aklasan ni amado hernandez

I

Nangatigil
ang gawain
sa bukirin.

Nagpapahinga
ang makina
sa pabrika.

Natiwangwang
ang daunga’t
pamilihan.

At sa madla
ay nagbanta
ang dalita.

Nangalupaypay
ang puhunan
at kalakal.

Nangasara
ang lahat na…
Welga! Welga!

Bawa’t sipag,
bawa’t lakas
ay umaklas.

Diwang dungo’t
ulong yuko’y
itinayo.

Ang maliit
na ginahis
ay nagtindig.

Pagka’t bakit
di kakain
ang nagtanim?

Ang naglitson
ng malutong,
patay-gutom.

Ang nagbihis
sa makisig
walang damit.

Ang yumari
ng salapi’y
nanghihingi.

A Tropical Winter's Tale by Charlson L. Ong

It was winter when he came for her. The last winter of her life. The cold air stung her face. Her throat was dry and her breasts swollen. She felt her innards turn to stone and she was suddenly heavy with fear and longing. The man wore layers of animal fur-some strange animal the girl had never seen. They called him Bei Xiong-northern bear-because he was said to have originated from some northern province where it snowed in winter. The girl Li Hua had never seen snow.

She thought he must have another name, a real name, but it didn't matter. His head was made of stone, his eyes were red, and when he turned to her in the half-light the girl thought for a moment that it was indeed some unknown animal standing before her. Her heart would have leapt were it not frozen.

The girl had been waiting for the stranger at the outhouse. The night earlier Bei Xiong had come with two sacks of rice, a goat and a jug of rice wine which he gave to the people Li Hua had always believed were her parents. They told her, however, that she was bought off some sick peasant as an act of Buddhist charity. But when she grew older the girl was too frail to work the fields, too clumsy to care for the young ones, had no talent for cooking or embroidery, and could never be married off to a well-off family.

But Bei Xiong had seen the girl buying rice wine in town one day and decided to have her. He had two wives but neither had borne him any offspring. Now he wanted a younger woman. A fresh field to plow. And if she was yet a girl, he would be patient and wait for her to blossom. He needed a strong woman that he could take away with him to another land, across the seas where he would seek his new fortune after debt and pestilence had wiped out his crop and remaining kin. He would have a new life in that faraway land of brown men who worshipped white gods, where many of his villagemates had gone, where the earth was forever kind and the sun warm. He had had enough of barrenness and winter.

uhaw ang tigang na lupa ni liwayway arceo

1

Ilang gabi nang ako ang kapiling niya sa higaan. Tila musmos akong dumarama sa init ng kanyang dibdib at nikikinig sa pintig ng kanyang puso. Ngunit, patuloy akong nagtataka sa malalim na paghinga niya, sa kanyang malungkot na pagtitig sa lahat ng bagay, paghikbi...

2

Ilang araw ko nang hindi nadadalaw ang aklatan: ilang araw ko nang hindi nasasalamin ang isang larawang mahal sa akin: bilugang mukha, malapad na noo, hati-sa-kaliawang buhok, singkit na mga mata, hindi katangusang ilong, mga labing duyan ng isang ngiting puspos-kasiyahan...Sa kanya ang aking noo at mga mata. Ang aking hawas na mukha, ilong na kawangki ng tuka ng isang loro, at maninipis na labi, ay kay Ina...

3

Sa Ina ay hindi palakibo: siya ay babaing abilang at sukat ang pangungusap. Hindi niya ako inuutusan. Bihira siyang magalit sa akin at kung nagkakagayon ay maikli ang kanyang pananalita: Lumigkit ka!...At kailangang ‘di ako makita. Kailangang ‘do ko masaksihan ang kikislap na poot sa kanyang mga mata. Kailangang ‘di ko namamalas ang pagkagat niya sa kanyang labi. Kailangang ‘do ko na makita ang panginginig ng kanyang mga daliri. Ito rin ang katumbas ng kanyang mariing huwang kung mayroon siyang ipinagbabawal.

Ang ngiti ni Ina ay patak ng ulan kung tag-araw: ang bata kong puso ay tigang na lupang uhaw na uhaw...

