

Silhouette

gliding my fingers thru the contours of your face
in a two dimentional world i touch
the silhouette of your shadow
i kiss in the dark
grasping every second to make it last

your nose your lips your neck your hair
i thought i felt you moving,
but you weren't even there.

you, standing by the window
a lonely glare, a beaming stare
would i have found you long ago?

a slight chill from the snow outside
sends electric waves of sensation
like reborn again and have died.

holding on to a memory
your smile of a thousand stars
your room with the purple mist
as our touch and thoughts combine
our lips through this velvet kiss

we are far apart and yet so near
the distance i could no longer endure
i had to wake myself from dreaming
coz it was just your picture.


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note: miss u so

pines without snow

planting a palm tree next to a pine... in Baguio City is it possible?

is my pine covered in a blanket of snow?
let me remove some of those
so your beauty hidden beneath the snow
will be seen...

there is no snow in Baguio but at least
the pine from the North is here, in the Orient.

fwhhhh.. now i blow a whisper of snowy winds to that direction....

escape the snow and run away with me...