Lost Characters, Wandering Bytes

"...but i was so much older then, i'm younger than that now." -- Bob Dylan, "My Back Pages"

My Photo
Name:
Location: Philippines

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Lao Write (2)

.
Tu-Han-led... and More ):reprint of an old blog:(

i was slowly coming out from a steep and sharp turn, when suddenly from behind, a motorcyle smashed right onto the left side of my rear, sending me into a semi-tailspin as i could only utter God's name. Instinctively, my hands let loose my own 120cc handle and shielded my falling body from the hot asphalt coming right into my face! twas around 2pm wednesday, in the midst of a hell-like laotian summer. it's one kind of heat that gets into your nerves so quick as you feel your cheeks stir-fried while facing the wind. in a manila traffic, a flip would just draw out his gun, and....

but i could only pick myself up and drag my bike to the sidewalk. i glanced at the body that slowly rose beside the other motorcyle -- it was of a young lady who kept cursing and trying to drag her own machine that wouldn't move an inch. i helped her pull the machine up and all i got in return was more cursing and swearing that i couldn't really figure out. anyhow, i spat out tons of putang-ina's and hindots while steadying her then upright bike.

she quickly drew out her cellphone and signalled "handcuffs" to me. she was calling the cops! i drew out my wallet and told her in pidgin lao: "50 dollars, fifty dollars", pointing to her machine. trembling, my fingers took out a 100 dollar bill, as i knew beforehand that i didn't have smaller bills. the young lady quickly grabbed the green note and kept talking over the phone.

i was about to leave when she yelled "stop!” and handed back the greenback to me and kept signalling "handcuffs", uttering "police, police" in between laotian phrases. putting up a brave front, i started my bike's engine, and then i saw a uniformed cop coming toward us. then the lady screamed "tu-han-led! tu-han-led!"

two hundred dollars! wow!

the cop was fast moving toward our spot. i quickly picked out another hundred dollar bill and calmly put the twin bills to the young criminal's wide-open palm. nodding my head, i was sure i paid half the value of her motorbike. when, man... the idiot driver-mechanic-faith-healer that i am could only assess her bike's damage and her superficial bruises and scratches be worth the 7-11 price of a juicy fruit gum and plastic balloon, with free chocnut to boot. and whew! the cop on his motorbike sped past us!

but no. in this laoPDR where People see the Dollar and not the Redcross sign in expats' faces, tu hanled maybe the cost of keeping the cops out. otherwise, some expat friends and fellow development consultants would later say, the price would be tu hanled... evely now and then... until you leave the countly quick.

and am too embalassed nallating this stoly.

that's what's keeping my feet cold -- the young criminal who gave her name as "lilly" (had she pronounced it right, that may actually be "rirry") could think of a thousand and another thousand more ways to skin a cat or scalp a soccer fan.

well... tu hanled dolah is definitely worth the reality that am still alive despite slight bruises on my fingers and pained muscles in my right arm -- and am too stingy to buy me pain lelievels.

God Bless Lie PDR.


<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>

On the Occassion of International Women's Day 2003

International Women's Day, Vientiane, LaoPDR. -- I was reading Sam Keen's 'Fire in the Belly" in a PDR restaurant while waiting for ages for my order to be served. I was pondering on the part that says: "WOMAN… is… so high you can't get over her, so low you can't get under her, so wide you can't get around her'. SHE EXISTS, THEREFORE I AM".

I was too absorbed on the chapter when a gray-haired backpacker from out of nowhere (guessed he came in through the bathroom window), just sat down across my table then asked: can I sit here? Before even taking a glimpse at the face I heard the question from, I got eye-struck by the words printed on his shoddy black shirt, that read:

"If you have water, you will have fish.
If you have money, you will have a GIRLFRIEND.

-- Cambodian Proverb"

Anyone who has stayed in Cambodia long enough to make out of at least the surface of the Khmer character and psyche, men and women alike, will simply break into a high-decibel laughter upon reading said “proverb”. Which I almost did.

