AKO.

ako. io. I. yo.

When i was a kid, i told everybody that my dream was to become a social worker. I always dreamt of going to places in the Philippines, in India, in Africa, wherever - every place that saw a tear in a hungry child's face, every corner of the world where a hug meant more than a dollar, a helping hand more than new shoes.

I remember even writing this poem (which luckily I have in my archives) entitled "LUHA", which means tears or lacrime.

...he smiled,
the little boy whose feet were hard as rocks,
whose stomach growled a vicious monster,
whose face wore ages of pain and regret

i wondered how regret could be pasted onto a face
which should house innocence and joy,

he smiled,
the little boy who looked at me like i was his long-lost brother

he smiled,
because i smiled too.

part of "LUHA"
cris. jan.15, 1991.


I wonder what happened to that dream. I can still feel that desire. To seek a way to help, to find a chance - to feel more ---I dont know, human. All the homeless people. All the orphans. All the young and dying, the old and aging. Their pains should be OUR pains, too. Shouldn't it?

Aren't they US? Aren't we THEM?


Let me share this most beautiful song called PARAISO. Which is strange, in a way. Because like the title of the song, which i think , can be understood in all languages, so should the very words BEING HUMAN.






The video features some photos from the Philippines. For more on the country, check out these two other videos:









And i end this blog with a part taken from Carlos P. Romulo's "I am a Filipino" essay:

I sprung from a hardy race — child of many generations removed of ancient Malayan pioneers. Across the centuries, the memory comes rushing back to me: of brown-skinned men, putting out to sea in ships that were as frail as their hearts were stout. Over the sea I see them come, borne upon the billowing wave and the whistling wind, carried upon the mighty swell of hope — hope in the free abundance of new land that was to be their home and their children’s forever.

This is the land they sought and found. Every inch of shore that their eyes first set upon, every hill and mountain that beckoned to them with a green and purple invitation, every mile of rolling plain that their view encompassed, every river and lake that promised a plentiful living and the fruitfulness of commerce, is a hollowed spot to me.

By the strength of their hearts and hands, by every right of law, human and divine, this land and all the appurtenances thereof — the black and fertile soil, the seas and lakes and rivers teeming with fish, the forests with their inexhaustible wealth in wild life and timber, the mountains with their bowels swollen with minerals — the whole of this rich and happy land has been, for centuries without number, the land of my fathers. This land I received in trust from them, and in trust will pass it to my children, and so on until the world no more.


agosto. 07

SUNDAY CONFESSIONS

Father, I have sinned.

yes, dear child. you may speak freely here.

father, from my dad's pocket, I took a dime

The Lord appreciates your honesty, child. Go on.

to buy me a Tootsie Roll. ever had one, father? melts in your mouth, they do. a dime for some Tootsie Roll. a dime for my soul.

The Lord appreciates your honesty, child. Go on.

I peeked at my cousin Trudie. She's thirteen, but father, God knows he ain't right in making her look all of twenty.

never presume what the Lord thinks, child.

then for that, I'm to be forgiven too, Father. Trudie, she took a bath, see. I took a peek, a regular Peeping Tom I am. What i saw made me think dirty thoughts, yes, father, and these thoughts i acted upon them with the devil's hands.

God knows your heart is aggrieved, son. your body confuses and tempts you. you must be strong.

father, i acted on them thoughts twice.

then the Lord forgives you twice as well.

then i faked sick. me and momma had to go sell some rice cakes in the market,like we do every goddamn day, 'scuse me father for cursing. i hate them damn- silly cakes. Packed with rice and sweat and momma's tears and our daily grief.

Do not swear. And do not look ill on what the good Lord provides.

Yes, father. But they all i have in me, father. rice cakes in the morning, at noon and nighttime. and then, some more rice cakes in between. I swear ---

Don't.

Yes, father, i won't. I ---can tell you this much. My sweat and blood and innards must be all rice cakes. They are. So i faked sick.

What did you do with your time?

Well's, momma thought i was resting, and so i snuck out. Sun ain't barely up, Poppa's wasted on the floor again so i took the dime from his pocket and went to see if cousin Trudie wanted to swim in the river, which she didn't, on account she took a bath, and i did her wrong twice. So i went to Tommy's instead. Bugger-faced Tommy. Play catch, is what i thought.

and did you? Play catch?

NO's father. 'is the truth, i tell ya. me's and tommy crossed over to Old Maria's backyard, you know who she is, that deaf-blind-mad-woman witch.

The Lord forgives you for name-calling.

