Only Lyrically

Another old timer. Been tugging at my skirt lately.

Turf

When I said I can sign away my limbs

As a means to indemnify,

All I meant was that I can keep still

And within what is left, be confined.

Not that I scheme to appeal for Mercy

To parry for me the blade in mid-air –

In the first place, no place is mine to relinquish.

I really have nothing but roaming to waive.

From most of this expanse, I should then disappear.

Then, should Patience still see the need to calm down

Its son, the one I struck, that one who says the wind

Could cripple him – he fears – should it follow him around,

Let Patience teach the bastard how not to breathe

This air we have no choice but to share.

I can sign away my limbs, but can he forgive?

He must, to skip hell and not meet me there.               

- Jennifer Balboa

  Manila

 (I believe a slightly different version appeared in Manila Bulletin’s Panorama, April 2, 2006. No big deal, some commas just morphed into dashes here.)

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“Three be the things I shall have ’til I die:

Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.”

 - from Inventory by Dorothy Parker

Dear Me,

It has been brought to my attention that you have been recently plagued by a cloud of frustration, apparently due to your current financial situation. I understand that you have been longing to leave your island of Luzon, cross the sea, and go to Camiguin for your 31st – only, you going there would have to mean that you cannot go to school for a whole term, because you would have to use your tuition money for fare. You cannot afford to sacrifice that. You know you need your master’s pronto. You know you have no choice but to remain still for a while, with whatever you have at the moment -

which is more than enough. I have taken the liberty to list them down for you, some thirty valuables you have been enjoying for the past year, your good 30th, in case you have forgotten, and God knows how you can be forgetful sometimes. They may be numbered, but not according to rank, and they are so numbered only for purposes of taking track of them while they are being enumerated. I am confident, though, that these 30 surely are the top of your 30th year list.

Please, feel free to refer to this list everytime the tail of ingratitude whips you:

1. everyday

2. your little home, at the moment

3. your new, peace-loving neighbors

4. your generous landlord

5. your noble job which lets you help save the Earth

6. your cool co-workers

7. pretty Ortigas

8. gritty Quiapo

9. asianTraveler

10. homey Paete

11. the Caramoan islands, wedded to the Pacific

12. your first flight, weeeee!

13. the day of the Eraserheads concert last March when you met Bleepster and Mang Jose’s other friends (oh, and  Sunswirlies’ bro, Nolan, again!)

14. your thesis adviser

15. the library at La Salle, one of the best libraries in this country

16. everything else in La Salle, including the nourishing drinking fountains, the pristine CRs, the twin popsies at the canteen, the Chapel of The Pearl of Great Price, the coffee shop, the covered walkways…

17. Mrs. Lykes, who is like a mother to you

18. Sunswirlies, from whom you learn so much all the time

19. Michipooh, the younger sister you never had, and she’ll be turning 30 soon, too!

20. The Baptist, for all his help and kindness

21. Mang Jose, for his kindness, and for being your friend

22. music

23. poetry

24. movies

25. Mother

26. Brother

27. Mrs. Calda, your favorite cousin

28. your health

29. Nine Inch Nail’s gig here on August 5

30. and all the other goodness coming

You have a few more days left before your 31st. Cheer up! You may be racing towards the best years, for all you know. And you don’t have to have the sock in the eye, like your flapper idol did.  Only that “thing with feathers, that perches in the soul”, eh?

Now off you go. Go!

Love,

Me

.

Here now at mudra’s. Will sleep over here to wake up at 2 a.m. to meet another deadline. And my utol took pity enough to pause from his punk songs and electric guitar-playing to allow me to watch this:

The Dance

(Barbie Almalbis, from Music From The Buffet Table)

Would you be interested in dancing with me?
And maybe tell me all your dreams
Talk to me like you would in your sleep
Don’t censor anything
Cause I wanna hear everything
There’s no innocence left to spoil
You can swear she’s not a little boy
We’ll fly tonight so far away
Where they will never find us
Use your wings and I will run fast
Cause that’s what I do when i’m not afraid
We’ve got it made up in our heads
We don’t have to wait for anyone or anything
Go anywhere we desire
So close your eyes become blind
From the world listen instead to the girl
She’ll tell you why she chose to fly
And you’re left behind
Just like me alone and free
We can smile when we’ve filled the void
And treated the burn
But until then I believe
We’re gonna have to learn
To discard any disguise we’re using
Yes it’s so hard and it’s never amusing

Good old nineties. Good thing I saw it. And good for Barbie for being a mom already.

“Matagal na,” my brother just said. I may have been the last to know then.

My brother agrees that it’s a marvelous song. Did I spell marvelous right?

