the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

  Brand new publication--and happy to say of poetry this time! Neither poem is new, but both were unpublished--until now. I've never actively sought to be published. Usually, the calls for publication come within my radar, and I may submit something.  Whenever I got published, it rarely occurred to me to share the news with others. But when I was on my solitary break at the end of the year, I felt two things that I had been somewhat suppressing for a long time: to express the things that are within me, and to share them with a wider audience, as I used to. Because that's what the creative impluse is, isn't it? The spirit within a person expressing, to channel what is in the other also wanting expression. So for the first time, I actively searched for venues to share my work in, and this is the first fruit of it. Now that they're officially published, I can post the final versions of the two poems. I first published the draft of the first poem (with the context)  here...

Before #pridemonth ends, here's my contribution to #lgbtq+ literature [draft version]😉 I've always felt that who I like is no one else's business but my own, and it's my choice who I share these details of my life with. But I realize that #representation is also important -- in my case, knowing that I'm in good company has helped me feel safer to fully embrace who I am. Bisexuals are often less understood and discriminated against even within the LGBT community. People typically assume you are either straight or gay based on the person you are with. But who you are with at the moment does not necessarily determine which gender you prefer. Neither do your experiences. Anna Paquin said it best in an interview with Larry King: "Are you a non-practicing bisexual," King asked the actress during his 25-minute interview. "Well, I am married to my husband, and we are happily monogamously married," she replied. "But you were bisexua...

Today being the last day of April, which is National Poetry Writing Month, sharing the one poem I was able to write for  Day 24  of NaPoWriMo . The prompt was to look for an article about an animal, and then turn it into a poem by changing the name of the animal into something abstract. Haven't written a whole poem in a looong while, and it was great to write in fun. After doing the self-mastery work this past year , for the first time I was consciously aware of how the Judge has been trying to write my poetry for me all these years  😜  In fact the theme I've chosen is directly linked to some of the stuff I've learned through that work. So this time I just let my creative subconscious lead the way, just as I'm able to do when I'm making visual art. Credit to this  WWF article  for the seed words and wonderful photo above (because I originally just wanted to write about sloths 🤷‍♀️). Here's an unrevised version of the poem 😊

For my last birthday retreat, because it was too much stress to go on my usual international trip, I stayed an entire weekend at a Catholic retreat house two miles from house to produce this:

In 2002, I wrote an  #essay for one of my Sun.Star columns titled "It Ain't Easy Being Brown" . In March 2016, I suddenly got requests from university students in different parts of the  #Philippines  to interview me about this essay for their class. The essay wasn't online and they had to ask me for a copy, so I have no idea how their teachers thought to assign it as a text. In October 2017, I was contacted by students from yet another school telling me that they had chosen the same essay to make a  #shortfilm  on for a school competition. Again, no idea how they got hold of it. But since my essays are  #autobiographical , it was basically a film based on my life. Sharing it now because it's just so hilarious 😂 especially their portrayal of my parents. It's so amazing what kids can do with the technology these days. This is the  #poster  they made for the film. You can read the (very short) essay first . And then watch the  #trilingua...

to celebrate a new year, the first complete poem i've written in more than two years since i left for Europe....

Start:      Dec 17, '08 7:00p Location:      CCP Ramp CCP features 62 writers in “Spirituality and Healing” book 10 December 2008, Pasay City – The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) announced today that 62 writers are included in the annual literary anthology Ani. Ani, which means harvest in the Filipino language, is a project of CCP’s Literary Arts Division. For its 34th issue, Ani focused on the theme “Spirituality and Healing”, the book launching will be held on December 17, 7:00 p.m. at the CCP ramp. The 62 writers who submitted prose and poetry featured in Ani 34 are Kris M. Alingod, Mark Angeles, Lilia F. Antonio, G. Mae B. Aquino, Carlos A. Arejola, Edgar Bacong, Isabela Banzon, Janet Tauro Batuigas, Gil S. Beltran, Herminio S. Beltran, Jr., Kristoffer Berse, Jaime Jesus Borlagdan, Nazzer C. Briguera, Catherine Candano, Desiree Caluza, Nonon Villaluz Carandang, Dexter B. Cayanes, Jose Jason L. Chancoco, Joey Stephanie Chua, Kristian Sendon C...

i've been floating, floating it seems these past few days, weeks of craziness having to make my presentations and papers. as if in rebellion (or is it total surrender?), my spirit has been dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. days no longer exist. dreaming and working weaving in and out of my hours, so that i no longer notice when it's dawn, or when it's time for a meal. and my body, frighteningly, seems to have adjusted to it so well that it doesn't even feel sleepy or hungry anymore unless my mind remembers to look at the clock.... at midnight two nights ago, having spent the whole night dreaming awake, i found myself reading poetry with tears running down my cheeks. and i didn't even know why. only after that was i able to work on my presentation. the next night, a poem sprang out of me, so suddenly, i was taken aback. good thing i knew well enough to just listen and write down everything it said. in spite of my better judgment and a final exam i hadn't studied for...

