A heroic generation still cries: ‘Never again’

A heroic generation still cries: ‘Never again’

The Letter I Was Too Lazy to Write

the letter i was too lazy to write said

i’m at the point again of wanting

 to turn off my cell phone

to turn my back on texting

to refuse to hear the phone’s pings

everyone insists texting, like email,

is quick time, almost real time

especially if it’s globe to globe smart to smart sun to sun

they remind like a nagging never-can-do-wrong mother

you need that phone for emergencies

& anyways (oh, how I detest that extra “s” after the “y” on “anyway”)

the wifi signal is as rapid as your blinking eye

i ruined two, three phones since '03

& each time got a handy secondhand

that would do the job of instant connect

i reconstructed my directory

but each time i did, oh woe,

i lost what i truly wanted to keep

not the vital practical life-or-death contacts

but the messages

that reminded me where i was

on a special christmas morning when

my happily dysfunctional family,

the sort afflicted with the optimism bias,

was together in one place

or where i was on another day when i was ill

& again near the edge of despair

when i was soaked with rain & stranded

in a remote dark part of myself

when i was in a bus & the conductor fed a DVD

of a B movie called “the losers”

at an ungodly time when all i had were

jingling coins in my purse & an ingrained faith

that this situation will pass

ahhh those messages were messengers

from the abyss in the sky

somewhere in one of those roving satellites

an autobot has read how

an earth woman early today texted

“good a.m. are we on for 10 a.m. mtg 2day?”

the letter i was too lazy to write

will tell you i’ll have none of that

for the meantime

i’m at an alternative spa 

for the techno-weary

having my brain re-wired

into improving the sprawling penmanship

that has increasingly lost its legibility

two months ago a student came up to tell me

with only the honesty a child can muster

“teach, your handwriting is like

a doctor’s prescription”

the time to listen more to myself think has come

the time for longer pauses has arrived

letters allow for lengthy pauses 

 

not measured in quick time

before the ballpoint pen resumes

its up-down movement across a page

how silly i was to imagine a text

or even an email, no matter how drenched

in emotion, can replace that?

from hereon

you’re gonna hear from me

but give it a waiting time of two weeks

~ Babeth Lolarga

May 15, 2012

6:22 a.m.

Photo of flowers and notebook from the WorldWideWeb.

Sisters Craft Café: Venus' Giveaway

Sisters Craft Café: Venus' Giveaway: Welcome to the month of March. This is very special for me because this time, I'm announcing my second pregnancy ! I'm in the beginnin...

Video: Harvard baseball team's 'Call Me Maybe' dance (in a van)

Here's my Mother's Day present to the man who plays big mama in our house because he's a whiz at household management or probably he secretly majored in home economics, Mr. RBF. He's a baseball fan to cover the softie side.

Video: Harvard baseball team's 'Call Me Maybe' dance (in a van)

The Lioness Who Grew Eagle’s Wings

For the Leo girl who discovered a place better than a museum

to give her memories to last her while away from home

i catch her on the first of May

crying quietly into her pillow

but mothers can read the meaning of tears

or almost taste the salt in them

having shed them too when they labored

to bring lives like hers to a heedless world

 i know what will put the smile back

on her face wan & pale

push the willfulness back on her spine

revive the wish for a strong wind

to enable her wings to fly to heights undreamed of

Unfinished painting of a woman in a castle by GCF

 together we drop in on a young-old lady

a mother to four & scores more who think

the world & the cosmos of her

Pink cherub resting in a boudoir

her house is open to all the winds

that blow in fairies & creatures out of

a sendak imagination

where angels & tikbalangs co-exist

in jolly peace-ability

by the time child woman is done with her salad

her petulance evaporates

as she listens intently to the hostess, that

groovy crone’s positively possible 

predictions that banish uncertainty

& restore a smile 

on a now fully peaceful face

until the child assumes a woman

warrior  pose, one ready for flight

to leap unharnessed to embrace & explore the marvels

of the foreign & the unknown

--Babeth Lolarga

May 12, 2012

6:52 a.m.

