poem

not

a poem

but a cry

for

help disguised

as a poem

I
enter without
shape: opening doors

with
a suggestion
of a smile

translucent:
Yes words
my favorite disguise

art
for Art's
sake: toilet bowl

© em franco

another hurricane is brewing
inside the lips of the ocean

hope there's not too much destruction this time
I heard a bus has exploded on the way out
I guess it's impossible to out run death

If it's your time,
it's your time.

and what about all those people
who are trying to make it to safety,
will they have enough time
to make it out alive?

If this ocean will stay hushed
just a little bit longer,

Maybe,
we could get those kids outta
harms way.

but we will see who wins this round
Mother or mother nature's son.

I fear the words that are gonna
come out of your lips.

Before you say anything
I ask for your forgiveness,
oh please momma....


© em franco

meditation:
waiting for-
phone to ring

sunset
plunges inside;
sea on fire

pipeline:
us crashing
into the waves

conflagration
Beginning of
hunger: of pyromaniac

leafing
through yellowpages
you’re not here

fish thoughts

scattered musing from a tiny fish underwater


I'm falling in love with this font, trebuchet you are called. I noticed that everyone was using you so I tried to stay away. But now maybe we can start hanging out together. I like the way you carry my words, you make my thoughts appear cooler. I haven't really written anything in a long time, I've been too busy drowning in the sooty pond of real life that it feels like I have abandoned my blog.

I don't really have anything special I want to say, but it feels good to write. I like the rhythm of my fingers punching into the keyboards. I like the silence that comes whe you're alone with your thoughts, every noise that you hear in the background just sorta disappears. This is my alone time. The irony of it is that this place where I'm depositing these thoughts, deposting my impressions of life, essentially depositing myself is not at all private. I am not alone here, although not many people read my blog, if any at all, I think I get a few ghost hits.

I am thinking of that poem by Emily Dickenson, who I always mistake for Charles Dickens, because their last names sound alike. I've never really been a fan of Emily, ( it feels strange to address someone you hardly know by their first name, it feels like your tresspassing upon their personal space.) To me her poems have always felt contrived, restricted; they conjure up the image in my head of poems that are tucked neatly inside a corset and cannot breath. Reading her poetry feels arduous, like climbing a mountain; but sometimes, often times..the sweetest things in life are those things that you've had to fight, claw, punch, struggle, almost die for.

There is this one poem of hers that goes: "This is my letter to the world that never wrote back... " This is the one poem of hers that I'm tempted to finish, (kinda like writing through howl, which I probably would never attempt to do, but never say never). I'm sure we all have our very own versions of our letters to the world that never wrote back. I would love to see what yours would look like :)

But who would you address it to? It would probably just end up in a dead letter station. I don't know which one depresses me more; feeling the necessity to write a letter to the world that never wrote back, or sending a letter with no clear destination that it ends up stranded in a dead letter station.... at this point it's a toss up that I think I'm gonna choose not to decide on this one. I think it would be best if I leave my letter unfinished. yes, that's it.

FRAGMENTARY SLEEP..and last night at a party.

( something I wrote last week but forgot to post hihihihi. an entry from the diary of my scattered brain)

I‘m very, very, tired. I have flying saucer eyes. I don’t sleep like normal people sleep. I have bouts of fragmentary sleep, which is sleep that last only a few hours followed by, a succession of hours of long contemplation about the meaning of life in stark darkness. Maybe that would explain why my body is tired.

Last night I went to a party at my Uncle’s place. We arrived very early so we had plenty of time to kill before the festivities started. Who better to kill the time than Ricky Martin, right? Whose hip-shaking extravaganza is enough to make your grandmother fumble for the remote…………..to turn the volume up. I swear I had to suppressed about a million giggles…… It gave me a small stomachache.

But have no fear because after about 30 minutes of Ricky Martin live is Europa vcd…It was turned off to make way for a more, ehem… special treat…… drum rolls pls. à Paul Anka’s greatest lifetime hits!!! Now, if you’ve never heard of Paul Anka, this is the one for you. Because, it covers all of his wonderful hits starting from the year 1950’s onwards. Seriously, you have to give the guy credit, he created some of pop music’s most treasure possession, such as puppy love, Diana, young at heart and of course… my way, which he originally wrote but gave to Frank Sinatra.

But we’ll get to that later.

So after what seemed like an eternity, but I’m sure it couldn’t have been more than an hour, we were summoned to the dining hall. To meet, alas!!! My long lost relatives from a distant land. Wow! They were so nice…. nice…nice….nice…..I think that was the first time I've ever met them. Maybe I've met them before when I was really young and still in diapers, I don't really remember.


