Happy Mondays XLVIII: The 2nd Year Anniversary Edition

featured readers for TONIGHT's 48th, SECOND YEAR ANNIVERSARY installment of the long-running, bi-weekly Happy Mondays Poetry Nights @ mag:net cafe Katipunan Katipunan are as follows:

1. J. Neil Garcia
2. Aldus Santos
3. Marne Kilates
4. Arnold Molina Azurin
5. Larry Ypil
6. Adam David
7. Jonar Sabilano
8. Jimmy Abad
9. Gabe Mercado
10. Ramil Gulle
11. Vim Nadera
12. Krip Yuson
13. Kash Avena
14. Lourd De Veyra
15. Jun Cruz Reyes
16. Keith Cortez
17. Pancho Villanueva
18. Angelo Suarez
19. Inigo De Paula
20. Leigh Reyes
21. Mikael Co
22. Joseph Saguid
23. Sasha Martinez
24. Rafael San Diego

*plus other surprise guest readers.

*as there would be a lot of readers celebrating with us tonight, kindly be in magnet cafe by 7 so we can start promptly at 730 pm.

Happy Mondays Bayawazakzoundz for the evening courtesy of:

1. Los Chupacabras!
2. The Purple Chickens!

FREE ADMISSION this whole, celebratory evening! Kitakits po tayo. :)

Kablag

Finally received word from University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of New Hampshire: Rejected.

:(

Still waiting for word from Guelph and Syracuse, but at this point, it feels like a long shot. Guess I'll just have to reapply next year. Damn, sumakit ang dibdib ko ah. If anyone wants to have beer, lemme know.

YEARS LATER VII

Jakenpoy? Sapakin kaya kita diyan!

Good or A Bad Mail?

hahaha! laughing my ass off. what a friggin' nice invite!

the sky

i think of peace as the most expansive
wound cleft by schools of fish, and the memory
of tropical rain, and kissing under a tree.
a wound that can only be thought about.
because you do not feel the sting of silence
or the grazing of stillness against your
body. you only recall the mother of all
shits after eight hours on the road. and
the satisfying smell of your own excrement,
something as personal as the design around
your irises or how each day's sky is shaped.
nobody can love it as much as you. no one
will handle it the way you will. flushing
all the clouds away, standing up again,
ready to go back outside and smash your face
against the tireless all-encompassing blue air.

Bird Watching

Because the eagle, by itself,
is beautiful and allows
the whole expanse of its body
to span across the high air as it

gazes down on our awkward gestures
and flailing and failures. But
I for one, value instinct over
intelligence. Or the devotion

of penguins, the delirious flutter
of a mockingbird. There is no
loneliness in them, no noticing
of the splendor of sunsets. Also,

those little sonnets doves make,
their endless preening, these are not
done out of love. Their fleeting presence
on the thin wires of trees or behind

windowsills--these do not concern us
as much as we’d hope. They are
the given observers, and they never
look too close nor care enough.

And while we continue primping
in front of our mirrors, they simply
watch as new leaves sprout above
and heighten the canopies, notice

the new antenna installed above
some rooftop. And if you manage
to get some bird to eat from your hands,
it does so out of necessity. So we go on

taking pictures of such encounters.
We study their feathers and try to measure
the true importance of color. We feel,
we fall, we stumble. And they continue

flying in perfect formations, rising
and soaring and seeing everything, oblivious
to our daily want for grandeur, these dull,
imperfect limbs bristling with all-too-human

commotion. Every day I lose a potential
feather. Then I find another by the roadside.
And holding it up, wonder how the wind
animates it, this bodiless thing. I guess

there are just too many mistakes to atone for.
And so wide and high a sky to elevate to.