Start:      Sep 14, '07 6:30p Location:      CCP Ramp, Manila Dear Friend, The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) invites you to the launching of ANI 33 (Nature and Environment) on Friday, 14 September 2007 at 6:33 pm at the CCP Ramp. The launch marks the 20th anniversary of the literary journal, one of the longest surviving literary publications in the Philippines today. Contributors and guest artists will read or perform works included in the anthology aimed at focusing anew our attention on the environment which has recently brought about tragic events to thousands of Filipinos. We hope you will join us in making this occasion a memorable one. Sincerely yours, CCP Literary Arts Division ============ i won't be there, so please attend for me and tell me which works of mine are included in the anthology, since they never told me :P PS o, walang ma-le-late ha! 6:33 pm on the dot! hahahaha

though i'm no longer catholic, this is one thing thing i've carried over from all my years of jesuit education, st. ignatius' personal credo. since grade school, i've been writing it at the top of all my test papers and all other important documents i submit, almost like a good-luck charm. and so i am happy to say that, ad majorem Dei gloriam , when my +AMDG-marked prelim exams came back last week, i got the highest scores in class for both exams :D it's really a big thing for me, because this gives me some affirmation that 1) i'm not dumb after all, even though i've been out of school for so long, and 2) the extra effort that naturally comes out of a passion --almost a desperation-- to learn really does make a difference in the results. and so now, even though last sem's highest scorer is still the teacher's favorite, i sense an increased respect from my teacher (the notoriously difficult professor) because i scored consistently in her two classes...

i'd just arrrived from my zambales trip (as in i was still in the taxi from the airport) when my friend, james, called from manila asking if i could translate one of the songs from HANGAD's The Easter Journey album. james is the first HANGAD member who is not from metro manila/ luzon (i was the second one, but then i left =P so now he's the only one with a "southern heart"), and is in fact from cebu. since i'd just written my first two cebuano poems then, i had a little bit more confidence to say yes. so he sent me a copy of the song and the lyrics, but i was too busy to listen to the cd until last week (about a month after), when i was looking for something to take my mind off the rut i'd gotten into with my work. and when i listened to it, i couldn't help but translate it right away, even though i had so many other things to do. you can listen to the song (and my version of the translated song hehe) in my music page or check out the   HA...

my third cebuano poem... =) got the idea for this last summer, but never quite got around to writing it. a few weeks ago, i was standing at the corner waiting for a ride with vince, my officemate, when i asked him what tree it was that i'd been feeling sympathetic for all these months. when he told me it was a duldul (kapok), which is what people use for pillows, i knew i had found my poem.   and since our WILA valentine reading  was coming up, i thought it would be the perfect time to write it. and now i know why i wasn't able to write it before--it had to be written in cebuano. and since i've just recently found my cebuano voice, it could only be written now, in this joyful season of words.   still with some help from boogie  who was in danao the whole time. was texting him throughout the rainy afternoon (opted to stay in and write instead of look for lunch), and then called him when i finished the poem at 5 pm to make sure i pronounced the words right. also w...

 a fter almost nine years of writing poetry in english, i finally wrote not just one, but two (!) poems in cebuano the other weekend. i already put it in my head that i had to have something of my own to read at Bathalad’s 7 th Bantawan sa Bathalad at Kahayag (poetry reading in Cebuano, every first Wednesday at 7:30 pm) on February 1.   and so, as i was falling asleep Saturday night, the words started tumbling out for the two poems. actually, i don’t think i could’ve written them any other way, as i would’ve been too afraid to start. since i had two half-poems when i woke up the next day, i had enough courage to push on and finish them Sunday night (had to keep them out of my mind during Sunday school and church, otherwise i wouldn’t have been able to do anything else), revising them by Monday lunch time, ready for reading on Wednesday evening.   i wrote these directly in cebuano, thought them out with the part of me that’s become cebuano, because the sensibility of...