So off to the dining room we go ---

The food was to die for, oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!
The fruit salad was divine. The barbecue mouth watering. The pancit palabok was so good, I wanted to cry (hehehe).The releno bangus, (I’m sorry sumptuous fish, I didn’t get to taste you, but I was so full, maybe next time we will meet again), I was told was the star of the evening. Then there was the lumpiang shang-hai, that made me forget my name. The brown friend rice that tasted so perfect in my mouth, yum-yum. Then there was the kare-kare, that sadly, for me will forever remain a mystery, cause at this point I’ve reach my threshold for victuals consumption. So my happy story about the culinary delights I came upon that evening must end here.



KARAOKE TIME….. (did I just say that aloud?) oh yes I did, make no mistakes about it...we're gonna smoke them out of their holes.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve dreaded this moment. I’ve relived it in my nightmare, many times. Beads of sweat running down your forehead, as you try to surreptitiously get away, but alas! somebody catches you in action, and pins you down of the sofa, while handing you the dreaded set of microphone, as the first few notes of I will surve bursts into the air signaling the start of a humiliation that will result in a lifetime trauma.

Lucky it didn’t happen that night. But it almost did. How I got away it?
I can only attribute to a miracle.

So after hours and hours of karaoke…including one of my uncles performing a standing ovation rendition of my way…he scored a 98!!!! I dunno if anybody has ever scored a hundred! We very discreetly snuck out of the door, full blast of karaoke singing still happenin’ in the background….. Us kids (lol) decided to opt for the more quiet comfort of the patio, with one of my cousins playing the guitar, alt/rock hits were the order of the evening. There was a lot of talk about music that evening..lots of radiohead..smashing pumpkins..blur... pinkfloyd….radioactive sago…and of course bamboo… and with that we passed the evening up to the werewolf hours of the night…. lots of music…lots of laughter…lots of good food…
Not a bad way to spend the night eh??????

A n x I e t y

c o n v i n c e d i a m w e a r i n g a f i s h b o w l. i l e t m y s e l f s w i m i n t h e s t r e e t t h i s s u r f a c e o f w a t e r m a k e s m e g a s p f o r t emp o r a r y bubbles of air i gurgle as i flail my arms in swift motions. no body sees this st rug g le to e s a p e s o m e t h i n k i a m d a n c i n g t o t h e r h y t h m of the j u n gl e drums oozing out of the of the local barber shop. others assume i am rushing home to f e e d the fi s h e s. i am happy assuming this pose, assiduity of e v e r y d a y l i f e, assiduity of everyday moti ons in a f e w m i n u t e s none of this would m a t t e r, cause i will be at home with a h e a d a c h e forge t t i n g any of this. ever h a p p e n e d

my rant about rene magritte

I've just recently discovered the paintings of rene magritte and decided that he's my favorite painter, evah, evah. A post previously held by Vincent van Gogh, not that I know that much about painting, but at least I know what I like. I wish I could post some of his stuff here, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do that....

Anyway, there's this one painting of his called, song of love, it's unbelievable, I can't tell you what it does to me. I am in awe of people who can express with evident proof ,through their craft, what I can only murmur as the secret desire of my heart. That's why art is so important to me, it allows me to feel. It gives me wings, so I can fly out of this place, I’ve adoringly nicknamed invisible cage.

To me this is freedom, the ability to pave yourself out of a brig without physically leaving that place. Amazing what our minds can do if our hearts will only follow.

Once I tried to convince myself that I was in my secret cave communing with my secret panda….but it didn’t really work. To find out what went wrong with that botched apparation go to my previous posts.

Now back to what I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself, again.

Well it’s just that sometimes I get to tired with the toilsdisappointementsheavinessfugliness of everyday life, that I forget the simple act being... you know, just being. & sometimes I look at an incredible piece of work of art, (in this case rene magritte) & I remember.... You know that feeling when you're a child and your whole life is ahead of you, and wherever your eyes go, you discover a new sense of wonder & your palms are like the ocean, vast and enormous, engulf with the fecundity of the possibility.

That last line sounds positively obscene, possibility and fecundity should never be used in the same sentence together. It just sounds too fugly. phew..

Anyway, there’s this another artist whose photographs I love but he’s work is kinda controversial, so maybe I should leave him out of this.


mushr out

welcome to my beautiful garden

I‘m very, very, tired. I have flying saucer eyes. I don’t sleep like normal people sleep. I have bouts of fragmentary sleep, which is sleep that last only a few hours followed by, a succession of hours of long contemplation about the meaning of life in stark darkness. Maybe this would explain why my body is tired.

