Wednesday, February 25, 2009

this is me getting rid of the random notes saved on my phone.

"Hallow blocks" : sign in Isabela. Does this mean they're to be used only in the construction of holy buildings?

Libag Norte, Tugegarao: where bathing isn't so popular.

Smart Kapigsaan: it all boils down to...?

IPs (Indigenous People) do not want to be called as such because they read "IPs" as "ip-is" [cockroach].

Ang pagbayad sa jeep ay isang laro ng sungka: Pasa-pasa ng barya, palit-kamay sabay kwenta, hanggang makarating sa palad ng nagmamaneho — ang hinihintuang bahay ng sigay mong piso.

scalding sun, razed face, glimmering asphalt, gas-fume shimmer.

"Kita po sa body formation n'yo na nagjo-jogging kayo tuwing umaga." - Kuya Sherinel the guide (gee, thanks, kuya, I think)

Hand gesture for "diretso": poke your hand out straight, then let it veer to the right reflecting the curve of the road. confusing but funny. by the way, "malapit" is a relative term.

There are swastikas in Santa Fe.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

God is a Brit

[18II09]

A tea-stained sky
spills over the rusted rooftops
of our neighborhood.
I walk, dreamlike, in a dim sepia photograph
lit by incandescent streetlamps
and the yellow-eyed glare
of passing cars.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

the eternal waltz, or, while walking in UP, i look up and see a canopy of leaves.

The arboreal embrace of tangled branches began a hundred years ago when a row of acacias looked at each other from across a boulevard of unbroken dreams. They felt the rising sap dance through their fragile trunks and the breathing wind shake their leaved limbs. Over time, these tentative fingertips reached over asphalt, boughs bowing and pulling close, finally twining together in an eternal waltz.

(original thought as saved in my phone: Branches tangled in an arboreal embrace/ Waltzing eternal to the wind)

yesterday

[10II09]

yesterday, the clouds ate up
the penumbral eclipse
the same way a thick blanket
swallows your white fetal form
llmarcelo [at] gmail [dot] com