Photos by Babeth taken at a true Pinay's home in Quezon City 


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Curated prompt: Luisa A. Igloria

Do visit this site for more of this Baguio girl:
http://www.lanternreview.com/blog/2012/05/11/curated-prompt-luisa-a-igloria-poetry-as-speculum/

Letter to a Weekend Beach Girl

Holding her beach ball in April this year. Photo by Kimi Fernandez

Dear Butones,

That time you held your striped ball for the first time, trying to figure what the light object in white blue yellow red was (bigger, more definitely, than the baseball you roll and chase after on the carpet), I rued how summer was passing us by without our having gone near a body of water bigger than us.

Your tub isn't counted. You had long outgrown it and now take a bath under a running faucet, always thrilled by the feel of water.

Like an answered wish, an invitation to a beach wedding came. Faster than you can say "Go!", Mamay and Ate packed your things, including your deflated beach ball and mushroom-shaped floaters. They all went into a suitcase with your perpers and tushies, your toothbrush and swimsuit.

You left on a Friday, wide-eyed and restless in the car, and I had to stay behind, waving, waving, waving, already imagining how several hours later, small waves will be licking your toes and smaller handfuls of sand will be cupped in your palm.

You'll come back to me on a Sunday, nearly toasted by and smelling of the sun and squealing to free yourself from my huggy bear arms. I'll run some water in a pail, we'll let the yellow duck float, find a ball the size of my fist and I'll sing to you again the rowing song that turns your arms into sturdy paddles.

Hey, little ball of joyful motion, come home soon.  

Booboo

Nominations for Ateneo Art Awards now open

The Ateneo Art Gallery is pleased to announce that it is accepting nominations for the 2012 Ateneo Art Awards.

Established in 2004 in honor of its founding benefactor Fernando Zobel de Ayala (1924-1984), whose support of young Filipino visual artists left an indelible mark in Philippine art history, the Ateneo Art Awards are given to Filipino visual artists below the age of 36 for outstanding work in an exhibition between 2 May of the previous year and 1 May of the current year.

As the Ateneo Art Awards gears up for a milestone, the ninth year takes the theme “Sneak Peak”. This anticipatory stance as we approach a peak in the history of the awards, serves not as a statement of fact, but a call for introspection. The contemporary Philippine art scene is as dynamic as ever and the world is taking notice. With the overwhelming recognition, we are called back to the core to reminisce, to hope and to work anew.

Nominations are accepted from visual artists, curators, museum and gallery directors, members of the present and former juries, art educators and art writers. Nomination forms are available at the Ateneo Art Gallery, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City; at Casa Gorodo Museum, Cebu City; or from the website www.ateneoartgallery.org

From all the nominees, 12 exhibits/ artworks will be shortlisted and on 09 August 2012, 3 will be declared winners. The artists who created the winning exhibitions/ artworks will be invited to apply for the international residency grants funded by the Ateneo Art Gallery and its partner institutions Common Room Networks Foundation in Bandung, Indonesia; Artesan Gallery in Singapore; La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre in Bendigo, Australia; Art Omi in New York; and Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool, UK.

All nominations must be received at the Ateneo Art Gallery before 5pm on 31 May 2012.  For more information, please contact Ian Carlo Jaucian at +632 4266488 or mobile +639178878956 or email ijaucian@ateneo.edu. Exhibition of the works of the artists short-listed for the Awards will be at the Grand Atrium of the Shangri-la Plaza Mall, Shaw Blvd, Mandaluyong City from 3 August - 13 August 2012.

The Ateneo Art Awards is presented by the Ateneo Art Gallery, Shangri-La Plaza, Metro Society, Y-style of the Philippine Star, and the New York Art Project, funded by Marcel Crespo.