Sometimes when I’m sad my thoughts get too ugly. This is the time writing comes in handy. I just punch in my thoughts into my keyboards and watch them transform into something other than the emptiness that sits in the pit of my stomach, like a cocoon turning into a butterfly, amazing how sadness flies from us when it has run its course.

To some people this turn is so easy, they can do it in their sleep. But to others like me, who’s always scrounging for some deeper meaning out of life, sadness tends to dwell deeper. It has been with me for so long, that I’m thinking I should start charging for rent. I don’t know why this feeling remains. Maybe it’s because I haven’t found what I’m looking for. I have not come to a place where things stop swaying, a place where the chicken took up residence when he crossed the other side, a place where mother nature rules the universe, a place where Leonard Cohen songs are put to rest, and the sound of the sweetest laughter is played year round.

I don’t know if such a place exists, but what I know is it’s not really here, not now, not anytime soon, ( & what i know is i’m not really taking about a place it’s just a euphemism for this unknown entity). But maybe someday when things are different, when I’m not so cynical. " like a cat tied to a stick that’s driven into frozen winter’s sh*t , (the ability to laugh at weaknesses)".

I will find it.

Maybe I should enjoy this moment where I’m still me, the ugly me who refuses to go down without a fight, although you wouldn’t really be able to tell by just looking. I’m utilizing the passive–aggressive mode of resistance.

I’m silently protesting against my rage. My rage stemming from my inability to execute change. I’m empowering myself by accepting defeat with a smile, a giggle, and a tiny shriek that kinda sounds like a cough, but I’ll try to pass as a laugh. Anyway, when I get my one way ticket to Atlantis, I’ll write you a postcard.

mushr out

Ok computer is the soundtrack to my life

It’s amazing how some songs etch a deeper meaning inside your skin as you get older. Their meaning become more evidently clear, less ironic, more truthful. I don’t know whether to cry or laugh, maybe I’ll just do both. Do you see this face I’m making in this mirror, a few years from now this will be you.

Thom Yorke is a genius, that’s all I got to say. Of course, the whole band is superfragalisticexpialidocious. But Thom, is the voice, and he’s the songwriter. His words are my most treasured possession. There is this one version of motion picture soundtrack, a bootleg version I think, the first ever, just him and a guitar. I swear that man's voice can bring furnitures to tears. The first time I ever heard this song, I totally lost it, even now it still gets to me when I listen to it and I’m having a bad day. Now I don’t know what happened to that song in the album. I don’t know whose brilliant idea was it to include the evil harps, and maybe Thom was really tired that day, cause when you listen to that song, he sounds slightly robotic…maybe that was intended.

Maybe Thom Yorke has always wanted to have a song that is beautifully sung in a robotic fashion. He’s a genius after all. He sang the lyrics to spinning plates backwards on Amnesiac,( that’s the equivalent of reciting the alphabet backwards). But of course they reverse his vocals on the final cut in the album; so he’d sound like he’s singing in English, and not Icelandic, like that dude in Sigur Ros, who plays his guitar with a bow violin style, only he doesn’t hold it up to his shoulder. It would be neat if he holds it up to his shoulder, I would be really impressed! But I guess a guitar is too heavy to hold up on your shoulder. This has gone on too long.

I love radiohead, I love radiohead, I love radio head.


mushr out

news..death..musings..and something with a sun

It was horrible watching the news the other day. The content was pretty much littered with death and outrage about the situation happening in New Orleans. We were tuned in to fox, and I swear for a second even Geraldo looked convincing. I don't know, maybe I was projecting my feelings of sympathy towards those people in the background, and Geraldo with his funny mustache just happened to be standing there in front. So I guess there was some transferance going on.

It is weird how we are glued to our teevee sets whenever something big happens, some catastrophe or human tragedy. It is as if you are watching a spectacle taking place right in front of you & you have front row seats, and you're almost afraid to step away for even a second cause you might miss some juicy detail.

I remember having the same feeling during the 9/11 planesuicidebombings. I was tuned in to CNN, when the second plane crashed into the second building and minutes after the pentagon was on fire. It was so strange how the newscasters stayed so calm. It was surreal, when the two buildings disintegrated into the ground, because at the back of your mind you were thinking that there were still people trapped in those buildings, but nobody was saying anything about it. It's so strange to me this feeling of shock and disbelief...cause what usually follows afterwards is numbness.

Which was what happened to me when I saw this movie...(the title escapes me at the moment..... i think it was a Brazilian movie, though I could be wrong…a semi-documentary. They used real life children to play the gang members. In one of the scenes, there was this young boy, no more than seven, who was instructed to shoot another boy, who was maybe around 4 years old. The problem was he had to choose whether to shoot the 4 year old boy’s hand or foot...) Anyway after the end of the movie, I couldn't react ... I didn't know how. It was a system failure, complete total sensory overload. I mean I couldn't put anything into perspective. I couldn't even tie my shoelaces.