4

Minsan man ay hindi ko narinig na may pinagkagalitan sila ni Ama bagama’t hindi ko mapaniwalaang may magkabiyak ng pusong hindi nagkakahinampuhan. Marahil ay sapagkat kapwa sila may hawak na kainawaan: ang pagbibigayan sa isa’t isa ay hindi nalilimot kailanman.

5

Kung gabi ay hinahanap ko ang kaaliwang idinudulat ng isang amang nagsasalaysay tungkol sa mga kapre at nuno at tungkol sa magagandang ada at prinsesa; ng isang nagmamasid at nakangiting ina; ng isang pulutong ng nakikinig na magaganda at masasayang bata.

Ngunit, sa halip niyon ay minalas ko si Ama sa kanyang pagsusulat; sa kanyang pagmamakinilya; sa kanyang pagbabasa. Minamasdan ko kung paano niya pinapangunot ang kanyang noo; kung paano niya ibinubuga ang asong nagbubuhat sa kanyang tabako; kung paano siya titingin sa akin na tila may hinahanap; kung paano niya ipipikit ang kanyang mga mata; kung paano siya magpapatuloy sa pagsulat...

Si Ina ay isang magandang tanawin kung nanunulsi ng mga punit na damit; kung nag-aayos ng mga uhales at nagkakabit ng mga butones sa mga damit ni Ama. Sa kanyang pagbuburda ng aking mga kamison at panyolito – sa galaw ng kanyang mga daliri – ay natutunghan ko ang isang kapana-panabik na kuwento. Ngunti, ang pananabik na ito’y napapawi.

Kabagu-tbagot ang aking pag-iisa at ako ay naghahanap ng kasama sa bahay: isang batang marahil ay nasa kanyang kasinungalingang gulang o isang saggol na kalugud-lugod, may ngiti ng kawalang-malay, mabango ang hininga, may maliit na paa at kamay na nakatutuwang pisilin, may mga pisngi at labing walang bahid-kasalanan at kasiya-siyang hagkan, o isang kapatid ba kahulihan ng gulang, isang maaaring maging katapatan...

dead stars by paz marquez-benitez

THROUGH the open window the air-steeped outdoors passed into his room, quietly enveloping him, stealing into his very thought. Esperanza, Julia, the sorry mess he had made of life, the years to come even now beginning to weigh down, to crush--they lost concreteness, diffused into formless melancholy. The tranquil murmur of conversation issued from the brick-tiled azotea where Don Julian and Carmen were busy puttering away among the rose pots.

"Papa, and when will the 'long table' be set?"

"I don't know yet. Alfredo is not very specific, but I understand Esperanza wants it to be next month."

Carmen sighed impatiently. "Why is he not a bit more decided, I wonder. He is over thirty, is he not? And still a bachelor! Esperanza must be tired waiting."

"She does not seem to be in much of a hurry either," Don Julian nasally commented, while his rose scissors busily snipped away.

"How can a woman be in a hurry when the man does not hurry her?" Carmen returned, pinching off a worm with a careful, somewhat absent air. "Papa, do you remember how much in love he was?"

"In love? With whom?"

"With Esperanza, of course. He has not had another love affair that I know of," she said with good-natured contempt. "What I mean is that at the beginning he was enthusiastic--flowers, serenades, notes, and things like that--"

Alfredo remembered that period with a wonder not unmixed with shame. That was less than four years ago. He could not understand those months of a great hunger that was not of the body nor yet of the mind, a craving that had seized on him one quiet night when the moon was abroad and under the dappled shadow of the trees in the plaza, man wooed maid. Was he being cheated by life? Love--he seemed to have missed it. Or was the love that others told about a mere fabrication of perfervid imagination, an exaggeration of the commonplace, a glorification of insipid monotonies such as made up his love life? Was love a combination of circumstances, or sheer native capacity of soul? In those days love was, for him, still the eternal puzzle; for love, as he knew it, was a stranger to love as he divined it might be.

Sitting quietly in his room now, he could almost revive the restlessness of those days, the feeling of tumultuous haste, such as he knew so well in his boyhood when something beautiful was going on somewhere and he was trying to get there in time to see. "Hurry, hurry, or you will miss it," someone had seemed to urge in his ears. So he had avidly seized on the shadow of Love and deluded himself for a long while in the way of humanity from time immemorial. In the meantime, he became very much engaged to Esperanza.