Thank you, Lord. So when we got to the woman-witch's place, we started throwing stones at the kitchen windows.

one that was big!

two ,missed but close!

three, yes! one in the center!

now Tommy's got a good hand. He started teasing me bout my bad 'un. Out of ten, I got two cracks. Whip! Crack! the glasses they broke. the pieces they shattered. the rocks they clunked inside.

we didn't notice it, father. But Old Maria went close to the windows and started shooing us like we were buncha crows. I took a big rock and aimed straight at her face. hit smack center in the forehead. down, she went, father. like a big log. Timber! I called, laughing. Timber! I shouted. I didn't know why, but i laughed. father, I laughed real hard.

didn't just hurt her see. went inside to check, there she was, sprawled on the floor. ees about to popo like the cap of a bottle of soda. her breasts, Tommy touched them, hard as rocks themselves. Tommy said no beat was in them breasts. No beat at all. Wouldn't have sinned with the devils' hands if you paid me, or God paid me, father. Them breasts long gone.

Father, I killed Old Maria. she's dead as a dead cow.

a rock for her body. a rock for her mad soul.

oh ---g---God. son, did you tell somebody? the police?

I AM telling, Father. I'm telling you. seeing as you're supposed to keep things silent and private here, aren't ya?

words between God and me? you'se and God? you'se and me?

Yes , son - but this ---we have to tell---

now, Tommy, crybaby he is, started bawling like a girl. I told him to shut up. no faggot friend of mine is gonna cry. and he is, faggot. Tommy. Once I saw him kissing that other boy that lives with his momma in the big blue house. Told him I wouldn't tell anybody if he did all i said. He wouldn't stop crying, tho'. So i took a wooden board, that board that Old Maria uses to beat clothes with, get the dirt out? So's I took it and i was only trying to scare him, father, but he wouldn't stop screaming and shouting and crying and so i didn't stop beating and pounding him like beef at the butcher's. He kept on crying, You'se killed her, shit! You'se killed ---

Boy, tell me. Aaaang then---? Where is Tommy?

I kept hitting him, father and it worked. it made him shut up two ways sunday. silence was a dusk's wait for light, not even a hummingbird hummed, i reckon. nor a twig breaking outside. Silence, there was.

See, i knew father. i knew. The Lord will understand. I listen to your sermons like i listen to nothing else.

You'se once said :

Strike down the screaming liars with them instruments of peace. Bring about silence and calm with your might and let those blinded to the Lord's mercy be brought to light.

your words rang in my head, father. I've always wondered what i'm here in this world for. not to sell those fucking tasteless rice cakes. now i know.

the lord made me more.

I am his instrument. HIs hand in this land that forsook him, among those who turned blind eyes and deaf ears to his saving grace.

The words of the Lord are mysterious, son . We cannot know that they truly mean, I 'm sorry ---but i have to---

But i felt those words, father!

as if hot air blown right into my lungs. now i must share it, bring judgment to those who need it. I ain't ever felt this way, father, like a hundred angels lifting me up.... better than holding my prick and whacking it dry.

I have a question, though, father.

y-y-y-yes?

why's God got to make it always damn messy? i have red all over my hands, father. see, i don't like red. I think i'm gonna have to learn how to carry out his will without so much of it.

and it smells, father.
oh yes, the blood.
damn bad, the smell.



SUNDAY CONFESSIONS.

L'OTTAVO DI UNO SBADIGLIO

back, bring me back



as a painter's brush frozen, dripping colours afraid of blank space

and the inevitable end.


as the glance of a hurrying man, almost at his destination

yet wishing to turn around.


as the gentle blowing of smoke, circles of sex

inside your mouth, tickling your throat,


as those words fighting to free themselves,

and be let loose into air, carrying with them regrets

and the shards of a secret promise.


and he laughed,

saying he had never heard

of anything so silly.



agosto.07

apen.

first birthdays and nostalgic tram rides

It was Teren's first birthday party and I went to the feast with my friends Jeiar (Filipino snowboarder, aiming to represent the Philippines in the Winter Olympics in 2010), and Sara Maestrello (an Italian photographer who's doing a kick-ass project on 'secondo generazioni' Italians , meaning children of immigrants).

I decided to stray away from the usual modes and combination of tricks that i do when taking pictures and this time, using the AV mode which i rarely use. The first few shots were so interesting that i decided to keep experimenting with it, how the light works for and against it, how the focus can become blurred and yet retain a certain 'photographic feel' about it. And so, I didn't realize it, but i went through the entire feast using the cool technique that i discovered.

I don't know. I kinda like it.

Oh, also the party.

For the complete gallery, you can click on this link, or at the same link in the galleries section in the sidebar.

festafilippine

the nostalgic tram rides come after.
out.
cris.