I think it was because of the way they portrayed death and violence in the movie, so commonplace, so unnaturally blase, so real,( which is actually the way it really happens in that part of the world) that made me want to retreat back to the womb.

I found that movie to be so threatening to my personal sense of security, that I really didn't even want to think about it. I mean, for sure I know if I was ever casted in that film I'd be one of the first ones shot. I'd probably even volunteer to go first, just to get it over with. .......why for the life of me can't I remember the title.... it is something with a sun.....

I keep on thinking children of the sun...but that's not it, that's the last cut in bamboo's newest album. Anyway, if anyone knows the title of that movie, let me know okay? So I can stop obsessing about it.

sumasakit ang aking kaluluwa #3

blog song

i blog yooo, yooo blog me we're a happy family with my missing left big toe, larry curly and moe, who kinda looks like you all 3 combined... I blog yoo yoo blog me, we're a happy family with my missing big left toe and your face which kinda looks like

an overiped tomato....

this song is kinda like a kiss from me to you

won't you say you blog me too...

sumasakit ang aking kaluluwa #2

i'm in a cave communing with my secret animal the, panda.
what's a panda doing in a cave you wonder?.... i am wondering too. apir. i am closing my eyes and slowly letting the world slip back into the unknown, like a bunch of glaciers that have fallen back into the freezing ocean. i am in front of my computer screen, sitting in the lotus position, meditating to the sound of fingers punching letters into the keyboards. this is relaxing me....well, not really but i am trying, to hypnotize my brain into thinking that everything is spiffy. the panda is angry...i repeat...the panda is angry... the panda is brandishing its claws towards my face in a threatening motion.... the panda is jumping up and down and making a loud noise that sounds like a growl..... the panda... is now a bear...i repeat the panda has turned into a bear..panda...bear...bea..r...pa..n..d..a..
i mistook the bear for a panda..... i am now out of my secret cave....running out...of my secret cave.. my face is full of scratches....and my big left toe is kinda missing....

sumasakit ang aking kaluluwa.

i hate myself today for being imperfect. i hate my body for being weak. i hate my mind for not thinking things thru. i hate the bad decisions that i have made & i am sorry i cannot take them back.
i hate the mistakes the hurt us so much.i have taken back a small portion of my freedom by uttering these thoughts.
i hate the version of myself yesterday, today & tommorrow :(

who loves the sun...not everyone

why? i answer in haynaku formation

morning
always plagues
me with sorrow





"who loves the sun"- a brilliant song from one of my fave bands velvet underground....

Music is a 'place' where I acquire some of my most treasured wisdom. Where does music take place, really? It starts with the musicians and end with you, (the listener). I guess it's a u and me place, this realm we like to call music. It's strange how when you are listening to a song, it feels like that one song you are listening to, is being played especially for you, & you just swirl in it, like magic! I think there's no other thing in the world that has got that much power to move me.

Although, poetry is my passion in life! hehehe I have to laugh every time I say that. & Poetry is always gonna be that place where I go to find myself. I think music will always be my refuge, because when I can't write, I turn to music. It's the only thing in the world that has the ability to elevate my mood, other than the stuff I find in my medicine cabinet.

My current obsession: this pinoy band called bamboo. I loved their first album & I'm crazy about their second. It's always good to be surrounded with music that you can take along with you in your journey… Part of growth, part of moving forward, is leaving something behind. You can't get to your destination if you don't go on a journey, and step away from the place where you started.

That's part of the reason why I love bamboo's music... you don't have to leave it behind. It's always sad when you have to leave something behind. Friends, family, your childhood...etc. I have a special room in my closet dedicated to nostalgia, & It burns my heart every time I have to open it. It's cruel really, the memories we keep in our heart.

Just the same, I think we need it. We need to have a taste of everything to truly appreciate what life is, & to truly know ourselves, and to discover what we're capable of.... That's kind of a scary thought. But it's scarier to have lived a lifetime and not to have truly discovered what life was all about, simply because you were too afraid to take that step.... that one itsy-bitsy, baby step...that could've started everything.

And that's one of the things music teaches me, to listen and be open to thoughts, ideas, change..the future. But not to necessarily follow. Because I think we all have to follow our own destiny, but that doesn't mean that we can't have help along the way.

It's right there, if you need it... just waiting for you........ I'd start with As the music Plays....and move on over to Light, Peace, Love.

.

"one small step for man, a giant leap for mankind" quote from one very famous astronaut