But not until I had a shot on the old man's sixty-ish Caucasian face (probably a veteran of countless Rolling Stones’ concerts) : He was wearing lipstick, make-up and painted (or tattooed) eyebrows -- with dangling pair of earrings to match. In between subdued bursts of laughter, I asked him: So you came in direct from Cambodia, huh? To which he replied, in a rather white-is-right, mattter-of-factly tone and twang: "Yup. But I don't like that place -- sad and so poor. You must be Lao, you speak good english"

I quickly turned to a waiter passing by and signaled re: my order: Take out, please. Quick please.

Friday, August 19, 2005

Notes Scrawled on Cigarette Foils

.
One-Night Stand

we pile our bodies on the cold marbled floor
sombered by the stray notes of McLean’s guitar
insomnia strikes at twelve o’clock
as streaks of lampost light
peek through the screened window,
the jeepneyman on the midnight shift
blows his madness rousing us
from a short dreamland trip.

this morning the clinking noise of corrugated
coins sweeps down through our sleep
as a pair of mandarin eyes stare upon
lola ata’s yantok yet to kill our dreams.
I lifted my brows and yawned
and sunk my weight to the breakfast table.
then fed on some corrugated proletarian meal.
***

Light Rail Transit

i. 
flagging down
a cab for a circuituous
ride
taft avenue leads
to the city zoo.
I knew I
will find no red
digits flashing
on this unmetered
trip,
my verbs flounce
a childish pulsing
for a first
encounter of freed
lovers
in the company
of captive
beasts.

ii. 
a short reprieve
for exhausted souls

a long recess
to retrieve lost

ground

in theatre
of a protracted war.

A protracted war grounded in lost theatre
of long recess for souls exhausted by a short reprieve.


***

Cruising Along Edsa

a bus stop ahead this musing came about:

inconsequential images of bloodied beliefs
sprawled on sleepy sidewalks
forming ribbons curled to scalpels
of would have been midwives to a pregnant afternoon
(the day however retreated treacherously
to a red cemetery for dead dogmas and shrinking faith)
as a blue baby's cries circle to a yellow sunset

of a most storied nursery crime.


***

Lovers Alone
Rare the nights when comets pass
when flowers trick the ides of march
when yellow myths and red hymns
are woven in one
magical one.

Now we sing. Gaps are filled with
notes and yes, the world becomes
our song, movie we see,
thoughts we sip from cups we share.
None faults us hence
when for coffee we care,
when our bodies sweat for weekend
sinigang, then eclipses ensue.
Nobody knew.

And we still dream. None faults us hence.

Destiny is where I stand where
comets pass and catch the glow
of moments bathed in silence.

Where I stand I see us lost
not in junked cars or ceiling holes
but freed in colored trances
of framed memories
of china vases and ten roses
and a string of pearls.

Both gratified knowing happiness
is as rare as nights when comets pass
when flowers trick the ides of march.


****

Reflections

Beloved, this may come to you
As a rose petal or as a drop of wine
But flowers wither in pots and pictures
And sweetness is lost in one sip.
So please take this poem in toast

To our friendship. No, we celebrate not
What we conceived in rage but the tears
And laughters our souls reflected and released
Nourishing the land – lest intolerant gods
Redeem stolen thunder we now posess.

Senile perhaps this exultation essenced
Out of mutual longing, as we lock in muted
Embrace. And as we kiss our fears
Away, we choose to envisage the complexities
Moving the years in Marti’s sketches,

steps signals silences.

How jubilant we are despite the gods
Committing ourselves to the freedom

We understand, stretching the limits of our vows.
In love we rejoice, knowing that alone
we survive the storm.


******

Lourdes

Congratulations mother.
Here is your child, teary eyed
skull scarred by truncheon,
rocks missed his thighs,
fist a-clenched in spoken raggedness
unshaved, uncut,
restless in pursuit of ideals you taught
tireless in the struggle for life you enriched.
Here is your child,
This lover of joy, alienated and sad
fire in his eyes, anger in his heart,
sing to your child the lullaby of sunrise.
Congratulations Mother,
this is our day.
Here is your child in the raging of the night
Lost, lost in the thick of the fight.

********