ELO'CIN. A GIFT FOR A FRIEND.

ELO’CIN
for.

Biting, you are another gale of the frosty eve come down to smite me,
You are a burning upon my naked skin,
A few hours of reprieve from the endless drown.


Jikan, you are another undressing of shame,
You are a burning upon my tired, so tired eyes
And the dying that is my existence from day to day.

Breathe, you are another hammer pounding on my chest,
You are a burning, burning the blood that traces my despair,
This daily torture, street vendors and children laughing in Kiyosumi

And I am this laughable ghost, another of Kiyosumi’s many secrets,
Burnt by my own blood that despaired at who I am,
Another breathe that escapes is another second to live.


And I am dragged underneath by the cruel hands of everyday,
Burnt by their eyes, seared by the lies turned truths turned lies
Another undressing and yet another and yet another and yet

For I am the hours that surged forth from my endless drowning,
Still burning, I stand firm and scream no more,
And I am, living.

HALF-LIFE capitolo 1 (for joshua,old friend)

There was fire.
It lived and breathed and ate everything in its path.
There was a loud thumping noise and a shadow. Lond-eared.
He was falling -
-
and-
falling,

He jolted, woken by an impossible fall and an even more impossible flight. A giant bunny in red tights had come to save him from the fires of hell.

No worries there, he thought, scratching his head. I was meant to burn, anyway.

Looking at the clock on his bedside table, he saw it still had twenty minutes before the alarm was supposed to wake him up.

I could have used twenty more minutes of sleep.
Or a month.
Yeah, give me a month.

He turned on his back, putting his left arm behind his head.

The afternoon sun gave off an alien-like orange, vibrant through the blue gauze curtains that hid him from the world. His bare skin glowed under its light, his white boxers almost yellow.

Outside seeped into the quiet room in a continuous grumble; overlapping orchestras of angry drivers trapped in the after-five traffic, young 'uns speaking incorrigible street lingo into insanely priced mobile phones, street vendors shouting their remaining, unsold goods, and the latest Pinoypop music blasting from jeepneys - the lyrics, melody and dance moves all capable of making him cringe as the vivid photos of the exposed internals of last night's slasher murder victim in the news.

Inside, however, was a settled kind of noise, a chaos that clung silently onto every ordered space, every meticulously thought-of arranging and re-arranging.

A mini-kitchen, blue plates, green tumblers, flea market silverware. Copper-framed snapshots scattered and hung. These jut out from the entire room like marbles in sand, each smiling couplet stranger than the next. A lemony-detergent-cigarette-hangover-leftover lunch-smelling bathroom. Vinyl-covered main table with three wooden chairs and a steel one.
Everywhere he looked, he saw layers upon layers.

There was passion, heaps of it now buried so deep it's a wonder one can sense it at all. A layer of blame. A layer of lies. A layer of regrets. A later of hate. A layer of forgiveness. And a thick, almost suffocating layer of silence.

They stayed there like dirt, they attached themselves so strong and stubborn even if one were to scrub at them from morn til night, a skin will remain. They are our unpaying tenants, coinhabitants of a world built by two people who have lived together too long that it seems neither one knows anymorewhat keeps them together still, aside from a blanket of comfort and an idealized and falsified sense of commitment.

This place has a life. We bred in it a breath of deep and steadily growing indifference.

Nowhere more so than in this very bed.

He looked at the sheets, crumpled and undone. They are white, blinding witnesses to the facade that we live, and spiteful reminders of where we are.

What am i doing? he asked himself, for what seemed to be the millionth time. The millionth, for today, at least. Everyday, every simple, freakin' day, I wake up to an empty, stifling hot room, wait until i have to go to work, work nocturnal hours for measly pay, and hours later, go home to a lover rushing off to workall our couple-y actions automatic and pressured, wait again until sleep comes, cycle after cycle, day after day.

Does any part of my life make sense? Is it even a life?

Have to call home, he reminded himself. It's Tuesday and i have to call home.

He sighed. I WILL call home. After all, it's Tuesday.

The alarm went off. Every inch, every corner of the apartment stopped and listened as it screeched and waited for the inevitable. They know the routine. They know what will happen. They await his bustle, his hurrying into his semi-conscious existence.

Instead he closed his eyes.

He did not sleep.

He did not stir.

He just laid there, heart beating and blood pumping.

Half-alive. Half-dead.
--

------------------------------------------

OUtside, a little boy hears an alarm beeping, the sound getting louder and louder, more insistent.
The boy wonders why no one turns it off.

written.

cris garing

(image by Anthony Gayton)