“Tama,” my mother just said.

Time to rest the weary head.

Separation anxiety? Maybe.

My name actually means ‘white wave’ in Celtic. And ‘Balboa’ was the guy who discovered the Pacific.

I want more of the sea. Maybe I could even live near it.

More white sand, coral-lined, pristine beaches. And I don’t care about not knowing how to swim. I have had enough of Sampaloc floods, anyway.

Not that I despise the floods – though there really is nothing to love about them. I only mean I have more than enough training, in wading.

I was with friends and the Poet Of The Year last night. When left alone with the Poet Of The Year, the talk swayed to the inevitable topic of my poems that lack. I tried to defend the poems, saying, “but I write better now, really”, or something like that. I even cited my lone poem that appears in this blog as a testament to the creative transition. No can do. The Poet Of The Year finds it “chaka”, like all my old stuff from the troubled days.

What I like most about the Poet Of The Year is his frankness. And I respect him too. So I revisited and re-worked the poem a few hours ago. If this be “chaka” still, well, I guess my friend would just have to stomach it. At least for the meantime. Until I find it disgraceful again to give it another sit-down:

I am a bride

who waited for you

from the moment I was wrought in the womb

of another who waited too.

I guess you can say I am not virtuous, refusing to

just wait. I had to do

this.

Does that, then, make this

no more than an excuse?

A faulty proof?

This is mine.

This is a record

that waits.

You might have caught me here

just swinging my legs, or whistling –

just so you know,

this is a work in progress.

And the song

could be the mood light overhead -

present all along but unseen until

I lie down. For you, I could make it out as

a dedication. And I can make more

until my womb aches of

perfection.

Here is the link to the previous version: 

http://jenniferbalboa.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/perhaps-a-little-bit-too-soon-for-june-oh-but-what-the-hell/

There you go.

(edited last three lines, again, today – June 8… this is never gonna end, I guess. Maybe this will be my Leaves of Grass. )

May I just sing tonight? My heart is just too overwhelmed right now I am afraid it will not be able to make sense right away of the things it has beheld during the last five days and four nights.

Maiden flight. The fact is supposed to be a secret. But how could not my giddiness give me away? I have to let my companions know. They were amazingly understanding. The engineer even said something like he would give me the window seat, just in case, and recalled how he and some friends kissed the plane mat (?) during their own first. Good thing I did not have to trouble him, because my ticket said “A”. Front row show.

I saw blue above and blue below. I saw dew drops racing leftwards on the window pane, looking like, well, an armada of male seeds, ehehehe.  I saw geometric patches on both land and water, and marvelled at how artful fishermen and farmers can be. I saw where the sun hides when rain clouds shroud the cities. I saw possibilities.

And I felt the faith in me of those who I love. I felt His faith in me. What else could have brought me up there, if not Him, working His love for me through people?

Alright. Now I have to tighten the heart’s leash a little bit yet again, be professional and savvy and focused, at least in the meantime. There will be more time later for gushings by the devirginized.

There is a place in heaven where the noble gather, watch over us, and sometimes burst into song-and-dance to contemplate how they could alleviate us from our misery. They are called The Marangals. Sometimes they argue to send the noblest down to do something. The noblest, out of sheer love for the miserably unaware living lot, may actually come down, but not to play messiah – he may choose to simply chat with a common kid, ultimately testing how much the kid is able to risk to save the self, and ultimately, the land.

The fabulous heavenly chorus may include Andres Bonifacio, Tandang Sora, Ninoy Aquino, and Apolinario Mabini (yes, it is possible to dance while in a wheelchair, and quite fabulously, too). The noblest one who might come back down to earth, as if in a second coming, could be Jose Rizal. And the common kid could be you, irregardless of your age. You will find yourself tapping your feet and humming to the tune of the satirical fantasy while figuring out the answer to the question – what can you give to your country, really?

Rizal Is My President is that musical play which will let you explore such a fantasy and answer such a fundamental question. Presented by Organizational Change Consultants International (OCCI)’s Fullness of Life Foundation in cooperation with the Knights of Rizal, the show premiered last May 8 at the Henry Lee Irwin Theatre of the Ateneo de Manila University. By May 29 to 31, the play will be moving on to St. Scholastica’s College, then to other schools by June. It is based on Napoleon Almonte’s book Rizal Is My President, 40 Leadership Tips from Jose Rizal, adapted for the stage by Joshua So, directed by Raffy Tejada, set to music by Noel Cabangon, and performed by the De La Salle University’s Harlequin Theatre Guild. These players and creators, during production, may as well have echoed the passionate excitement of The Marangals, watching the Philippines from heaven. Then, upon the performance, the audience gets to look at said onlookers. We get to watch who watches us.