Why would men so mismanage their lives? Greed, he thought, was what ruined so many. Greed--the desire to crowd into a moment all the enjoyment it will hold, to squeeze from the hour all the emotion it will yield. Men commit themselves when but half-meaning to do so, sacrificing possible future fullness of ecstasy to the craving for immediate excitement. Greed--mortgaging the future--forcing the hand of Time, or of Fate.

"What do you think happened?" asked Carmen, pursuing her thought.

"I supposed long-engaged people are like that; warm now, cool tomorrow. I think they are oftener cool than warm. The very fact that an engagement has been allowed to prolong itself argues a certain placidity of temperament--or of affection--on the part of either, or both." Don Julian loved to philosophize. He was talking now with an evident relish in words, his resonant, very nasal voice toned down to monologue pitch. "That phase you were speaking of is natural enough for a beginning. Besides, that, as I see it, was Alfredo's last race with escaping youth--"

Carmen laughed aloud at the thought of her brother's perfect physical repose--almost indolence--disturbed in the role suggested by her father's figurative language.

"A last spurt of hot blood," finished the old man.

Few certainly would credit Alfredo Salazar with hot blood. Even his friends had amusedly diagnosed his blood as cool and thin, citing incontrovertible evidence. Tall and slender, he moved with an indolent ease that verged on grace. Under straight recalcitrant hair, a thin face with a satisfying breadth of forehead, slow, dreamer's eyes, and astonishing freshness of lips--indeed Alfredo Salazar's appearance betokened little of exuberant masculinity; rather a poet with wayward humor, a fastidious artist with keen, clear brain.

He rose and quietly went out of the house. He lingered a moment on the stone steps; then went down the path shaded by immature acacias, through the little tarred gate which he left swinging back and forth, now opening, now closing, on the gravel road bordered along the farther side by madre cacao hedge in tardy lavender bloom.

♥It’s a lie to say you’ve let go of the past..
nobody let go of mem’ries..
Each tear is an unforgettable memory
and
each heartbreak is an uneraseable scar..
‘coz really,
there’s no such thing as FORGETTING..
only ACCEPTANCE..♥

POEM FOR MY FATHER by federico Licsi Espino Jr.

Orphaned by distance but filial to a photo--
Graph postmarked overseas, thus did i begin,
My wellkept biyhood in atidy house a cozy house;
Seven rooms grandfathered by a hoary ghost
Conjured up by my mother and two maiden aunts;
Thus did i begin in a wee-kept house a manless house
Where night i would say "Our Father" to a bleeding
Wall,hallowing his name in a house of women;
The void now filled by Fathers from no longer
Looming tall the way I used to image him,
This new man come to carve new covenant from old
So I utter Abba in my utter need
To bridge a gap no longer of geography but love.

RICE AND BULLETS Hernando R. Ocampo

Without taking his breakfast, Tura left the house very early in the morning
with an old jute sack slung across his shoulder. Long ago the sack had contained rice for his family—for his daughters Ine and Clara, for his little son Totoy, and for his wife Marta. But now the jute sack was bulging with the sharp, hard edges of three big stones which he had gathered the night before.
"What are those stones for"? Marta asked.
"Mister Remulla said we must have three big stones in our sack. He said these stones would represent the three biggest islands in our country," Tura explained.
"What are you going to do with them?" Marta asked.
"I don't know," Tura answered, seemingly peeved. “Mister Remulla said that with these stones we'll soon have something to eat, and that is all I care about. He told us we ought not to be hungry. We have as much right to eat and live as the proprietarious have."
Marta had ceased to ask further questions. At the mention of rice she had
suddenly seemed satisfied. But this morning, before Tura left, she asked again, "Are you sure there will be no trouble?"
"How could there be? Mister Remulla knows what he is doing. He said that is
what they do in America. He came from America. He ought to know." And slinging the jute sack with the big stones across his shoulder, Tura left his wife on the threshold, while his three children, ill-clad and ill-nourished, looked sheepishly on.
Out in the street Tura wondered how things would have ended for all of them
had not Mister Remulla arrived, but there was no use of that now. Mister Remulla had come. That was the important thing. And soon they'd no longer be hungry. They'd have rice; Mister Remulla said so.