That can be taken to mean a lot of things. It may even be simply regarded as metaphor – a little writing acrobatics balanced by pop and folk music accessibility. In the context of leadership, though, which both book and play explore, the symbol of ‘watching over’ may be equated to accountability. The play could dare ask the audience what they are willing to give or risk for the country only as the play hints at the audience, “you are seeing this, you are now aware, you are responsible”. The Marangals in heaven, after all, felt the urge to do something in the play because of the Filipino lives they have been seeing. The weight of their awareness was responsibility. And if the noble dead can show responsibility, what more the living?

Rizal Is My President, staged just in time for the one year countdown to next year’s elections, aims to break the typical Filipino belief that the nation’s misfortunes and glories can be blamed or attributed only to the person in the highest seat. How? By showing that the simplest citizen, perhaps a book-beholding kid commoner, is equally a leader too. Sure, that is no breakthrough thought we hear for the first time. What sets Rizal Is My President apart, though, is it does not simply hint at our innate leadership skills. What Rizal Is My President actually says is that we are all noble – we are all marangal. Nobility is in our blood and the good life for us as a nation is inevitable. Sometimes, it is quite hard for us to accept how glorious we can be, especially when most of what we have shared as a nation are hardships.

So, first things first, we need to know. Seeing the play, we will know. Anyway, it would not at all be like the usual lesson – there’s dancing and singing, and humor – very Filipino.

(My thanks to Althea Lauren Ricardo who once again let me tag along to a musical with her, and our thanks too to Marisol Lopez, president of Organizational Change Consultants International, for inviting us. Ricardo’s own review of the musical may be read in the Asian Journal site: http://www.asianjournal.com/aj-magazine/something-filipino/1885-rizal-is-my-president-the-hero-is-in-the-heart.html?showall=1 . Meanwhile, my review also appears in the website of Rizal Is My President Movement: http://www.rizalismypresident.com/ .)

Last March, I was tasked to write an Ars Poetica piece. It has already been submitted to the powers that be, and I have been told that it had been good enough to at least grant me passage towards a heavier task. I am sharing the poem here, now. I altered a few lines.

This may be a first and a last. One-time-big-time. Or maybe it’s just about time.

I am a bride

who waited for you

from the moment I was wrought in the womb

of another bride who waited too.

I guess you can say I am not virtuous, refusing to

just wait. I had to do

this.

Does that, then, make this

Less? Or low?

An excuse? A faulty proof?

This is mine.

This is a record

of how I wait.

You might have caught me here

just swinging my legs, or whistling –

just so you know,

this is a work in progress.

And the song

might just spill out

during consummation.

Could be for you -

another dedication.

Could be for me -

for my perfection.

- Jennifer Balboa

  Manila

  [March 25/May 28, 2009]

A dear friend of mine is sick. He will have an operation today. I know no prayer or blessing for the sick. May these do. Please pray with me, kind stranger, in our Lord Jesus’ name, for my friend’s speedy recovery.

 Psalm 23

(A psalm of David)

 ¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

 ² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
       he leads me beside quiet waters,

 ³ he restores my soul.
       He guides me in paths of righteousness
       for his name’s sake.

 ⁴ Even though I walk
       through the valley of the shadow of death, ^[a]
       I will fear no evil,
       for you are with me;
       your rod and your staff,
       they comfort me.

 ⁵ You prepare a table before me
       in the presence of my enemies.
       You anoint my head with oil;
       my cup overflows.

 ⁶ Surely goodness and love will follow me
       all the days of my life,
       and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
       forever.

The Big Heart

(Anne Sexton)

Big heart,
wide as a watermelon,
but wise as birth,
there is so much abundance
in the people I have:
Max, Lois, Joe, Louise,
Joan, Marie, Dawn,
Arlene, Father Dunne,
and all in their short lives
give to me repeatedly,
in the way the sea
places its many fingers on the shore,
again and again
and they know me,
they help me unravel,
they listen with ears made of conch shells,
they speak back with the wine of the best region.
They are my staff.
They comfort me.

They hear how
the artery of my soul has been severed
and soul is spurting out upon them,
bleeding on them,
messing up their clothes,
dirtying their shoes.
And God is filling me,
though there are times of doubt
as hollow as the Grand Canyon,
still God is filling me.
He is giving me the thoughts of dogs,
the spider in its intricate web,
the sun
in all its amazement,
and a slain ram
that is the glory,
the mystery of great cost,
and my heart,
which is very big,
I promise it is very large,
a monster of sorts,
takes it all in–
all in comes the fury of love.